Afif Barghouti was severely beaten by the PA and then claimed he had been detained and beaten at an IDF checkpoint. Interesting report on the incident and the ensuing IDF investigation here.

Evelyn Gordon provides the bigger picture on the survey of Palestinian refugee camp residents here.

Another good article by Mark Lilla on the EU and Israel here.

It's nice to see people around the world asking intelligent questions about the situation here. Too bad that Arnon Regular gives mostly non-descript answers.

Over my 10 day visit in the US I was asked several times if I thought that the "roadmap" would finally lead somewhere. Actually people usually asked if it would finally lead to peace, or other phrasings much less cynical than mine. I confess being surprised that it has "held" as long as it has. I do think that no matter what Israel does - ie. withdraw from Bethlehem/Gaza, free murderers, endanger citizens by removing roadblocks, freeze the security fence etc. - noone will be particularly appreciative and the Palestinians will continue to demand more and receive international backing.

T. and I happened to share a gondola in the Rocky Mountains with a woman who had been a nurse in a Gaza hospital from 1968-1970. She said that she thought that "something" had to be done for the people in the refugee camps there before there could be peace, since they were (and apparently are) so without hope. But that results, of course, from what they have been taught to hope for - ie. settling in pre-1967 Israel - and their refusal to be resettled.

Here's a good summary of the situation regarding the intractability of the "refugee" issue (via William Sjostrom).

I don't put much stock in the survey that claims that most residents of refugee camps in outside the West Bank/Gaza aren't interested in settling in Israel.

Norwegian blogger Bjorn Staerk has some good posts on PM Sharon's visit there (here and here).

Seeing the pictures of Sharon's meetings next to Tony Blair reminded me of how unphotogenic our PM is.

Talisker is good scotch. But " the sharp tang of seaweed but also an explosive blast of salt and pepper" ?!?