“The peace process is being used as a vehicle for controlling or tying the hands of Palestinians politically, rather than a means for resolving the conflict or ending the occupation,” write Lara Friedman & Khaled Elgindy.

In a startling demonstration of support for Palestinian human rights from Capitol Hill, 10 Democratic senators wrote a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday urging him to halt the impending demolition of two Palestinian and Bedouin towns.

An unarmed Palestinian farmer was killed by Israeli settlers according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Mahmoud Oudeh, a 48-year-old from Qusra village south of the city of Nablus, was killed while he was tending his field.

“The Palestinian Authority’s (PA) arrest of West Bank human rights defender Issa Amro for a Facebook post last month is the latest in the the PA’s recent crackdown on online dissent among Palestinians. Yet it’s a tactic long used by Israel, which has been monitoring social media activity and arresting Palestinians for their speech for years – and has recently created a computer algorithm to aid in such oppression,” write Nadim Nashif and Marwa Fatafta.

Israel’s High Court rapped settlement council heads for issuing illegal building permits, but the Israeli government may now issue permits retroactively.

Right-wing politicians immediately welcomed the plan, which is expected to be approved by Interior Minister Arye Deri.

Former Mideast peace negotiator David Makovsky of the Washington Institute says satellite imagery shows a two-state solution is still possible with land swaps.

“The U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, has politicized his diplomatic office and misrepresented U.S. policy on Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians. In the process, he is causing real damage to our country’s interests in the region,” writes Debra Shushan.

“This fall, The New York Times published two laudatory articles about the conservative pundit Ben Shapiro,” writes Peter Beinart. “Remarkably, neither article mentioned Shapiro’s naked bigotry toward Palestinians and Muslims.”

A panel that was a collaboration between Jewish Voice for Peace, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ), Haymarket Books and Jacobin Magazine, drew out the complexities of acknowledging and challenging the genuine threat of anti-Semitism from diverse sources, while simultaneously rejecting its exploitation for political gain.

After Israeli TV predicts an imminent declaration by Trump recognizing Israeli capital, the White House press secretary says the administration ‘has nothing new to announce.’

A new bill from Likud lawmakers would make supporting a boycott against Israel punishable by at least seven years in prison.

Rival Palestinian factions agreed on Wednesday to postpone the handover of control over the Gaza Strip from Hamas to Fatah, less than 48 hours before a deadline as part of an Egyptian-brokered reconciliation deal.

The Israeli Air Force on Monday afternoon conducted fresh strikes on two Palestinian Islamic Jihad positions in the central Gaza Strip, in response to a mortar attack by the terror group against an IDF post earlier in the day, the army said.

Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak said on Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had proposed settling Palestinians in the Sinai peninsula as part of a peace deal-related land swap in 2010.