• A great explanation of what’s really going on with these seemingly bound-to-fail direct talks. [Politico]
• And the best bit of optimism you’ll read concerning them, courtesy former U.N. Ambassador Martin Indyk. [NYT]
• Expect to see a “quiet freeze”: The construction moratorium would be permitted to expire in September, on schedule, but Bibi and Defense Minister Barak will not sign building permits. [Haaretz]
• Israel is asking Russia to halt its sale of anti-shipping missiles to Syria. [Haaretz]
• Mohamed ElBaradei, the onetime head of the U.N. nuclear inspectors, has teemed up in his native Egypt with the Muslim Brotherhood in a signature drive to try to effect constitutional change. [WSJ]
• Martin Earnest Dannenberg, a Jewish U.S. counterintelligence special agent during World War II who discovered (along with a Jewish Army translator) an original copy of the Nuremberg Laws in a small German town, died at 94. [LAT]
Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.