Top news stories from Israel/Palestine: August 30, 2018

What We’re Reading

US-Israeli/Palestinian relations

Rollout of Trump administration’s peace deal ‘not imminent,’ US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman says,

“I would imagine that we will roll something out. I hesitate even to put a month on it because it has shifted as we continue to listen and talk to people,” Friedman told American Jewish Congress members in a telephone briefing.

Trump turns away from the Palestinians,

“They took Jerusalem off table, now they are taking refugees off the table,” Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, told Al-Monitor.

Trump Wants to Help Israel by Cutting Aid to Palestinians. Why are Some Israelis Worried?,

“Cuts could deepen economic crisis in the West Bank and Gaza and lead to violence.”

Debra DeLee, pioneering Americans for Peace Now leader, is retiring,

Debra DeLee, one of the first and still one of the few women CEOs in the Jewish organizational world, is retiring after 21 years of leading Americans for Peace Now.

J Street-Backed Virginia Democrat Smeared By GOP Over Israel Book,

A Republican campaign flyer linking a Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives with last year’s white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia has been slammed by J Street, which backs the candidate, as one of the most “disgusting political attacks we’ve ever seen.”

Israeli politics

The joint struggle,

“Prime Minister Netanyahu fears that a joint Arab-Jewish struggle against the anti-Arab, anti-democratic Nation-State Law has the potential to make a fundamental difference if only progressive-minded Jews are willing to regard Arab citizens as equal partners, as during Oslo peace process.”

Occupation/Human rights

Six-Month Report on Demolitions and Confiscations of EU funded structures in the West Bank,

Of the structures (such as classrooms and residences) targeted over the six month reporting period, 26 structures were funded by the EU or EU Member States for a value of €60,963.

Concealing Archival Material from 1948: The case of the Riftin report,

“[Israel] goes to great lengths to withhold publication of the archival records.”

Palestinian politics

Palestinian President Abbas' Health Seriously Deteriorating, Report Says,

Palestinian officials who visited Abbas recently were surprised to learn he didn’t remember them at all, Israel’s Channel 10 reports.

Will Hamas, Israel call Qatar-brokered truce?,

“Qatar has been increasingly involved in talks between Hamas and Israel in what raises questions about its exploitation of the Gaza card in the Gulf crisis.”