“This is the first conversation on the issue of annexation between the two leaders since the swearing in of the government in May. Macron also repeated France’s friendship with Israel and “unfailing commitment” to its security, the Elysee said. Netanyahu told Macron that Israel is operating according to international law. He emphasized that the peace attempts of the past have failed for 53 years and to repeat them would bring about an additional failure.”

“You’d have to turn out the lights, plug your ears and close the shutters to evade the conclusion that the Israeli regime in the West Bank is an apartheid regime and that annexation would only deepen and expand it…Not all of us Israelis are guilty of the crime of apartheid, but we are all responsible for it, and it is our duty to stop the crime being committed in our name – for our sake, for the sake of future generations, and for the sake of a future based on the fundamental Jewish idea that every human being is created in God’s image.”

“This radical shift is emblematic of a growing reckoning among Jewish-Israeli critics of what Palestinians have long diagnosed about their oppression. Although the Israeli government’s recent push toward formal annexation has bolstered global discussions about Israeli apartheid, Sfard said that the legal opinion was part of a longer process of recognizing that ‘the beast we are confronting has to be described for what it is,’ regardless of annexation.”

“Asked by the interviewer whether there was the possibility of a third intifada, Shaath replied: ‘Absolutely. We have the right to confront them [Israel] on the ground everywhere,’ according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute. He continued: ‘I will never forget that one day after [Ariel] Sharon entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and the outbreak of the [Second] Intifada, [Saudi] King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz sent his plane to me, to Amman, and I flew to Riyadh, where he pledged $1 billion to support the Intifada. The offer came from him. If this continues and if the economic siege on us continues, our brothers will stand by our side and the world will stand by our side by imposing sanctions on Israel’.”

“While some American liberal Zionists, like my colleague Peter Beinart, now recognize that, as he wrote earlier this week, ‘the traditional two-state solution no longer offers a compelling alternative to Israel’s path,’ most seem more unwilling to make a similar reappraisal. Indeed, if the past is any indication, it’s likely that most liberal Zionists will continue to choose the path of denial. For most American Zionists—liberal Zionists and those further to the right—a two-state solution has long been less a practical policy proposal than an article of faith, a constitutive political fiction that has enabled them to reconcile their seemingly contradictory commitments to both ethnonationalism and liberal democracy. It has also served a valuable strategic purpose: shielding Israel from criticism for actions that, in practice, rendered a two-state solution impossible. The vast majority of Zionist groups—even, or perhaps especially, the expressly liberal ones—will be loath to confront that contradiction, or surrender their talking points. “

“The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has proposed permanently seizing Palestinian territory by annexing swathes of the West Bank – a violation of international law. Journalist Mariam Barghouti and PIPD executive director Salem Barahmeh describe how this would formalise a system that millions of Palestinians are already enduring, while Jerusalem correspondent Oliver Holmes examines what is driving Netanyahu’s latest plans”

“Thirteen vehicles were vandalized late Wednesday night in the Palestinian village of Lubban al-Sharqiya near Nablus in the northern West Bank. Graffiti with a Star of David were spray painted on a bus. Police are investigating the incident. The head of the village council, Yakub Awis, told Haaretz that this is the third time in two years that vehicles were vandalized and tires slashed in the village. “

“Dozens of settlers clashed with security forces at the ‘Kippah Sruga’ outpost outside of the settlement of Yitzhar. Police said that the settlers had thrown objects at troops, burned tires and sprayed soldiers with pepper spray. Security forces arrived at ‘Kippah Sruga’ to enforce a closed military zone order, which banned civilian access to the area. Police said dozens of settlers had set up road blocks, including flaming tires.”

“Israeli security forces fatally shot a Palestinian civilian on Thursday, according to the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry. The ministry did not give any details about the victim, but said ‘a civilian was killed by Israeli forces’ after being shot in the neck in Kifl Haris, a village in the governorate of Salfit. The Salfit governor Abdullah Kamil, identified the victim as 29-year-old Ibrahim Mustafa Abu Yaaqoub. After being shot, Abu Yaaqoub was taken to the Salfit government hospital, where he was declared dead. The Israeli military said it responded with fire as ‘two assailants were throwing Molotov cocktails’. Kamil, however, said that Abu Yaaqoub was simply out walking with his friends when he was shot’.”

