Jordan

Israel has been pressuring other countries not to sell nuclear technology to Jordan, King Abdullah told The Wall Street Journal.

King Abdullah of Jordan tells the Wall Street Journal that Israel is thwarting Jordan's nuclear goals in order to economically dwarf his country.

In light of Turkey's reaction to the Israeli attack on the Gaza-bound flotilla last week, media pundits and policy wonks are already underlining the demise of the US-Turkish special relationship. The growing chorus of critics miss one vital point. Turkey was criticizing Tel Aviv's military overkill off the Gaza coastline, not Washington's.

First came the clash at Davos in January 2009, when Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan walked off the stage after an angry exchange with the Israeli president, Shimon Peres during a panel discussion on Gaza at the World Economic Forum. Then came the surprise uranium deal with Tehran, undermining Western pressure on Iran to come clean about its nuclear program, followed by the Israeli assault on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, which sailed under Turkish flags, sending shockwaves throughout the world.

Ancient Biblical beehives have been discovered in the northern Israeli site of Tel Rehov, in the Jordan Valley. The species seems Turkish.

The media tirade against Helen Thomas is as illogical as it is hysterical. The few sentences uttered by her were, as she quickly acknowledged, wrong--deeply so, I would add. But they cannot justify the road-rage destruction of the dean of the Washington press corps. Suddenly this heroic woman who broke so many gender barriers and dared to challenge presidential arrogance was reduced to nothing more than the stereotypical anti-Israel Arab that it is so fashionable to hate.

Back in 1948, liberals were excited when President Harry Truman took to whistle-stopping and scorching the "do nothing 80th Congress" run by Republicans. "Give 'em hell, Harry," they cried. They loved it, too, when Harry recognized the State of Israel, just eleven minutes after it proclaimed independence. Liberals cared a lot about Israel's precarious existence back then.

The IDF's blockade of the Gaza Strip and its interdiction of humanitarian flotillas is ironic in view of recent history. The end of World War II and the liberation of the Nazi death camps left a pool of 500,000 Jewish refugees in Europe. Many wished to emigrate to Palestine, but were barred by immigration restrictions contained in a 1939 British White Paper designed to ensure that a soon-to-be-independent Palestine "would be neither an Arab nor a Jewish state." At war's end, there were 600,000 Jews in Palestine and 1.2 million Arabs.

Former British MP George Galloway announces a new land-sea attempt to break the embargo on Gaza. He spoke alongside Hizbullah flags.

What do chocolate, cookies, A4 paper, potato chips, cumin, toys, jelly, nuts, dried fruit, nutmeg, and goats have in common?

It's a tricky one. If you're a moderate, they have absolutely nothing in common. But if you are a hard-line Israeli politician, they are all potentially dangerous goods that could threaten Israel's security. Well, it seems that that side of the political spectrum has won the argument, as all the above are items that the Israeli government has prohibited from entering Gaza.