To the Point

Refugee Camps and Palestinian Right of Return

In the aftermath of Israel's military assault, a United Nations envoy has described the Jenin Refugee Camp as "horrifying beyond belief." Now, with curfew lifted, families brave the stench of corpses to search for relatives in the rubble, and children still go without food. While Israel claims that Jenin was a source of suicide bombers, Jenin and 58 other "temporary" camps in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria embody issues left unresolved since the founding of Israel 54 years ago. We hear more about the camps, the refugees, and their future from a UN relief representative, former foreign ministers for Jordan's King Hussein and Israel's Ehud Barak, and a historian who claims that the disintegration of Palestine began decades before the creation of Israel. Newsmaker: US Errant Bombing of Canadians in Afghanistan In another friendly fire tragedy in Afghanistan, US officials say a National Guard pilot dropped a laser-guided bomb on Canadian troops training near Kandahar Airport. Four paratroopers were killed, 8 others wounded. Reports say the pilot acted in self-defense when he thought he'd been taken under enemy fire. Retired General Merrill McPeak, a career fighter pilot, was a member of the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff during the Gulf War. Reporter's Notebook: Is Florida Taking Center Stage in the US? California, once America's consensus capital of tabloid news events and weird practices that turned into national trends, may have lost its dubious celebrity to Florida. That's the surreal discovery of reporter Michael Paterniti whose cover piece, "America in Extremis," appears in this weekend's New York Times Magazine.