By the 1960s, virtually all of the more than 300 bakers in New York City’s bagel shops belonged to Local 338 of the Bakery and Confectionary Workers, which maintained closed shops and contracts favorable to workers. But then a mobster named Giovanni Ignazio Dioguardi—known as Johnny Dio—who had spent the past few years enriching himself by meddling in the kosher hot-dog business, decided to take on bagels. Jason Turbow describes what followed:

In 1966, a man named Ben Willner started the W&S Baking Corporation in the Bronx. Not only was he determined to run a non-union bagel shop, but he was among the first to embrace what would, over time, become 338’s most pressing issue: automation. . . . With [a mechanical bagel roller], Willner began pumping out more bagels in a shorter time with one unskilled worker than a traditional shop using a union-approved team of four; this allowed Willner to undercut his competitors’ prices substantially. With his bakery location sufficiently north of Local 338’s area of operations, he mostly flew under the union’s radar.

Dio soon showed up at the bakery to bandy about his wholesaling leverage—namely, the ability to get supermarket buyers to bend to his whim under threat of labor unrest. Before long, W&S bagels were being stocked on shelves around the city, and the bakery prospered.

Except that Willner’s weren’t the only mobbed-up bagels in town. In 1964, a shop called Bagel Boys had opened in the center of Jewish New York, on King’s Highway in Brooklyn. Among its principals was Thomas Eboli, otherwise known as Tommy Ryan, a capo in the Genovese crime family and a direct counter to Dio. Eboli was so powerful, in fact, that when Vito Genovese died a few years later, Eboli reigned for a time as the family boss.

Dio may have been a capo [as well], but his Lucchese-family backing was no match for the Genoveses. . . . Inevitably, W&S went out of business, with Willner’s machines ending up at Bagel Boys in clear violation of the union mandate. This was a problem. Eboli, with the Manhattan mafia behind him, made the concerns about Dio seem puny by comparison. A fight was in the offing. The main question was whether—and how—to enjoin it.

Ultimately, the union handled the mafia the same way that it handled nearly all extreme issues with management: full public confrontation. Nearly as soon as Bagel Boys opened its doors, Local 338 members showed up en masse to picket, distributing leaflets headlined, “PLEASE DON’T BUY,” with warnings that non-union bagels “jeopardize the hard-won standards of labor and inspection which the New York City public now enjoy.” Their most effective tactic in such situations was handing out free product in quantities sufficient to devastate business. It worked.

Last week, the Lebanese parliament chose Joseph Aoun to be the country’s next president, filling a position that has been vacant since 2022. Aoun, currently commander of the military—and reportedly supported by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia—edged out Suleiman Frangiyeh, Hizballah’s preferred candidate. But while Aoun’s victory is a step in the right direction, David Daoud sounds a cautionary note:

Lebanon’s president lacks the constitutional authority to order Hizballah’s disarmament, and Aoun was elected as another “consensus president” with Hizballah’s votes. They wouldn’t vote for a man who would set in motion a process leading to their disarmament.

Habib Malik agrees that hoping for too much to come out of the election could constitute “daydreaming,” but he nonetheless believes the Lebanese have a chance to win their country back from Hizballah and, ultimately, make peace with Israel:

Lebanon’s 2019 economic collapse and the 2020 massive explosion at the Beirut Port were perpetrated by the ruling mafia, protected ever since by Hizballah. [But] Lebanon’s anti-Iran/Hizballah communities constitute a reliable partner for both the U.S. and Israel. The Lebanese are desperate to be rid of Iranian influence in order to pursue regional peace and prosperity with their neighbors. Suddenly, a unique opportunity for peace breaking out between Israel and Lebanon could be upon us, particularly given President Trump’s recent reelection with a landslide mandate. It was under Trump’s first term that the Abraham Accords came into being and so under his second term they could certainly be expanded.

As matters stand, Lebanon has very few major contentious issues with Israel. The precisely targeted and methodical nature of Israel’s war in Lebanon against Hizballah and what has unfolded in Syria make this outcome a far more attainable goal.