“Today, the Prime Minister of the State of Palestine, H.E. Dr. Mohammad Shtayyeh, and the Humanitarian Coordinator, Mr. Jamie McGoldrick, launched the Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) for 2020 in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). The 2020 HRP appeals for $348 million to provide basic food, protection, health care, shelter, water and sanitation to 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. ‘The Palestinians are living in an abnormal situation caused by the occupation and the lack of access to their resources. This humanitarian plan is important and intersects with national priorities and government plans,” said the Prime Minister. “Thanks to the UN, its NGO partners, and the donors for what they offer to improve the difficult humanitarian situation, especially in the Gaza Strip, Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley. It is imperative that we link relief to development, and that these plans have a political frame, based on international law’.”

“Over the years, the United Nations has produced a number of human rights declarations and conventions, some of which Israel signed and ratified into law. Israel also embedded some of the international human rights in the State’s Basic Laws, such as The Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, which protects a person from violations of his right to life, body or dignity. The Israeli courts also acknowledged human rights in its verdicts, such as the Right to Work. Human rights are guaranteed to every person by virtue of their being human, irrespective of their ethnic identity, political status, religion or gender. However, the State of Israel does not guarantee or respect the human rights of the Negev/Naqab Bedouin people, but rather violates them on a daily basis. On the occasion of International Day of Human Rights on December 10, 2019, NCF has chosen to publish a report focused on the violation of the various rights of the Bedouin community in the Negev/Naqab: rights to an adequate standard of living, water, sanitation, housing, development, health, education, and work. This report brings forth the various forms in which Israel violates the above rights.  “

Awad Abdelfattah and Jeff Halper write, ” The conflict paradigm turns an encompassing, pre-existing colonial situation into a mere struggle to “end the occupation.” Indeed, the legal paradigm underlying UN Resolution 242 — the laws of occupation — reduces a settler project to a limited problem of military control over 22 percent of historic Palestine. Whether seeking a two-state solution, a confederation, or a single “Jewish” state over the entire Land of Israel, a “conflict resolution” approach does not address the wider need for decolonization. A settler colonial perspective restores the original and underlying problem of settlement that began in the late 19th century — one which asserts its claim to the entire country of Palestine. This is not to say that the occupied Palestinian territories are not occupied under international law, but that occupation is a sub-issue that must be addressed in the context of a wider process of decolonization, including the right of Palestinian refugees to return.”

“A three-month ban imposed by the Palestinian Authority on the import of calves from Israel ended recently, but sources have told Haaretz that the dispute may reignite into a violent trade war due to pressures by Israeli cattle ranchers on the agriculture ministry to force the Palestinians to purchase tens of thousands of animals they failed to buy previously.”

“Ghaith’s lawyer, Rami Othman, said the order violates his client’s rights and and that a suit will be filed against it with the Jerusalem District Court. ‘This is an unprecedented order, and because the state is unable to bring any concrete evidence against his activities, they invent new and draconian orders to limit him as much as possible,’ said Othman.”

“The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, an organization devoted to protecting freedom of speech on college campuses, released a statement on Tuesday night against the president’s intended executive action, warning that it would harm First Amendment rights. ‘The apparent rise in campus anti-Semitism is a real problem. But however well-intentioned, if the President’s Executive Order does in fact rely on [the IHRA] definition, it will impermissibly threaten the expressive rights of students and faculty at institutions across the country,’ the organization warned. The IHRA definition is already being used by the State Department and has been adopted by governments around the world, including the Israeli government. The definition has been criticized for being too broad and for including political criticism at the state of Israel as a form of anti-Semitism.”

“Wednesday’s signing is the culmination of a multi-year effort led by an influential group of Jewish Democrats and a private equity businessman from New York. Five years ago, Apollo Global Management co-founder Marc Rowan visited then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Washington to discuss the rise of antisemitism. Attendees at the meeting included Reid’s chief of staff, David Krone, and super-lobbyist Norm Brownstein, a long-standing Jewish community leader from Denver. Reid proposed the idea of pushing a wider adoption of the State Department’s definition and Rowan, Krone and Brownstein spent the next five years building a coalition of organizations to push legislation through Congress. Reid himself continued to work on the issue even after leaving the Senate, including hosting a town hall on antisemitism in Las Vegas earlier this year.”

“News of the measure was met with applause by some as a necessary measure to combat rising anti-Semitism, but condemned by others as an attempt to silence pro-Palestinian freedom of speech and stifle criticism of Israel, as well as being inherently anti-Semtitic for declaring Judaism a nationality.”

“This is a baldfaced attempt to silence the movement for Palestinian rights on college campuses – something that has been at the top of the Trump administration’s agenda. We’ve already seen how defining antisemitism to include criticism of Israel serves only to violate the free speech of students and professors who stand for equality and justice for all people by challenging Israel’s apartheid policies and decades of human rights violations. Rather than providing any new protections to Jewish students against the rampant and deadly antisemitism of a resurgent white nationalism, the order described in news reports aims to define the contours of what we can say about Palestine and Israel. We won’t abide, and it will be challenged.”

“J Street’s President Jeremy Ben-Ami released the following statement: ‘This executive order, like the stalled congressional legislation it is based on, appears designed less to combat anti-Semitism than to have a chilling effect on free speech and to crack down on campus critics of Israel’.”

“On the eve of a likely Knesset vote for yet another back-to-back election, a new poll by Channel 13 television news showed Blue and White increasing its lead on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud. The poll shows the centrist Blue and White expanding its current one-seat advantage over Likud to a four-seat lead, winning 37 seats to Likud’s 33 in the 120-member Knesset.”

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Likud party rival Gideon Sa’ar have agreed their party will hold a leadership primary election on December 26. The party’s central committee is expected to confirm their agreement. Earlier this week, the Likud Central Committee decided by a large majority to cancel a general primary, resolving only to hold a leadership contest ahead of the third election inside a year. All other potential lawmakers will remain in the spot they held for the previous election.”

“The Ramallah-based Palestinian leadership has officially requested permission from Israel to allow Palestinians in East Jerusalem to vote and run in Palestinian Authority parliamentary and presidential elections, a senior PA official said on Tuesday. ‘We officially asked Israel to allow East Jerusalem residents to participate in legislative and presidential elections in terms of running and voting,” tweeted Hussein al-Sheikh, the head of the PA Civil Affairs Commission and a close confidant of Abbas. “We are awaiting Israel’s response’.”

“Former Palestinian Minister of Labor Ghassan Khatib, who is now a lecturer of philosophy and cultural studies at Birzeit University, said, ‘Fatah has been surprised with the talk of elections and they are not ready for it. This is one of the three reasons why I am not convinced it will take place. The second reason is Gaza, the division there, and the fact that Hamas is also not ready for elections. While the third reason is the issue of the participation of Jerusalemites in these elections and the reaction of Israel to such participation’.”