“In a recent briefing to senior IDF officers, Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi said he was issuing an alert to army commanders regarding a possible escalation in the occupied territories ahead of July. The alert was issued due to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to annex some settlements in the West Bank. At a meeting of the Likud Knesset faction on Monday, Netanyahu said he intends to apply Israeli law to settlements and the Jordan Valley as early as July 1. ‘We have a target date and we won’t change it,’ declared the prime minister.”

“In the absence of any sign that the US would change its map, the settlers have embarked on a campaign that on Monday had officials from the Prime Minister’s Office on the phone with them.’ “The question,’ said Yesha Council head Yigal Dilmoni, ‘is what map will be brought to the Knesset or the government. From what is known to us, it will be the map that was displayed in the White House [in January], perhaps with some minor changes. We are asking for changes that will enable quality of life in the settlement,’ he said.” Also See: “Settler leader launches campaign to thwart ‘poisoned’ Trump peace plan” (The Times of Israel)

“On the American side, meanwhile, frustration is mounting over the position of the Yesha Council – an umbrella organization of municipal councils of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria – which in recent days has launched a campaign to persuade right-wing ministers and MKs to oppose the Trump plan. One American official familiar with the details told Israel Hayom, ‘If the settlers don’t want what the administration currently has to offer, they shouldn’t come to us in the future. The expectation was that they see the bigger picture, remember where they were standing in December 2016 (when the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 2334 that harmed Israel and was spearheaded by the Obama administration), and that they consider where they could be standing four years from now if the Palestinians continue to reject negotiations with Israel.'”

“Several European leaders reportedly sent personal letters to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent days asking him not to push ahead with plans to unilaterally annex parts of the West Bank. ‘I ask you, in a spirit of friendship, that your new government not take unilateral action [in the West Bank]. Such a move would destabilize the Middle East,’ French President Emmanuel Macron told Netanyahu, according to a report aired Tuesday on Channel 13. ‘Only dialogue with the Palestinians and a just and balanced solution will provide Israel with peace, security and stability.'”

“Palestinian Authority official Husam Zomlot decried Democratic candidate Joe Biden on Tuesday for not taking a strong enough stance against Israel’s proposed annexation of parts of the West Bank. Zomlot, the PLO’s ambassador to the United Kingdom and a former envoy in Washington, argued that Biden’s unwillingness to threaten harsh consequences for Israel should Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu extend sovereignty to the West Bank settlements enables him to move forward with his plan.”

“Referring to the Trump Administration’s peace plan, Bennett said: ‘We are familiar with the draft map for sovereignty. It can be a disaster or it can be great. The map, as it is now, is not good for Israel, and includes a quarter of a million Palestinians. We want maximum areas with a minimum number of Arabs. If the map is good, we will support it.'”

“While some are hoping and advocating for a strong Jordanian response, others believe Jordan will not escalate the situation beyond its usual criticism and possible downgrading of diplomatic relations. The constitutional court of Jordan ruled on 12 May that international agreements are above national law, and therefore treaties such as the one from 1994 cannot be abrogated by the Jordanian parliament.”

” The bottom line of the analysis guiding this paper is that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in significant coordination with the most hard-line pro-annexationist wing of the U.S. administration, will be very much primus inter pares in making a final decision; that Netanyahu has not yet taken that decision; that his decision will be based on a range of political and personal factors, not all to do with the conflict and territorial ambitions; and that an Israeli move to exert some variation of sovereignty over parts of the West Bank, is more rather than less likely between July and November.”

“Israeli security forces arrested seven Palestinian suspects in the West Bank in predawn raids on Wednesday morning, the first such operations since the Palestinian Authority said it had frozen a vital security coordination mechanism. The overnight operation followed a five-day lull that partially coincided with the Eid al-Fitr holiday…Despite the PA’s assertions that it was no longer abiding by its agreements with Israel, no clashes were reported between Palestinian security forces and the Israeli troops, indicating that some degree of coordination between the two was ongoing. The Israel Defense Forces said troops arrested seven suspects in overnight raids. According to Palestinian media, five of them were from the Ramallah area and two from Tulkarem in the northern West Bank.”

“Defense Minister Benny Gantz on Tuesday made his first trip to southern Israel and the Gaza border area since entering his position and reportedly warned that tensions with the Palestinian enclave would remain despite a current lull. Gantz’s office said he met with both military officials and local mayors during the trip. In his meeting with local officials, Gantz warned that ‘tensions would not disappear, they will be with us for many years,’ according to the Walla news site. ‘We know who our neighbors are. We seek peace. There will be ups and downs, and we are ready for anything. We won’t be chumps if something happens in Gaza,’ he said, according to the outlet.”

