UNRWA denied Hamas’ accusations that it is teaching “Zionist lies” in its Gaza schools, and claims the curriculum has not changed.

Education Minister Saar ordered references to Naqba to be removed from school textbooks.

The previous minister, Peace Now founder Tamir, very sensibly included a short account of Naqba in textbooks for Arab students. The term Naqba—catastrophe—refers to the founding of Israel. The idea is embedded in the Palestinian conscience anyway, and Tamir merely tried to offer a balanced account of the event.

Saar’s order cannot be implemented because the textbooks which mention Naqba have already been printed for this school year.

At the Shalit talks, Hamas demanded the release of Israeli Arab prisoners. The only legal basis for their release would be to treat them as POWs, enemy soldiers.

Which is indeed true about Israeli Arabs.

The Obama administration reacted angrily to Syria’s tolerance of Al Qaeda fighters  crossing into Iraq from its territory to stage a string of major bombings.

Syria’s policy is a repeat of its actions in Lebanon in the 1990s, multiplied by Assad Jr’s adventurism. When Israel scaled back her military effort in Lebanon, Syria immediately stepped in to occupy the power vacuum. Just as in Iraq today, Syria acted in cooperation with Iran.

Young Assad converted Hezbollah from a religious fundamentalist organization into a Lebanese nationalist one, and similarly reoriented Iraqi Al Qaeda.

After America created a power vacuum in Iraq, it was foolish to hope that the country would be left alone.

An arab employee of a hostel in Jerusalem’s Keren Avraham neighborhood stabbed one of its Jewish guests to death.

Police at the scene dispersed Jewish protesters with tear gas grenades.

Suffering from cancer, Israel’s ex-PM has finally been indicted. The charges are weak: victimless fraud (donors do not object to double-billing), technically illegal but commonplace reimbursement of his travel expenses by private donors, and foreign funding for his decade-old electoral campaign.

The Israeli establishment does not need a precedent set of criminal punishment for illegal funding of elections, so those charges will be downplayed.

Given the Supreme Court’s aggressive behavior toward Olmert, sentencing is not impossible and technically cannot be light. The situation is unpredictable, but the court would not like the embarrassment of an ex-PM dying in prison.

Shrugging at Falash Mura African Christian immigrants, rabbis demanded that all of them undergo conversion to Judaism. Well and good, but that means their children must attend religious schools as a proof of their parents’ intention to convert.

Religious schools, of course, refuse to admit fake converts.

The Education Ministry has promised to revoke government funding of schools that seek to protect Jewish pupils from black migrants.