US: Bill to legalize settlement outposts ‘profoundly damaging’

What We’re Reading

US-Israel relations

US calls Regulation Bill ‘profoundly damaging’,

The State Department hopes Israel’s outpost legalization bill, which has received preliminary approval, ‘does not become law.’

FMEP in the News

How to Build the Resistance,

What can American progressives learn from the struggles of the Israeli left? Dahlia Scheindlin and Matt Duss ask.

Occupation/Human rights

‘Annexing Ma’aleh Adumim is the next step’ for Israel,

Annexing the settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim is the next step after the settlement billbecomes law, right wing politicians told the Knesset on Wednesday.

Fresh Amona rehousing plan envisions new West Bank settlement,

40 families to be temporarily quartered in neighboring Ofra settlement until another community can be founded.

West Bank village turned into a 'prison' in the wake of arson accusations,

Dozens of Palestinians have been detained — including a number of children — and clashes have erupted daily in the occupied West Bank village of Deir Nidham since it was blockaded by the Israeli army three weeks ago, “turning the lives of 1,600 into a prison,” locals told Ma’an on Wednesday.

Palestinian youth killed by Israeli forces after alleged attempted stabbing near Nablus,

A Palestinian youth was killed by Israeli border police forces on Thursday morning in the northern occupied West Bank after he allegedly attempted to carry out a stabbing attack.

Palestinian politics

Palestinian Democracy Denied,

“The potential of Palestinian democracy has been greatly weakened by Israel and its military occupation, Palestinian actors such as Fatah and Hamas, and key members of the donor community,” a new al-Shabaka roundtable maintains.

In West Bank, Fatah vote shows politics an old man’s game,

The recent conference of the ruling Fatah party sent a disheartening message to young Palestinians: Most of those elected to top positions were in their 60s and 70s, signaling that politics under octogenarian President Mahmoud Abbas is an old man’s game and that it is unlikely that fresh ideas on winning statehood will emerge from this group of veteran loyalists.

Israeli politics

I'm Israeli, and I want to be blacklisted for boycotting settlement products,

“I don’t know what sanctions the Israeli government can impose on me for boycotting products made in the settlements, but I’ll accept them proudly,” writes Eitan Kalinski.

Is this the end of the liberal Likud?,

“The punishment of Benny Begin for voting against the settlement regularization bill shows how extremist the Likud has become,” writes Mazal Mualem.