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Quartet OKs Palestinian Aid Plan
International sponsors of a stalled Mideast peace plan agreed Saturday to channel aid to cash-starved Palestinians for health care, utilities and social services, while continuing a boycott of the militant-led Palestinian government. The United States went along with a compromise plan to send mostly European money through the World Bank for services and to pay stipends directly to poor people in the Palestinian territories. (AP/CNN)
Israel Says It Didn't Cause Deadly Gaza Blast
by Mark Lavie
 Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Tuesday that Israel was not responsible for a blast that killed seven Gaza beachgoers, rebuffing Palestinian accusations that blamed an Israeli artillery round. "The accumulating evidence proves that this incident was not due to Israeli forces," Peretz said. An Israeli inquiry concluded the blast was caused by an explosive buried in the sand, not from Israeli shelling on the afternoon of the Palestinian family's beach picnic. (AP/Washington Post)
See also German Paper Doubts Palestinian Gaza Beach Reports (Ynet News)
Sderot Children 'Traumatized’
 More than half of the children in the southern Israeli town Sderot are suffering from post-traumatic stress as a result of missiles launched on it from Gaza, Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal said last week. “They’re going back to sleeping with their parents; they refuse to go out after sunset, and they cannot concentrate on their studies,” he said, adding that many children are on medication to help them sleep and get through their schoolwork. (Media Line)
The Birthright Invasion
by Carolyn Slutsky
  Stephanie Lowenthal did not expect to cry when she visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem for the first time. But when her Taglit-birthright israel group prayed at the wall one midnight last week, she found herself in tears. A native of the Jamaica Estates neighborhood of Queens, Lowenthal was the 100,000th participant in birthright, the program founded in 1999 to bring young Jews ages 18-26 to Israel for free. (New York Jewish Week)
Caterpillar Digs In on Israeli Bulldozer Battle
by David Roeder
Palestinian-aligned protesters tried to use Caterpillar Inc.'s annual meeting Wednesday to persuade the company to re-examine sales to Israel, but they were met with a resistance befitting a manufacturer of bulldozers. Arab nations rejected a boycott of Caterpillar, Chairman James Owens said, because the company's products are used throughout the Middle East to abet construction and human progress. (Chicago Sun-Times)
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U.S. Says Hamas to Blame for Financial Mess
by David Gollust
 The United States Thursday denied impeding European efforts to set up a mechanism for sending humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. "Let's be clear about why the Palestinian people find themselves in this position," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. "It's for one reason. It's because the Hamas-led government refuses to turn away from terror. They refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist. They therefore refuse to be a partner for peace, and the international community, rightly so, has come out and said that's unacceptable." (Voice of America)
Foreign Ministry Launches PR Blitz
by Herb Keinon
Armed with the IDF's findings that the seven Palestinian deaths on a Gaza beach Friday were not caused by Israel, the Foreign Ministry launched an information campaign to change the minds of a world that has already largely blamed Israel. Israel's message is simple: The Palestinians are responsible for endangering the civilian population by transferring Grad missiles in a populated area and using the population there as a human shield. (Jerusalm Post)
Palestinian University President Comes Out Against Boycott of Israeli Academics
 Israeli academics threatened by boycotts have received support from an unlikely source: the Palestinian president of Al-Quds University. "If we are to look at Israeli society, it is within the academic community that we've had the most progressive pro-peace views and views that have come out in favor of seeing us as equals," Sari Nusseibeh said. "If you want to punish any sector, this is the last one to approach." (AP/Ha'aretz)
Israel Helps Decide Whaling's Fate
by Hilary Leila Krieger
Israel cast a deciding ballot in its first vote as a member of the International Whaling Commission. Japan has been lobbying for whaling quotas to be raised. "Israel is an environmentally conscious country and we'll be voting according to our position on the issues. We have very strict laws regarding whaling in the Mediterranean," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev, who noted that Israel had outlawed the practice.
See also Japan Fails to Take Control of Whaling Commission
Israel has this year joined the IWC on the side of the anti-whaling nations. (Independent-UK)
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