“Israel’s Supreme Court asked the state Wednesday to consider allowing Palestinians access to land belonging to them that was cleared when an illegal settler outpost was evacuated. The request came after a petition filed by the human rights group Yesh Din. Amona, an outpost northwest of Ramallah, was evacuated by court order in February 2017 because it was illegally built on privately-owned Palestinian land. Over two years later, the landowners have still not been permitted to enter the area because of a demarcation order placed on the area.”

“‘This is a serious incident, and a growing phenomenon. This year, some 200 vehicles and dozens of houses have been vandalized. Incidents in such a wide-ranging scope demand decisive action. It’s time to establish a special commission of inquiry to deal with this phenomenon. The latest incident is even worse than previous ones since it harms the most important symbols of the religion of Israel’s Arab citizens. The difference between vandalizing vehicles and physical violence is becoming smaller. It’s inconceivable that this is ongoing while law enforcement authorities fail to arrest suspects or reach any conclusions.’ On Monday, the tires of over 160 vehicles were slashed and threatening graffiti was sprayed in the Shuafat neighborhood of East Jerusalem. The phrase ‘When Jews are stabbed we will not be silent’ and a Star of David were spray painted on one wall, and graffiti reading ‘Arabs = enemies’ and ‘There’s no place in Israel for enemies’ was also found.”

“Gaza is just days away from 1 January 2020 – and the date by which the United Nations predicted that the Palestinian territory could be unlivable. The international agency came to that conclusion back in 2012 after calculating that Gaza’s infrastructure and social services would be unable to keep pace with its growing needs and population. Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on the planet. But compared to other global cities and regions, such as New York City and Hong Kong, it lags far behind when it comes to measures including unemployment, class sizes and lack of safe drinking water.”

“Members of Knesset were to vote overnight on the agreed date for snap election, which was expected to take place on March 2, 2020.”

“The court had received a petition from the Movement for Quality of Government in Israel (MQG) demanding that Netanyahu, who is also minister of agriculture, diaspora, health and welfare, step down from all his positions in light of his indictments. Israeli law stipulates that ministers facing criminal charges resign, but has no such provision for prime ministers. Following the petition, Mandelblit said that while Netanyahu could not be forced to resign as premier, the issue of his ministerial positions would be addressed later. In the Thursday submission to the court, Netanyahu’s legal team said: ‘He will cease being a minister by January 1, 2020 and appoint other ministers instead.  The prime minister will continue to be prime minister, as per the law,’ attorneys Avi Halevy and Michael Rabello said.”

Liberman told the Ynet news site that he backed ‘a deal [for the premier] to retire with dignity,’ claiming there was ‘a sense of fatigue’ with Netanyahu in the Knesset and a feeling that ‘he’s become a burden.’ He added: ‘No one wants to see him in prison, but no one wants him in politics either. And everyone is truly prepared to give him the opportunity to exit with dignity’.”

“On Sunday, December 8, the American media network CBS aired a report on its ’60 Minutes’ show, which is one of the oldest news programs in America. The topic of this program was about Rawabi, which is described as Palestine’s first planned city, one that could serve as an ‘example’ of what a Palestinian state could look like…To the average observer, the development of Rawabi sounds like a positive achievement. It implies that even under Israeli occupation, Palestinians can build and thrive economically. In other (condescending) words, Israel is not responsible for the economic stagnation of Palestine’s economy. If only Palestinians would get their act together, they would be able to improve their situation. But this is far from the truth. Rawabi, or any other Palestinian city, town, or village, for that matter, can never achieve its full potential as long as it remains under Israeli military occupation and domination.”

“Inspired by past documents such as the Movement for Black Lives platform, the ‘Freedom Is the Future’ platform, released by the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights and Adalah Justice Project, sets out a central ask: ending all U.S. economic and diplomatic support for Israel as long as it continues its denial of Palestinian rights. Alongside this are five further demands: the right of return for refugees; self-determination; freedom of movement for all Palestinians; an end to Israeli violence; and the right to organize against Israeli repression.”

“The left-leaning Jewish group J-Street said in a statement that the order ‘appears designed less to combat anti-Semitism than to have a chilling effect on free speech and to crack down on campus critics of Israel.’ J-Street adds that ‘we feel it is misguided and harmful for the White House to unilaterally declare a broad range of nonviolent campus criticism of Israel to be anti-Semitic, especially at a time when the prime driver of anti-Semitism in this country is the xenophobic, white nationalist far-right’.”

“Antisemitism—hatred, violence, intimidation or discrimination targeting Jews because of their ethnic and religious identity—is rampant and deadly. Despite the clear threat of anti-Jewish rhetoric and attacks from white supremacists, however, many Israel lobby groups have instead focused on redefining antisemitism to include criticism of Israel. The backgrounder below explains the attempts by Israel lobby groups to redefine antisemitism to include criticism of Israel and to use the redefinition as a tool to censor political debate by tarring those who support Palestinian rights as anti-Jewish.”

“’This is a baldfaced attempt to silence the movement for Palestinian rights on college campuses – something that has been at the top of the Trump administration’s agenda,’ said Palestine Legal director Dima Khalidi in a statement after news of the executive order broke, ‘We’ve already seen how defining antisemitism to include criticism of Israel serves only to violate the free speech of students and professors who stand for equality and justice for all people by challenging Israel’s apartheid policies and decades of human rights violations. Rather than providing any new protections to Jewish students against the rampant and deadly antisemitism of a resurgent white nationalism, the order described in news reports aims to define the contours of what we can say about Palestine and Israel. We won’t abide, and it will be challenged’.”

“Officials recounted Wednesday how a man and woman deliberately targeted the store a day earlier. They also believe the two dead attackers identified themselves in the past as Black Hebrew Israelites, a movement whose members have been known to rail against white people and Jews, according to a law enforcement official who was briefed on the matter but was not authorized to discuss the case publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.”

“James Zogby, head of the Arab American Institute, tells JI’s Jacob Kornbluh that the ‘issue of weaponizing antisemitism in this way is deeply troubling’ to him. ‘There is real antisemitism. It’s a real problem, and we know that language that attributes negative qualities to an entire people is racism, bigotry and, in the case of Jews, antisemitism,’ he explained. ‘But saying Israeli policy and building settlements is wrong and therefore I am going to boycott the country or people who support those settlements, that’s not antisemitism. It’s not just the silencing of free speech, I think it’s doing a grave injustice to what antisemitism really is’.”