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Daybreak: NYT warns against U.N. statehood bid

Plus, Tel Aviv protesters regroup, Gross appeal rejected, and more in the news

by
Stephanie Butnick
August 08, 2011

• A Times editorial warns of the dangers of a Palestinian bid for statehood at the U.N. in September, urging Washington to start serious negotiations that both sides—and international diplomatic forces—get behind. [NYT]

• Cuba’s Supreme Court rejected the appeal of Alan Gross, the American aid contractor sent by the U.S. Agency for International Development to assist Cuba’s Jewish community with communications, on charges of subversion for bringing laptops and satellite phones into the country without government approval. The charge carries a 15-year prison sentence. [JPost]

• A trailer constructed by Israeli student groups on Rothschild Boulevard—the first permanent structure to be built as part of the government protest—was towed by the Tel Aviv municipality hours after it was put up. [JPost]

• A New York Post editorial calls for the defunding of the Shomrim, which received $130,000 from the City Council budget this year, after the Borough Park patrol group’s failure to report Leiby Kletzky’s June disappearance to the police for several hours. [NY Post]

• A Chabad rabbi in Equador was released after being abducted by an Israeli man the rabbi and his wife knew from the Chabad center. [JPost]

• In a Times op-ed, Paul Krugman calls the decision by the S&P rating agency to downgrade the U.S. government debt a gross example of chutzpah. [NYT]

Stephanie Butnick is chief strategy officer of Tablet Magazine, co-founder of Tablet Studios, and a host of the Unorthodox podcast.