“It was about 10pm on a Thursday night and Haitham Abu Hammad was taking a nighttime stroll with his friend Ibrahim Abu Yaaqoub, 32, along the main road of their village, Kifl Haris, in the northern occupied West Bank district of Salfit. The pair had been bored at home, and thought they’d pass the time by taking a walk to their friend’s house down the road.”

“But since the Palestinian government ended all coordination with Israel in May over Israel’s annexation plans, Yaabad Electricity Authority has had to pay the IEC directly through bank transfers. ‘We have diligently kept up with all our payments, so to say that these blackouts are because of debts owed by the company is a flat out lie,’ Abu Baker said, adding that most of Yaabad’s residents and those of the surrounding areas pay their electricity bills using prepaid electricity meters…A short while after the power went out on Wednesday, Atatra received a call from an unknown number. When he answered, he was shocked to hear an Israeli intelligence officer on the other line. ‘He said he was with the Shin Bet’, the mayor said, referring to Israel’s internal security agency. ‘He was very friendly to me, saying that if I had any issues in the village, I should reach out to him instead of the Palestinian government.’ According to Atatra, he was not the only mayor in the Jenin area to receive such a phone call. ‘It was clear that he was trying to send us a message that Israel is in charge of these areas now and not the Palestinian government,’ he said. The phone call from the Shin Bet officer confirmed the mayor’s suspicions that the power cuts were not about financial debts, but about politics.”

“Israeli security forces in the West Bank on Thursday arrested two prominent Hamas operatives, the Islamist terror group said, alleging that Israel was trying to derail its nascent cooperation with fellow Palestinian Fatah movement. The relationship between Fatah, which controls the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and Islamist group Hamas, in control of the Gaza Strip, has been plagued by divisions and outright enmity for more than a decade. However the two earlier this month the two pledged unity against Israel’s plans to annex parts of the West Bank.”

“Democrats succeeded in removing language from the legislation that would have withheld the bill’s $225 million in economic assistance for the West Bank and Gaza unless the Palestinians agree to resume security cooperation and training with Israel. The Democratic amendment to remove the language passed by voice vote over Republican objections. The House Appropriations Committee proceeded to advance the full spending bill in a 29-21 party line vote…While the foreign aid spending bill is expected to easily pass the Democratic-held House, removing the restriction from the bill could become a flashpoint with the Republican-controlled Senate when the two chambers negotiate on compromise legislation. In the meantime, Democrats continue to push the Trump administration to allocate the $75 million in Palestinian economic aid that Congress appropriated in December.”

“Eight member organizations of the Progressive Israel Network, an umbrella association of 10 liberal Zionist groups, argued that the measure would ensure American assistance is directed toward Israel’s security and not a deleterious action that would harm the prospects of peace…The signatories included the liberal Middle East advocacy groups J Street, the New Israel Fund, Americans for Peace Now, the rabbinic group T’ruah, and others.”

“In a call with Arab American activists on Thursday, top Joe Biden foreign policy adviser Tony Blinken reiterated the campaign’s pro-Israel stances laid out in a series of policy proposals and statements that have angered Palestinian rights advocates…’You’ve probably heard the vice president say this. He opposes any effort to delegitimise or unfairly single out Israel, whether it’s at the United Nations or through the BDS movement,’ Blinken said on Thursday…James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute (AAI) who participated in the call on Thursday, said the caveat about respecting free speech is an important one that previous Democratic candidates did not care to underline. ‘That was the important part,” Zogby told MEE. ‘As far as I’m concerned. I don’t care if you support BDS or not. Just make sure you don’t take any steps to punish my support for BDS, so we’ve made progress.’ Blinken repeated previous pledges by the campaign on restoring aid to Palestinians, reopening the Palestinian Liberation Organisation’s office in Washington and re-engaging with international institutions that President Donald Trump had abandoned. On the call, Zogby pressed Blinken about the campaign’s stance on Israel, asking where a President Biden would change the pre-Trump status quo…Blinken struggled to answer the question, having ruled out any consequences for Israel’s actions, including imposing conditions on US aid to Israel. Zogby told MEE the fact that Arab Americans are being listened to by the Biden campaign is a sign of progress, although some activists found Blinken’s responses frustrating.”

“It’s good to undo some of the negatives, but on their watch when he was in office, settlements grew and nobody held Israel accountable,” Zogby told MEE after the call.

