“It sure looks like this is being used as a tactic to force [the Palestinians] to the negotiating table on terms determined by the United States, Saudis and Israelis,” said Lara Friedman, the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace.

Over the weekend new broke that the Trump Administration was closing the PLO mission in Washington, DC. To help people understand the laws that led…

Lara Friedman, an expert in US law regarding Israelis and Palestinians and the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, said that when she heard Abbas’s speech at the UN this year, she immediately understood it might have repercussions. Friedman has for years followed closely all news and legislation on Capitol Hill that relates to Israeli-Palestinian issues. While reading the December 2015 foreign ops bill that added the ICC provision, she recalled thinking, “Holy crap, where did this come from?” She wasn’t sure if anyone else had noticed the ticking time bomb planted silently into the bill. Should the PLO mission in DC be closed, she said, it would take the US relationship with the Palestinians back 30 years. Friedman surmised that may be what the provision’s authors intended: moving the clock back to the pre-Oslo era, when the idea of a Palestinian state was more or less unthinkable in Washington.

Comprehensive report on Mideast-related developments on Capitol Hill, 10/29-11/17. In this edition: Palestinian sanctions, Iran sanctions, and more.

A weekly report on Israeli settlement activity by the Foundation for Middle East Peace. This week covering: 240 building permits issued for settlement units in East Jerusalem; the Supreme Court and Attorney General justify land theft for Israeli settlers because they are part of the “local population”; Israel moves to evict Palestinians in the Jordan Valley and West Bank to make way for settlement expansion; Ir Amim and Peace Now put out essential new reports on 2017 settlement activity.

Op-ed by Lara Friedman originally published in the Progressive Post (Europe), December 6, 2017. Since the 1978 Israel-Egypt Camp David accords, it has been a…