“Israeli settlers torched a mosque and wrote racist anti-Arab slogans on its walls in the occupied East Jerusalem suburb of Sharafat village on Friday, residents told Middle East Eye. Al-Badria Mosque serves as a place of worship for the residents of both Beit Safafa and Sharafat, two Palestinian communities south of East Jerusalem and close to the occupied West Bank’s Bethlehem.”

In a new position paper, Yesh Din examines two recent case studies in which the Israeli army imposed collective punishment on area residents by erecting concrete blocks and/or gates, closing off the primary access points to the main thoroughfare, severely impacting daily life and restricting Palestinians’ freedom of movement. These closures are often imposed arbitrarily and, despite army claims, Yesh Din finds the measures to be groundless as well as illegal.

The main findings of the position paper were:

• Roadblocks and closures impede freedom of movement of Palestinians in the West Bank and are used as a form of collective punishment.
• They are often arbitrary and do not stem from security reasons.
• Collective punishment is explicitly prohibited by international law against any population.
• The Palestinian population is a protected population afforded protections according to the laws of occupation. Using roadblocks or any other measures aimed at pressuring entire civilian communities as a means of controlling behavior is explicitly prohibited and must be ended.

“The last time Daraghmeh went to his land – 47 dunums (4.7 hectares) which he shares with four family members – he had planted the fields with wheat and bulgur. In the three weeks since, a lot had happened. Israeli military forces had declared vast swathes of the valley closed military zones, and soon after that, Israeli Defence Minister Naftali Bennett had declared even more land, including Daraghmeh’s, as new Israeli national parks. “

“Businessman Bashar Masri, the founder of Rawabi, the first planned city built by and for Palestinians in the West Bank, launched the Aal-Ard initiative on Tuesday, to fund creative ideas that encourage Palestinians to consolidate their ‘historical relationship with the land,’ and to highlight the dangers of settlement growth in the West Bank and its effect on the lives of Palestinians. The Aal-Ard (‘Land’) project, which aims to enhance Palestinians’ ‘resilience and steadfastness’ to remain on their land in the face of the ‘continuing and escalating expansion of Israeli settlements,’ was launched at a press conference in Ramallah.”

“All of this indicates that the humanitarian situation in Gaza could deteriorate even further, which could lead to increased security tension amid fears that any escalation could turn into an open confrontation with Israel. The Israeli government may try to use Palestinians’ desperation as leverage to achieve calm for its elections — but Hamas could always opt for using greater military force, one of whose effects might be to cause the Israeli right to lose the elections.”

“The Trump administration’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan — to be presented next week at the White House to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his rival Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz — provides for full Israeli sovereignty throughout Jerusalem, for Israel to annex all West Bank settlements, and for no significant “return” to Israel of Palestinian refugees, Israeli TV reported Thursday night. The plan constitutes “the most generous proposal” ever presented to Israel, the report said. US President Donald Trump subsequently dismissed as “purely speculative” reports on the details of the plan and the timing of its release.”

“President Donald Trump said Thursday that he’ll likely release his long-awaited Mideast peace plan before his meeting early next week at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his main political rival Benny Gantz. ‘It’s a great plan. It’s a plan that really would work,’ Trump told reporters on Air Force One en route to a Republican Party meeting in Florida.”

“Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman of the Palestinian presidency, said in a statement the Palestinian leadership will reject any steps by the US that would breach international law, the official Palestinian WAFA news agency reported. ‘If this deal is announced with these rejected formulas, the leadership will announce a series of measures in which we safeguard our legitimate rights, and we will demand Israel assume its full responsibilities as an occupying power,’ Abu Rudeineh said. He appeared to be referring to oft-repeated threats to dissolve the PA, which has limited autonomy in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. That would force Israel to resume responsibility for providing basic services to millions of Palestinians. ‘We warn Israel and the US administration from crossing the red lines,’ Abu Rudeineh said. He reiterated the call for ending the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and said an independent Palestinian state should be established with occupied East Jerusalem recognised as its capital.”

