“The Trump administration’s peace plan would curb Israeli settlement growth, initially hand Israelis and Palestinians about one-third of the West Bank each, recognize a Palestinian state in the Palestinian-held areas, and set in place a four-year ‘preparation period’ during which Palestinians would — so Washington hopes — come around to the plan and possibly negotiate control of the remainder of the territory. At least, that is what several Hebrew-language media outlets were reporting on Sunday, just a day or two before US President Donald Trump is expected to unveil the long-awaited plan to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his rival MK Benny Gantz, who are in Washington this week…Sunday’s reports were the latest in a spate of sometimes contradictory reports in Hebrew media purporting to detail the content of the plan. On Thursday, for instance, Channel 12 TV reported that the plan 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. And on Friday, Channel 13 said Israel would retain overall security control of the entire West Bank under the plan, even if a Palestinian state is established in parts of it. Channel 13 said the plan ultimately provides for a demilitarized Palestinian state in some 80 percent of the West Bank. That state would not be empowered to maintain an army and sign military treaties, and Israel would control its borders, further reports on Friday said.”

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz landed in Washington, DC on Sunday, ahead of a meeting with US President Donald Trump to discuss the release of the administration’s peace plan, knows as ‘Deal of the Century.’ The two traveled separately and will meet with Trump in two distinct meetings. Netanyahu landed around 8 pm local time. Among others, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman flew on his plane.”

“The White House hope was that if Trump could get the support of both Netanyahu and Gantz for the plan, it would help provide some momentum. A US official said Trump wants to know both Netanyahu and Gantz are on board with the plan before announcing it. The official told Reuters that Trump’s message to Netanyahu and Gantz is this: ‘You have six weeks to get this [plan] going – if you want it’.”

“‘There were attempts by Trump to hold a phone call with Abbas, but the latter refused,’ a high-ranking Palestinian official, who was not named, told Anadolu, adding that the attempted calls took place in the past couple of days. PA Social Affairs Minister Ahmad Majdalani confirmed the Anadolu report to the Gaza-based Dunia al-Watan news site, stating that Abbas recently ‘refused a phone call from Trump’.”

“The West Bank mayors will stay at the same hotel as the premier, where they will be able to consult with him in person and receive updates in real time regarding the contents of the White House discussions, the spokesman said. Separately Sunday, Samaria Regional Council chairman Yossi Dagan released a statement of his own announcing that he too would be making the trip to DC to closely follow the developments regarding the peace plan. He also said that he had scheduled meetings with Republican party officials and Evangelical leaders in order to convey his opposition to any peace agreement that would allow for the establishment of a Palestinian state, no matter how small or non-contiguous it would be.”

“‘Before us, before the government, is a once in a lifetime chance, once in 50 years, to extend Israeli law over half a million citizens and over the Jordan Valley and Gush Etzion,’ Bennett said. Both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his main rival, Kahol Lavan leader Benny Gantz, set out to Washington on Sunday to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump about the plan. ‘This has been our dream for so many years. They’re asking what position we will take,’ Bennett said. ‘Our answer: Annexation – we support the plan. No annexation – we won’t support the plan’.”

“Palestinian leaders threatened on Sunday to withdraw from key provisions of the Oslo Accords, which define arrangements with Israel, if US President Donald Trump announces his proposal for Israel and Palestine this week.  The Oslo Accords resulted in Israel’s recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organisation as a representative of the Palestinian people and a party to the peace negotiations, while the PLO, in turn officially recognised Israel’s right to exist peacefully and renounced the use of violence to achieve its goals.”

“Benny Gantz, again Mr. Netanyahu’s rival in Israel’s third election in less than a year, will have his own separate meeting with Mr. Trump on Monday. He had at first resisted the invitation, fearing a political trap in which Mr. Netanyahu would get to play the statesman while Mr. Gantz would look puny by comparison. But analysts said he could not afford to snub the president, given Mr. Trump’s enduring popularity in Israel.”

“Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh on Monday urged international powers to boycott US President Donald Trump’s ‘peace plan’ which they see as biased toward Israel. ‘This a plan to protect Trump from impeachment and protect (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu from prison. It is not a Middle East peace plan,’ Shtayyeh told a cabinet meeting.”

“Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Sunday said Amman is against any parts of a yet-to-be-released US peace plan that negatively affects his country. Asked about aspects of the proposal that may come at Jordan’s expense, Abdullah said that the kingdom would oppose it…Abdullah’s terse response highlighted the unease in the Arab world over the planned release of US President Donald Trump’s peace plan this week, with leaks to Israeli media suggesting the plan would endorse Israel annexing about one-third of the West Bank including all settlements and possibly the Jordan Valley area. It would also propose allowing Israel to hold on to all of East Jerusalem, including Muslim holy sites that Jordan administers.”

“Army Radio speculated that this would include the unbuilt E1 section of the city. E1 has been considered so sensitive that building there has been frozen for the last 26 years as a result of US pressure. Even the security barrier, which was supposed to have encompassed the entire Ma’aleh Adumim city, including E1, was frozen…Army Radio speculated that the application of sovereignty over the Jordan Valley was complex, in part because it could harm ties with neighboring Jordan and could even create upheaval within that country. There are also some 75,000 Palestinians who live there, and citizenship issues relating to them would need to be addressed.”

“Both likely candidates for Israel’s premiership have recently said they intended to annex the Jordan Valley, the border area between the West Bank and Jordan that has been under Israeli control since 1967. This came despite a damning report by the International Criminal Court and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s statement that it would “eradicate the foundations” of any kind of peace process. In many ways, the area is unique in the West Bank, for its history and strategic value. But what would annexation mean for the people who live there?”

“The centrality of nonviolence as a tenet of the Israeli anti-occupation movement stems from several factors. One, which is not sufficiently discussed, is the prominence of NGOs within the movement or, more precisely, their reliance on foreign donor requirements. This economic dependency necessitates a commitment to certain values promoted by donor criteria, among which are an absolute abidance to nonviolence and to Israeli law itself. This is the very same law that enables Israel’s military rule and oppression of its dissidents in the first place.”

“’Despite the effects of climate change being broadly similar across the region, the Palestinians are more vulnerable, and this is directly to do with the political situation,’ Zena Agha, a researcher at Al-Shabaka research center, told Al-Monitor. The Israeli occupation is the biggest nonenvironmental threat facing the Palestinians, and one that compounds the environmental situation, Agha said. ‘Restrictions on the free movement of people and goods, the apartheid wall [the wall separating Israel from the West Bank], land grabs, settlement expansion and settler violence, and poor governance all threaten Palestinian food and water security, which increases climate change vulnerability,’ she noted. Agha pointed out the peculiar role of the Palestinian Authority (PA) — the governing body in the West Bank — in relation to climate change. ‘It has no sovereign jurisdiction over natural resources or large swathes of territory and wields no independent political will over how to mitigate climate risks,’ she said. ‘Yet bizarrely, it is tasked with addressing climate change’.”

“Over the past two years, the Israeli Ministry for Strategic Affairs released a number of reports alleging ties between Palestinian civil society organizations and ‘terrorist groups,’ and even claimed to have waged a ‘stealthy campaign’ that resulted in the shuttering of some 30 bank accounts affiliated with the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. At the time, several of the groups that were allegedly targeted said the accounts that were supposedly targeted, never existed in the first place.”

“On December 31, 2019, attorneys for Rima Najjar, a retired professor of English literature at Al-Quds University, filed a suit against the question-answer website Quora in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California, arguing the site had unlawfully banned her from posting and moderating a forum. The row centers around the use of the word ‘Palestine’ and ‘Zionist,’ the latter of which Quora said constituted ‘hate speech’.”