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Washington's support for a new Palestinian government backed by Israel's Islamist foe Hamas, has left the Jewish state feeling betrayed, triggering a new crisis with its closest ally. Several Israeli ministers expressed public anger on Tuesday after the US State Department said it was willing to work with the new Palestinian unity government put together by the West Bank leadership and Gaza's Hamas rulers. Technocratic in nature, the new government was sworn in on Monday in front of president Mahmud Abbas, with Washington offering its backing several hours later.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the new cabinet would be judged "by its actions.""At this point, it appears that president Abbas has formed an interim technocratic government that does not include ministers affiliated with Hamas," she said. "With what we know now, we will work with this government."

The US endorsement was viewed as a major blow for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had on Sunday urged the international community not to rush into recognising the new government, which he said would only "strengthen terror."

Israeli finance minister Yair Lapid has become the latest senior official to warn about the serious impact of growing boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns targeting Israel. “The world seems to be losing patience with us,” Lapid told the Hebrew edition of Ynet on 10 January.

Lapid, leader of the Yesh Atid faction, is the senior coalition partner of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Lapid added: “We have formulated complete scenarios as to what will happen if the boycott continues and exports are hurt. In all scenarios, things do not look good. The status quo will hit each of us in the pocket, will hurt every Israeli. We are export-oriented, and this [export trade] depends on our global standing.” Lapid was particularly concerned about further announcements by Israel of new tenders for houses in illegal Jewish-only colonies in the occupied West Bank. Lapid’s frank comments come just days after Dutch pensions giant PGGM took the unprecedented decision to divest from all Israeli banks because of their role in the colonization program.

Analogies with apartheid regime in the wake of Mandela’s death could accelerate efforts to ostracize Israel. This has happened in recent days: The Dutch water company Vitens severed its ties with Israeli counterpart Mekorot; Canada’s largest Protestant church decided to boycott three Israeli companies; the Romanian government refused to send any more construction workers; and American Studies Association academics are voting on a measure to sever links with Israeli universities. Coming so shortly after the Israeli government effectively succumbed to a boycott of settlements in order to be eligible for the EU’s Horizon 2020 scientific cooperation agreement, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement is picking up speed. And the writing on the wall, if anyone missed it, only got clearer and sharper in the wake of the death of Nelson Mandela.

When the United Nations passed its first non-binding resolution calling for a boycott of South Africa in 1962, it was staunchly opposed by a bloc of Western countries, led by Britain and the United States. But the grassroots campaign that had started with academic boycotts in the late 1950s gradually moved on to sports and entertainment and went on from there to institutional boycotts and divestment. Along the way, the anti-apartheid movement swept up larger and larger swaths of Western public opinion, eventually forcing even the most reluctant of governments, including Israel and the U.S., to join the international sanctions regime. 

We’re really great at knowing where thresholds are after we fall off the cliff, but that’s not very helpful,” as lake ecologist and “tipping point” researcher Stephen Carpenter told USA today in 2009.  Israel could very well be approaching such a threshold. Among the many developments that could be creating the required critical mass one can cite the passage of time since the Twin Towers attacks in September 2001, which placed Israel in the same camp as the U.S. and the West in the War on Terror; Israel’s isolation in the campaign against Iran’s nuclear programs; the disappearance of repelling archenemies such as Osama bin Laden, Muammar Gadhafi, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and, to a lesser degree, Yasser Arafat; the relative security and lack of terror inside Israel coupled with its own persistent settlement drive; and the negative publicity generated by revelations of racism in Israeli society, the image of its rulers as increasingly rigid and right wing and the government’s own confrontations with illegal African immigrants and Israeli Bedouin, widely perceived as being tinged with bias and prejudice.  In recent days, American statesmen seem to be more alarmed about the looming danger of delegitimization than Israelis are. In remarks to both the Saban Forum and the American Joint Distribution Committee this week, Secretary of State John Kerry described delegitimization as “an existential danger." Vice President Joe Biden, speaking to the same JDC forum, went one step further: “The wholesale effort to delegitimize Israel is the most concentrated that I have seen in the 40 years I have served. It is the most serious threat in my view to Israel’s long-term security and viability.” 

