“What Michael Oren is really calling into question is whether, when it comes to Israel, the Administration should have an independent foreign policy,” writes Bernard Avishai.

“The right is rendering liberal Zionism, such that it is, a moot ideology, even as liberal Zionists themselves take the fight to BDS,” writes Ali Gharib.

Key lawmakers want to block Palestinian Authority funds over cooperation with International Criminal Court probe.

The White House on Thursday said efforts to have Israel charged with war crimes at the International Criminal Court were “counterproductive” and would be opposed by Washington.

“Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Habayit Hayehudi) understood immediately how to fight the next United Nations report [on Gaza]. He stood on the Knesset dais and declared that “the response to the report must be to promote the draft bill calling for increased supervision of non-government organizations,” writes Carolina Landsmann.

Agricultural Minister Uri Ariel (Jewish Home) is not backing down from his decision to withdraw national- service slots from B’Tselem and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, despite a letter from Deputy Attorney-General Dina Zilber on Thursday explaining that Ariel’s directive has no legal basis and is, therefore, void.

A Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli military forces Friday after he opened fire on the soldiers at the Beka’ot checkpoint in the West Bank.

As the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran prepares to be replaced by a Jewish town with a near-identical name, its residents are offering solutions based on real co-existence.

“As he enters his 50th day of hunger strike, Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan’s health is rapidly deteriorating rapidly. Now it seems like the Israeli government may try to negotiate his release from administrative detention,” write Yael Marom and Noam Rotem.

A top UN official warned Israel on Wednesday that passing legislation to force-feed hunger-striking prisoners if their lives are in danger would constitute “a contravention of international standards.”

Israeli medical associations claim that the “force-feeding” bill promoted by the government is unethical, but the authorities are still pushing the proposal forward to avoid image-damaging Palestinian prisoner deaths.

Suspected Hamas UAV causes IAF to scramble jets before crashing after 40 minutes of flight; IDF engineers examining drone’s remains.

“The conduct of talks between Hamas and Israel about a truce has raised suspicions among Palestinian Authority and Fatah officials that Hamas hopes one day to establish a “State of Gaza,” independent of the West Bank,” writes Adnan Abu Amer.

The so-called ‘flotilla VIPs’, including former Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki and members of the EU Parliament, have begun boarding ships bound for Gaza, the Middle East Eye can reveal.