“Israel’s Arab-dominated Joint List party moved on Sunday to back the center-left bloc of Benny Gantz, who is challenging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing alliance, to form a new government.”

“According to the sources, the Joint List will demand the freezing of home demolitions in Arab villages, the establishment of a team to look into the issue of unrecognized villages, progress with a government resolution to stem violence in Arab society, the nixing of the Nation-State Law and the launching of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. The List is also demanding the cancellation of a law that cracks down on illegal construction.”

“So the endorsement is a big deal. It doesn’t mean that the Joint List will be part of any government Gantz will lead, if he ultimately succeeds in forming a coalition. There is no prospect of that. And as Joint List Chairman Ayman Odeh said Sunday afternoon, their main objective here is ending the Netanyahu era. The racism that Netanyahu has legitimized since his poisonous ‘the Arabs are going to the polls in droves’ video on Election Day 2015 is finally being answered. The future is another matter.”

“According to all-but-final election results, Liberman holds the key to forming the next government following a political deadlock between Likud and Blue and White. Liberman has vowed to push for a ‘liberal, nationalist, broad’ unity government made up of the two largest parties. Liberman also said during the campaign that he would back the larger party, and not lean automatically toward his longtime coalition partner Likud. But on Sunday, his party refrained from backing Gantz, citing the Joint List’s support for the Blue and White leader. ‘The Joint List are our enemies,’ said Liberman. ‘Wherever they are, we will be on the other side’.”

Joint List Chair Ayman Odeh writes, “The Israeli government has done everything in its power to reject those of us who are Arab Palestinian citizens, but our influence has only grown. We will be the cornerstone of democracy. Arab Palestinian citizens cannot change the course of Israel alone, but change is impossible without us. I have argued earlier that if the center-left parties of Israel believe that Arab Palestinian citizens have a place in this country, they must accept that we have a place in its politics.”

“While the impact of Netanyahu’s ouster and possible indictment remain to be seen, Palestinians can expect no positive change to their situation. We will remain the losers of Israel’s elections, for no matter who gets to form the next Israeli government, there is no sign of any change when it comes to Israel’s position vis a vis the Palestinian people. Because Netanyahu wasn’t our problem; he was just the symptom of a larger disease.”

“Israel’s national electric company says it has begun reducing power supplies to Palestinian areas of the occupied West Bank due to a financial dispute. The Israel Electric Co. said Sunday that it took the step because the Jerusalem District Electricity Co., the Palestinians’ main power distributor, has debts of roughly $485 million.”

“The report emphasizes that the most significant assistance comes from the government itself, which sends a clear message to the settlers: ‘You may establish facts on the ground illegally, and we will expunge your crimes.’ Most of the time, the Israeli authorities remain passive and simply refuse to enforce the law, thereby turning a blind eye to the everyday acts of official bodies.”

“Halabi, an engineer by training, is married with five children and his family is well-known in Gaza. He was named by the United Nations in 2014 a ‘humanitarian hero.’ Hanna said that the allegations regarding the diversion of funds simply do not add up.”

“Melhem said that due to the intransigence of the Israeli side with regard to both the electricity price and the issue of discrimination against Palestinian consumers, negotiations that were taking place between the two parties have failed. This dealt a blow to attempts aimed at reaching a balanced agreement on the purchase of electricity. In the event of any electricity shortage in the Israeli company, the electricity supply to the Palestinian areas would be reduced instead of the supply to the Israeli areas, and this is deemed discrimination.”

Karam Omar writes, “While the PA has attempted to put a social security system in place in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) for decades, its efforts have come up against various forms of opposition. Most recently, civil society, the private sector, and laborers protested against the PA’s 2016 social security law so vociferously and successfully that in June of 2019 a presidential decree halted the law’s implementation. Why did Palestinians, including Palestinian workers, fight against a right that other workers around the world have historically fought for? This commentary addresses this query through an examination of the neoliberal nature of the social security system proposed as well as the PA’s mismanagement of public funds and the current fiscal crisis. It concludes with thoughts on what a social security law beneficial to the Palestinian people would look like, and the steps needed to achieve it. “

“The outgoing US envoy to the Middle East, Jason Greenblatt, on Friday penned an op-ed marking his resignation from the position expressing his regrets about stalled peace efforts and his hopes for future progress. Greenblatt, who met on Friday in Jerusalem with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is one of the architects of the Trump administration’s long-awaited Middle East peace plan, which has yet to be unveiled, has raised widespread skepticism, and has already been dismissed by the Palestinians.”

“In a rare instance of federal intervention in college course content, the department asserted that the universities’ Middle East program violated the standards of a federal program that awards funding to international studies and foreign language programs. The inquiry was part of a far-reaching investigation into the program by the department, which under Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, has become increasingly aggressive in going after perceived anti-Israel bias in higher education.”

“The U.S. Education Department told Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to revise its federally funded Middle East Studies program because of an alleged pro-Islam bias. The assistant secretary for postsecondary education, Robert King, wrote in a letter to university officials last week that programs run by the Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies appeared to be misaligned with the $235,000 federal grant it had received, The New York Times reported Thursday.”

“It has become increasingly clear that the delay is in part because certain states are bringing extensive political pressure to bear, not just to put off the database’s release, but to stop it being made public at all. In other words, some powerful states in the UN are lobbying the High Commissioner to simply ignore the mandate she has been given by the Council, or to interpret the mandate in a way that strains all credibility: either by not mentioning companies’ names or not releasing the database at all.”

“A number of activists have petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to oblige the state ‘to disclose the identity of foreign law firms hired to fight BDS activists and groups in Europe’. Israeli citizens Sahar Vardi, Rachel Giora, Ofer Neiman and Kobi Snitz began their legal action in November 2017, represented by lawyer Eitay Mack, seeking disclosure on the matter as support for the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign grows worldwide.

“the NDAA conference will deal with both the NDAA and FY20 Intelligence Authorizations (the latter being part of the Senate version of S. 1790). As previously noted in the Round-Up, this means that when Senate conferees look to reconcile their respective texts, the Oorah Act will be among the provisions that have already been adopted in both chambers.”