“Backed by the Democrats, the US House of Representatives is planning to vote on a resolution reaffirming the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict tomorrow. The resolution was introduced by Representatives Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.), Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) and Karen Bass (D-Calif.).” [See here for the amendments that will be considered on the House floor before a final vote on the resolution]

“Dagan noted that the number of building permits in Samaria has increased by 50% in the last five years. Despite the large number of building permits, house prices in Samaria rose by tens of percent and some prices have even doubled. ‘This is happening because, despite the increase in the number of building permits, the demand is still greater than the supply. This means that if the State of Israel were to remove barriers and allow construction in Samaria as the public want, the growth in Samaria would not be 9% a year, as is the case today, but even 30%. This would have lowered housing prices in the center of the country,’ he added.”

“Five years after launching a preliminary review, International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said Thursday that she is concerned about potential Israeli moves to annex the Jordan Valley. Bensouda made the comment in a key section of her annual report reviewing a range of conflict areas around the world which she is probing. Her final decision could have a massive impact on Israel legally, diplomatically and in terms of the country’s image.”

“Israel’s withholding of taxes and duties due to the occupied Palestinian territories is restricting the growth of the Palestinian economy and worsening an already dire socioeconomic crisis, United Nations sources have said.”

“Israeli authorities have advanced plans for a major expansion of Gilo, a key settlement in occupied East Jerusalem just north of Bethlehem.” [for more details, see this week’s edition of FMEP’s Settlement Report]

“A senior Hamas member on Thursday said five countries took part in recent efforts to broker a prison swap between the Gaza-ruling terror group and Israel. Musa Dudin, a member of the Hamas political bureau, said Egypt led efforts to broker an agreement, along with Qatar, Turkey, Germany and Sweden. He said this push for a deal took place recently, but did not further specify.”

“New details have emerged about a botched Israeli intelligence operation in the Gaza Strip in November 2018 that sparked deadly Israeli air strikes and Palestinian rocket fire. Eight undercover Israeli agents – who were disguised as Palestinians and had taken the aliases of a real family in Gaza – entered the coastal enclave on November 11 last year with the objective of planting listening devices on Hamas’s private communications system, an investigation by Al Jazeera Arabic’s Ma Khafia Aazam (Tip of the Iceberg) programme revealed.  However, the Israelis were stopped and questioned by a Hamas patrol unit in Khan Younis for 40 minutes and became suspicious of their answers. A firefight broke out and the Israeli operatives used guns with silencers, immediately killing Hamas commander Nour Baraka and one of his aides, Mohammed al-Qarra.”

“Having slipped through Israel’s security fence, Emad Khalil Ibrahim Shahin and his friends sneaked into an abandoned barracks and lit a fire. Anxious they were about to be discovered, they fled the scene. ‘We ran until we found a sand dune to hide behind on the other side of the fence, but then noticed Emad was not with us. He ran slower because he was on crutches,’ one of his companions, who wished to remain anonymous, told Middle East Eye. ‘We saw him on the ground and told him to crawl. But then a military vehicle raced up and a soldier fired at him, shooting him in the right leg. Soon a helicopter came and took him away.’ It would be 355 days until Shahin returned to Gaza. He arrived on 23 October in a body bag.”

“Israeli yesterday released Hamas leader Jamal Al-Taweel after two years being held under administrative detention. The 57-year-old, who was elected mayor of Al Bireh in 2006, spent his time in administrative detention in Al Naqab Prison. His daughter, Bushra, said that her father went on hunger strike against his detention several times and was given pledges that he would be released, but this did not happen.”

“This week, a group of 129 Jewish and Israeli scholars signed a petition calling on the French National Assembly not to support the resolution. The signatories criticize the proposal for reducing Israel to a ‘collective composed of Jewish citizens,’ thereby obliterating the Palestinians citizens of the country, as well as those Jews who hold anti-Zionist opinions. They also argue that it reduces the Palestinian experience.”

“Portugal has become the latest country to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, a move that coincided with a visit by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”

“…To express your political views as a Palestinian, you must now tiptoe around three different authorities: Israel, the Fatah-led PA in the West Bank, and the de facto Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, each of which suppresses political speech according to their own varying definitions of incitement and unwanted dissent.”

