Liberal Middle East briefing launched

A liberal think tank is launching a daily e-mail bulletin on Arab-Israeli relations. The Washington-based Center for American Progress launched its Middle East Bulletin on Monday, saying in a release that it is “dedicated to addressing America’s interests in pursuing sustainable peace agreements between Israel and the Arab world.” The bulletin will go out three times a week and primarily feature news and opinion pieces from the Internet. A Forward story last week described the initiative as an attempt to counter the influence of the Daily Alert, an e-mail briefing run jointly by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Critics have said the Daily Alert skews rightward and ignores stories that contradict its arguments. For example, it took months for the Daily Alert to include stories acknowledging the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.