“While Netanyahu’s move appears to be extreme, it actually fits coherently with his government’s orchestrated campaign against Israeli human rights organizations,” writes Mairav Zonszein.

Netanyahu’s office said a meeting with Germany’s top diplomat Sigmar Gabriel was off after the foreign minister refused to drop his session with Breaking the Silence, a nonprofit organization that collects the testimonies of former Israeli combatants with the aim of exposing “the reality of everyday life in the occupied Palestinian territories.”

The longer Israel holds on to the contested territories, the older grows the generation that remembers Israel in its pre-1967 borders gets, and the larger the number of Israeli Jews who accept the control of Judea and Samaria as the natural state of affairs.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom is under fire from one of its own.

Budget proposal obtained by Foreign Policy points to across-the-board cuts to foreign assistance, as Palestinians see 5% increase.

The Trump administration has reportedly ordered US ambassadors in UNESCO member states to initiate meetings with their host countries’ foreign ministries in a bid to defeat an anti-Israel resolution that is to be debated at the UN cultural organization next week.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is set to issue a dramatic ultimatum to Hamas, demanding that they either hand over governance of the area or face a funding freeze, sources close to the Palestinian leader said.

“Hamas prisoners have chosen not to join the hunger strike led by the currently imprisoned PLO leader Marwan Barghouti, making both the PLO and Barghouti look good,” writes Daoud Kuttab.