“July 1, the first day on which the coalition agreement allowed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to bring sovereignty to a vote, passed without any progress on that front, as was expected.”

“July 1 was by no means a deadline for the implementation of sovereignty, as many media have reported. And there is no deadline, other than the limited window of time in which Netanyahu may have to work together with a friendly U.S. president in Donald Trump. That window could potentially close if Trump loses in the November presidential elections or if Netanyahu’s coalition collapses, which is a persistent concern within Israel’s quasi-stable parliamentary system…For Netanyahu, the current intimidations are not a deterrent against the rapid implementation of sovereignty, but rather a motivating factor. Should Trump lose this fall, Jerusalem can safely bet that any administration led by Democrats may grow increasingly hostile towards Israel, whether or not it implements sovereignty over land it already controls. Israel may not have an ally in the White House as friendly as Trump for the foreseeable future. If Israel wants to guarantee immediate American backing for its implementation of sovereignty, making a move in the coming weeks is critical.”

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will continue to discuss a possible annexation of parts of the West Bank with the US administration, his office said in a statement Wednesday, the target day the premier had set to begin the contentious process. At the same time, Netanyahu convened top Israeli security brass, including National Security Adviser Meir Ben Shabbat on Wednesday, to discuss the issue, the statement said.”

“With every passing week, Netanyahu discovers he has lost another asset. His situation in the polls continues to be strong, contrary to Gantz, who continues to plummet. This gap is driving Netanyahu and his advisers crazy. People who spoke with him this week say he is at the end of his rope. The straw breaking the camel’s back, they say, is the sovereignty issue, which appears to be slipping between his fingers as he wages a last-ditch effort vis-a-vis the Americans to salvage something of the historic initiative.”

“The two rival Palestinian factions Hamas ana Fatah showed unusual unity on Thursday, along with an Arab Israeli MK, in a joint press conference aimed at attacking the planned Israeli extension of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria…The head of the Joint Arab List, MK Ayman Odeh, joined the event, triggering criticism in Israel. ‘I have arrived in this conference in order to support the intra-Palestinian reconciliation efforts. The reconciliation between the factions is necessary to fight the annexation, ending the occupation and reaching a just peace.’” Also see: Times of Israel – Right-wing parties seethe as top Arab MK Odeh attends Fatah-Hamas conference

“With the start of the month of July, when the government of Israel is supposed to begin the process of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, members of the Sovereignty Movement continue with their campaign titled: Yes to Sovereignty, no to Palestine. All over the country ,on billboards, in traffic junctions and various other locations, members of the movement are distributing flyers and signs to encourage the Prime Minister on what the movement defines as taking a strong stand for the Land of Israel.”

“The main worry in the defense and security establishment is that a ‘negative dynamic’ could be created when and if Israel declares sovereignty. Last month, the Palestinian Authority cut off all contact with Israel, while also stopping salaries to PA employees in an attempt to create ‘popular pressure’ that would lead to ‘authentic opposition’ to Israel’s sovereignty plans.”

“The Israeli government is set to formalize the appointment of outgoing Regional Cooperation Minister and previous Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan as the country’s next ambassador to the United Nations. The appointment is expected to be confirmed during Sunday’s weekly Cabinet meeting.”

“While the United States looks forward to continued discussions with Israel over its plans to apply of sovereignty to 30% of the West Bank, July 1 was never a deadline for the White House, a senior American official told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday evening. The official spoke to The Post just a day after a US delegation left Israel following rigorous talks this week with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz over the planned annexation of areas in Judea and Samaria…. ‘July 1 is not and has never been a US deadline, nor do we believe it is an Israeli deadline. We look forward to continuing the dialogue with our Israeli partners and working productively and in earnest towards implementing the president’s Vision for Peace in the Middle East,’ the official added.”

“The pro-Israel evangelical Christian community in the US is voicing criticism of the delay to Israel’s plan to announce sovereignty in the Jordan Valley and settlements in Judea and Samaria. Evangelical leader Mike Evans is pressing the Trump administration to recognize Israeli sovereignty there. Speaking to Israel Hayom, Evans says that if the Trump administration fails to recognize Israel’s sovereignty bid, the evangelical community would not be able to support him in November.”

