1. Ghaith-Sub Laban Family Face June 11th Eviction from Old City Home
2. Construction of Homesh Settlement Continues
3. A New Look at Israel’s Annexation & Slow Erasure of Palestinians in Nabi Samwil
4. 7amleh Analyzes Israeli Social Media Hate Speech on Huwara, Leading to Pogrom
5. New, Comprehensive Report on Children in the Israeli Military Court System
6. New Report Details Big Tech Companies’ Facilitation of Occupation
7. Bonus Reads

See also Settlement & Annexation Report: May 26, 2023

1. IDF & Settlers Move Ahead with Re-Establishment of Homesh Settlement
2. Israeli Authorities Approve New East Jerusalem Settlement of “Kidmat Zion”
3. State & Settler Violence Coerce the Forcible Transfer of Ein Samia Bedouin Community
4. Israel Attempts to Assuage U.S. Concern Over Smotrich’s “Double the Settlers” Planning
5. Israeli State Budget Awards “Several Billion” Shekels to Settlements & Outposts
6. Government Gives Settler Group $41 Million for East Jerusalem Archaeological Projects
7. Annexation, End of Civil Society on the Government’s Agenda This Weekend
8. Bonus Reads

1.Bills, Resolutions & Letters

2. Hearings & Events
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)

Also see FMEP Legislative Round-Up: May 26, 2023

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)

“The 27 Palestinian families who lived in the small village of ‘Ein Samia, located northeast of Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank, finally made the painful decision to leave their homes of more than 40 years after months of escalating Israeli settler violence. Some of the families said they were moving west to the village al-Majeer, while others told +972 they didn’t yet know where they were going. On Tuesday, in the now depopulated village, I saw dozens of residents, most of them women, under the blazing sun, destroying their houses with their own hands…A man who was cutting through his roof with a saw looked at me and yelled: “Why are you taking pictures? What will that photo do to help us? Photographers have come and taken many photos in the last few years. They document how the military destroys our homes, how the settlers attack us, but no matter how much we scream and beg for help, the world sees it all but does nothing to stop it. The situation is only getting worse. Now we’ve decided to destroy our homes ourselves and to leave. Now the settlers will take the land, just like they wanted.”” See additional news on settler violence and expansion, including Israeli Settlers Allowed to Live in West Bank Firing Zone After Palestinians Were Evacuated (Haaretz, about Firing Zone 918 in Masafer Yatta); At least 10 Palestinians wounded by Israeli settlers attack near Nablus, Jenin (New Arab)

“Israeli settlers attacked on Wednesday the Palestinian village of Burqa, located northeast of Nablus, for the fourth time in a week, damaging a car and a house, and then setting fire to a hill containing Burqa’s cemetery, east of the village. During the attack, Israeli forces accompanied the settlers and shot three Palestinians with rubber bullets. Forty other Palestinian residents were treated for tear gas asphyxiation, which was released by the Israeli army to dispute the resident’s attempts to confront the settlers, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. Attacks by Israeli settlers is on the rise since their return to the illegal outpost of Homesh, which sits on the top of the eastern hill of Burqa, and was evacuated in 2005. Earlier this weeks, settlers returning to the illegal outpost built a Jewish religious school.” See also Yeshiva in West Bank outpost of Homesh relocated illegally with Israeli gov’t approval (New Arab); Israeli settlers quietly relocate Homesh yeshiva illegal outpost with Gallant approval (Al Monitor); Opinion | Israel Is on a Mission to Supersize Its West Bank Settlements (Hagit Ofran//Haaretz); Opinion | Unmasking Israel’s Deceptive Tactics Regarding Homesh (Noa Landau//Haaretz); Israel moves to re-establish illegal settlement of Homesh (Middle East Eye)

“Israeli military operations have long been a fixture of life here, but they once happened mostly at night, and usually ended in apprehensions. This year, under the most right-wing government in Israeli history, a growing number of incursions have been carried out during the day, in densely packed urban areas such as Jenin. As of May 15, 108 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including militants and civilians, had been killed by Israeli forces, according to the United Nations, more than double last year’s toll from the same period. At least 19 were children — including Omar, who was fatally shot during the raid in Jenin. The Washington Post synchronized 15 videos and reviewed dozens more from March 16, including CCTV footage from surrounding businesses, some of which took nearly a month to surface. The Post also spoke to nine witnesses and obtained testimonies from four others to produce a 3D reconstruction of the raid. The analysis yielded three key findings:

• Israeli forces killed Omar. Israeli authorities have not publicly commented on his death.
• Omar was among at least 16 civilians in the area as the officers charged down the street with AR-style rifles and a handgun, firing more than 20 shots and killing the two militants, neither of whom was visibly armed. Israeli authorities referred to the militants as “armed suspects” in an initial statement but provided no evidence to support their claim.
• One of the militants was shot multiple times by Israeli forces after he was incapacitated — an apparent extrajudicial execution that experts said could violate Israeli law.”

