“Reducing the financial capacities of UNRWA services is one way the Trump Administration is hoping to force a redefinition of who constitutes Palestinian refugees and thus determine the issue,” writes Noura Erekat.

David Friedman suggests the Trump administration could recognize the Golan Heights as sovereign Israeli territory, weeks after John Bolton played down the idea.

“It was a serious mistake to permit the settlements to continue to race ahead, at even an accelerated pace, because all of a sudden, Oslo started the clock running and caused the settlement movements to quickly begin to take over land before a permanent agreement.”

In 2000, there were fewer than 200,000 settlers living in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, according to B’Tselem. Now the number is closer to 400,000.

The local planning committee of Jerusalem’s municipality on Wednesday approved a plan to build 150 housing units in the Beit Hanina neighborhood in East Jerusalem.

In a statement to the High Court of Justice, the State Prosecutor’s Office wrote that the state mistakenly thought that it was paving the road, located in the South Hebron Hills, on state lands when it included them in the construction plan for the settlement of Shima.

At a stormy public meeting in the city on Wednesday, architects, academics, preservation experts, and tour guides heaped scorn on the government’s scheme to ferry up to 3,000 people per hour in up to 72 ten-person cabins.

“Whether European states follow through on their threats and warnings over the demolition of Khan al-Ahmar will determine a great deal about the EU’s relevance and its ability to influence Israeli policy vis-a-vis the Palestinians,” writes Michael Omer-Man.

“BDS is a perfectly legitimate form of resistance. And if we want to preach for a certain kind of political discussion that isn’t violent, we must strengthen these voices, even if it’s difficult,” said Itay Tiran, widely considered Israel’s leading theatrical actor-director, in an interview with Haaretz on the eve of his departure to Germany.

“The war on BDS, a legitimate, nonviolent protest movement, has dragged Israel into new territory.”

Foreign minister’s announcement comes as new President Mario Abdo Benitez looks to reset country’s Middle East policy.

“With instructions from His Majesty, we have endeavored to provide administrative support to Jerusalemites by reducing passport fees by a third, and by increasing the number of guards and administrators of the Jordanian waqf in Al-Aqsa Mosque to 1,000,” Wasfi Kilani, director of the Hashemite Fund for Al-Aqsa Mosque, said.