- After the statehood bid…
United Nations cultural agency UNESCO said last Wednesday the Palestinian flag would be raised at its Paris headquarters tomorrow after Palestine won full membership despite Israeli and US objections.
The flag will be raised on Tuesday “to mark Palestine’s admission to the organisation” in the presence of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and foreign minister Riad Maliki, UNESCO said in a statement.
- Newt Gingrich on inventing Palestinians
The Republican frontrunner said Israelis have a right to their modern-day homeland but implied Palestinians do not. He differed from official US policy that respects the Palestinians as a people deserving of their own state based on negotiations with Israel. “Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire” until the early 20th century, Gingrich said.
Republican rivals distanced themselves from his claims.
Michael Kinsley acknowledges in Business Week that, well, all post-Ottoman and decolonized states are in some sense ‘invented’, and notes how this also applies to Israel: “Gingrich said that Palestine had to be invented, and this is true. It is also true of Israel, which didn’t even have a name as it declared its independence in May 1948.”
Also worth seeing – a wry look at the Republican Jewish Coalition Forum by Daily Show presenter Jon Stewart: “For this holiday, Jews commemorate the miracle of incredibly religious Christian presidential candidates fighting over who loves Jews more.”
- Palestinians gather to mourn death of activist hit during West Bank protest
Hundreds of Palestinians gathered in the West Bank Sunday to mourn the death of a Palestinian activist who died after being hit in the face by what appeared to be an Israeli military-fired tear-gas canister.
