“Israel’s Likud party has passed a motion in support of Benjamin Netanyahu as its sole candidate for prime minister, but only a small fraction of the party’s members turned out for the vote.”

“In theory this is a formality, and not all the members of the bloc agreed to chain themselves to Netanyahu with their signature. Ayelet Shaked and Naftali Bennett, for example, refused. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” they said. This isn’t much of a drama; they’ll sign with Netanyahu, but why play into his hands and give him this relative advantage now? Let him sweat for the 28 days in which the mandate to form a government will be in Gantz’s hands.”

“It is hard to imagine Liberman violating his oath that he would only join a unity government made up of the Likud, Blue and White, and his Yisrael Beitenu, or that he would cooperate in any way with the Joint List. Nevertheless, he is treating this like a game of poker, and he refuses to fold. On Oct. 10, he attacked Netanyahu in an interview with Channel 12 and said that Netanyahu is doing everything he can to generate a third round of elections. Referring to himself, he added, ‘I’m in no hurry to go anywhere. We are waiting for the task of forming a new government is handed over to Gantz. Only then will we really start to talk’.”

“After the conversation in Jerusalem Joint List party chief Ayman Odeh said it was ‘an important meeting, but our main demand is a government decision and a wide-ranging plan to eradicate violence and crime in Arab society… the talks will continue and the struggle will go on’.”

“Two years ago the pair decided to try to expand their mutual circle of friends in Jewish and Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem. They started a Facebook page where they proposed creating a women’s group in which Arab women would teach their Jewish counterparts Arabic and the Jewish women would teach the Arab women Hebrew. Within two days, 250 women from all over Jerusalem had signed up. Now, two years later, their numbers have swelled to about 700 registered participants. The first meeting was held on the roof of the Panoramic Golden City Café in Jerusalem’s Old City, which hosted the group without charge. Since then the group has become the largest independent Hebrew-Arabic language group in the city, but it has also become much more than that. The members speak about empowerment, breaking down barriers, getting to know the other side and mutual assistance.”

“If I were given a dollar for the number of times diplomats, journalists, activists, and policy-makers have asked me ‘Have you thought about speaking with Israelis?’ I could buy myself a chateau in Yaffa.I choose Yaffa because that question rings loudly in my head whenever I visit the city. It is where my great-grandfather was killed in 1947, and where my grandfather spent his childhood and adolescence. Like most Palestinian cities, Yaffa is de jure banned to most Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza by Israel.”

After graduating in 2017, she participated in an art workshop called the South Pioneers Project put on by the Rafah-based Future Association for Culture and Development.

“After the program ended, she received funding from the US Consulate in Jerusalem create an exhibition she named “Re Art.” ‘My biggest achievement was displaying three of my paintings for my graduation project in the exhibition “Re Art.” The first painting was called “Silence of the World” — a reference to the world’s inaction on the Palestinian issue. The second painting was called “Birth of a People” and showed that Palestinians, like plants, sprout again after they die. The third painting, “A People’s Revolution,'” depicted Palestinian women’.”

“Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas official, said his movement tries to provide allowances for each of those wounded. ‘These are our capabilities, what shall we do? Shall we stop the protests?’ he asked during a meeting with journalists earlier this month. He said complaints of lack of proper care and discontent over the protests’ usefulness ‘carry a lot of exaggeration.’ One of those critics is Ziad al-Madani, a day laborer who barely scrapes together enough money to provide milk and diapers for his three children. Wounded by a live bullet last February, the 28-year-old ended up having his right leg amputated last month. He said treatment was unavailable and Israel rejected three requests for him to travel to hospitals in the occupied West Bank for proper care.”

Josh Reubner writes, “While we’re at it, let’s add another Trump administration official, although for reasons having nothing to do with Ukraine, who also richly deserves to be impeached: US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman. Can the House of Representatives impeach an ambassador? Yes, it can. Although it has never successfully done so, there have been several efforts to impeach ambassadors and consular officials in the past and Friedman would make an excellent precedent for being the first one to be impeached.”

“Some of the deepest concerns about Marcus were voiced by activists and groups that advocate for Palestinian rights. Marcus was the founder and president of the pro-Israel Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights, an organization that aims to combat ‘the resurgent problem of anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism on university campuses.’ Marcus has lobbied to push a definition of anti-Semitism (at the federal and state level) that includes criticism of Israel. He’s also pushed for the defunding of Middle East Studies programs at universities and called on congress to pass the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, a bill that would censor pro-Palestinian voices on campuses.”