“Israel says that it conducts “precision strikes” aimed at taking out armed groups’ commanders or operation sites, and that it does not target civilians. But the airstrikes are often conducted in heavily populated areas, and many Palestinians in Gaza say they amount to a collective punishment aimed at making them fearful about who their neighbors might be.”

“Israeli authorities’ systematic denial of fair trial rights to Palestinian children detained by Israeli forces from the occupied West Bank and prosecuted in Israeli military courts constitutes arbitrary detention, Defense for Children International – Palestine said in a report released today. The report, “Arbitrary by Default: Palestinian children in the Israeli military court system,” details and examines the systemic denial of fair trial rights inherent in Israeli forces’ practice of arrest, detention, interrogation, and prosecution of Palestinian children in the Israeli military courts…DCIP collected affidavits from 766 West Bank Palestinian children detained by Israeli forces between 2016 and 2022 that show three-quarters of them endured some form of physical violence following arrest and 97 percent had no parent present during interrogation, and two thirds were not properly informed of their rights. All were subject to Israeli military law that denies basic and fundamental fair trial protections and guarantees and prosecuted in Israel’s military court system which is not independent or impartial.”

“Big Tech’s Multinational Corporations (MNCs) work to bolster the Israeli occupation economy through the provision of infrastructure, technology, knowledge, and products to both civil and military institutions. Who Profits’ new Dynamic Report centralizes profiles of the Tech MNCs facilitating Israel’s violations of human rights of occupied Palestinian and Syrian communities.”

“A Palestinian child, aged two, was shot in the head by Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, sources said, adding that the child’s father was also shot in the arm. The incident took place in Nabi Saleh, a prominent Palestinian village in Ramallah province.” See also Israeli shot dead near illegal settlement in occupied West Bank (Al Jazeera: “An affiliate of the Fatah-linked al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades said it had carried out the attack to avenge Palestinians killed by Israel.”)

“The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) has blamed Israel for the killing of five of its members in a blast in eastern Lebanon, near the Syrian border…However, unnamed Israeli sources told news agencies that Israel was not involved in the attack. No official comment came from Israel, nor from the Lebanese army or the Iran-backed Hezbollah group.” See also Mysterious Lebanon blast kills Palestinian fighters, Israel denies involvement (Al Monitor);

“Israeli-Arab politicians and activists have been demonstrating continuously since Monday in Jerusalem against the continued increase in violence and crime within the Israeli-Arab society, calling on the Benjamin Netanyahu government and law-enforcement authorities to adopt more efficient policies to curb the danger…The spike in violence is largely attributed to crime, gang-related and domestically motivated activity in the community but it is not sparing innocent bystanders. According to Haaretz, 83 Israeli Arabs have been murdered in the country since the beginning of the year. In comparison, 111 Israeli Arabs were killed in all of 2022 and 128 in 2021. Out of the 70 murder cases registered by the end of April, police resolved only six of them. Out of the 111 murder cases registered in 2022, only 25 cases were resolved.” See also Man Killed in Northern Israel Marks the 85th Homicide in the Arab Community This Year (Haaretz)

“Palestinian families from Tantura village near Haifa, where Israeli forces carried out a massacre in 1948, have asked Israeli authorities to demarcate areas believed to be mass graves, and allow them to visit. The request was made this week by Adalah, the Haifa-based legal centre, citing new evidence uncovered by a year-and-a-half-long Forensic Architecture (FA) investigation of mass graves at the present-day beach resort, some 30km south of Haifa.” See also Executions and Mass Graves in Tantura 23 May 1948 (Forensic Architecture)

“On Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s orders, Israel has informed several European countries who sharply criticized a proposed law targeting foreign government funding for Israeli NGOs that the law will be tabled and thoroughly reexamined…Earlier this week, several European countries added their voices to American criticism of a proposal to restrict the ability of Israeli human rights organizations to accept donations from foreign governments. The proposal drew sharp criticism from the Biden administration…” See also Scoop: U.S. ambassador to Israel sent Bibi letter urging him to suspend NGO bill (Axios); With NGO assault, Israel drops its fig leaf (Orly Noy//+972)

“The Israeli Foreign Ministry will boycott a conference in Jerusalem next week that will focus on the growing wave of attacks by Jewish Israelis against Christians in Jerusalem, according to the organizers and Israeli Foreign Ministry officials. Why it matters: It’s a highly unusual decision. Israel’s Foreign Ministry is the main government agency tasked with strengthening relations with the Christian world and Israel’s ties with the different churches…Last Sunday, dozens of Israeli ultranationalist religious activists, including Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Aryeh King, demonstrated against a Christian prayer event for pilgrims near the Western Wall. Many of those who attended the event were evangelicals who prayed for Israel. Ultranationalist activists spat at the pilgrims, cursed them and some pushed them. According to the Haaretz newspaper, King said at the demonstration that Christians should have freedom of worship only inside churches…The Israeli government has largely remained silent on the attacks.”

