“A rapid rise in coronavirus infections in the Gaza Strip has reached a “catastrophic stage”, with the blockaded Palestinian enclave’s medical system likely to collapse soon, health officials warn. COVID is spreading exponentially in Gaza – one of the most crowded places on Earth – especially in refugee camps, and the health ministry has warned of “disastrous” implications.”

Also See

• “Gaza warns hospitals reaching Covid-19 breaking point” (Middle East Eye)
• “Gaza’s health system days from being overwhelmed by COVID-19” (Jerusalem Post)

“Israel carried out air strikes in the Gaza Strip on Sunday morning after rockets from the blockaded territory hit an Israeli factory overnight. The Israeli military said it struck military sites belonging to Hamas, the Palestinian group that controls Gaza and is held responsible by Israel for all rocket fire, regardless of which group fired. Witnesses told Reuters the pre-dawn strikes hit targets in Gaza City, Rafah and Khan Younis.”

“Last month, the Israeli magistrate court of Jerusalem ruled to evict 12 of the 24 Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah. The Jaouni, Iskafi, al-Qasim families, and mine are slated for eviction on Saturday; the others, by August. The court also ruled that each family must pay 70,000 shekels (over $20,000) in fees to cover the settlers’ legal expenses. Not only are they arrogating our property; we’re also expected to pay them to do so. We were given 30 days to file an appeal.

The likelihood that our appeal will change the outcome is extremely low. Israeli land-grabbing has been rubber-coated with legislation, making it almost impossible to challenge. Even so, the battle over Sheikh Jarrah is not legal in its essence—it’s political. It is part of the larger systematic effort to Israelize the entirety of Jerusalem.

My family and our neighbors understand this. We know from firsthand experience that the Israeli judicial system is created by and for those who benefit endlessly from Israel’s settler-colonial regime. The Israeli courts have continually prevented us from presenting documents demonstrating ownership of our homes and land, which date back to the 1950s—decades earlier than the claims made by settler organizations.”

“Both incidents, like many that occur daily throughout the West Bank, are part of an established, intolerable reality that has long since become routine for Palestinians. It is a reality of violence, danger and fear, in which settlers and soldiers join forces to attack Palestinians and their property. The settlers and soldiers are not alone: they are backed by the Israeli law enforcement system, which ensures they will not be held accountable and allows such attacks to continue virtually unimpeded, in order to help the state further its unlawful goals.”

“It is fairly certain that the District Committee will rush to deposit the plan in the coming weeks before US President-elect Joe Biden takes office in January 2021. The period for submission of objections will be 60 days from the day of the plan’s deposit, which will likely extend into the first few weeks of Biden’s presidency. The plan’s approval for deposit follows close on the heels of the opening of the Givat Hamatos tender for 1257 housing units last week. The rapid advancement of this plan is indicative of the Israeli government’s intent to accelerate as many settlement construction projects as possible in East Jerusalem and its vicinity in the waning days of the Trump administration. Along with Givat Hamatos, construction in Har Homa E will serve as another step in linking the existing Har Homa and Gilo neighborhoods/ settlements to create an Israeli sealing-off effect along the southern perimeter of East Jerusalem. This will fracture Bethlehem and the southern West Bank from East Jerusalem, while isolating the Palestinian neighborhood of Beit Safafa and depleting all land reserves for further development of the neighborhood. If carried out, these measures will  constitute a major obstacle towards the future establishment of a contiguous independent Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem.”

“Following protests by local residents, the Jerusalem municipality promised to restore a street-corner library it had dismantled after it was lightly vandalized in the Palestinian neighborhood of Beit Safafa. About a month ago, when unknown vandals damaged one of the reading areas in the western part of Railway Park, the city responded swiftly. Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Leon visited the site together with police officers. The city spent 200,000 shekels ($60,000) to repair the damage and security cameras were installed there. This past weekend a book exchange in the park was vandalized once again, but this time in the part of the park located in the  neighborhood of Beit Safafa. The damage was relatively minor – a sign and an acrylic board were broken. But instead of repairing it, the municipality, which said it posed a safety hazard, decided to remove the facility, and did so the very same day.”

“The checkpoints are an intentional, armed operation whose direct result is shortening the active, creative lives of the Palestinians by, say, half an hour or an hour every day. The stolen time is invisible. It is impossible to touch and it does not bleed. The lost time is not that of Jews in a traffic jam, so the stopping of life is not “news.” Even more so when it is a routine activity, the very opposite of new. After all, aside from blood, the press loves “exceptions” and anything that is out of the ordinary.”

“Dozens of climate justice and human rights activists blocked the entrance to an Israeli quarry in the occupied West Bank Sunday morning to protest a plan to build a new industrial zone in the area. According to the protesters, the expansion plan of the HeidelbergCement Quarry, which will also include the building of a new Israeli cemetery, will destroy the ecological corridor of the center of the country and deepen the annexation of the West Bank…The plan to expand the HeidelbergCement Quarry and build an industrial zone would connect the Israeli settlements of Elkana and Oranit (located to the east of the quarry) with the Israeli city of Rosh HaAyin (to the west of the quarry and inside of the Green Line), thus creating territorial contiguity between Israel and the West Bank. The existing quarry — which is owned and operated by Hanson, an Israeli subsidiary of the German HeidelbergCement company, the second largest producer of cement in the world — is built on land belonging to the Palestinian villages of Deir Balut and al-Zawiya, which was expropriated by the Israeli army in the 1980s. Because the quarry is located on the “Israeli” side of the separation fence, across from an IDF checkpoint on Route 5, Palestinian activists from the West Bank were unable to take part in the protest.”

