Senior White House officials, Congressional staff, journalists, and think tankers met this week with members of the left-wing NGO Breaking the Silence.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is positioning himself, as acting Communications Minister, to shut down dissent on Israel’s airwaves, the New Yorker’s Bernard Avishai reveals.

“Proposals for overseas voting are part of a package to keep the prime minister in power by any means necessary,” writes Gershom Gorenberg.

EU labeling of West Bank settlement products “has nothing to do with BDS or with radical anti-Israel sentiment,” is not anti-Semitic, and is not part of an effort to delegitimize Israel, Mikhael Manekin, the head of Israeli think tank Molad, tells the Times of Israel. “If settlement labeling teaches us anything, it is that there is an overwhelming consensus in the world that Israel’s control of the West Bank is illegitimate.”

“Construction proceeds apace in the settlement of Leshem, creating yet one more ‘settlement bloc’ in the West Bank and bisecting it irrevocably,” writes Gideon Levy.

“Bedouin communities in the highlands of Jerusalem are facing evacuation threats by Israeli authorities who purportedly plan to use the land to expand the settlements,” writes Aziza Nofal.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius sought to calm a row with Israel on Friday, saying France opposed any boycott of the Jewish state but stressing telecom firm Orange, which plans to end its license deal there, was free to define its own policy.

“If violence erupts again, Israeli and US politicians would have only themselves to blame, having discouraged the Palestinians from diplomatic negotiations,” writes Akiva Eldar.

“The Israeli justice system – from its inaccessible police stations to its lenient prosecutors, from its negligent investigators to its judges who won’t convict – makes it clear to the Palestinians that there is simply no point in lodging complaints,” writes Yossi Gurvitz from Israeli NGO Yesh Din.

“Seven times they have demolished it,” Susiya resident Nasser Nawaja says. “But the villagers have built it again every time.”

Israel’s National Planning Committee has overseen an appeal by several bodies who oppose the further expansion of the powerful settler group Elad’s control over archaeological sites in Silwan, a congested Palestinian neighborhood located just meters away from al-Aqsa Mosque and the walls of the Old City in occupied East Jerusalem.

Hundreds of students from Gaza who are enrolled in universities abroad have already missed the current academic year, and now their studies for next year are in jeopardy, too.

Elements within the Israeli security establishment propose to negotiate with Hamas and enable Gaza to benefit from Israeli distillation facilities, electricity services and employment opportunities, while assuring Israel a certain degree of calm.

“Both the Strip’s rulers and the Jewish state have an interest in keeping the peace, but the Salafis have other plans,” writes Avi Issacharoff.

“Netanyahu can tolerate a ‘drizzle’ of rocket fire from marginal groups, despite his grandstanding,” writes Amos Harel.