“She more broadly described the threat of annexation in the West Bank, as Israel plans 1,900 settlements in Area C and announced tenders for 2,200 units, both there and in East Jerusalem.  Plans in two other locations that were regularized in 2019 were also advanced, while an interministerial committee tasked with discussing annexation of the Jordan Valley held its first meeting on 5 January. If implemented, these declarations would be the first of their kind since the Oslo Accords, she said, a devastating blow to the two-State solution.  “I would like to emphasize the continued urgency of resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the basis of relevant United Nations resolutions, international law and bilateral agreements”, she asserted.”

Shtayyeh: “We know that at the macro level, everything is blocked. There’s a serious political dead end. The status quo isn’t static; it’s a deteriorating status quo. In Palestine there’s no such thing as ‘business as usual.’ For us nothing is ever usual. With all the blows and the wars Israel conducts against us, the fact that we even survive is a miracle.”

“It is true, of course, that for some Jews, aware of the history of anti-Semitism that has spanned the ages, and especially the Holocaust, Zionism’s contradictions with democratic principles are an unpleasant but inescapable dilemma they can live with. As a survivor of the Holocaust, I can understand that. But I also understand that the likely consequences of these contradictions are not benign, and can yield their own terrible outcomes, particularly when they lead to the dalliances by the prime minister of a Jewish state with right-wing racist and xenophobic heads of state and of political parties that have fascist and anti-Semitic parentage.”

“Senior White House officials told Channel 13 on Wednesday that the Trump administration is opposed to any unilateral moves by Israel, including annexing the Jordan Valley, before America rolls out its ‘Deal of the Century’ peace plan. ‘The United States has made its objections clear, and the Israeli government is fully aware of this,’ the officials told Channel 13.”

“Once in the White House, and with the help of executive branch agencies, the president would have the legal authority to withhold U.S. weapons transfers to Israel and to investigate, or even curb, American nonprofits that receive tax-exempt donations and send that money to Israeli settlements. The U.S. Constitution gives the executive branch a great deal of power over foreign policy, and it’s time a Democratic president uses that authority to end Israeli human rights violations.”

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday vowed to annex not only the Jordan Valley if he wins the upcoming elections, but also all the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The comments in a speech launching his Likud party’s election campaign, came hours after Netanyahu’s main rival, centrist leader Benny Gantz, promised to apply Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley.”

“This is why the Zionist left has not served as the main opposition to Likud-led governments in over a decade. In its place, a succession of centrist parties and coalitions have tried and failed to unseat Netanyahu since he returned to power in 2009. Gantz has come the closest, denying Netanyahu a majority coalition in two consecutive elections in 2019. Now, however, the left barely has the electoral strength to even serve as an ancillary force to the centrist opposition. If the Zionist left is to survive, it clearly must come to terms with the immediate reason for its decline: It no longer has enough support among Israeli Jews to sustain itself for much longer on the traditional model of Israeli governance, which excludes Arab-led political parties. “

“The International Criminal Court will delay its debate into whether it has the jurisdiction to probe alleged Israeli war crimes in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem due to a procedural error related to the filing’s page limit, the court announced Tuesday. ‘The Chamber agrees with the Prosecutor that the nature, novelty and complexity of the issue, that is, the jurisdiction of the Court with respect to the situation in Palestine … gives rise to ‘exceptional circumstances,’ the court decision read, granting the prosecutor’s request for an extension of the page limit but asking her to file a new request.”