“Two Saudi government advisers confirmed the trip by the Israeli leader to Saudi Arabia on Sunday night to the US paper. One of the sources said the meeting, which lasted several hours, focused on Iran and the establishment of diplomatic ties between Riyadh and Jerusalem, but did not yield substantial agreements. Israel’s Education Minister Yoav Gallant also confirmed the trip, calling it “an amazing achievement.”…The meeting was also attended by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency chief Yossi Cohen, an Israeli official told Hebrew-language media.”

Also See

• “Israeli Reports Say Netanyahu Met Saudi Crown Prince, but Saudis Deny It” (New York Times)
• “Not-so-secret meeting with Saudis a major step, but don’t say normalization yet” (The Times of Israel)
• “Netanyahu travels to Saudi Arabia, meets Pompeo and bin Salman” (i24 News)
• “Netanyahu Secretly Flew to Saudi Arabia, Met MBS and Pompeo, Israeli Sources Say” (Haaretz)

“Israel sent a first delegation to Sudan on Monday after the countries announced a US-brokered agreement on Oct. 23 to take steps towards establishing ties, Israel’s Army Radio reported. Israeli and Sudanese officials had no immediate comment.”

Also See

• “Israel said to send first official delegation to Sudan” (The Times of Israel)
• “Israel sends first delegation to Sudan” (Arutz Sheva)

“Arab Israeli lawmakers on Monday condemned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reported trip to Saudi Arabia where he met with its crown prince, alleging that it could spark a regional war in the final days of the Trump administration…A trip by the Israeli leader to Saudi Arabia would mark a watershed moment in shifting Gulf ties with Israel, which have been bolstered in recent months at the urging of the Trump administration. Netanyahu in May 2019 made a secret visit to Oman, another Gulf country with which Israel does not have diplomatic ties. Covert ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia are believed to have been growing in recent years. The shift in policy has reportedly been led by the crown prince, who sees Israel as a strategic partner in the fight against Iranian influence in the region.”

“Israeli officials were quoted in Hebrew media saying that neither Gantz nor Ashkenazi, who had been kept in the dark about efforts to establish ties with the UAE and Bahrain, were given advance notice of Netanyahu’s trip to Saudi Arabia. Spokespeople for both Gantz and Ashkenazi said they had no comment on the trip or on the reports that the Blue and White leaders had not been informed. However, this would not be the first time the two were kept out of the loop on government activities within their purview regarding contacts with Arab states.”

“In fact, several Israeli Arabs have decided to ride the momentum of the agreement. They have started flying to the Emirates, a destination that up to now had been closed to those with an Israeli passport. Some of them fly for business, others for pleasure.”

“Israeli leaders have welcomed the U.S. decision to lift parole restrictions on convicted spy Jonathan Pollard, and reports that he is likely to move to Israel. Pollard, a former civilian U.S. Navy analyst, was released in 2015 after serving a 30-year prison sentence for spying for Israel. Under the terms of his parole, Pollard was not allowed to leave the U.S. until 2020 unless he received presidential permission to do so. The restrictions ended on Friday and were not extended.”

Also See

• “Imprisoned spy Jonathan Pollard flying to Israel after US parole ends” (Middle East Eye)

“The U.S. decision to allow Jonathan J. Pollard, the American convicted of spying for Israel in the 1980s, to complete his parole on Friday freed him to move to Israel and ended one of the most rancorous and long-running disputes between the two allies. It also capped what has been an extraordinary four-year stretch in the two countries’ relationship, during which President Trump’s treatment of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been nothing short of lavish.”

“Rabbi Aryeh Lightstone, a senior adviser to David Friedman, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, will head the Abraham Fund, sources told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The fund is an outgrowth of the recent normalization agreements between Israel and two Gulf Arab nations. One of its first projects will be to modernize the checkpoints that West Bank Palestinians must traverse, which the agency claims will ease their travel. Congressional Democrats are raising the alarm about Lightstone’s appointment, saying it represents another example of Trump “burrowing” political appointees into sensitive career positions before he leaves office. In this case, they say, the appointment attaches the United States to Israel’s settlement enterprise, which is antithetical to the policies of President-elect Joe Biden. Unlike political appointments, which new presidents always replace, placing someone in a career role like the one to which Lightstone is being named requires a more onerous process.”

“Of all the steps he could weigh, this one sounds dramatic, but would really just be the final stamp on a policy that is already almost in place…The US and Israeli pledge to suspend annexation would not necessarily be applicable to east Jerusalem because Israel already annexed it in the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War, when it captured that territory from Jordan. The Israeli government then formalized its sovereignty over that section of the city with a Knesset vote in 1980 to apply Israeli law there. In addition, the Trump administration has been so strong on its Jerusalem policy, that there are those who contend that the administration has already made that leap, and that a statement to that effect would simply underscore existing US policy.”

