* The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs has a lengthy article by Max Singer on the implications of the Gaza pullout plan.
* In the New York Times, David Raab recalls his harrowing experience of being held hostage by the PFLP for three weeks during “Black September” in 1970.
* In the Washington Post Magazine, Gene Weingarten writes about keeping life as normal as possible in Jerusalem and around the world despite constant terror alerts:
So here’s a question: Would you ride a bus in Jerusalem? Right now? Here’s your 5 1/2 shekels, go take a bus to market, buy some figs. Pick a bad day, after the Israelis have assassinated some terrorist leaders and everyone is waiting for the second sandal to drop. There are lots of buses in Jerusalem — the odds are still long in your favor. Do you take that dare?
* Cybercast News Service has an overview of Donna Rosenthal’s new book The Israelis: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land, which Rosenthal says is intended to broaden journalists’ understanding of who Israelis really are:
“I wish TV crews would visit places like the cafeteria in Intel Jerusalem. I just had lunch with an Ethiopian electrical engineer, an ultra-Orthodox woman, a Russian guy with a ponytail, an Arab Christian and a woman in a tight blouse – their boss. They were arguing. Not politics or religion. But the next generation of computer chips. Too bad TV cameras don’t capture these pictures,” she said.
