Sporty exchanges

At the UN, the Palestinian delegation is obstructing a Security Council expression of concern about conditions in Palestine.

The Hamas-controlled Gaza part of Palestine, that is.

The Daily Telegraph, which if you kind of squint at it looks a little like a real newspaper, reports, citing aides to both men, that Maliki has frequent shouting matches with David Petraeus and has demanded of Bush that Petraeus be recalled. AP doesn’t confirm that part, but does report that there have been what Ambassador Ryan Crocker calls “sporty exchanges” (he does not say what sport) (Crocker seems to have invented this phrase).

And Maliki’s spokesmodel responded with great tact to the demands of the Iraqi Accordance Front, a Sunni party threatening to pull out of the cabinet, accusing them of “threatening, pressuring and blackmail” in an attempt to “bring Iraq back to the time of dictatorship and slavery.”

Maliki especially dislikes Petraeus’s new policy of arming Sunni militias, and the Iraqi Accordance Front especially dislikes the presence of Shiite militiamen in the Iraqi military.