“Iran is looking for a breakthrough in its bilateral relations with the US. Therefore I don’t think it would retaliate harshly in a provocative manner to this latest attack. It hadn’t done it in January when Qasem Soleimani was killed; it won’t do it now,” said Mohammadreza Kalantari, a professor of international relations at London’s Royal Holloway University. “Despite what the hard-liners in Iran are saying, doing and threatening in the last few days, the public opinion vis-à-vis Soleimani is much different from that of Fakhrizadeh.” He added, “Iran’s position after the assassination [elevating Fakhrizadeh’s importance] is a tactic and bargaining chip for the upcoming negotiations with Biden.” What Fakhrizadeh meant for Iran’s nuclear project is not equivalent to Soleimani’s role in its regional policies, he said. “Hence, while Iran retaliated [for] Soleimani’s assassination, as it did in January, it won’t take a harsher stand this time.”

“Saudi Arabia announced on Monday evening that it has officially given approval for Israeli airlines to fly over the country’s airspace, dramatically shortening flying times to the east and finally allowing the airlines to offer direct flights to Dubai, Israeli media reported. Saudi Arabia’s announcement means that an Israir flight between Tel Aviv and Dubai planned for today, Tuesday, will depart Ben-Gurion Airport as originally planned.”

“Twenty-nine arms control and human rights organizations have signed a letter opposing the sale of $23 billion worth of missiles, fighter jets and drones to the United Arab Emirates and asking the U.S. Congress to block the deal. “The hope is to stop these sales altogether,” said Seth Binder, advocacy officer at the Project on Middle East Democracy, who spearheaded the effort. “But if that is not possible in the short term, this sends an important signal to the incoming Biden administration that there is a diverse group of organizations that oppose delivery of these weapons.””

“Don’t promote democracy, talk about the royal families or comment on treatment of foreign workers. Israel is advising tourism professionals and businesspeople to avoid discussing those and other sensitive political topics with residents of the United Arab Emirates, as it protects its new peace deal with the Gulf Arab country and promotes new daily flights between Dubai and Tel Aviv, launched last week. “United Arab Emirates: Do and Do Not,” the tourism ministry’s 29-page Hebrew-language advisory published Nov. 8, is the first public Israeli government comment on the issue of Emirati political freedoms, but it stops short of criticizing alleged abuses.”

“It is unclear who carried out the airstrike. The US warned Iraq in September to reign in militias and cease attacks in the vicinity of the US Embassy. Baghdad’s Green Zone, where the US and other embassies are located, was hit by rockets again in November. Israel also regularly bombs Iranian targets in Syria and most recently did so last week. In May, Israel carried out airstrikes in eastern Syria, which borders Iraq. Iran also blamed Israel for the recent killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist.”

“While the Emirates are interpreting the return of Palestinian envoys as acceptance of Gulf deals with Israel, the Palestinian Authority hangs its hopes on Biden”

“An Israeli court cited the controversial nation-state law in dismissing a lawsuit brought by two Arab schoolchildren against their northern town of Carmiel on Monday, ruling that its “Jewish character” must be preserved. The siblings, age 6 and 10, asked to be reimbursed for expenses they incurred traveling to an Arabic-speaking school outside the city, because there are no such schools in Carmiel. The suit, filed by one of the teens’ uncle, Adv. Nezar Bakri, demands 25,000 shekels ($7,500) from the city. In March, Haaretz reported that dozens of parents had petitioned the Carmiel municipality to arrange rides to outer city schools so their children could receive an education in Arabic. “Carmiel, a Jewish city, was meant to establish Jewish settlement in the Galilee,” wrote chief registrar of the Krayot Magistrate’s Court Yaniv Luzon in his decision dismissing the suit and ordering the plaintiffs to pay legal fees. “Establishing an Arabic-language school… [and] funding school rides for Arab students… could change the demographic balance and damage the city’s character.” Currently, the city’s population is about 6 percent Arab. Although the registrar provided seven reasons for dismissing the suit, the ruling is drawing criticism for citing the controversial nation-state law passed in 2018, which officially defines Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people and asserts that “the realization of the right to national self-determination in Israel is unique to the Jewish people.” In addition, it stipulates that the Jewish people alone, as a people, have the right to self-determination in Israel. It also permits judges to give priority to Israel’s Jewish character in their rulings. It caused an outcry among the country’s non-Jewish communities and was condemned internationally.”

