“Israel is planning to build a Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem on land that would become part of the Palestinian state under U.S. President Donald Trump’s peace plan, and is currently inhabited by some 15 Palestinian families. Ten days ago, the Construction and Housing Ministry began preparing the master plan for the new neighborhood. The neighborhood will be located at the northern edge of Jerusalem on land near the former Atarot airport and will stretch up to the separation barrier, which will be the border between the new neighborhood the Palestinian Kafr Aqab neighborhood. Though Kafr Aqab is considered to be part of Jerusalem, it is on the other side of the barrier…The Trump peace plan’s chapter on Jerusalem includes a section titled ‘Special Tourist Area.’ The plan specifies that ‘The State of Israel should allow for the development by the State of Palestine of a special tourism zone in Atarot, in a specific area to be agreed upon by the parties.’…The “deal of the century’ does not discuss exactly where this special tourism zone will be located, but the planned new neighborhood spans all the remaining unbuilt space in Atarot between the industrial area and the separation barrier.”

“About a week ago, the Ministry of Housing submitted a building plan to the Jerusalem Municipality for the construction of a new 9,000-unit settlement at the site of the Atarot Airport, between the Palestinian neighborhoods of Kafr Aqab, Qalandiya and Ar-Ram in East Jerusalem. This is the first step in the plan approval process and is expected to take several years before it receives final approval. If the plan is approved and built, it will mark the establishment of a new settlement in East Jerusalem for the first time since the Netanyahu government established the Har Homa settlement in 1997…The plan is at the heart of an urban Palestinian continuum stretching from Ramallah, through the Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem Palestinian neighborhoods of Kfar Aqab and Qalandiya, to Beit Hanina and Shu’afat, home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian residents. The settlement is intended to drive a wedge and become an Israeli enclave that will prevent the Palestinian development of the central and most important metropolis in the future Palestinian state: the Jerusalem-Ramallah-Bethlehem metropolitan area. Establishing an Israeli neighborhood comprising thousands of housing units, which means tens of thousands of Israelis, will make it difficult for any future two-state arrangement for two peoples because of the lack of Palestinian continuity and the damage to the potential of Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem.”

“Two U.S. Republican House members visited historic and strategic sites in Judea and Samaria days after the creation of a special ‘deal of the century’ committee to begin mapping out Israeli application of sovereignty in the disputed region. Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), formerly head of the House Freedom Caucus, was joined by Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), a member of the Judiciary Committee and head of the Republican Study Committee, and their wives toured Israel this week on a trip organized by the Yes! Israel Project, an organization that introduces political and business leaders to places often avoided by mainstream American Jewish organizations.”

“Calling the plan a ‘flagrant violation of international law,’ Amman’s foreign ministry spokesman Daifallah al-Fayez called on the international community to ‘assume its responsibilities to resist the illegitimate and illegal Israeli steps,’ according to comments carried by the BBC. The plan involves extending the high-speed Jerusalem-Tel Aviv train line from its current terminus near Jerusalem’s Central Bus Station to a new station in the Old City via an underground tunnel. The plan would involve constructing two underground stations and excavating over two miles (three kilometers) of tunnel beneath downtown Jerusalem and under the politically and historically sensitive Old City — a project likely to raise fierce opposition by archaeologists, religious authorities and Palestinians. Jordan opposes Israeli development in Jerusalem’s Old City. The Jordanian monarchy is seen by both Israelis and Palestinians as the ‘custodian’ of the city’s Muslim holy sites, and has long opposed what it sees as Israeli encroachment through construction and infrastructure projects in and around Temple Mount , the most sacred site in Judaism and the third-holiest in Islam.”

“Israel is keen to see Abbas enfeebled, embattled and bruised, with most of the Palestinian street ignoring his calls, but at the same time wants him to carry on. From the Israeli perspective, if a decision is made to annex West Bank territories immediately after March 2 elections, it would be best to do so with Abbas in control in the hope of the move eliciting only a weak response. On the other hand, the weaker Abbas is, the nearer the battle for succession. Each wannabe successor could try to strengthen his position by encouraging sweeping, violent resistance. Any sign of weakness, as Abbas is viewed as exhibiting, would sink a candidate’s prospects.”

“Israel has decided to increase the cap for permits given to workers and merchants in Gaza to 7,000, the highest level since Hamas’ rule began in 2007, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories said Tuesday. The fishing zone off Gaza’s coast will be expanded to 15 miles and 2,000 additional exit permits will be given to merchants in the enclave on Wednesday in light of ‘the relative calm in recent days,’ according to the government. Steps easing restrictions on Gazans were announced last week after Hamas informed Israel that it planned to unilaterally halt the launching of explosive-laden balloons and rockets at Israel amid talks of a long-term truce, but they were not implemented because of rocket fire from Gaza over the weekend.” See Also: “Israel to allow hundreds more Gazans to enter for work” (Associated Press)