“A group of prominent Arab activists, artists and academics say they no longer view Twitter or Facebook as safe platforms, and they are calling on the social media companies to do more to protect them. In an open letter released on Tuesday, nearly 40 signatories say the companies’ policies – “or lack thereof” – have had “real life consequences on the lives of thousands of Arab voices”.

“One recent Stanford University survey of Jewish students at five California universities found that respondents ‘reported feeling comfortable on their campuses, and, more specifically, comfortable as Jews.’ And a Brandeis University survey of Jewish students at four American universities found that ‘Jewish students do not think their campus is hostile to Jews.’”

“Some 88 education, civil-rights and religious organizations [led by the AMCHA Initiative] called on U.S. Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Wednesday to prevent federal funds from being used by higher-education Middle East Studies programs that support an academic boycott of Israel.”

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday called for increased action against Iran, indicating that the recent unrest in the Islamic Republic offers an opportunity to topple the regime. ‘Iran’s aggression is growing, but its empire is tottering. And I say: let’s make it totter even further,’ he said at the beginning of a meeting with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.” [Also see: Trump mulls sending additional 14,000 troops to Middle East: report & Pentagon denies US mulling 14,000 more troops for Middle East]

“Israel is working to stop Iranian belligerence throughout the Middle East, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday in Lisbon, at the start of his meeting with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in the Portuguese capital. Netanyahu made the statement hours after Arab news outlets reported an explosion in an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) weapons depot at an airport near al-Bukamal on the Syria-Iraq border, but declined to answer questions on the matter.”

“European powers on Wednesday filed a grievance with the UN over what they said was a blatant Iranian violation of the 2015 nuclear deal. The Security Council has scheduled a Dec. 19 meeting to discuss the implementation of the 2015 resolution on the Iran nuclear deal. Foreign Minister Israel Katz has instructed the Israeli mission in the UN to present the Security Council with all the recent Iranian violations of the nuclear agreement ahead of the meeting.”

“Israeli officials are hopeful that a breakthrough in normalizing relations with Morocco can be achieved in the next few days, Channel 12 news reported Wednesday, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hoping to use the news to bolster his political chances.”

“Israel will begin exporting natural gas to Jordan and Egypt early in the new year, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz as saying on Monday. The paper quoted Steinitz as saying that ‘before the end of the year, we will start supplying the domestic market, and in the weeks right after that we will export to Egypt and Jordan’.”

“Yisrael Beytenu party leader MK Avigdor Liberman declared that he will no longer agree to join any narrow government, and that a unity government with the two largest parties was no longer an option, a position that all but certainly condemns the country to a third round of elections within a year. “

“A senior Fatah leader revealed that Palestinian Authority (PA), Fatah and PLO President Mahmoud Abbas is to visit Cairo soon to meet with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi.”

“Twenty-five Parliamentarians from around the world, including the Foreign Minister of Venezuela and Population Minister of Estonia, will gather next week on December 8-10th at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Jerusalem for the Israel Allies Foundation’s annual Chairman’s Conference. The President-elect of Guatemala will also attend as part of his first official visit to Israel. Legislators actively combating the delegitimization of Israel will also participate in the conference next week, including U.S. State Representative Alan Clemmons from South Carolina who authored the first anti-BDS legislation in the United States and was active in helping it get passed in 28 states, together with MP Joel Voordewind from the Netherlands, who was first to oppose the EU’s recent labeling law against Jewish products.”

“The United Nations General Assembly passed five resolutions against Israel, but for the first time, 13 countries switched their positions and voted against an anti-Israel measure.”

“On Thursday, the International Cooperation Directorate of the Israel Ministry of Defense (SIBAT) signed an agreement with the Czech Ministry of Defense, awarding Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) ELTA, a contract for the acquisition of eight ELM-2084 ‘Iron Dome’ Multi-Mission Radars (MMR), an Israeli Defense Ministry spokesperson announced Thursday afternoon. The government-to-government agreement is valued at approximately 125 million USD and was signed by representatives of each party in the city of Prague, for the Czech MADR Mobile Air Defense Radar program.”