“While Trump’s lieutenants insist they are blazing a path toward a new grand bargain, it has become abundantly clear that the White House is in ideological lockstep with Netanyahu and his government, which includes ministers who openly claim the Palestinians will never have their own state.”

Around two weeks ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu privately conveyed a message to the White House stressing that Israel’s position regarding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has changed — and that it now supports a complete cut of all U.S. funding to the agency.

US approval for funding would include any future sponsors to UNWRA committing to redefining the status of the agency, as well as the definition of Palestinian refugees, with the ultimate aim of eventually closing down the agency.

Jason Greenblatt, US President Donald Trump’s chief envoy to the Middle East peace process, disseminated sharp words in three different languages concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that it “is not, as many have claimed, the core conflict of the region.”

According to [Israeli NGO] Peace Now, a senior delegation of which met Abbas on Sunday in Ramallah, the Palestinian leader said senior US administration officials Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt asked him recently about his opinion of a “confederation with Jordan.”[FMEP note: Jordan rejected the idea.]

Opponents of the nonviolent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement are involved in a dishonest branding campaign.

The Boycott, Divest and Sanctions campaign against Israel has been categorized as anti-Semitic by the Berlin State Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

The village, part of which was annexed to East Jerusalem but left on the West Bank side of the separation barrier, has over 50 pending demolition orders. Israel has not approved any building permits since 1967.

“First the state wanted them to live next to a garbage dump. Then it told the Jahalin Bedouin they’d be moved near a large sewage-treatment site where human habitation has been forbidden. And that’s not the end of the story.”

Israeli police were investigating an apparent hate crime in a West Bank village south of Nablus Monday, after several cars were vandalized and spray-painted with Hebrew graffiti.

“Yousef Bashir is an unlikely peace-builder at one of the darkest times in the elusive effort to end the conflict in the Middle East.”

The government is set to fund increased development of Hebron’s Jewish heritage, with money it saved by not paying its annual dues to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said on Monday that he would push to expel the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency from the capital, amid an Israeli and American drive to marginalize the body.

“The systematic escalation in the persecution of Breaking the Silence should keep all Israeli democrats awake at night.”