Israel supporters in the US are gearing up for AIPAC’s much-vaunted annual policy conference, with measures to counter the widening campaign to boycott Israel and its West Bank settlements expected to feature prominently in the powerful lobbying group’s agenda.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday night departed on a week-long trip to the United States, where he will speak before the annual convention at AIPAC and meet with US President Donald Trump at the White House, escaping — if momentarily — mounting legal troubles at home.

US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel signals the “official adoption of the Israeli narrative”, a prominent Arab Knesset member said, one week after Washington confirmed it was bringing forward to May the date the US embassy would be moved from Tel Aviv to the Holy City.

A bipartisan bill timed for AIPAC’s annual conference would codify into law the memorandum of understanding signed in 2016 by Israel and the United States guaranteeing Israel $38 billion in defense assistance over 10 years.

FMEP’s weekly round-up of Middle-East related activity on the Hill.

Every morning, before dawn, tens of thousands of Palestinian workers cross Israeli military checkpoints on their way to their workplaces, in Israeli and Palestinian cities beyond the Green Line.

Some 500 demonstrators marked 13 years of struggle against the separation barrier in the West Bank village of Bil’in on Friday. The demonstrators — Palestinians, Israelis, and international solidarity activists — marched toward the wall, where Israeli border police fired tear gas at them. Several activists suffered from tear gas inhalation, and one international activist was arrested.

Palestinian residents of East Jerusallem’s Silwan area protested on Monday over new structural damage to homes due to what they say is Israeli digging and archaeological excavations.

“The attack last month, like hundreds of others before it, was clearly directed toward one goal,” writes Amira Hass.

The Palestinian Authority has included some 20,000 Hamas employees in its 2018 budget, thus removing any obstacle hindering the implementation of the reconciliation agreement between the two factions, PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah announced on Saturday.

“On American university campuses, pro-Palestine activists are routinely smeared as anti-Semites seeking to destroy Israel. But contrary to what pro-Israel activists claim, the BDS movement has been instrumental in challenging anti-Semitism on the left,” writes Tom Pessah.