Welcome to FMEP’s Weekly Settlement Report, covering everything you need to know about Israeli settlement activity this week.

1. Israeli AG Declines Involvement in Sheikh Jarrah Dispossession Cases, Clearing Way for Supreme Court Ruling
2. Pending Silwan Dispossession Cases Continue
3. Israeli Supreme Court Hears Landmark Case on West Bank Land Appropriation for Settlement
4. Extremists “March of Flags” in Jerusalem Rescheduled for June 15th
5. IDF Issues Evacuation Notice Against Outpost, Causing Political Stir
6. Bonus Reads

“A 15-year-old Palestinian was killed in clashes with the Israeli army near Nablus in the West Bank, the Palestinian Red Crescent said on Friday. The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed the death of Muhammad Said Hamail, adding that six other Palestinians were wounded by Israeli live fire and were taken to a Nablus hospital. The clashes erupted as Palestinians were protesting the establishment of the new unauthorized outpost of Evyatar near Nablus. Two weeks ago, a relative of Hamail was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers during clashes that erupted also while protesting against the outpost. The outpost, built on the site of an army base on land owned by the Palestinian villages of Beita, Qabalan and Yatma, was established in response to the shooting attack at the junction at the beginning of May, in which a yeshiva student, Yehuda Guetta, was murdered. A dispute over the outpost erupted this week between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz after Netanyahu demanded that Gantz delay the evacuation of the outpost.” See also “Occupation army kills a Palestinian boy in Beita” (WAFA)

“Israeli police attacked Palestinians praying outside the Old City’s Damascus Gate in East Jerusalem with batons late Thursday.  The Palestinian Red Crescent said 10 people were injured, with one of them taken to a hospital and the others treated by medical teams at the scene. Earlier in the day, far-right Israeli lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir, known for being a close ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, wanted to make a public statement in front of the Damascus Gate, which exacerbated tensions. Palestinians who protested against Ben-Gvir were attacked by Israeli police with stun grenades. Some Palestinians, including children, were arrested.” 

“Five Palestinians today were injured by Israeli military live fire as Israeli forces quelled an anti-settlement rally in Beita town, south of the West Bank city of Nablus, according to WAFA correspondent. He said that Israeli forces cracked down on a rally called for to protest the construction of a new colonial settlement atop Jabal Sbeih (Sbeih Mountain), near the town, hitting at least five participants with live ammunition and causing dozens others to suffocate from tear gas.” See also “Occupation forces injure 8 Palestinians in Beit Dajan” (WAFA)

“Israeli police on Thursday used stun grenades to disperse a crowd of several hundred Palestinians who gathered near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City to protest against far-right lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir. The Kahanist lawmaker from Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party had arrived at the Old City to challenge a decision by Israeli authorities preventing him from marching through the Muslim Quarter and visiting the Temple Mount. The protesters waved flags and chanted slogans against Ben-Gvir. After several protesters hoisted Palestinian flags, police threw stun grenades at them.”

“The Justice Ministry has submitted legislation that would let the Shin Bet security service hold arrested Israelis at its facilities in the West Bank, in a move lawmakers say would apply to Arab suspects….The bill would allow Israelis suspected of terrorism or other security-related offenses to be interrogated at this facility on two conditions – if the public security minister authorizes it, and if the commander of the Israel Defense Forces in the West Bank officially declares it a lockup facility. Specifically, the bill says, an arrested Israeli can be held anyplace in the West Bank that the commander has formally declared either a prison or a lockup, “as long as the site has also been declared a lockup facility.”

In an opinion submitted to Deputy Attorney General Raz Nizri in February, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel argued that the bill has two legal problems. First, it said, interrogating suspects from Israel in a facility outside Israel’s official borders is unconstitutional. In practice, this happens even now, since East Jerusalem Palestinians – who are permanent residents but not citizens of Israel – are often taken to lockups in the West Bank. But now, “this practice will receive legal authorization, and use of it will likely expand significantly.” Second, the NGO said, it’s problematic for the Knesset to pass legislation regarding the West Bank at all, since it isn’t officially part of Israel. The IDF is formally the sovereign power there, so usually, rules affecting the West Bank are promulgated as military orders. However, the Knesset has passed laws relating to the West Bank before, as long as they don’t directly affect the Palestinians living there.”

