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Sundown: We Can Talk About It Now?

Plus, a dispatch from the flotilla, the properly sized bagel, and more

by
Marc Tracy
June 24, 2011
Prime Minister Netanyahu yesterday in Jerusalem.(Gali Tibbon/AFP/Getty Images)
Prime Minister Netanyahu yesterday in Jerusalem.(Gali Tibbon/AFP/Getty Images)

Tomorrow is the five-year anniversary of Gilad Shalit’s capture. “The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms his continued detention,” the White House statement reads, “and joins other governments and international organizations around the world in calling on Hamas to release him immediately.”

• Ethan Bronner has the Israelis and the Palestinians tentatively tipping back toward U.S.-brokered talks in exchange for no statehood vote at the United Nations in September. [NYT]

• Tablet Magazine contributor Joseph Dana reports from Athens that Israel is exerting heavy pressure on the Greek government to stop the flotilla, which is scheduled to push off soon. [+972]

• Howard Jacobson weighs in on Alice Walker and the flotilla. [CNN]

• The Goodmans—Las Vegas Mayor Oscar and Mayor-elect Carolyn—updated. [NYT]

• Great profile of incoming New York Times editor Jill Abramson. Peter Kaplan: Whatta guy! [Forward]

• Elliott Abrams has a long, fair, excellent essay on Israeli settlements that is worth the time even for those who will disagree with it. [Foreign Affairs]

• Judaism is increasingly only for women. #slatepitches [Slate]

• Mimi Sheraton sez: Bagels are too big! [City Room]

• Harold Grinspoon and “the Jewish mind.” [NYT]

• The next Woody film will be set in Rome, star Alec Baldwin and Jesse Eisenberg, be called Bop Decameron, and not be at all didactic. Okay, one of those four statements is a lie; can you guess which? [Speakeasy]

• The lost Jews of … Argentinian cowboys! [WP via Goldblog]

• Two streets in Jerusalem are to be named for the Mizrahi Black Panthers. [Haaretz]

R.I.P. Peter Falk. Here he is in The In-Laws (the original, you doofuses).

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.