Links from my del.icio.us account for December 13th through December 14th:

• Gaza families eat grass as Israel locks border – Times Online – “We had one meal today – khobbeizeh,” said Abu Amra, 43, showing the leaves of a plant that grows along the streets of Gaza. “Every day, I wake up and start looking for wood and plastic to burn for fuel and I beg. When I find nothing, we eat this grass.”
  Abu Amra and her unemployed husband have seven daughters and a son. Their tiny breeze-block house has had no furniture since they burnt the last cupboard for heat.
  “I can’t remember seeing a fruit,” said Rabab, 12, who goes with her mother most mornings to scavenge. She is dressed in a tracksuit top and holed jeans, and her feet are bare.
• Border patrol – The National Newspaper – On France#039;s sovereign wealth fund, which invests domestically, presumably to keep those nasty Arabs out of French boardrooms.
• Enemy mine – The National Newspaper – Max Rodenbeck reviews Gilles Kepel#039;s quot;Beyond Terror and Martyrdomquot;.
• Hamas warns Israel truce coming to end
  (Reuters) – Meshaal says from Damascus Hamas won#039;t renew six-month truce that wasn#039;t.
• Confessions of a xenophile – Indian writer Amitav Ghosh, author of quot;In An Antique Landquot;, reminisces about living in the Delta, empire and the non-aligned movement.
• Diplomacy over Syria | Where shall I go next? | The Economist – About Syria#039;s adept diplomacy.
• Who Originated the ‘Nuclear Umbrella for Israel’ Proposal? – Jim Geraghty – The Campaign Spot on National Review Online – Charles Krauthammer wrote about it, Hillary Clinton advocated it, apparently.
• Cette « double autorité » qui écartèle les Palestiniens, par Amira Hass (Le Monde diplomatique) – Hass on the division of what#039;s left of Palestine.