“The march planned for Tuesday will proceed down Sultan Suleiman road before arriving at the Damascus Gate, a flashpoint of tensions between Palestinians and police in recent months. An Israeli flag dance will be held at the plaza in front of the Gate. The marchers, however, will not enter the Old City through the Damascus Gate and the gate will be closed off.” See also “U.S. warns Israel ‘far-right provocations’ could light up Jerusalem” (Ynet)

“In recent weeks, Othman Ibn Affan, the main thoroughfare in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, has begun to resemble Hebron’s infamous segregated Shuhada Street. Israeli police forces have established militarized checkpoints, are patrolling the area 24/7, forbidding the entry of Palestinians who do not live in the neighborhood, and allowing complete freedom of movement for settlers and right-wing activists….The “Hebronization” of Sheikh Jarrah is further apparent in the intensive police activity over recent weeks. Officers have dispersed dozens of Palestinians — most of them young people who came to sing, eat, and hang out in the neighborhood — with stun grenades, water cannons, and mass arrests. They also regularly raid the homes in the neighborhood, looking for people who don’t live in the area yet have managed to enter….The police have also declared a war on cultural events and Palestinian symbols in the neighborhood. For years, the police have confiscated and arrested activists who hold Palestinian flags — even though doing so is entirely legal. Last month, the police used a ladder to take down balloons with the colors of the Palestinian flag.”

“Bil’in displayed solidarity with the Gaza Strip from the first day of last month’s Operation Guardian of the Walls, against Hamas. The IDF, for its part, apparently decided that under cover of war, its forces could abort any political demonstration by Palestinians using all means – including live fire. With all eyes turned to Ashkelon and the Strip during the fighting, no one took an interest in the killing of demonstrators in the West Bank. That was especially blatant on the May 14, a black Friday, when soldiers killed 12 protesters in different places in the West Bank, and on May 18 in Bil’in.”

“Nearly 120 Palestinian families face the destruction of their homes to make way for an Israeli religious theme park where the Israelis believe King David had a garden in biblical times. About 1,500 people living in more than 100 buildings in the al-Bustan area of Silwan in occupied East Jerusalem are under threat.”

“Three Palestinians, including two members of the Palestinian Authority’s security service, were shot dead in an exchange with Israeli special forces in the early hours of Thursday in the northern West Bank. The Times of Israel, citing Palestinian news outlets, reported the Israeli border police’s counterterrorism unit, known as Yamam, was pursuing two terror suspects near the PA’s military intelligence headquarters in the city of Jenin. “Likely not realizing that this was an Israeli raid,” the newspaper reports two nearby Palestinian officers shot at the undercover Israeli forces, who then returned fire.”

“Coalition agreements between the eight parties that have joined forces to replace the outgoing coalition headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were completed and signed Friday, paving the way for the 61-strong coalition to be sworn in on Sunday, ending Netanyahu’s 12-year term in office. Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid inked coalition agreements with the Ra’am and Yisrael Beytenu parties on Friday morning. Hours later, Yesh Atid signed and released agreements with the Labor, Blue and White, New Hope and Yamina parties, with Yamina the last to formally announce a deal had been finalized. fThe signing of the agreements came after Yesh Atid finalized a coalition deal with Meretz the day before….A joint statement from Yesh Atid and Yamina said all the agreements had been submitted to the Knesset Secretariat.” Also see “EXPLAINER: What will change under Israel’s new government?” (AP) and “Sunday Knesset session to swear in new coalition, oust Netanyahu: How it unfolds”

“On the verge of being replaced after 12 years in power, Netanyahu has been working to delegitimize the incoming government and accusing its leaders of perpetrating “the fraud of the century.” But Likud tweeted on Thursday that Netanyahu wasn’t challenging the vote count and was committed to a peaceful transition.”

“On Sunday, Netanyahu told a Likud faction meeting, “We are witnesses to the greatest election fraud in the history of the country and in my opinion, the history of democracies.”…Likud’s Thursday statement said: “When Prime Minister Netanyahu speaks about ‘election fraud,’ he isn’t referring to the vote-counting process in Israel, in which he has complete confidence.”… However, Likud stood by Netanyahu’s characterization of “election fraud” to describe the formation of the unity government replacing him, saying it accurately depicted Bennett’s breaking of pre-election promises not to form a government with Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid and the Islamist Ra’am party.“Bennett hijacked votes from the right and shifted them to the left in direct contradiction to his pledges,” Likud said. “If this isn’t fraud we don’t know what is.””