“On Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence said Gantz and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had accepted the invitation, and that Netanyahu had suggested Gantz travel to Washington as well. Kahol Lavan did not officially confirm Gantz’s attendance and perceived Pence’s statement as publicly humiliating…the Trump administration has recently announced that the plan will be released on January 28. Gantz, who opposed the move on the grounds that it would constitute a ‘prize’ for Netanyahu, changed his position earlier this week and called on Trump to release the plan.”

“Right-wing Israeli politicians reacted with cautious optimism to a flurry of reports in Hebrew media about the Trump administration’s plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Defense Minister Naftali Bennett said his right-wing Yamina alliance would ‘not allow land to be transferred to Arabs or for the establishment of a Palestinian state. President Trump, [Jared] Kushner and Ambassador [David] Friedman are true friends of Israel. It is likely that Israel faces a historic opportunity, along with significant risks. The Yamina party will be vigilant,’ he said in a statement.”

“Senior Israeli officials say the details of Donald Trump’s long-awaited peace plan, which are now coming to light, were presented to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent weeks and the invitation to Washington for a presentation of the plan was arranged in coordination with him.”

“One need only look at the tenuous nature of Israel’s alliance of convenience with the world’s greatest state sponsor of terrorism, Saudi Arabia, to understand the danger Israel confronts.  Aside from the inevitable outcome of a fully apartheid Jewish state, probably in less than a single decade, Israel is anything but protected by the U.S.-introduced chaos in SWA as the U.S. neoconservatives predicted when they pushed powerfully and successfully for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Sooner rather than later, the weight of 425 million Arabs on less than nine million Israelis (almost two million of whom are Arabs) will begin to turn the tide. And Tehran with nuclear weapons — a very possible result of Trump’s maximum pressure policy — will balance Jerusalem’s nuclear weaponry. A deadly standoff is the best outcome one can envision, a standoff in which an apartheid Israel becomes more and more an isolated state in the  community of nations, just as South Africa was at the end of its apartheid period. Israel’s security, apartheid state or otherwise, remains in America’s interest, though a far more even-handed policy toward that state is long overdue.”

“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is leading a congressional delegation to Israel this week amid an intraparty debate over conditioning military aid to the close US ally and Democratic efforts to limit President Donald Trump’s ability to attack Iran. ‘And no matter what our party — or wherever we are within our party — the fact that we have the shared values with Israel and that is one reason for our joy in the creation of Israel as a historical miracle, the greatest accomplishment of the [20th] century,’ Pelosi said at a working lunch with Knesset members.”

“This case is really not about a single incident. Stand With Us and its partner in litigation, the Zachor Legal Institute, have a larger agenda. They want to treat as discriminatory — and even anti-Semitic — claims that Israel treats Jews and Palestinians differently, that its occupation of the West Bank is illegal and has come to resemble apartheid or that Israel should be a state of all of its citizens rather than a state of Jews. They also want to curtail expressions of support for the BDS (Boycott Divestment and Sanctions) movement. In short, they want to chill free speech about Israel on college campuses.”

“Late on Monday, Democrat Tom Suozzi said during a Q&A with his constituency in New York’s third district, that it was perfectly legal to prevent Americans from exercising a boycott against Israel. In an exchange with one constituent, Suozzi was asked why he chose to sign the Israel Anti-Boycott Act – HR 5595, also known as the “anti-BDS bill,” which activists say violates the Constitution. The bill was introduced in Congress last week, and Suozzi was the only Democrat to sign on. ‘I will never support the boycott, divestment and sanctions,’ said Suozzi, who also sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee…’And the Supreme Court has ruled, other courts have ruled that this act that tries to prevent BDS from happening is not unconstitutional. People have been saying that but the courts have ruled otherwise.’ Kate Ruane, a senior legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), told Middle East Eye that Suozzi was misinforming his constituents. ‘The Supreme Court has been unequivocally clear that political boycotts, like politically motivated boycotts of Israel, are protected under the Constitution,’ she said.”