As Israel’s far-right has gained political influence and momentum, including with respect to the current government’s “judicial reform” plans, the outsized impact of the Kohelet Policy Forum – a formerly low-profile, high-impact Israeli think-tank – has increasingly been making headlines. Two key parts of this story — insufficiently understood and examined by the media — are the ties between Kohelet and right-wing fellow travelers and funders in the U.S., and their years-long efforts to influence policy and law not only in Israel, but in the United States, both at the state- and federal-level. FMEP & Jewish Currents held a conversation among experts who have been researching and documenting the activities and funding of the Kohelet Policy Forum including its transnational connections and impact of its work in both the U.S. and Israel/Palestine, featuring Ran Cohen (Democratic Bloc), Yousef Munayyer (Arab Center DC), Eran Nissan (Mehazkim), and Lara Friedman (FMEP) and moderated by Sarah Anne Minkin (FMEP).

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP 2023 Palestinian Non-resident Fellow Dr. Yara Asi speaks with FMEP’s Sarah Anne Minkin about how to understand Palestinian public health, especially in the West Bank and Gaza. What are the impacts of Israeli apartheid and occupation on Palestinian public health? What is the role of the Palestinian Authority? What are possibilities and priorities for change?

1. Israel Reaffirms Commitment to Short Settlement Pause – Then Immediately Violates it, Publishing Tenders for 1,029 New Settlement Units
2. Knesset Repeals Clauses of 2005 Disengagement Law, Allowing for Reestablishment of Four West Bank Settlements
3. Netanyahu Contradicts Coalition Agreements in Attempt to Pacify International Outcry Over Disengagement Law Repeal
4. Knesset Initiates Bill for West Bank “Admission Committees”
5. U.S. State Department Issues Its 2022 Human Rights Report
6. Bonus Reads

1.Bills, Resolutions & Letters
2. Hearings
3. Media & Reports
4. Members on the Record (Palestine/Palestinians)
5. Members on the Record (Israel)
6. Members on the Record (Iran)
7. Members on the Record (other Mideast countries)

“Israeli police raided one of this city’s holiest sites early Wednesday and arrested scores of Palestinians inside al-Aqsa Mosque, sparking rocket fire from the Gaza Strip and retaliatory Israeli airstrikes. The Palestine Red Crescent Society said 12 people were treated in the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a location sacred to both Muslims and Jews, after police used beatings, stun grenades and metal-tipped rubber bullets to clear the area. An additional 25 people received medical attention after being released from Israeli custody, the organization said. Israeli police, who control access to the site in Jerusalem’s Old City and routinely clear its plaza after nightly prayers, said they carried out the raid after a group of worshipers locked themselves inside…The night of violence at the al-Aqsa compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, adds fuel to an already combustible situation.” See also Why an Israeli raid on al-Aqsa Mosque is stoking tensions (WaPo); Israeli forces attack worshippers in violent Al-Aqsa Mosque raid (Middle East Eye); Israeli Police Raid Jerusalem Mosque; Brief Flare-Up With Gaza Follows (NYT); VIDEO: Israeli Police Raid the Aqsa Mosque Compound in Jerusalem (NYT); In photos: Damage in Al-Aqsa Mosque in wake of Israeli raid (Middle East Eye); Israeli Forces Use Stun Grenades in Clashes With Palestinians Inside Al-Aqsa Mosque (Haaretz); After Violent Al-Aqsa Raid, Netanyahu Says Will Restore Calm, Arab League to Hold Emergency Meeting (Haaretz)

“Footage of heavily armed Israeli soldiers smashing their batons and guns down on cowering Palestinian worshippers in Al-Aqsa Mosque’s Al-Qibli prayer hall during Ramadan sparked outrage worldwide on Wednesday morning…“They kept us on the ground, handcuffed, for a long time, and anyone who raised his head was hit with a gun,” Jaber told Middle East Eye…Speaking after his release, Jaber described the terrifying moment the Israelis forced their way into the holy site in occupied East Jerusalem, where Palestinians were practising the contemplative prayer of Itikaf. Stun grenades and teargas were fired into the thousand-year-old building, before soldiers threw Palestinians to the ground, stamped on them, and bound their hands forcefully behind their backs…Around 400 Palestinians were detained on Tuesday night.” See also Israel attacks Gaza after Al-Aqsa Mosque raid (Al Jazeera); Israeli forces attack worshippers in violent Al-Aqsa Mosque raid (Middle East Eye); See also this analysis from Jehad Abusalim, including video from Al Aqsa.