Also see

• Netanyahu’s incitement is an invitation to murder – opinion (Jerusalem Post//Ehud Olmert)
• Israel’s Netanyahu lashes out as end of his era draws near (AP News) 
• Netanyahu associates: He knows he can’t prevent ‘change government’ taking power (ToI)
• Analysis | Israel’s Political Makeover Is Finally Here, but Netanyahu Is Not Letting Go Yet (Haaretz)

“At first glance, Bennett and Lapid appear complete opposites. Bennett is a committed religious Zionist who holds a distinct right-wing ideology. Lapid is a fervently secular bourgeois Tel Aviv liberal, a classic political centrist. Bennett was a fighter in the vaunted, elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit that has spawned three Israeli prime ministers over the years and in the elite Maglan reconnaissance unit. Lapid, on the other hand, enjoyed a comfortable military service as a correspondent for the army’s Bamahane newspaper. Bennett is a frenetic high-tech entrepreneur, known for thinking outside the box and being perhaps overly hasty. Lapid is calmer, more calculated, less prone to adventures. Despite their different characters, the chemistry between the two men is sound. Both are Israeli-born, relatively young (Lapid is seven years older), ideologically different but with a similar scale of values. They speak the same language and like each other quite a lot. This is the axis along which the Bennett-Lapid government will rise or fall. If these two are skillful at preserving their mutual trust, they could surprise us. But they are not on their own. Their coalition will be the strangest, most diverse and problematic in Israeli political history, made up of right-wing ideologues (Gideon Saar, Bennett and Liberman), classic centrists (Gantz and Lapid), ideological leftists (Labor’s Merav Michaeli and Meretz’s Nitzan Horowitz) and for the first time in Israeli history, Arabs (the Ra’am party led by Mansour Abbas). Capitalists will sit side by side with socialists, conservatives with liberals, secular Israelis with religious ones, Muslims with Jews. On paper, the survival odds of such a mix in the political minefield of Israeli politics are virtually nil. In fact, everything and anything could happen.”

“This is what Michaeli is best at: presenting a humane, positive, and intelligent face for the Israeli left. Even if the undergirding facts suggest otherwise, it feels like she could be a sane savior.”

“For decades, dozens of Bedouin villages in the Negev, including Khasham Zana, where the al-Athamen family lives, have been in limbo. Without the state’s recognition of their communities, they have long suffered from a lack of planning and basic services like running water, sewers, electricity, trash collection and paved roads. But the emerging Israeli coalition government that is expected to be sworn in on Sunday intends to take significant strides to address the plight of these villages, according to Raam, an Arab party that said it agreed to join the coalition on a number of conditions, including that more benefits are provided to the Bedouin. The new government will recognize Khasham Zana and two other villages in the Negev in the first 45 days of its term, Raam said in a statement, and it will prepare a plan to deal with other unrecognized villages in the area within its first nine months in power….Some right-wing members of the prospective government, which is made up of a diverse set of political parties, have suggested they would not accept efforts to recognize many villages in the Negev. That raises questions about whether the new government will be able to muster enough support to make such moves. “We will not abandon the Negev. Period,” Nir Orbach, a member of the hard-right Yamina party, tweeted last week.”

“If this is Netanyahu’s denouement, he will leave as the longest-tenured prime minister in history, despite never having achieved the stature within the country of many of his predecessors. Yet despite his relatively low popularity while in office, Netanyahu did more to shape the political landscape of Israel than anyone other than David Ben-Gurion. He leaves behind an Israel that is significantly more right-wing than the one he inherited, with a political alignment that will bear his mark for years to come. He leaves the Palestinians in even worse conditions than the desperate ones he found them in, although perhaps so desperate that the unity that has eluded them for years may now be on the horizon.”

“Israel has closed a case that involved at least 10 Israeli officers who were filmed beating Palestinian inmates, according to an Israeli media report, in what has been described as one of the most violent incidents against prisoners in an Israeli jail. Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Friday that only four officers were questioned and none was arrested after the incident on March 24, 2019, at Wing 3 of Ketziot Prison, where dozens of Hamas members were being held. Footage showed about 55 Palestinian prisoners bent over on the floor and restrained, as Israeli officers punched, kicked and beat them with batons. The prisoners were ordered not to speak nor move for hours.”