“The video starts out with the message ’72 years of the Palestinian Nakba, and the Nakba continues to date,’ and presents a timeline of the Nakba. It then makes several claims about the militarization of Hebrew University, including that many soldiers attend the university; that Palestinian students are being removed from campus dorms; and that Israeli snipers are stationed on the roofs of university buildings in order to take shots at protesters in neighboring Issawiya, which has been the site of an extended campaign of police violence. The video also addresses a controversial army intelligence training program at the university that was launched last year, which grooms undergraduates for an extended stint in the IDF’s intelligence unit, and which has seen a sharp rise in the number of uniformed, armed students attending classes on campus.”

A flagrant example of an attempt to hide offensive language can be seen in the minutes of a December 1948 meeting of the ministerial committee for abandoned property. The meeting dealt with the decision to concentrate the Arab residents of Lod in certain neighborhoods, so as to make room for Jewish immigrants in the city. In this connection, the director general of the Minority Affairs Ministry, Gad Machnes, said that he “thinks it is no longer justified to hold the Arab residents in fenced concentration camps.” That comment was redacted, only recently, by the State Archives in the file holding the transcripts of the committee’s meetings. The logic is obvious: Israel’s citizens do not have the right to know their past.

“Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh on Monday said the PA would prevent widespread chaos and public disorder in the West Bank despite Ramallah’s decision to end security coordination with Israel last week over the new Israeli government’s plans to annex parts of the West Bank. ‘We are in an important battle, a battle over the Palestinian national presence in the territory and to prevent the annexation of Palestinian territory for the benefit of the settlement enterprise,’ Shtayyeh said at a press conference in Ramallah. He said the PA would continue to act as a sovereign state in the West Bank and that it sees itself as released from agreements with Israel.”

“That does not mean that Abbas’ step away from Oslo cannot be followed up by others in a cohesive strategy aimed at strengthening the position of Palestinian governance on the ground. Palestinian leadership should focus on restoring legitimacy to its officials and institutions through elections and the decentralization of power, convincing Palestinians that the pursuit of statehood is still a viable way forward, and marshaling resources and launching a forward-looking campaign to achieve that end goal. Such a strategy must also rally Palestinians and the international community in defense of a viable alternative to President Trump’s “Deal of the Century,” which in effect is being used by Netanyahu to replace Oslo. But given how weak and fragmented the Palestinian polity is, disconnected from its people and sorely lacking in popular legitimacy, it is difficult to see such a strategy coming together at the hands of this leadership. And at this late hour, with annexation at the doorstep, it must be seriously questioned whether this state-seeking agenda is still applicable or whether a new paradigm will be needed in the post-annexation future.”

“The International Criminal Court at The Hague requested the Palestinian Authority on Tuesday to provide clarification regarding Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ recent declaration that he is ending all agreements with Israel and the U.S., which may have ramifications for questions of international jurisdiction in the Palestinian territory…The court asked to know the current status of the agreements, in part because Israel’s opposition to the investigation includes the claim that the Oslo Accords established that the PA is not a state and that it therefore is not under the ICC’s jurisdiction.”

“A bill allowing ministers to give up their positions as Knesset members in order to enable a different member of their party slate to take their spot in parliament passed its preliminary Knesset plenary reading Wednesday…The law would allow any MK who is appointed to a cabinet post to resign temporarily from the Knesset, thereby permitting the next candidate on the party’s list to enter parliament in his or her stead. Under the bill’s new rules, if that minister later resigns from the cabinet, they would automatically return to the Knesset.”

“Defense Minister Benny Gantz said on Wednesday that his Blue and White party will protect the rule of law and ensure that the country retains “a strong and independent judiciary,” in what appeared to be a mild critique of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statements against the law enforcement system that put him on trial. Speaking to his Blue and White Knesset faction, Gantz also appeared to endorse some form of West Bank annexation, albeit taking a less assertive stance than Netanyahu, his partner in a power-sharing deal…In a possible response to Netanyahu’s Monday statements that he plans to push ahead with unilateral annexation of parts of the West Bank, Gantz also gave an endorsement of US President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan, while not ruling out applying sovereignty to the West Bank. ‘We are currently presented with meaningful windows of opportunity that could improve and even transform the reality in the region across all fronts, including, of course, the American government’s peace plan,’ Gantz said. He stressed that the new government will work ‘to ensure the best outcome that will fortify Israel’s security and protect our state and international interests’.”