Syria, a founding member of the Arab League, has run afoul of the rest of the league with its crackdown against pro-democracy protesters. Syria first agreed to an Arab League plan to end the violence and negotiate broad reforms in early November, but it took several weeks before the deal even started to be implemented.

Of course Syria is far from the only Arab League member struggling with pro-democracy protests, and many of the other nations have managed to brutally crackdown on dissent without any serious reaction from the league. The league’s position on Syria rather reflects long-standing rivalries with the Saudi-led bloc of Gulf states and the hope among those nations that they can exploit Assad’s behavior to replace him with a more pro-Saudi (though not necessarily any more democratic) regime.

Still, Arab League officials insisted that there are no current plans to send troops “for the time being.”

But former Arab League chief Amr Moussa appeared to endorse the Qatari Emir’s call to arms, saying he believes the league should “begin to study this possibility and begin consultations on this issue.” Moussa’s position is far from disinterested, however, as he is planning to run for President in Egypt and would surely like to use Syria to improve his revolutionary bonafides in post-revolution Egypt.

British officials downplayed the prospect of a foreign invasion of Syria, saying they didn’t believe that the UN Security Council would approve it. Though this is almost certainly true (Russia is virtually guaranteed to veto any resolution that might be interpreted as supporting any international action in the wake of the Libya fiasco), the Russian government has expressed concerns that NATO member nations, notably Turkey, might launch a unilateral invasion without any UN permission.

“We look forward to NATO continuing its operations,” Jalil insisted, saying he would welcome the forces on the ground to supplement the “hundreds” of Qatari ground troops who have already arrived to help the Benghazi-based NTC occupy the western half of the nation.

NATO was supposed to hold a vote earlier this week which would have ended the bombing campaign at the end of this month, but has now revealed that it is postponing the vote at least until Friday, and it seems their military involvement is going to continue.

Though Jalil is couching this is terms of resisting “loyalists” to the former regime, the real military threat to the NTC comes from within the council itself, as the group is increasingly splintered and most are predicting a new civil war between the Gadhafi defectors and the Islamist rebels within the NTC.

What appears to have happened is that the in-flight air marshall grew suspicious when Modadi was in the bathroom for an inordinate amount of time. When pressed on why the bathroom smelled of smoke Modadi mockingly retorted that he was ‘trying to set his shoes on fire.’

Within minutes the world was abuzz with reports of an attempted bombing, Modadi was arrested, and fighter jets were scrambled to escort the airplane to its final destination in Denver.

Modadi appears to still be in custody, but is claiming diplomatic immunity. He has been a diplomat in the US for years and (unsurpringly) no explosives were found on him.

The organization’s Information Ministry said the ban was a result of a report aired on the channel yesterday, in which a senior official in the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) publicly criticized Abbas and accused him of being aware of an Israeli plot to assassinate Yasser Arafat.

The statement said the broadcast amouted to “incitement agianst the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority.” The ministry also says they will take al-Jazeera to court over the broadcast, and that all its operations will be banned in the meantime.

For their part, al-Jazeera is “stunned” by the ban, and has noted that the same report was aired by a myriad of other media outlets who were not sanctioned for it. The Foreign Press Association defended the report as well, and criticized the Palestinian Authority for violation of freedom of the press.

Widely popular across the Muslim world as a reliable alternative to their own state media broadcasts, al-Jazeera has often run afoul of governments for reporting on things they would prefer to be kept secret. The Israeli government placed an “embargo” on the station during its war on the Gaza Strip, and publicly condemned them for showing photos of the destruction in Gaza.

The United States government has also been an opponent of the station, particularly during the Bush Administration when President Bush reportedly had to be talked out of attacking its Qatari headquarters by British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The US blamed al-Jazeera for a negative international image of the Iraq War, and the US-backed Iraqi government even banned the station in 2004.

Israeli police arrested three people and seized a truck full of supplies today as part of an effort to halt a boat from ferrying protesters and food aid from Jaffa to the Gaza Strip. Police say they were enforcing a law banning Israeli civilians from entering Gaza for their own safety. The same law was the basis for arresting Haaretz reporter Amira Hass last week, who came to the strip on a previous boat.

After pressure from the Israeli government, the Qatari government also halted a separate aid ship, which was scheduled to deliver some $2 million worth of cancer medication to Gaza. Israel defended the move as part of a policy “to maintain the siege placed on Hamas government in Gaza.”

The Israeli government had previously allowed several aid ships into the strip, but seems to be taking its policy of cutting off the 1.5 million residents of Gaza from basic humanitarian supplies far more seriously recently. Last week the Israeli navy forced a Libyan cargo vessel full of food and medicine from landing in the strip as well, insisting that anyone who wants to transfer aid to Gaza should do so “in coordination with Israel.”

Yet since sealing the strip late last month, Israel has not allowed any humanitarian supplies into the strip at all, including the shipments generally coordinated with the United Nations. UN officials have complained that the total cutoff is a “direct contravention of international human rights and humanitarian law.” Israel has insisted that the UN position is “utterly shortsighted” and has repeatedly threatened a military invasion of the strip to punish the Hamas government.