“An Israeli army platoon commander and a soldier will be removed from their posts for firing at three uninvolved Palestinians during the latest round of fighting in Gaza, the military said Friday….“The firing was carried out in violation of regulations and professional instructions,” and as a result, the commander who gave the order and the soldier who carried it out will be dismissed from the IDF and the commander will be reprimanded,” the army’s statement said. “At the same time, the army’s internal investigations unit has launched a probe into the incident and its findings will be transferred to the military prosecution,” according to the statement.”

“In just the past month, Palestinian citizens of Israel — also known as Israeli Arabs — have risen up in mass, nationwide demonstrations to protest Israeli evictions and police raids. They have been arrested by the hundreds following some of the worst communal violence between Arabs and Jews in Israel’s post-independence history. And one of their main political parties — an Islamist one, no less — has become the linchpin in a likely new Israeli government that would allow a far-right religious Zionist to become prime minister in the coming days. For a community that is often overlooked despite numbering nearly 2 million people — or about 20 percent of the Israeli population — these are momentous days indeed….“Israel has tried through different tools to de-Palestinize and to Israelize and to split the identity,” said Areej Sabbagh-Khoury, who teaches sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “But we are all part of one community. We are all Palestinians.””

“While the European Union, Egypt, the United States and the United Nations are all hoping to strengthen Mahmoud Abbas’ rule by involving the Palestinian Authority (once again) in the reconstruction of Gaza, some 3,000 Palestinians have signed a petition calling for Abbas to resign from his triple position as head of the Fatah movement, head of the PLO and Palestinian Authority chairman. If the number of signatories seems insignificant, it should be remembered that in every relevant poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in recent years, about 60 percent of respondents said Abbas should resign. This fact is buried in the Palestinian media, or doesn’t appear at all. But the petition, which has been widely circulated on social media, caused a big commotion last week. The uproar may have died down a bit, but the demand for Abbas’ resignation or removal has become part of the public debate, as one of the signers told Haaretz.”

“A spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has condemned the Israeli attack on the town of Jenin in the occupied West Bank in which two Palestinian military intelligence officers and a Palestinian ex-prisoner were killed. “The [Israeli] occupation practices and continuous violations of the Palestinian people rights as well as violations of international law will create tension and a dangerous escalation,” said Nabil Abu-Rudeineh. He called on the US and the international community to put pressure on Israel to stop its aggression “so that matters do not reach an uncontrollable stage.””

“Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is the reason why reconciliation talks scheduled for this weekend in Cairo have been postponed “indefinitely”, Rai Al-Youm newspaper reported. According to the paper, Egypt decided to postpone the meeting followed a series of incidents which led them to believe that the talks were destined to “fail”.”

“Palestinians throughout historic Palestine are boycotting Israeli products as part of a weeklong campaign to support local businesses….The initiative, which seeks to boost the Palestinian economy, has also seen support for women-owned businesses and faltering markets as part of an imagining of what a liberated future should be.”

“Israel has reportedly asked Egypt to prevent the entry to Gaza of cement and other building materials that could be diverted by Palestinian terror groups for military use.”

“Israel must speed up reconstruction of the Gaza Strip if it wants the cease-fire to continue, a senior figure from the Hamas movement said early Friday. In a statement on the Al-Aqsa TV channel, Khalil al-Hayya, deputy head of the Hamas Political Bureau, said the organization rejects threats related to the reconstruction of Gaza and would not make political compromises. Warning that Israel will face dire consequences unless it reigns in Jewish settlers in Jerusalem and at al-Aqsa Mosque, al-Hayya said the cease-fire is in a fragile state and resolving such problems is crucial to strengthening it.”

“Egypt is banking on a $500-million Gaza reconstruction project to shore up its influence in the Middle East, capitalising on clout it garnered by brokering a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas….The aid package is in the form of construction undertaken by Egyptian firms – a playbook that Sisi has used to great effect domestically since taking power in 2014.”

“The outgoing chief of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service has offered the closest acknowledgment yet his country was behind recent attacks targeting Iran’s nuclear program and a military scientist….It also gave a clear warning to other scientists in Iran’s nuclear program that they too could become targets for assassination even as diplomats in Vienna try to negotiate terms to try to salvage its atomic accord with world powers.”