“Palestinian worshippers at the entrance to the site on Saturday said police shot the man at least 10 times, after he tried to prevent them from harassing a woman who was on her way to the holy compound. The police alleged al-Osaibi tried to take a gun from an officer and fired it in a scuffle.” See also Protesters Clash With Israel Police Following Deadly Shooting at Temple Mount Compound (Haaretz); Palestinian cities in Israel go on strike over killing of Palestinian doctor (Middle East Eye)

“Until Tuesday night at 23:30, Jerusalem was experiencing its most quiet Ramadan in years. The first nine days passed almost without incident, save for the death of Mohammed Khaled Alasibi on the Temple Mount last week. There were record-breaking numbers of Muslim worshipers at the Al-Aqsa compound, and thousands gathered nightly at the Damascus Gate without clashes…This blessed routine was disrupted in recent days, due to the growing efforts of Temple activists seeking to slaughter a goat on the Temple Mount, performing the Passover sacrifice… By Tuesday evening, tens of thousands of worshipers had amassed at the holy site, like on every Ramadan night. Upon the conclusion of the prayer, hundreds remained – mostly youths, but also women and older men – who barricaded themselves within the Al-Qibli Mosque (also known as Al-Aqsa, although the Palestinians use that term for the entire mountaintop compound.)…The police breached the mosque with stun grenades and batons. 350 people were arrested and sent by bus to a Border Police base outside Jerusalem, where they were released with restraining orders barring them from the mosque. According to the Red Crescent, 19 people were wounded, but the most significant result from the police’s operation was a series of TikTok videos uploaded by worshipers – which showed grenades and fireworks exploding on the mosque floor, police officers striking people with batons, a fire breaking out by one of the doors, shattered windows, and screams. These sights moved Hamas to greenlight its rocket launches and have threatened to ignite the region.” See also Passover: Israeli settlers call for animal sacrifice at Al-Aqsa Mosque (Middle East Eye); Police detain several people seeking to carry out animal sacrifice at Temple Mount (Times of Israel)

“Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) declared on Tuesday its intent to avenge the killing of two Iranian officers in Israeli air raids in Syria last week…Syria’s state media said the latest of such Israeli strikes — the fourth in less than a week— occurred Tuesday morning. One of the targets, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, was an Iranian complex outside Damascus.” See also Israel’s shadow war with Iran escalates in Syria with attacks, drone interception (Al Monitor); Israel fears US will push for interim nuclear deal with Iran (Al Monitor); Analysis | An Emboldened Iran Pushes Netanyahu and Gallant Back Together – for Now (Haaretz); Netanyahu delays firing of dissenting Defence Minister Gallant (Al Jazeera)

“The number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank since the beginning of 2023 has reached 95, including 17 minors and two elderly, after the killing of 21-year-old Mohamad Hallaq and 43-year-old Mohammad Al-Juneidi Abu Bakr, during a military raid on Nablus on Monday. According to the Palestinian health ministry’s figures, the two men were the 24th and 25th Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Nablus alone since the beginning of the year.” See also Israeli forces kill two Palestinians in occupied West Bank raid (Al Jazeera);

“Israel’s Supreme Court ruled on Monday against a petition by the Jewish National Fund supported by the City of David Foundation, also known as Elad, which works to increase the Jewish presence in the city, to evict the Palestinian Sumarin family from their home at the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan. The ruling overturned an earlier ruling by the Jerusalem District Court. The legal struggle over the Sumarin family home has been going on for 32 years. The house is located in an area of the Silwan neighborhood that forms part of the City of David archeological site, which is managed by the Elad organization…On Monday the Supreme Court criticized the state’s previous registration of the house as absentee property while the owner was alive and a resident of Jerusalem. Human rights activists now hope the legal precedent will help halt other eviction orders affecting Palestinian families in Silwan. The Elad group is working to buy properties inside the Palestinian Silwan neighborhood in order to bring in Jewish families.”