“Laurie Cardoza-Moore, Evangelical leader and show host of the Christian television program Focus on Israel, called on US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to apply Israeli sovereignty Tuesday throughout the West Bank, which she referred to as Judea and Samaria, the terms used in reference to their biblical names. Speaking in a special video titled ‘Sovereignty Now’ produced in honor of the Israeli plans to annex portions of the West Bank, Cardoza-Moore compared the two leaders to the biblical figures of Caleb and Joshua.”

“The Palestinian ruling Fatah faction and Hamas will work together to achieve an independent Palestinian state and foil Israeli-American “conspiracies” against the Palestinians, senior Fatah official Jibril Rajoub said on Thursday. Rajoub, who was speaking during a joint teleconference press interview with senior Hamas official Saleh Arouri, said: ‘We will lead our battle together under the flag of Palestine to achieve an independent and sovereign Palestinian state on the 1967 borders and solving the issue of the refugees on the basis of international resolutions.’ The joint press conference was the first of its kind in several years between senior Fatah and Hamas officials.” Also see: Haaretz – ‘A New Phase’: Palestinian Factions Present United Front Against Israel’s Annexation Plan

“The Secretary General of the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s Executive Committee reiterated on Wednesday that it does not accept the scrapping of the Arab Peace Initiative, Quds Net News has reported. Saeb Erekat added that the PLO backs the Palestinian Authority’s rejection of Israel’s annexation plan. ‘We do not agree to turn the PA into the servant of the Israeli occupation,’ he told Al Najah Radio. Annexation, stressed Erekat, is a ‘trick tactic’ adopted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump.”

“The Palestinian Authority (PA) said on Thursday it will slash the wages of tens of thousands of its employees after its protest action against Israel’s annexation plans in the West Bank deepened a cash crisis. Its economy already battered by the coronavirus pandemic, the PA, which has limited self-rule in the West Bank under interim peace deals, last month rejected handovers of taxes that Israel collects on its behalf.”

“Tareq Baconi, a Palestinian political analyst, sees few reasons for optimism about the outcome of the annexation debacle — whether it comes to pass or not. Like many other experts, Baconi doubts the Palestinian Authority’s ability to stop annexation, and worries that even if de jure annexation does not take place, the European Union will heave a sigh of relief and go back to ignoring Israel’s ‘creeping annexation’ of the West Bank. The only good thing that can come out of the current state of affairs, says Baconi, is the transition from a Palestinian struggle for independence and a state of their own, to an anti-colonial struggle.” Also see: Tareq Baconi in the New York Review of Books – Israel’s Annexation Plan, a New Era in Palestinian Resistance

“Despite a delay in the long-anticipated declaration of an Israeli plan to annex one-third of the already illegally occupied West Bank, including parts of the strategic Jordan Valley, Palestinians decried the plan with some holding protests in Ramallah and Gaza City.”

“Thousands take part in a mass demonstration against Israel’s annexation plan in Gaza City. The protest was organized by various Palestinian factions who called for a ‘day of rage’ across the occupied territories.” Also see: Arab News – Palestinians rally as global opposition to Israeli annexation grows

“Gaza’s Hamas rulers fired a volley of rockets into the sea Wednesday in a warning to Israel not to annex part of the West Bank, sources in the Islamist organisation told AFP. The showcase launch of about 20 test rockets from the coastal Palestinian territory came as thousands of people in Gaza City answered Hamas calls for street protests. Last week the group said that should Israel go ahead with annexation, as provided for in a US peace plan, it would amount to a ‘declaration of war’ against Palestinians.”

“Israel’s annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank has been fiercely criticised by not only Palestinians but by the international community at large…The Israeli annexation was slated for July 1, but Israeli officials said the process would take place later this month in coordination with their American counterparts.”

“The Vatican, in a highly unusual move, summoned both the US and Israeli ambassadors to express the Holy See’s concern about Israel’s moves to annex parts of the occupied West Bank. A Vatican statement on Wednesday said meetings with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, and US Ambassador Callista Gingrich and Israeli Ambassador Oren David, took place on Tuesday…The statement said Parolin, the Vatican’s top diplomat, expressed ‘the concern of the Holy See regarding possible unilateral actions that may further jeopardise the search for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, as well as the delicate situation in the Middle East’.”