I want to speak with you today about the Middle East. This is the region where Africa, Asia, and Europe come together. It is also the part of the world where we have been most compellingly reminded that some struggles cannot be won, but there are no struggles that cannot be lost. It is often said that human beings learn little useful from success but can learn a great deal from defeat. If so, the Middle East now offers a remarkably rich menu of foreign-policy failures for Americans to study. • Our four-decade-long diplomatic effort to bring peace to the Holy Land sputtered to an ignominious conclusion a year ago. • Our unconditional political, economic, and military backing of Israel has earned us the enmity of Israel’s enemies even as it has enabled egregiously contemptuous expressions of ingratitude and disrespect for us from Israel itself.

• Our attempts to contain the Iranian revolution have instead empowered it. • Our military campaigns to pacify the region have destabilized it, dismantled its states, and ignited ferocious wars of religion among its peoples. • Our efforts to democratize Arab societies have helped to produce anarchy, terrorism, dictatorship, or an indecisive juxtaposition of all three. • In Iraq, Libya, and Syria we have shown that war does not decide who’s right so much as determine who’s left. • Our campaign against terrorism with global reach has multiplied our enemies and continuously expanded their areas of operation. • Our opposition to nuclear proliferation did not prevent Israel from clandestinely developing nuclear weapons and related delivery systems and may not preclude Iran and others from following suit.

• At the global level, our policies in the Middle East have damaged our prestige, weakened our alliances, and gained us a reputation for militaristic fecklessness in the conduct of our foreign affairs. They have also distracted us from challenges elsewhere of equal or greater importance to our national interests. That’s quite a record.

Israel has banned Norwegian doctor and human rights activist Mads Gilbert from entering Gaza for life. Gilbert, a professor at the University Hospital of North Norway, where he has worked since 1976, earned international renown for his philanthropic work in late 2008, during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, an attack that, according to Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, killed roughly 1,400 Gazans, including almost 800 civilians, 350 of whom were children. The aid worker, along with fellow Norwegian doctor Erik Fosse, decided to volunteer in Gaza as soon as he heard that bombing had started, on 27 December 2008. Thanks to diplomatic and economic support (in the sum of $1 million dollar of emergency funding from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs), the two physicians managed to arrive in the strip by 30 December.

The Israeli government prevented all international press from entering Gaza during Cast Lead (a documentary, The War Around Us, was made about the only two foreign reporters in the strip at the time), in what Gilbert called Israel’s insidious “PR plan.” The doctor, as one of the only international aid workers in Gaza, thus devoted considerable time to speaking with local Palestinian news outlets, some of whom were reporting on behalf of foreign networks including BBC, CNN, ABC, and Al Jazeera. BBC aired an interview with Gilbert, conducted in the hospital. The questions asked, and the answers garnered, were eerily similar to those he would give just five years later, during Operation Protective Edge. The interviewer began asking him to respond to Israel’s claims that it was not targeting civilians, that it was only attacking Hamas militants. Gilbert called the claim “an absolutely stupid statement” and explained that, among the hundreds of patients he had seen at that point, only two had been fighters. The “large majority” were women, children, and men civilians. “These numbers are contradictory to everything Israel says,” he reported.

The doctor directed one heart-wrenching passage to President Obama, writing “Mr Obama – do you have a heart? I invite you – spend one night – just one night – with us in Shifa. I am convinced, 100 per cent, it would change history. Nobody with a heart and power could ever walk away from a night in Shifa without being determined to end the slaughter of the Palestinian people.” Israel later attacked Shifa hospital. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) “strongly condemn[ed]” the incursion, saying it “demonstrate[d] how civilians in Gaza have nowhere safe to go.” MSF director Marie-Noëlle Rodrigue stated, in an official statement, “When the Israeli army orders civilians to evacuate their houses and their neighborhoods, where is there for them to go? Gazans have no freedom of movement and cannot take refuge outside Gaza. They are effectively trapped.” Shifa was one of the over 10 medical facilities Israel bombed in its 50-day offensive.