“Rabea Eghbariah, a human rights attorney and doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School who has researched legal policies pertaining to land in Israel and the West Bank, noted that the Israeli state has perfected the use of the law as an instrument to control Palestinians, shrouding its actions in a façade of legitimacy. Dispossession is often disguised as a bureaucratic matter of enforcing the law, with Israeli officials declaring homes illegal and subjecting them to demotion orders, designating land as restricted, and issuing eviction orders. “There is definitely this culture of hyper legalization and performative law,” Eghbariah told me, pointing for instance to a legal distinction Israel draws between settlements and outposts — even as it mostly treats both equally, and even as both are illegal under international law. “The whole distinction between outposts and supposedly legal settlements is absurd. But it’s part of the legitimizing force of the law to try to use this façade of rule of law, of supposedly a democratic state, that practices so-called measured violence, and that has checks and balances in place. The law serves as a tool, a technology even, to legitimate atrocities, to rationalize them, and to make them more palatable.”” See also See also She was walking toward her family’s land. A soldier broke her ankle (+972//Basel Adra); Why Israeli efforts to write a constitution always fail (Dahlia Scheindlin//+972): “Resurrected by the protest movement, the idea of a constitution has been pursued throughout Israel’s history. But opposition to equality foils its fruition.”

“According to data issued quarterly by the Israeli Prison Service (IPS), as of 31 March 2023, there were 4,747 Palestinians (West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza) held as “security prisoners” in detention facilities including 151 children (12-17 years) (150 boys / 1 girl). In the case of children there was a 1 percent increase in the number compared with the previous month and an annual increase of 11 percent compared with 2022. Ten children were held in administrative detention. According to the IPS, 70 percent of child detainees and 80 percent of adults were unlawfully transferred to prisons in Israel in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.” More statistics. See also Palestinian hunger striker says he is close to death (MEMO)

“The Israeli ministry that oversees settlements intends to double the budget allocated to settlers for drones and inspectors to monitor Palestinian construction…Settlement authorities could use these budgets to hire members of their inspection units, to purchase aerial photos, drones, tablets and vehicles…The budget could also fund fencing and clearing trails and roads, in addition to other infrastructure to ward off “unauthorized land use.”..The Civil Administration has also been operating a hotline in recent years that it calls “War Room C,” which settlers can call to report Palestinian construction. This is part of what Israel terms “The campaign for Area C” – in other words, the Israeli perception that Area C is Israeli territory which the Palestinians are trying to take over as part of a strategic plan.” See also Israeli gun ownership rising as violence surges (BBC)

“Said Zeedani, who was part of the 1976 strike by Palestinian citizens in which Israel killed six protesters, recalls the build-up to ‘a political earthquake.’

“Barcelona’s decision to cut its twinning agreement with Tel Aviv spotlights why such ties with Israeli localities, especially settlements, are never ‘apolitical.’”

“Reportedly, Shabtai said the remarks in a private meeting with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, which took place after an Israeli Arab was murdered and dealt with the fight against crime in Arab society along with the establishment of a national guard. In the recorded conversation, Ben-Gvir is heard saying after the murder: “Another murder and another murder – this crosses the line. We need a strong national guard.” Shabtai then replied to him: “There’s nothing we can do. They murder each other. It’s in their nature. That’s the mentality of the Arabs.”…Israel Police said in response to the leaked recording that it’s “amazed that the minister and his office are recording personal conversations between the minister and the commissioner.””

“Mada al-Karmel Center’s February 2023 position paper focused on the positions of the Palestinian community in Israel, as represented by official institutions and political parties, regarding the current protests in the country over Israeli Minister of Justice Yariv Levin’s plan to alter the face of the judicial authority in Israel. The positions of Palestinian Arab political parties and national institutions—such as the High Follow-up Committee—writers, and journalists revealed contradictory opinions about the protests. There are political parties that call for and support Palestinian participation in the protests, while others oppose it. Besides, the Follow-up Committee, for example, endorsed the protest movement but did not urge Arab citizens to join it. Our study of the diverse opinions expressed found that participation and non-participation did not become a serious or divisive issue inside Palestinian society, and that calls for participation in protests, as well as actual participation, have been rather modest and have not convinced Palestinians to get involved.” See also Opinion | Without Palestinians, Protest in Israel Is Just Demo – Not Democracy (Tamer Nafar//Haaretz); Israeli Protesters Say They’re Defending Freedom. Palestinians Know Better. (The Nation//Mohammed El Kurd)

