Top news stories from Israel/Palestine: August 20, 2018

What We’re Reading

Occupation/Human rights

What About Israel’s Airport Mistreatment of Arab Americans?,

“Since the 1970s, I have logged with the State Department the complaints of hundreds of American citizens of Arab descent traveling to or within Israel and the Occupied Territories.”

UN chief proposes military force to protect Palestinians from Israel,

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday presented four options aimed at boosting the protection of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, from sending UN rights monitors and unarmed observers to deploying a military or police force under UN mandate.

For one day, the villagers of Ein Samia beat Israel's most radical settlers,

Accompanied by Israeli and international activists, the residents of the rural Palestinian community Ein Samia marched to their grazing land, located between the West Bank’s most notoriously violent settlement outposts.

Palestinians hit by reported wave of vandalism after apparent hit-and-run,

A number of apparent hate crime attacks targeted Palestinians and their property over the weekend in the northern West Bank, a rights group reported Sunday, following the death of an Israeli woman in what was initially suspected to be a car-ramming attack but is now believed to have been a hit-and-run.

Overcoming opposition to West Bank location, Ariel U inaugurates medical school,

Israeli leaders boasted of the advancement of higher education in the West Bank on Sunday, at the inaugural ceremony for Ariel University’s new medical school.

Israeli Ministry to Fund Evangelical Bible Program in West Bank Settlement,

The Education Ministry has begun to provide state funding for a Bible-based leadership training program developed by Christian evangelicals in the West Bank settlement of Ariel.

Veteran left-wing journalist and peace activist Uri Avnery dies at 94,

Avnery, who paved the way for generations of dissident Israeli journalists, was often detested by the Israeli mainstream for his fervent opposition to the occupation and in favor of peace.

US-Israeli/Palestinian relations

J Street Retracts Endorsement Of Female Muslim,

Liberal, pro-Israel group J Street took an unprecedented step on Friday when it rescinded its endorsement for a Democrat slated to become one of the first Muslim women to serve in Congress after she failed to clarify comments saying she supported a one-state solution.

Scoop: Trump said one-state solution would lead to Israeli PM named Mohammed,

President Trump told King Abdullah of Jordan that a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might lead in a few years to someone named Mohammed becoming prime minister of Israel, according to several sources briefed on the meeting.

Palestinian politics

Abbas rejection of possible Israel-Hamas truce said to create tension with Egypt,

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s rejection of an Egypt-brokered truce between Israel and Hamas to end a recent uptick in violence is creating tensions between Ramallah and Cairo, it was reported Sunday.