In a replay of the last major Gaza conflict, human rights defenders are again accusing Israel and Hamas of violating the rules of war, pointing to what they say appear to be indiscriminate or deliberate attacks on civilians.In 2009, such war crimes allegations leveled by U.N. investigators - and denied by both sides at the time - never came close to reaching the International Criminal Court.Some Palestinians hope the outcome will be different this time, in part because President Mahmoud Abbas, as head of a U.N.-recognized state of Palestine, has since earned the right to turn directly to the court.Still, the road to the ICC, set up in 2002 to prosecute war crimes, is filled with formidable political obstacles.

Israel and the United States strongly oppose bringing any possible charges stemming from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before the court, arguing such proceedings could poison the atmosphere and make future peace talks impossible.If Abbas seeks a war crimes investigation of Israel, he could lose Western support and expose Hamas - a major Palestinian player - to the same charges.

Unlike in 2009, Abbas has the option of turning to the court directly because of the upgrade in legal standing awarded by the U.N. General Assembly in 2012. At the time, the assembly recognized "Palestine" in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem as a non-member observer state, meeting the ICC requirement of accepting requests for jurisdiction from states over crimes committed in their territory.After 20 years of failed negotiations with Israel, many Palestinians believe the ICC offers the only opportunity to hold Israel accountable, not only for Gaza military operations, but for continued expansion of settlement-building on occupied lands. With daily scenes of Gaza carnage, the West Bank-based Abbas is under growing pressure to join the court.He still hesitates, because going after Israel at the ICC would signal a fundamental policy shift, instantly turning his tense relationship with Israel into a hostile one and creating a rift with the United States.

Lawyers have responded to nearly 300 incidents of “censorship, punishment, or other burdening of advocacy for Palestinian rights” filed by Palestine solidarity activists on more than 65 US campuses in the last year and a half. Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) detail the assault in a new 124-page report, “The Palestine Exception to Free Speech: A Movement Under Attack in the US.” “As the movement for Palestinian rights is growing in the US, so too are concerted efforts to silence any and all criticism of Israel,” said Radhika Sainath, staff attorney with Palestine Legal and cooperating counsel with CCR. A video featuring students and members of faculty who have experienced silencing, repression and intimidation was also released by Palestine Legal and CCR and can be viewed above.

The report, which is the first of its kind, documents the suppression of Palestine advocacy in the US and identifies nine separate tactics Israel lobby groups use to crush Palestine solidarity activism — especially on campuses. The groups say that 85 percent of the hundreds of incidents to which Palestine Legal has responded since 2014 involving the targeting of students and scholars “include baseless legal complaints, administrative disciplinary actions, firings, harassment and false accusations of terrorism and anti-Semitism.” Such tactics have a chilling effect on speech, the report says. “These strategies … [result in] intimidating or deterring Palestinian solidarity activists from speaking out. The fear of punishment or career damage discourages many activists from engaging in activities that could be perceived as critical of Israel,” the report says. Sainath told The Electronic Intifada that “on the one hand, we’ve seen that peoples’ lives and reputations have been destroyed because of speaking out critically about Israel’s policies — one example is professor Steven Salaita, [whose story] is covered in the report.” Salaita was fired from the University of Illinois after he expressed his criticism of Israel’s attack on Gaza in the summer of 2014.

Meanwhile, lawyers and students say they are bracing for an array of dirty tactics being planned by Israel lobby groups. Earlier this year, Republican party mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, along with Haim Saban, billionaire supporter of the Democratic party, poured tens of millions of dollars into Israel lobby groups on campus with the explicit intent of suppressing Palestine rights-based organizing. “One of the things that we’re concerned about and preparing for is a wave of anti-boycott legislation,” Sainath said, “as well as increased efforts to stop students from introducing referendums or resolutions for Palestinian rights.”