“There’s an old Jewish folk tale about a Jewish villager who complains to the local rabbi of the terrible overcrowding he and his family must bear in their small house. The rabbi instructs the man to go home and bring the family goat into the house, and the astonished man does as instructed. The next day he is back, complaining more vocally that the little house is more crowded than ever. The rabbi tells him to go put the family’s chickens into the house, too. Despairing, the Jewish villager again obeys. The next day, he is back to complain tearfully to the rabbi that life in the house has become insufferable. ‘Now,’ says the rabbi, ‘take the chickens back outside, and don’t forget the goat.’ The next day, the grateful villager is back with his report: ‘How spacious the house is now!’ International opposition to annexation is not without importance. East Jerusalem demonstrates well enough the significance of imposing Israeli sovereignty over a Palestinian population lacking any operative rights of citizenship. But if the international community doesn’t perceive a deafening wakeup call in Israel’s official declaration of its intention to annex parts of the West Bank, the annexation issue will become like the goat in the old folk tale.”

“What would he like to see happen, we ask. Bitter laughter. ‘Israel is a law-abiding country, no? Israel is a democracy, no? We are waiting to see. I am waiting to see the law of the State of Israel. That it is exactly the same as it would be if it were the opposite: If Eyad had been a Jew who was killed by an Arab, he would already be after his trial. We are not looking at compensation. All we want is for it not to happen to anyone else.’”

“After a legal battle that has lasted around 30 years, the Sumreen family of 18 will be evicted and forced to pay $5,800 to the Jewish National Fund, which has been deemed the legal owner of the property.” Also see: +972 Magazine – From Silwan to DC, the Jewish National Fund is enabling Israeli annexation

“Yesterday, June 30, 2020, a group of settlers entered a house in the Wadi Hilweh neighborhood of Silwan, some 300 meters south of the Old City and near the Ben Hinnom (Wadi Rababa) valley. The house was built without a permit years ago by a Palestinian family and received a demolition order from the Jerusalem Municipality. About four months ago the family living in the house left. The settlers came in yesterday after claiming to have bought the house from the family. Peace Now: ‘This new settler house in the heart of the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan is bad news for Jerusalem and bad news for Israel. The settlements in the Palestinian parts of Jerusalem makes it much harder to get to a two-state solution with two capitals in Jerusalem, and has far reaching implications on the lives of the people of those neighborhoods. The settlers in Silwan are gradually taking over big parts of the area including large areas of tourism and archaeology. They do it house by house, site by site in the effort to make Palestinian Jerusalem more ‘Jewish’ and harder for Israelis to compromise’.”

“Those who claim that annexation will bring Israel into the realm of apartheid fail to see that annexation is only a façade for what is already there. Apartheid is all around us. It is the disease, and annexation is only a symptom of it.”

“The semiautonomous Palestinian government in the Israeli-occupied West Bank does not control any airport or border. It must coordinate travel with Israel, usually via neighboring Egypt or Jordan, which closed crossings and restricted borders in March and prioritized seats on flights for their own citizens. Coronavirus-related travel restrictions have stranded people around the world. Many residents of African countries have struggled to get home, with flights to their countries still cut off. But as a Palestinian traveling on documents issued by an entity that’s not officially a state, Bader is in a predicament, as are others in similar situations, that sits at a particular nexus of international politics and the pandemic.”

“The Lod District Court on Wednesday convicted an Israeli man from a flashpoint northern West Bank settlement of inciting violence after he wrote a social media post claiming there would be no religious transgression involved in killing a police officer during the demolition of a Jewish home…the panel of judges wrote that Ariel’s statements were ‘not a mere expression of opinion but rather an argument that justifies killing a soldier…These words… cannot be interpreted in any other way except as a call to violence and the ‘real possibility’ that this call will lead to violence being carried out is clear.’”

“There is no evidence of EU funds going to Palestinian terrorist groups, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell wrote in response to calls by members of the European Parliament to ensure those funds are not misused. ‘To this day, the EU has not received any substantiated report indicating any suspicion of deviation of funds for terrorist purposes in the Palestinian territories,’ Borrell wrote. Reports by the Strategic Affairs Ministry and the research institute NGO Monitor have shown that senior members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) – designated a terrorist group by the EU, US, Canada and Israel – lead organizations funded by the EU.”