“In Carmiel last week they reaped the spoiled fruit of the Basic Law on Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People. Contrary to all the false statements made by proponents of the law during its legislation – that it was largely symbolic, that it was faithful to the values of the Declaration of Independence and the principle of equality – it turns out to be its critics’ worst nightmare: a legal norm that legalizes Jewish supremacy and Arab inferiority in Israel…The masks are off: The nation-state law has legalized racism and Jewish supremacy, and allows the state to discriminate against Arab citizens in order to keep them from living where they choose under equal conditions, thus deepening ethnic segregation in Israel…On December 22, the High Court of Justice is scheduled to hear 15 petitions against the nation-state law. These petitions argue, among other things, that it’s a colonialist law with apartheid traits. Let’s hope that after the law was exposed in all its shame in Carmiel, there will no longer be any doubt regarding the inherent risk it poses to Israel’s democratic character, and of the constitutional obligation to expunge it from the law books.”

“The High Court of Justice struck down Sunday an obstacle to declaring a tract of land in the West Bank as the property of the State of Israel. Justices Yael Willner, Noam Sohlberg and Alex Stein rejected a petition filed by Palestinians who claimed they had acquired ownership of the 224 dunams (55 acres) in the settlement of Kokhav Ya’akov and the area of the Palestinian village of Kafr Aqab, near Ramallah, through their cultivation of the land…“The ruling offers a wide opening for a huge takeover of Palestinian land, and in effect this is a cancellation of Jordanian regularization procedures, just at a time when Israel is interested in renewing regularization procedures. The ruling contradicts itself on numerous points, and fails to address the huge complexity of the issue, certainly in light of the fact that the area is occupied territory,” Zacharia, representing the Palestinian petitioners, said.”

Also See

• “Israel High Court authorises takeover of Palestinian land near Jerusalem” (Middle East Eye)

Monthly highlights

• No casualties recorded despite shooting incidents, rocket-firing and airstrikes.
• Increase in the exit of patients and their companions via the Israeli-controlled Erez Crossing, amid a continuous closure of the Rafah Crossing with Egypt.
• The unemployment rate in July-September reached nearly 49 per cent…
• Daily electricity supply reached up to 13 hours throughout the month, up from 11 daily hours in September, due to a decline in demand on electricity.

“A Palestinian and Israeli technical team is currently meeting and discussing the transfer of millions of dollars in tax revenues Israel owes to the Palestinians, today said Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh. Israel owes the Palestinians around $1 billion in taxes it has collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority (PA) on goods entering through its borders and which have been accumulated ever since the PA has severed ties with Israel on May 19 and stopped receiving the monthly $200 million revenues.”

“Mays Abu Ghosh, a 22-year-old Palestinian student, was released by Israeli forces on Monday, 15 months after she was arrested. Abu Ghosh, a journalism student at Birzeit University, was arrested in August 2019 and charged with being a member of the Democratic Progressive Student Pole, a student bloc banned by Israeli military orders, and taking part in student activities against Israeli occupation…Several human rights groups said Abu Ghosh told them about the physical and psychological torture she suffered for more than a month at the notorious Maskobiyeh interrogation centre in Jerusalem. The groups added that she was forced into several stress positions for extended hours and was threatened that she would go home either paralysed or mentally broken. She was also forced to listen to the cries and screams of other prisoners undergoing interrogation, and faced repeated slaps to her face as Israeli soldiers shouted obscenities at her. “I want to tell everyone what happened with me during the interrogation and torture period,” Abu Ghosh told Al Jazeera a day after she was released. “Not as something that has happened to me but for any Palestinian to know what to expect when Israel arrests them.” Israeli military courts, which Palestinians in the occupied territories are tried by, have a 99.74 percent conviction rate.”

“Sheikh Jarrah, located on the slopes of Mount Scopus just north of the Old City, is home to 3,000 Palestinians, all refugees who were ethnically cleansed from their homes in other parts of historical Palestine during the 1948 Nakba…According to Grassroots Jerusalem, an NGO that is a platform for Palestinian community-based mobilisation, there has been an influx of Jewish settlers since 2001 “who have been responsible for forced evictions and terrorism in the neighbourhood”. According to Fayrouz Sharqawi, global mobilisation director for Grassroots Jerusalem, it is “absurd” to count on the Israeli judicial system to protect Palestinian rights. “This system is an integral part of the Zionist colonial state, which identifies as a ‘Jewish state’ and accordingly and systematically oppresses, dispossesses and displaces Palestinians,” she told Al Jazeera. “Rulings that momentarily suspend eviction or demolition orders serve only Israel, as they create the illusion that it is a democratic state where courts hold the government or army accountable and prevent violations of Palestinian rights,” she continued. Sharqawi said even in the best-case scenarios, more than 70 years of occupation prove that court decisions postpone but rarely reverse such orders, which are eventually implemented.”

“Elyas al-Arja, the head of the city’s hotel association, said Bethlehem received some 3 million tourists in 2019. With Israel, the main entry point for international visitors to the region, banning tourists because of the coronavirus crisis, and the West Bank’s border crossing with Jordan closed to foreigners, that number is close to zero this year, he said. “Sixty percent of the city relies on tourism, and their income disappeared when the tourists disappeared,” said al-Arja, a cousin of the Angel Hotel owner.”

“Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, has contracted the coronavirus, the organization said on Tuesday. According to Hamas, Sinwar feels well and is working as usual while adhering to Gaza’s COVID guidelines. The Strip has suffered record numbers of coronavirus cases over past weeks, with diagnoses soaring past 5,000 in the tiny enclave.”

“But this month we got good news, if one considers treatment for a cancer patient in a hospital in Hebron to be a happy occasion: Shirin, Osama’s surviving sister, suddenly announced that she would arrive the following day to accompany her sick friend, who received a permit from the Israeli authorities to reach Hebron. Shirin called Osama by video from their mother’s apartment, and it was hard to hear her over the laughter, loud conversations and crying children.”

“Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party is expected to give initial backing to a bill to dissolve the Knesset and call early elections when it comes up for a vote Wednesday, TV reports said Monday evening, amid widespread speculation that Israelis will soon find themselves at the ballot box for the fourth time in under two years. The opposition-backed motion of no confidence is only going up for its preliminary reading Wednesday. It would still need to be approved by a Knesset committee and then pass three more votes to formally dissolve the government.”

Also See

• “Report: Gantz set to announce his support to disperse Israeli parliament” (i24 News)
• “As coalition edges further toward collapse, Netanyahu pleads for ‘unity’” (The Times of Israel)

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that his Likud party will vote against a bill put forth by the opposition to dissolve the Israeli parliament, effectively ending the current government. “We will vote against dissolving the Knesset tomorrow, and for unity, I call on Benny Gantz to do the same,” he said during a visit to the police’s coronavirus enforcement headquarters. “Voting for treating the coronavirus, for bringing in vaccines, for financial aid for the people of Israel.” Earlier on Tuesday, Labor Party Chairman and Economy Minister Amir Peretz and Labor and Welfare Minister Itzik Shmuli announced that they will back the bill.”

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is preparing to ask the Knesset again for immunity from prosecution in his corruption cases, based on his lawyers’ argument that the criminal investigation against him was flawed and should be reconsidered. In the past month, the prime minister has told associates that he is weighing the benefits of such a move against the possible damage it could do to his image in public opinion. In response to this article, however, associates of Netanyahu said the report was entirely baseless.”

“By Wednesday night, the seven months of the Netanyahu-Gantz zombie government could be over and Israel will be on its way to an election in March 2021, the country’s fourth in two years. Not that it will change much. The same ministers will remain in their positions and the caretaker government which will continue in office until a new one is formed after the election will be no more dysfunctional than it has been since the cabinet was sworn-in back in May. Or a compromise on the timing of the passage of the 2021 state budget may be reached and this coalition of the damned will still be on its journey to nowhere.”

“Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert took a different view. In a speech to the Maariv business summit, he said, “His spying was beneficial, but when taking a full account of his actions, the damage he caused to Israel’s interests was the harshest in the history of US-Israel relations. The danger of increasing this damage has not ended. If the prime minister hosts a lavish welcome ceremony for Pollard, we will pay a heavy price for it in America.”..One person who has expressed reservations about any such celebrations or festivals is former Mossad chief Danny Yatom. He told Al-Monitor, “Pollard was not working for the Mossad, as is mistakenly claimed, but for another Israeli agency. … The punishment he received was much more severe than what the US justice system usually metes out in order to teach Israel a lesson. I am glad that he has finally been set free, and I think we should respect his desire to immigrate to Israel. On the other hand, we should not go overboard with all the festivals, not least because we don’t want to poke the US in the eye. On the other hand, we should receive him warmly.”

“Blue and White lawmakers squabbled at a faction meeting Monday over remarks made by Diaspora Minister Omer Yankelevich the day before, in which she indicated that her party backs the wildcat settlement communities, many of which are built on private Palestinian land. During the faction meeting, Blue and White’s leader, Defense Minister Benny Gantz, clarified the party’s position, saying it would only support legalizing outposts that are on state-owned land — even if they were built without approval.”

“If one thing can be learned from the assassination of the top Iranian nuclear scientist outside Tehran last Friday, it is this: Israel and the incoming Biden administration are on a collision course over Iran policy…The Biden administration, upon taking office in late January, will inherit this escalating policy dilemma—and in extremis, as Zimmt put it, “will have to essentially choose between Israel and Iran.””

“Biden’s persistent claim that he “does not support” annexation, while it has in effect already happened, amounts to nothing but empty rhetoric. It is the same empty rhetoric that describes Israel as a “Jewish” and “democratic” state, even though it has been neither for decades. Rather, Israel is a one-state reality with demographic parity between Jews and Palestinians, inherently undemocratic as millions of Palestinians are systematically disenfranchised.”