“The Kohelet Policy Forum has been receiving attention recently for its role in the proposed judicial reforms in Israel, but experts say not enough attention is given to the think tank’s influence over US politics when it comes to Israel and Palestine…”They are the locomotive, the spearfront of a bigger ecosystem of ultra-conservative, neoliberal, settlement, Jewish supremacists that are leading a long-term ideological and political project to import the ideas of the fringes of the Republican Party,” said Eran Nissan, the CEO of Mehazkim, a progressive digital movement in Israel…”There’s the very strong US side of this. Now that the world is suddenly paying attention to Kohelet in Israel, I think they maybe are missing the story in the US,” [FMEP President Lara] Friedman said.” “In the US they have played, I would say, a parallel, enormously effective, and quiet role of shaping US policy to where it is today when it comes to anything related to Israel-Palestine.”

“A poll published Tuesday showed that increasing numbers of Israelis are joining protests against the judicial overhaul, with 21 percent of Israelis saying in March that they had taken part in at least one demonstration…The Israeli Voice Index, produced monthly by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) think tank, found that the rate of those who have protested was 23% among Jews and 11% among Arabs. While participation rates were higher among those who identify politically with the center or left, the increase was seen across the political spectrum — on the left from 46% to 70%, among those who defined themselves as centrist from 18% to 29%, and for those who identify as right-wing from 6% to 9%…The survey also found that 40.5% of Israelis agreed with far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s statement that there is no such thing as a Palestinian people.” See also Israeli protesters return to streets as judicial overhaul stays on ‘pause’ (WaPo); Opinion | Enshrining Jewish Supremacy Is the Real Reform of This Israeli Government (Haaretz//Carolina Landsmann); Israel hasn’t been a democracy for a long time. Now, Israelis need to face this fact (The Guardian//Joshua Leifer); Biden’s disinvitation to Netanyahu followed PM’s accusation U.S. is funding demonstrations to ‘topple’ him (Mondoweiss)

“Israel’s government on Sunday greenlit the formation of a national guard, handing a victory to the far-right minister who proposed the force and drawing condemnation from security officials who warned it could destabilize the country.”

“Over the last few years, the space for Palestine advocacy in Germany has shrunk. Pro-Palestinian speech is reflexively labeled as antisemitic and, following the passage of the anti-BDS resolution in the German parliament in 2019, federal institutions have begun declaring all actions that support the boycott movement as antisemitic. This has allowed universities, state governments, and public institutions to deny Palestinians the right to free speech and assembly. Moreover, the 2019 resolution also dramatically expanded the scope of what is deemed antisemitic — and, while it is not legally binding, many officials use it as the standard by which they determine what is and is not antisemitism. And while this policy was previously deployed almost exclusively against Palestinian Germans, Germany’s attempt to preserve its allegiance to the State of Israel has moved it to target a new and unexpected group: Jews in Germany who are critical of the apartheid state.” 

“On March 23rd, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released its annual antisemitism audit, a tally of every anti-Jewish incident the group recorded and verified in 2022…Reporting on this audit presents a unique challenge. On the one hand, as I’ve written previously, there are reasons to be skeptical of the ADL’s methodology. Counting antisemitic incidents—and hate crimes in general—is an inexact science, which makes it hard to compare numbers over multiple years. Furthermore, the ADL has frequently included incidents of anti-Zionist political expression in its antisemitism tally, and has recently announced an intent to zealously oppose anti-Zionist politics, making it difficult to trust the organization’s judgment and motives as it relates to its reports. Still, the audit includes a litany of concerning antisemitic incidents that merit serious attention—in at least two cases, for example, perpetrators punched or threw rocks at Jewish people in synagogue parking lots. For help in understanding the nuances of the ADL’s numbers, I spoke to several trusted sources and put together this explainer about what readers can take from the audit.” See also Success: NYU Withdraws False Accusations Against Pro-Palestine Graduate Student Worker; Rehires Idriss to Library with Back Pay (Palestine Legal)

“Dozens of rights groups have urged United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres not to adopt the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, saying it has been used to suppress criticism of Israel. In a letter published on Monday, 60 human and civil rights organisations said the UN should not use the definition in its action plan against anti-Semitism and subsequent activities…US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Israeli rights group B’Tselem, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) were among the signatories.” See also UN: Protect Human Rights in Action on Antisemitism (HRW)