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Daybreak: Hopefully, They Didn’t Start the Fire

Plus de-linking ‘linkage,’ non-Ambassador Dershowitz, and more in the news

by
Marc Tracy
May 05, 2010
Professor Dershowitz in 1996.(Evan Agostini/Getty Images)
Professor Dershowitz in 1996.(Evan Agostini/Getty Images)

• Palestinian leadership warned that a West Bank mosque fire yesterday could threaten the planned proximity talks. Many Palestinians believe Israeli settlers lit the flame; Israeli authorities are not yet convinced the cause was arson. [NYT]

• Before departing New York, President Ahmadinejad pledged that new sanctions wouldn’t halt Iran’s nuclear development—though they will, he added, kill any chance at reconciliation with the United States. [WSJ]

• Both Egypt and Jordan argued that a nuclear-free Mideast, which a 1995 U.N. resolution calls for, would make dealing with Iran easier. The only (unofficially) nuclear state in the Mideast is, of course, Israel. [JPost]

• President Obama had lunch at the White House with Elie Wiesel yesterday, in what is being seens as the most blatant symbol yet of the administration’s “charm offensive” toward American Jews and Israelis. [NYT]

• More charm: An Obama national security official assured the Anti-Defamation League that the administration does not overly “link” the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to others in the region. [Jeffrey Goldberg]

• Israel reportedly tried and failed to convince Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz to make aliyah and serve as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations. [JTA/Forward]

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.