Also see

• Ex-Mossad chief signals Israel behind Iran nuclear attacks (The New Arab)
• Israel spy on Iran nuclear scientists: ‘We offer them a way out’ (Al Jazeera)
• In stunning, revelatory interview, ex-Mossad chief warns Iran, defends Netanyahu (ToI)

“Divestment from one of Israel’s major banks is gathering pace in Scotland as Israel’s status as an apartheid state becomes harder to dispute. As Yvonne Ridley reported this week, Lothian Pension Fund’s divestment makes it the third such local authority institution to divest from Bank Hapoalim. Falkirk Pension Fund divested in 2018 in response to pressures from activists and trade unions; in early 2019 Tayside Pension Fund followed suit. Bank Hapoalim is one of nine Israeli banks listed in the UN’s database of companies helping to develop, expand or maintain settlements and their activities by providing loans for housing and the development of businesses. The long awaited database containing the names of companies complicit in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise was released last year.”

“Pro-palestinian activists have scaled and occupied the roof of factory in northern England which they say is involved in a supply chain linked to Israeli drone manufacturer Elbit Systems….Palestine Action says it will continue to target Elbit-linked locations until the company ceases its UK operation, in keeping with organisation’s stated aim of ending what it says is British complicity in Israel’s alleged war crimes against Palestinians.”

“Last week activists successfully stopped an Israeli cargo ship from offloading in Oakland. The Volans is a container ship operated by the Haifa-based Zim Integrated Shipping Services Ltd (ZIM), a company which has been a target of the BDS movement for years. The effort was led by Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC). Mondoweiss spoke with AROC executive director Lara Kiswani about the protest, ZIM, and how BDS is growing within the labor movement.”

“On Monday, I asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken about ongoing International Criminal Court investigations,” Omar said Thursday afternoon. “To be clear: the conversation was about accountability for specific incidents regarding those ICC cases, not a moral comparison between Hamas and the Taliban and the U.S. and Israel. I was in no way equating terrorist organizations with democratic countries with well-established judicial systems.”…An hour or so after the Jewish Democrats released their formal request, following a long meeting in which the propriety of doing so was debated, Omar tweeted that threats against her had intensified because of the controversy. She said the request for clarification — which she fulfilled 12 hours later — was itself bigoted. She was also furious that did not first reach out to her. “It’s shameful for colleagues who call me when they need my support to now put out a statement asking for ‘clarification’ and not just call,” she said. “The islamophobic tropes in this statement are offensive. The constant harassment & silencing from the signers of this letter is unbearable.””

See also 

• Rep. Ilhan Omar clarifies tweet grouping U.S., Israel with Hamas, Taliban after criticism from Jewish Democratic lawmakers (Washington Post)
• Dem leaders look to deescalate Omar drama (Politico)
• Amid fallout, Omar walks back comments equating Israel, U.S. with Hamas, Taliban (Jewish Insider)
• A question from Ilhan Omar sparks furore in US Congress (Al Jazeera)
• ‘Islamophobic tropes’: Ilhan Omar defiant amid renewed bipartisan attacks (Middle East Eye)

“Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., asked a question of the secretary of state this week about international law and justice. Since then, she has been the subject of bad faith scorn from her fellow Democrats and threatened with pariah status by Republicans. Let me say this up front and in no uncertain terms: Ilhan Omar was right. Any headline you see that says otherwise — that her comments this week were antisemitic or promoted hate toward Israel, that she sympathized with or gave cover to terrorists — is accepting a bad faith attack as a truth.”

“The prospective prime ministers both have friends in high places on both sides of the political aisle in D.C., and will be endeavoring to make Israel a bipartisan issue once more.”

“After a decades-long embrace that began when he first served as Israel’s prime minister in the 1990s, Benjamin Netanyahu’s evangelical allies are worried about a future without him. Jews who value the Christian alliance are worried, too, about a possible erosion of support among a critical pro-Israel sector should Netanyahu be forced from office, which now seems a strong possibility….Sarah Posner, a journalist who has written extensively on evangelicals, said that Netanyahu’s departure would not diminish Christian Zionist fervor. In fact, she said, evangelicals might be energized to stop the Biden administration from pressuring the Israeli government, especially one less inclined to confront the United States than Netanyahu was.”