“Even before Trump’s arrival, U.S. policy toward Jerusalem, settlements, and other core issues of the conflict had already been severely eroded by previous U.S. administrations. Simply reinstating an ambiguous or ambivalent status quo ante is unlikely to be enough to salvage a two-state solution. To effectively counteract Trump’s embrace of Israeli maximalism, Biden will need to be as explicit in reaffirming international norms, including the illegality of Israeli settlements, and the legitimacy of Palestinian political aspirations and rights as the Trump administration has been in eviscerating them. This could entail a political cost for Biden, as many members of his own political party are on board with aspects of Trump policy, such as the conflating of Israeli settlements with Israel and criminalizing boycotts of Israel.”

“The visit, on which he was accompanied by his wife Susan, was defined as partly private in order not to run afoul of whatever remains of State Department protocol. It’s one of the oldest exercises in the diplomatic textbook; to try to distinguish between the “private” and the “official” on such a visit is impossible, particularly in light of his constant companions, U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and an enormous entourage of Israeli security forces…The Netanyahu government and the settlers have been working for years to blur the boundaries between Israel and the settlements. One important tactic is to argue that a boycott of settlement goods is tantamount to a boycott of Israel and is thus an attempt to delegitimize the state and is therefore antisemitic. This argument was advanced by the Strategic Affairs Ministry under Gilad Erdan, currently Israel’s ambassador to the United States and to the United Nations.”

“Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced Sunday that he would form a government committee to investigate the irregular purchase process of submarines and corvettes, an affair that has already resulted in indictments against several close associates of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as high-ranking military officials, but not the premier himself. The so-called submarine affair, also known as Case 3000, revolves around allegations of a massive bribery scheme in the multi-billion-shekel state purchase of the naval vessels from German shipbuilder Thyssenkrupp…Gantz’s move to set up the government commission of inquiry, which will operate under the auspices of the Defense Ministry, could inflame tensions with Netanyahu and imperil the already dysfunctional unity government.”

Also See

• “Netanyahu-Gantz Partnership on Brink of Collapse Over Corruption Probe” (Haaretz)
• “Gantz decides to probe Submarine Affair” (Ynet)

“In practice, Gantz’s Kahol Lavan today is split into three separate factions in the Knesset, which barely have any ideological connection with each other. The big question now is what Gantz wants. As usual, he is finding it difficult to make political decisions, and is putting things off, looking for a compromise and dragging things out. The threat of dissolution of the Knesset at the end of October has passed and left no impression on anyone. The new target date for such an ultimatum is in December, but here too it is not clear what the threat is. No alternative coalition exists, and Gantz knows it. He has even stopped warning that he will form a different one. It is also unclear what the point is of threatening to dismantle the parliament and calling for a new election – if in any case the Knesset will dissolve automatically on December 23 if a state budget is not approved by then. People close to Gantz swore on Sunday that this time he is serious: He will continue taking steps against Netanyahu – for example, by creating the panel of inquiry – and will advance legislation to prevent Netanyahu from continuing to serve as prime minister if he does not cave in over approving the budget.”

“The officials told The Jerusalem Post that the Palestinian Authority has prepared a list of demands that will be presented to Biden after he is sworn in on January 20. The list includes a request to reopen the PLO diplomatic mission in Washington, rescinding Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, resuming financial aid to the PA and the UN Relief and Work Agency and reopening the US consulate in east Jerusalem. In addition, the officials said, the Palestinians will also demand the Biden administration cancel the recent decision that allows US citizens born in Jerusalem to list Israel as their place of birth, as well as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s announcement allowing for settlement products to be labeled as “Made in Israel.””

“As Crisis Group analyst Tareq Baconi predicted, the PA’s relief over Joe Biden’s election win had “reignite[d] its misplaced faith in the U.S. to deliver statehood,” compelling it to return to the Oslo arrangements in order to curry favor with the new administration. That “outward-facing gesture,” Baconi noted, would likely come at the expense of efforts to unite the divided Palestinian factions — who were meeting in Cairo for further reconciliation talks that very same day.”

“Whether Palestinian leaders have been in hibernation during Trump’s four-year term or just in the last six months, Palestinians are back in action and they are now eyeing the international peace conference that Abbas called for to take place early in 2021 as the vehicle for this renewed diplomacy. In the meantime, however, Palestinians are also hopeful that the new Biden-Harris administration will respect one of the last decisions of the Obama-Biden administration to allow the unanimous support of UN Security Council Resolution 2334 that called settlements illegal and ordered the immediate suspension of any further settlement activities.”

“Strong democratic institutions, which protect free speech (including speech with which one fundamentally disagrees), are necessary preconditions for effective efforts against hatred, including anti-Semitism. By declaring BDS and anti-Zionism anti-Semitic, our democratic institutions are made weaker. We should all be scared when government declares certain speech as out of bounds.”