• President Sarkozy suggested that France would consider recognizing a Palestinian state come September if no peace process progress is made. [Reuters/Haaretz]
• A State Department spokesperson called “outrageous” the comments of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s leader in Gaza, condemning the assassination of Osama Bin Laden. [Haaretz]
• Madonna, Malawi, and Kabbalah. [NYMag]
• Former Israeli president and convicted rapist Moshe Katsav will not have to do jail time pending his appeal. [AP/WP]
• This is way old, but I learned today that President Obama has a Jewish half-brother. [WP]
• The Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim participated in a rare performance in Gaza as a show of solidarity. [AP/Haaretz]
Not enough people remember this awesome post-9/11 rant in Spike Lee’s The 25th Hour (caution: Lots of cursing, and equal-opportunity use of racial stereotypes in the Spike Lee manner).
Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.