“Former US President Donald Trump would have “unconditionally” supported Israel in its latest onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said. “We, in the previous administration, would have done it differently. We would immediately clarify our support for Israel without reservation,” Pompeo said in an interview with Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth.”

“There is nothing new about fighting antisemitism and anti-Israel rhetoric online, an effort that has attracted funding in recent years from wealthy Jewish donors as well as the Israeli government. Israel and its military have a robust social media operation. Any number of groups dedicated to fighting antisemitism — from establishment organizations like the ADL to pro-Israel activist groups such as StandWithUs to an account called @StopAntisemites — call out what they view as hatred of Jews. Now a few of the young Zionists, like Flayton, are trying to expand their work beyond skirmishes on Twitter and Instagram. Several are co-founders of two nascent groups — the New Zionist Congress and Jewish on Campus, both started in the past year and in the process of registering as nonprofits….For now, both groups are most visible on social media — Jewish on Campus primarily through its Instagram account and the New Zionist Congress through the audio app Clubhouse, where it hosts discussions and a book club. Jewish on Campus also offers to personally help students who are facing antisemitism.”

“You may also have heard claims that this slogan [“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”]  is antisemitic or even genocidal…Since Zionists struggle to make a persuasive argument against freedom, justice, and equality for all people throughout the land, they seek instead to attack the message and messenger. When Palestinians proclaim “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, many Zionists argue that this is a Palestinian call for genocide. But as historian Maha Nassar has noted, there has never been an “official Palestinian position calling for the forced removal of Jews from Palestine.” The links between this phrase and eliminationism might be the product of “an Israeli media campaign following the 1967 war that claimed Palestinians wished to “throw Jews into the sea.” Jewish groups such as the American Jewish Committee also claim that the slogan is antisemitic because it has been taken up by militant groups such as the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Hamas. But as Nassar writes, the phrase predates these uses, and has its origins as “part of a larger call to see a secular democratic state established in all of historic Palestine.” The claim that the phrase “from the river to the sea” carries a genocidal intent relies not on the historical record, but rather on racism and Islamophobia. These Palestinians, the logic goes, cannot be trusted—even if they are calling for equality, their real intention is extermination. In order to justify unending violence against Palestinians, this logic seeks to caricature us as irrational savages hell-bent on killing Jews.”

“A required Zoom lecture at a public university in New York City devolved into a pro-Palestinian protest, as many students and at least one professor “hijacked” the planned curriculum and read out what has been described as anti-Semitic tropes about the conflict in Israel and the Gaza Strip….During the organized intervention that some say resembled a “Zoom bombing,” many of the nearly 200 participants in the class changed their backgrounds to Palestinian flags and their names to “Free Palestine: Decolonize.”…Video reviewed by Fox News showed that those involved in the protest for the next 20 minutes took turns reading a lengthy, prepared statement that affirmed, “Anti-Zionism is not equivalent to Anti-Semitism.” Professors did not intervene as protesters praised recent remarks made by U.S. Rep Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., in which she accused Israel of subjecting Palestinians to a racist, “apartheid” system.”

“Atalya Ben-Abba decided to refuse to serve in the Israeli military, due to her opposition to the occupation and Israeli policy. She tells Haaretz why there are more female than male conscientious objectors and the prices she paid for her decision.”

“As a new Israeli government takes shape, the Biden administration must rethink its messaging about Israel and the Palestinians, especially in the absence of a clear path to ending their conflict. Beyond offering humanitarian aid to Gaza and dispatching Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the Middle East to solidify the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, President Joe Biden offered two principles: that both Palestinians and Israelis “deserve equal measures of freedom, prosperity, and democracy”; and that the region must “acknowledge the right of Israel to exist as an independent Jewish state.”

What is remarkable is that commentators saw the advocacy of equal rights for Palestinians as unusual — but not Washington’s unique advocacy of Israel’s Jewishness, which has become second nature. The latter went practically unnoticed, as did the inherent contradictions in advocating for democracy and equality, on the one hand, and the Jewishness of Israel, on the other — which, by definition (and law), provides lesser rights to its non-Jewish citizens. As Americans have shifted their own attention to addressing systemic racism and inequality here at home, the deep inherent contradictions of our policy toward Israel are coming to a head.”