“The committee said that 99.8% of the votes had been tallied, with the exception of those from 14 polling booths where irregular activities had been recorded on election day, which were still being investigated.”

“Rivlin will hold meetings with the parties elected to the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) following Tuesday’s election and ask them for their recommendations on who should be the next prime minister. “

Dahlia Scheindlin writes, “The next government is not yet known, and the direction and extent of change under a center-right unity government is not known. It is clear, however, that the vast majority of Israeli voters did not change their minds fundamentally about their ideology and vision for the country. The largest portion are still right wing by their own definition. A new government would be a political change, but deeper social change appears to be much further away.”

“The virtual tie in the Sept. 17 election results between the right-wing bloc and the center-left parties is not an expression of ideological differences between advocates of the greater Land of Israel and the peace camp. No one talked about the occupation during the campaign. Those in line to cast their ballots were not heard arguing for or against the government’s economic policies. Even the chilling report that surfaced days before the election about Netanyahu’s decision to launch war on Gaza without consulting the country’s top defense echelons or convening the security cabinet, a move foiled at the last minute by the attorney general, did not shock voters.”

“In the most recent election cycle, incitement against Palestinians — alongside efforts to suppress the Palestinian vote through intimidation — was the central plank in Netanyahu’s campaign. And now, even as there is evidence that his racist ploy backfired by galvanizing Palestinian voters, Netanyahu is continuing to frame his premiership as one defined by its negation of Arabs.”

Mitchell Plitnick writes, “The reason for the impasse is the same as it was back in April—Avigdor Liberman, leader of the Israel Beiteinu party. His refusal to join Netanyahu’s coalition in April, unless Netanyahu stepped down and allowed for a government of national unity, eventually led to this second round of elections, and his stance is not only unchanged, his party picked up four more Knesset seats, so his position is even stronger now. So was it all for naught? Not quite.”

Mairav Zonszein writes, “For the last 10 years, Netanyahu has epitomized the crisis in liberal Zionism, wherein Jews are expected to ‘check their liberalism at Zionism’s door,’ as Peter Beinart wrote nearly a decade ago about the American Jewish establishment. The question is, without Netanyahu to blame anymore, will U.S. Jews — and the Democratic Party so many of them support — still feel compelled to criticize Israel, take steps to hold it accountable and push to end its military control over millions of Palestinians? The election results don’t make that seem so likely.”

“Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Wednesday that Israeli officials ‘played’ President Donald Trump in their conversations with him, warning that a ‘healthy amount of skepticism’ is needed in dealings with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.”

“Ro Khanna, a rising star among progressive Democrats, wants to make a point about how to be progressive and pro-Israel, so he quotes Alan Dershowitz. Yes, that Alan Dershowitz, the Fox News habitue who has accused the Democratic Party of ‘tolerating anti-Semitism.’ ‘I don’t agree with all of Professor Dershowitz’s book,’ the California congressman said, referring to ‘The Case for Israel,’ Dershowitz’s 2003 effort to advance a liberal argument for Israel. ‘But where he makes that point about not singling out a country unfairly — you have to stand up for human rights consistently around the world’.”

“Now, do most evangelicals self-consciously harbor a desire to kill Jews? Of course not. But that’s a red herring. Most evangelicals do believe that Jews who do not convert to Christianity will go to hell, and they believe the apocalyptic Battle of Armageddon will center around Israel. They support destabilizing policies like the move of the U.S. Embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on the basis of the theological script they are following. One cannot achieve a healthy religious pluralism by pretending that robust mutual respect for religious diversity exists where it does not exist. Fostering healthy pluralism, which democracy demands, means confronting intolerance.”

“While there was a modest drop in the police presence and altercations with area residents for approximately one week, hostile police incursions by para-military forces resumed September 7 for no apparent reason, reneging on the agreement to reduce their operations. Since Thursday, September 12, paramilitary forces have been operating daily in the neighborhood and have employed severe measures, including the use of stun grenades and tear gas in confined spaces. In one incident, the police fired tear gas adjacent to Al-Issawiya’s main mosque during evening prayers, injuring dozens of Muslim worshippers praying inside.”

“In March, Palestinian President and PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas had made the decision to resort to international arbitration against Israel. A source at the Palestinian Authority (PA) Ministry of Finance who requested anonymity told Al-Monitor that at the weekly ministerial meeting on Sept. 2, the government had asked Finance Minister Shukri Bishara to prepare cases to submit to the International Court of Arbitration in The Hague. The following day, Bishara announced that the leadership would ask the court to rule on 11 commercial and financial issues involving Israel and inquire separately into amending the Paris agreement. The file is expected to be officially presented to the court at the end of September.”

“The sign above the local council building in the small Palestinian village of Atouf says ‘State of Palestine,’ but the reality on the ground tells a different story. There’s no state and no government – not even a security force to protect farmers from the violent dispossession of their land. The demolished cisterns on Mount Om Ekbesh and the whitewashing of the settlement of 175 residents north of Jericho are the real story of the Jordan Valley. They signify who is sovereign here, and the type of regime that exists under that sovereign.”

Palestinian rights groups have criticised an Israeli raid on the offices of a prisoner rights group on Thursday.  Israeli officers seized laptops, memory cards and books when they searched through the offices of Addameer at 2 am on Thursday, the group said in a statement.  ‘Addameer sees this raid as a part of ongoing and systematic attacks against the Palestinian civil society organization,’ the statement read. ‘Addameer reassures that those constant raids will not stand in the face of any duties the organization has for Palestinian political prisoners’.”

“Israeli voters returned to the polls this week for the second time in five months to elect the 120 members of the Knesset, the country’s legislative body. The outcome remains too close to call, but it looks like Benjamin Netanyahu, the country’s longest-serving Prime Minister, may be denied a majority. His likely successor is former army chief of staff Benny Gantz of the Blue and White Party. Yet missing from so much of the international conversation is the fact that five million Palestinian residents of the occupied territories remain unable to vote in elections that could determine their future. Given that Gantz, like Netanyahu, has adopted bellicose rhetoric toward Palestine in the past, can they really expect things to change? Noura Erakat, Palestinian American legal scholar and author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine, joins Mehdi Hasan to discuss whether it’s fair to describe Israel as an apartheid state.”