“For too long, the United States has failed to impose any consequences for Israel’s pursuit of policies that America opposes,” write Matt Duss and Michael Cohen. “The Obama administration doesn’t need heavy-handed steps to get that point across. Rather, it should make clear to Israel’s voters the importance it attaches to American interests in the region — including the achievement of a two-state solution that provides for Israel’s security and the Palestinians’ legitimate national aspirations.”

“Today, the U.S-Israel bilateral relationship stands at a crossroads. Increasingly the national interests of the two countries – and in particular its current leaders — are diverging,” write Matt Duss and Michael Cohen.  “There is an opportunity for the United States to sharpen the choice facing Israeli voters – and on two issues in particular, settlements and the peace process.”

“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is burnishing his security credentials ahead of next month’s national elections,” writes Guy Ziv. “Paradoxically, however, it is this image he has worked so hard to cultivate over the years that has been challenged, time and again, by his nation’s top security experts — and, now, more so than ever before. Far from seeing him as “Mr. Security,” these experts regard Netanyahu as a weak leader whose poor judgment has eroded Israel’s deterrence and harmed Israel’s relationship with its most important ally, the United States, and whose lack of strategic vision undermines Israel’s national security interests.”

“Does the conduct of the Republican leadership toward Israel in general and the speech in particular make it worthy of friendship?” asks Akiva Eldar. “Also, is the US House of Representatives, irrespective of party, religion and gender, really a friend of Israel? Who is worthy of this title, and who simply claims to deserve it?”

Likud has withdrawn its petition for an injunction against an NGO working for the removal of the party from power, after failing to find a “smoking gun” linking it to the opposition Zionist Union. The Tel Aviv District Court petition was withdrawn on Thursday morning by attorney David Shimron, who just two weeks ago told a press conference that the V15 organization was violating the law.

At a rally for Hamas in Gaza in early February, a spokesman for the group, Sami Abu Zuhri, warned that the continued blockade on the area “will push Hamas to carry out actions which could be described as crazy.” When it comes to Hamas, such rhetoric is par for the course—except for one thing: the target of the group’s threat was not Israel. Demonstrators were there to protest Egyptian policies.

Aid agencies struggling to shelter thousands of Gazans made homeless by war have resorted to building makeshift temporary homes out of metal and wood to evade Israeli restrictions on imports into the territory.

A senior UN official warned Wednesday that the lack of available funds for the reconstruction of Gaza and the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas militants could lead to a renewal of hostilities in the coastal enclave.

Palestinian official Mustafa al-Barghouthi said Thursday that a PLO delegation is due to visit the Gaza Strip, but a date has yet to be confirmed.

Palestinian authorities shouldn’t be blamed for a series of deadly terror attacks in Israel that killed or wounded Americans in the early 2000s, a lawyer told a New York City jury Thursday at a high-stakes civil trial.

In an interview with Al-Monitor, attorney Dov Weissglass deplores the ongoing Israeli refusal to connect the Palestinian town Rawabi to the water network, claiming that the refusal by Ministers Moshe Ya’alon and Silvan Shalom is politically motivated.