Malta: Some notes from the conference, tweeting, etc

I have wifi inside the conference hall here, which is nice. I did a bit of tweeting already– here.
The appearance of the US ambassador here just now was interesting. On one hand, it’s a welcome new development to see a high-level US official participate in a UN gathering on Palestine. Otoh, he insisted on not sitting on the podium with the rest of the participants in this morning’s session, but had negotiated them giving him a separate lectern so he could not be photographed under the big backdrop saying that says “International Meeting in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace.” Plus, the content of his presentation included a strong and quite a-historical anti-Hamas diatribe and repeated appeals to participants in the conference to stop whining about the hurts of the past, etc etc. Altogether, he was far more patronizing than he probably knew, and probably far more than he’d intended.
He was followed by a rep from the parliament of the Russian Federation who spoke in completely fluent Arabic and talked about K. Meshaal’s recent productive visit to Moscow, the need for a resolution to be based on international law and legitimacy, etc. A huge contrast!