“Israeli soldiers have arrested the prominent Palestinian lawmaker and activist Khalida Jarrar at her house in the Albera area of Ramallah, along with the writer and journalist Ali Jaradat. Jarrar, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), had been released in February from Israel’s Damon prison after 20 months in administrative detention without charges. Jarrar’s daughter Suha told Middle East Eye that 12 military vehicles surrounded their house at 3am on Thursday morning, Israeli forces then banged the doors of the property and about 20 armed soldiers raided the house.”

“For many years, Israel has been taking advantage of its power as occupier to transfer the treatment of waste (including hazardous waste) and sewage from its sovereign territory to the West Bank. To that end, it has created a situation in which environmental legislation in the West Bank is much laxer than inside Israel, conveniently overlooking the long-term impact of environmental hazards on the Palestinian population and on natural resources, and neglecting to prepare future rehabilitation plans. This has created a financial incentive to transfer the treatment of environmental hazards from Israel to the West Bank. The Palestinians who live in the occupied territory are the ones to pay the price for this environmental damage, even though they were never asked their opinion on the matter and although, as a population under occupation, they have no political power and no real ability to resist.”

“On November 12, the Court of Justice of the European Union is set to issue its final decision on a case that began when an Israeli winery in the West Bank and a pro-Israel advocacy group appealed a French court’s decision that determined that wines produced by Israeli settlers may not be labeled as ‘Made in Israel’. The EU court is widely expected to rule that settlement goods must indicate that they were produced in Israeli settlements, as opposed to in sovereign Israel.”

“A cancer hospital in occupied East Jerusalem is running out of funds and medication. The Palestinian government is urgently trying to save the facility, but the administration is facing a severe financial crisis after deep cuts in aid from Israel and the United States.”

“It is tempting to denude the actors in the ongoing sordid cat-and-mouse game between the state of Israel and the weakest segments of the Palestinian native population such as Arab al-Naim and al-Araqib and to consider them in the abstract in the absence of any mitigating evil intentions or benignity. Equally, we can abstract the attitudes and acts of the tightly knit settler colonial system of the state of Israel and of its various supporting and constituent supra-national agencies such as the Jewish Agency, the Israel Land Authority, the water utility Mekorot, …  etc., into a neutral set of bodies unencumbered by the trappings of my conspiracy theories. In such an abstracted set of circumstances, even if absurdly unreal, it becomes easy to understand what has happened. In the Zionist movement’s attempt to modernize the space the West had granted it, it had to get rid of thorny native plants even if some of them were quite fragrant or colorful. Israel covets their space and the resources they survive on. But they refuse to disappear. “

“The spike in tensions comes days after the 25th anniversary of the signing of the 1994 Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty, which neither side commemorated officially, an indication of the testy state of diplomatic relations between Israel and its Arab neighbor to the east.”

“Supreme Court Chief Justice Esther Hayut on Wednesday warned against ‘unprecedented’ efforts to politicize Israel’s judicial system, pushing back against Justice Minister Amir Ohana’s blistering criticism of the state prosecution and judiciary.”

“In addition to Blue and White ruling out joining a Netanyahu-led government over the premier’s legal woes, another obstacle in coalition talks has been Likud’s insistence on negotiating jointly with its religious allies, who agreed after the September 17 elections to only enter a government together. Members of the so-called right-wing bloc, which includes Likud, two ultra-Orthodox parties and a pair of national-religious factions, told the Kan public broadcaster on Wednesday that Israel was on its way to third elections.”

“Right-wing nationalists in Israel fully recognize how valuable it is to direct the education of the next generation of Israelis – from explicit curricula to more stealthy and coercive forms of indoctrination. It is an attempt to capture the hearts and minds of future voters, and to mold Israeli politics and society in their image. It is not too late to demand an end to this form of coercive education. We should be loud and clear: Patriotism, peoplehood and pride – yes. Religiosity, xenophobia and extreme nationalism – no, not for us, and not for our children.”

“Until recently, this was considered a fringe idea within the Democratic Party. Democratic presidents who had tough political fights with Israeli prime ministers over the occupation and settlements had still supported and even expanded military aid to Israel. Despite his grave disagreements with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Obama signed off on the largest-ever package of U.S. security aid to Israel, ensuring $3.8 billion annually to support Israel’s security needs over 10 years.”

Peter Beinart writes, “What this year’s J Street conference made clear is that when it comes to Israel, there are now two Democratic Parties. There is a faction, powered by young and progressive activists, which sees Netanyahu as Trump, AIPAC as the NRA, and the occupation as a moral obscenity subsidized by American money. And there is a faction, led by politicians with deep roots in Washington and close ties to the American Jewish establishment, who are still giving the same Israel speeches they gave before J Street was born.”

Mitchell Plitnick writes, “There is good reason that activists want to find a way to pressure Israel through the president. Turning Congress around on this point is a massive undertaking, one which is likely to take many years of arduous work building public support for a different U.S. role in Israel and Palestine. That’s not a very encouraging prospect, nor is it a road marked by a great deal of past success….Such a change would represent a fundamental shift in U.S. foreign policy. That’s why the task is so monumental. But this is the only way to use U.S. aid to leverage Israeli behavior, as well as that of the many other countries that spend large sums on U.S. weaponry. It is a very worthwhile project for supporters of Palestinian rights to put some energy towards. But it’s not the panacea that some believe it to be. Indeed, if we are ever to see a U.S. government that is truly willing to enforce human rights norms in its weapons sales, we are likely to see one that is already pulling back sharply on those sales, and is already using its other diplomatic tools to press for justice. In other words, it is useful to bring the idea of using aid to leverage Israel into recognizing Palestinian rights not because that alone will force Israel to change but because it is a component of building the public support, and, crucially, the policy debate that moves U.S. foreign policy from its focus on coercion and warfare to achieve its ends. That’s how we work toward a policy of leading by promoting universal human rights through international law.”

“Fatah seems determined to hold elections for many reasons. Chief among these is fulfilling the president’s Sept. 26 announcement about them at the UN. ‘We believe the elections can put an end to [internal Palestinian] division,” Fatah spokesman Osama al-Qawasmi told Al-Monitor. ‘We want presidential and legislative elections in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.’ Abbas says Israel and Hamas have obstructed previous attempts to hold elections. Although Israel has yet to issue an official position on Palestinian elections in East Jerusalem, such elections are unlikely, as US President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. For its part, Hamas agrees to hold elections in Gaza provided they include the PLO National Council elections.”