“Jerusalem will freeze the demolition of homes in an East Jerusalem neighborhood for six months in order to advance an urban master plan there, the municipality said Wednesday. Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Leon made the decision after holding a series of meetings with local leaders in the Palestinian neighborhood of Isawiyah over the past few weeks…For years, residents who petitioned the courts to delay the implementation of the demolition orders – claiming the master plan was being advanced – were rejected on the grounds that the municipality had not yet set a date for completing the master plan. The municipality added that the freeze on demolition orders would be in force until September 1, 2020, vowing to invest great effort to approve the master plan by then. ‘This is great news for the residents of Isawiyah,’ Leon said. ‘The plan will lead to the zoning of the land and building rights in accordance with the character of the neighborhood and the future development trends there – for the benefit of residents’…Isawiyah residents hope the plan will enable then to receive building permits retroactively for illegally constructed structures. According to the agreement between the city and the local leadership, the local leaders promised to act to calm the security situation in the neighborhood. Over the past eight months, the police have been operating intensively in Isawiyah in an enforcement campaign that residents view as collective punishment. Hundreds of residents have been arrested, dozens injured in clashes with police and routine life has been seriously disrupted. A respite from police activities has occurred over the past month and residents say they have felt that the enforcement campaign is finally coming to an end. But on Saturday, a police officer fired a foam-tipped bullet and seriously wounded 9-year-old Malek Issa, who lost his left eye and is hospitalized in with a skull fracture and other injuries. This has again increased tensions in the neighborhood, and on Tuesday night young people in Isawiyah clashed with police, who used riot control gear to disperse the disturbances.”

“The Palestinian Authority Economy Ministry said on Tuesday that it intends to send a letter to Amazon in the coming days in protest of its shipping policy to Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The statement came after the Financial Times reported on Friday that Amazon was offering free shipping to settlements in the West Bank for purchases above $49.”

“The only possibility for meaningful democracy for Palestinians is a return to a revolutionary consensus achieved through plurality and reconciliation of political groups, geographic fragments, and collectives that mobilize around a political agenda of liberation. Without romanticizing or idealizing the past, Palestinians must build on collective experiences of democratic expression and practices that go beyond the current limited framework of elections.”

Tareq Baconi writes, “The Palestinian leadership should also abandon that agreement (Oslo Accords), rather than becoming the midwife for further Israeli annexation of Palestinian territories.”

“Before sunrise, thousands of Palestinians streamed towards the mosque in Nablus’s Victory Square, swelling the usual crowds of morning worshippers to launch a new front in their protests against Israel and the United States. The scene has been repeated elsewhere in the West Bank, where people have begun turning out for early prayers in unprecedented numbers, forsaking the usual protest sites where they risk arrest and channelling their anger into a mass expressions of faith…In Nablus – where crowds surged to several thousand on Friday, from around 2,000 the week before – worshippers insisted there was no single group behind the drive, describing it as a grassroots movement still finding its feet. But the streets echoed with chants popular at Hamas rallies, including: ‘A nation with the leadership of Muhammad will not be defeated’. The event appeared to be organized – extra prayer carpets were rolled out, food and water were available in abundance and the gathering was supervised by stewards wearing fluorescent jackets proclaiming them ‘Knights of the Dawn,’ and bearing the stencilled image of the nearby al-Nasr (Victory) mosque. Hani Al-Masri, a Palestinian political analyst, said the campaign reflected Hamas’s cautious approach to operating in the West Bank, where, unlike Gaza, it faces Israeli troops and Palestinian Authority forces intent on stopping Hamas from inflaming the streets and seizing control. ‘Hamas’s organisation in the West Bank is not in good shape because of crackdowns by the Palestinian Authority and by Israel,’ he said, ‘Fajr prayers is the most that Hamas can do.'”

“’We need to wake up and change our strategy, to unite our struggle,’ says Bassem Tamimi, a veteran Palestinian activist and father of Ahed Tamimi, as he sits in his Nabi Saleh home in the occupied West Bank. Tamimi, who was born in 1967 and has only ever known military occupation, was jailed during the First Intifada and has been among the leaders of the village’s popular protests over the past decade. Now, however, he has given up on the two-state solution. ‘It’s no longer an option,’ he says….For Tamimi, Palestinians need to formulate a strategy before inviting support from outside. “Palestinians need a plan first and foremost,” he says. “When we have a plan for a nonviolent struggle, then we’ll invite you [to join us]. That is a Palestinian problem, not a Jewish one. And you need to retake your religion that has been conquered by Zionism.”

“Furthermore, the list is by no means a comprehensive one, as in the UN Human Rights Office’s own words, it ‘does not extend to wider business activity in the Occupied Palestinian Territory that may raise human rights concerns.’ This narrow focus and restrictive temporal frame (January 2018-August 2019) fail to situate the settlements as part of a broader structure of dispossession and violation of rights and disregard the cumulative adverse impact of business practices such as the quarrying of occupied resources. In so doing, the UN falls short of fulfilling its own directives on Social and Corporate Responsibility. Out of 112 listed companies, 94 are Israeli and only 18 are international. Major complicit international corporations, such as the German conglomerate HeidelbergCement, which has been operating a quarry in the West Bank for over 13 years, are omitted. As research conducted by Who Profits and other civil society organizations and campaigns shows, hundreds of corporations profit from Israel’s occupation of Palestinian and Syrian lands. Who Profits’ verified database lists over 400 companies that are involved in various occupation-related activities. The report also takes a conservative approach to the question of demolitions by stipulating that ‘equipment must be specifically supplied ‘for’ the particular activities of demolition.’ This makes it exceedingly easy for corporations to evade responsibility for the uses to which their equipment is put. During 2019 alone, Israel demolished 265 structures in East Jerusalem and 256 structures in the West Bank, in addition to demolishing 14 housing units as a punitive measure. Yet the list does not include any company for this particular activity. Despite these limitations, the list published by the UN is an important and concrete step toward ensuring that corporations are held accountable for their contribution to human rights violations.”

“When an audience member asked the question ‘How do U.S.-Israel relations look under your administration?’ Sanders responded: ‘To be for the Israeli people and to be for peace in the Middle East does not mean that we have to support right-wing, racist governments that currently exist in Israel.’ His reply drew enthusiastic applause from the audience.”