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Daybreak: Obama Picks Kagan

Plus habemus proximity talks! and more in the news

by
Marc Tracy
May 10, 2010
Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

• We have new news, and so a new picture: Solicitor General Elena Kagan is President Obama’s nominee to replace John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court. She would become the third current Jewish justice. She established her independence early on, we learn, when she disagreed with her rabbi over her bat mitzvah ceremony. [NYT]

• Proximity talks officially began yesterday, following Palestinian Authority approval. Expect at least four months of U.S. envoy George Mitchell’s shuttle diplomacy. [NYT]

• U.S. diplomats say that Prime Minister Netanyahu has quietly agreed not to build in the especially controversial East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo for two years. [Arutz Sheva]

• Hamas: Not a fan of the proximity talks. [Ynet]

• Over the Palestinian Authority’s objections, Israel was elected the 32nd member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. [JTA]

• Defense Minister Ehud Barak expressed unconcern for the survival of Israel’s strategic nuclear “ambiguity” after several countries have questioned it in recent weeks. [Haaretz]

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