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Daybreak: Iran to Strut Military Strength

Plus Hungary’s question, healing Israel-Kiwi relations, and more

by
Hadara Graubart
April 21, 2010
An Army Day parade in Tehran on Sunday.(Behrouz Mehri/AFP/Getty Images)
An Army Day parade in Tehran on Sunday.(Behrouz Mehri/AFP/Getty Images)

• Iran announced plans to hold military exercises for three days in the Strait of Hormuz starting tomorrow. A representative claimed that their aim is security and that “This war game is not a threat for any friendly countries.” [Reuters]

• How will Hungary’s government emerge from its current election, in which “campaigning has been overshadowed by barely restrained incitement against Gypsies and Jews”? [Haaretz]

• An Israeli Embassy opened in New Zealand on Monday. The previous one closed in 2002, and relations between the two nations have been strained since two alleged Mossad agents were caught with an illegal New Zealand passport in 2004. [JTA]

• 60 Holocaust survivors who attended the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen are now stuck in Germany because of the volcanic ash cloud. “We already started using black humor and telling jokes about Mengele coming to tell us who goes right and who goes left,” said one. [Ynet]

• Several Jewish groups have organized an anti-Obama protest to be held this Sunday at the Israeli consulate in New York City; one leader accuses the President of “scapegoating” Israel. [Arutz 7]

Hadara Graubart was formerly a writer and editor for Tablet Magazine.