“‘What are you going to do now?’ I bet you nobody has asked that question [to Blinken] before. Now he’s got some thinking to do, and we’ve got more talking to do, so I felt if we had not had the call, this issue wouldn’t have come up. It did come up, and now we have an opportunity to keep talking about it.”

“However, the campaign isn’t gaining traction with the former US vice president’s camp, the sources were quoted as saying. ‘The progressives want a full-throttle platform change — a pro-Palestinian flank, an anti-annexation flank — but there just isn’t appetite in the campaign so far,’ one of them said.”

“‘If Mr Biden (is) elected in November, we hope that it will be a totally different dynamic,’ Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said last week during a virtual conference with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.”

“Palestinian West Bank residents saw the deadliest day since the start of the coronavirus pandemic on Friday, with five deaths and 331 new cases in the past 24 hours, the Palestinian Authority health ministry said…’The situation in Hebron has reached a dangerous stage. There’s absolutely no control over the virus. Things are getting really bad,’ a Palestinian health official told The Times of Israel earlier this week.”

“Health Ministry reports 16,651 active cases of COVID-19 with 124 people in serious condition, including 39 patients on ventilators; several communities placed under partial lockdowns”

“Lockdowns came into effect at 1 p.m. on Friday in neighborhoods in five towns and cities hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak, a day after cabinet ministers approved the measure as the number of new cases in Israel continued to surge. Parts of Jerusalem, Beit Shemesh, Lod, Ramle and Kiryat Malachi became “restricted zones” for seven days. The restrictions will be lifted at 8 a.m. on July 17. Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion, however, criticized the lockdown order, claiming it would cause ‘mass infections.’ ‘These people will go out and infect everyone in their neighborhood,’ he told the Kan public broadcaster. ‘The solution for the coronavirus is to isolate the carriers. I have asked to be handed the authority to evacuate the carriers to [quarantine] hotels until they recover’.”

“In practical terms, the June 28 instructions mean that some 46,000 Palestinian workers are authorized to enter Israel without a 14-day quarantine period under measures the media call “the capsule system.’’ The workers are kept in a capsule, so to speak, as they have little contact with Israelis and travel very little. Their lodgings are at the worksite or close by, and they cannot go anywhere else, not even to buy food or medications or for laundry. The Israeli employer must take care of that. Sources in the construction industry told Al-Monitor that most of these Palestinian laborers will be employed on construction sites and that the detailed outline should guarantee fair and humane working conditions.”

“Abdo Idris, head of the Hebron Chamber of Commerce, told Haaretz that the economic implications of the coronavirus have become Palestinians’ main concern: “Yes there is a health risk but what people are really thinking about is how they are going to support their families. A city like Hebron is a central anchor for trade and attracts a lot of business, including from Arabs in Israel, and it has been almost completely shut down since March.”

“Yet, even with the lowering of expectations, it turns out that this kind of cooperation is both unprecedented and significant. First and foremost, it was announced publicly. Furthermore, it involved cooperation by Israeli firms, whose main focus is on security. And finally, the very scope of this cooperation is noteworthy.”

Palestine Legal staff attorney Zoha Khalili issued the following statement on the resignation of Kenneth Marcus from the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights: ‘Over the past two years, Kenneth Marcus has not only harmed campus advocates for Palestinian rights—as we detailed in an inspector general complaint in May—but has also made it harder for survivors of sexual assault to seek justice and support and harder for colleges to promote gender and racial equity and inclusion. We are relieved that he will no longer be able to abuse the Office for Civil Rights, but we know we have a long road ahead to undo the damage that he and the rest of the administration have done.’ Marcus indicated in his resignation that he would be returning to private life. It is unclear whether Marcus will return to the Brandeis Center, a right-wing anti-Palestinian group he founded in 2012 through which he carried out his agenda of undermining Palestine advocacy on campuses, or take up another post.

“Zachor Legal Institute has asked the United States Department of Justice to investigate apparent ties between Black Lives Matter (BLM) and designated foreign terror organizations…In the ongoing riots and social unrest, BLM has regularly partnered with Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) organizations with ties to designated terrorist organizations, including Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Palestine Islamic Jihad. These terror organizations pioneered the targeting of civilian populations for mass casualty attacks and have now found a willing partner in the United States.”