“Still, a close read shows that, on a few key debates, the Biden administration has incorporated the advice and perspectives of progressive Jewish groups—and rejected the more conservative organizations’ agenda. While the administration acknowledged that IHRA is the “most prominent” definition of antisemitism, it did not fulfill the Jewish establishment’s request that the government adopt IHRA as the sole acceptable definition and encourage its use in policy; instead, the Biden plan nodded to the fact that multiple definitions of antisemitism have been proposed. The plan also emphasized the idea, common in progressive Jewish advocacy circles, that antisemitism frequently occurs alongside other manifestations of hatred—including racism, Islamophobia, and anti-LGBTQ sentiment—and is best fought in coalition. Despite these nods to progressives, the majority of the plan’s policy planks simply reiterate the federal government’s existing approaches to fighting antisemitic violence—many of which involve security programming run by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI, agencies that left-wing activists have criticized for targeting marginalized groups. Still, the plan signals that progressive Jewish groups in the US have succeeded in making antisemitism policy contested territory, rather than the sole purview of legacy organizations like the ADL.”

“Here in New York, the elected student commencement speaker at the City University of New York School of Law is facing death threats after she criticized the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians during her speech. Fatima Mohammed, who is Yemeni American, addressed the CUNY Law School’s graduating class in early May after being elected to speak by her classmates…Fatima Mohammed also spoke out against white supremacy and the New York Police Department. Mohammed has since faced a torrent of criticism from the New York Post and other right-wing media outlets and Republican politicians, as well as some Democrats, including Congressmember Ritchie Torres and New York City Mayor Eric Adams. On Tuesday, more than two weeks after Mohammed spoke, the CUNY Board of Trustees and the chancellor responded to the criticism by declaring Mohammed’s remarks to be a form of “hate speech.” However, Mohammed has received public support from the Jewish Law Students Association at CUNY and other groups.” See also CUNY chancellor denounces anti-Israel law school graduation speech as ‘hate speech’ (NY Jewish Week); ‘Unhinged’: US politicians accused of bullying student over pro-Palestine speech (Middle East Eye); Statement from the CUNY School of Law Jewish Law Students Association; Press Release from NY Congressman Mike Lawler: “Congressman Lawler introduced legislation to rescind federal funding for colleges that promote anti-semitism on their campuses. This comes on the heels of a virulently anti-Semitic CUNY Law School graduation speech, the latest in a long string of anti-semitic incidents on CUNY campuses.”

“On May 17th, New York State Democratic Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani introduced legislation that would prevent US charities registered in the state from sending funds to Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. The “Not on our dime!: Ending New York funding of Israeli settler violence” act, which has the backing of a number of progressive groups, would give the attorney general the authority to stop groups that fund settlements from registering as charities and deny them tax-exempt status. If an existing charity already funds settlements, the attorney general would have the power to dissolve it and sue for at least $1 million in damages. Private individuals impacted by settlement-funding groups—such as Palestinians being displaced by an organization funded by a New York charity—would also be able to sue for damages and seek a court order to shut them down…The “Not on our dime” bill builds on—and puts legal weight behind—Democrats’ continued opposition to settlements. But New York Democrats have vocally opposed it…For Mamdani, progressive lawmakers’ opposition to the bill isn’t a surprise. “I’ve grown up seeing politicians that I’ve admired time and again draw an exception when it comes to Palestine,” he told Jewish Currents…“When you have a piece of legislation that threatens to upend the way New York politics works, it will take a long time to win that legislation,” he said. “But the only way you get to the finish line is if you actually start.””

“”I expect to be able to view the report wherever you want in a classified setting by Friday. I will otherwise use whatever powers I have here in ways that I’ve never done before,” [Senator Chris Van Hollen, D-MD] warned Barbara Leaf, the US State Department assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs…Van Hollen has been leading efforts in the US to hold the killers of Abu Akleh responsible. In addition to sending letters to the Biden administration calling for an independent probe into the shooting, he has drafted amendments to legislation that would require the Biden administration to provide further information on her death.”

“Grappling with a far-right government and growing awareness of the Nakba, American Jews revealed mixed feelings marking Israel’s independence.”

“Viewed in light of its role in cementing a deadly status quo, the Iron Dome cannot meaningfully be considered “life-saving” in any value system that recognizes Palestinian life alongside Israeli life. Palestine advocates ought to oppose its funding not just because they oppose military aid for Israel in general, but on the specific grounds that by depriving Palestinians of even the most limited means of military deterrence, the US has given Israel a blank check to massacre Gazans whenever it is politically convenient. Especially in the absence of political will from the Israelis to end the devastating siege and blockade, Palestinians, desperate for life, have shown that they will continue to fight back. By funding a system that guarantees their acts of resistance are of almost no consequence to their oppressors, we are consigning them to death.”

Responses from Michael Oren; Martin Indyk; Dahlia Scheindlin; Asad Ghanem; Robert Satloff; Michael Barnett, Nathan J. Brown, Marc Lynch, and Shibley Telhami in response to Israel’s One-State Reality by Michael Barnett, Nathan Brown, Marc Lynch, and Shibley Telhami

“From terror threat to peace hopes, Israeli views of the Palestinian flag have undergone many shifts over the decades. Now, attempts to outlaw it are back.”