The Gates Foundation Asset Trust, the entity that manages the investments for the $40.2 billion Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has liquidated its entire stake in G4S Plc (GFS), the world’s biggest security-services provider. “Like other large foundations, the foundation trust evaluates its holdings regularly, both for performance and fit,” John Pinette, a spokesman for the Gates family, said in a statement. “As a result of this, the foundation trust no longer holds an investment in G4S.” The Crawley, England-based company has attracted criticism for its contracts with the Israel prison system. The U.K.’s Guardian newspaper said in an editorial on June 4 that G4S should “end the corporation’s participation in Israel’s brutal occupation” in the West Bank. Since 2011, G4S has conducted a series of reviews in relation to its business in Israel, according to the company’s website. Its latest investigation concluded there was “no plausible case against G4S on the ground of alleged war crimes commited by Israel.”

The Gates Foundation Asset Trust, the entity that manages the investments for the $40.2 billion Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has liquidated its entire stake in G4S Plc (GFS), the world’s biggest security-services provider. “Like other large foundations, the foundation trust evaluates its holdings regularly, both for performance and fit,” John Pinette, a spokesman for the Gates family, said in a statement. “As a result of this, the foundation trust no longer holds an investment in G4S.” The Crawley, England-based company has attracted criticism for its contracts with the Israel prison system. The U.K.’s Guardian newspaper said in an editorial on June 4 that G4S should “end the corporation’s participation in Israel’s brutal occupation” in the West Bank. Since 2011, G4S has conducted a series of reviews in relation to its business in Israel, according to the company’s website. Its latest investigation concluded there was “no plausible case against G4S on the ground of alleged war crimes commited by Israel.”

IN A MEETING with President Obama today, Benjamin Netanyahu went through the familiar motions of expressing rhetorical support for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Stating, “I remain committed to a vision of peace of two states for two peoples,” Netanyahu said that he wanted “make it clear that we have not given up our hope,” for achieving a two-state solution to the conflict. Just a day before this statement, however, the Israeli government took steps to ensure such a vision could never become reality, moving to authorize the construction of an additional 2,200 housing units in the occupied territories in the face of Palestinian opposition. The reason behind this apparent discrepancy between word and deed is that Netanyahu does not, and has essentially never, supported the creation of an actual Palestinian state. Last year, during the Israeli election, Netanyahu briefly acknowledged this fact himself, explicitly stating to voters that there would not be a Palestinian state during his tenure as prime minister if he was reelected. Despite this, the convenient fiction that the Israeli prime minister supports a “two-state solution” continues to linger in the United States. Why?

In 2009, however, that began to change. In June of that year, newly elected President Barack Obama, who had made rebuilding ties with the Muslim world a part of his foreign policy platform, gave a landmark speech in Cairo in which he said the United States “does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements,” going on to describe them as contrary to previous agreements and an impediment to peace in the region. Israeli media would report at the time that Obama’s words “resonated through Jerusalem’s corridors.” In seeming recognition of shifting American sentiments on this issue, 10 days later Netanyahu gave what was billed as a landmark speech at Bar-Ilan University near Tel-Aviv, dealing in part with the subject of Palestinian statehood. In his address, hailed by the White House as an “important step forward,” Netanyahu endorsed for the first time the creation of what he called “a demilitarized Palestinian state” in the occupied territories. But the same speech added stipulations that, in sum, turned this so-called state into a rebranded version of Netanyahu’s 2000 “Palestinian entity,” with only limited autonomy. In private, just three months before the speech, Netanyahu was even more blunt about the limits he required for a more independent Palestinian territory, stipulating he could only support one “without an army or control over air space and borders,” according to diplomatic cables later released by WikiLeaks.

In a speech two years later to Congress, Netanyahu would go into more detail about the ridiculous conception of Palestinian “statehood” he was imagining, one in which the West Bank would be essentially bifurcated by massive Israeli settlement blocs, the prospective Palestinian capital of East Jerusalem would be surrounded by settlements, and the Israeli Defense Forces would continue to have “a long-term military presence” inside the newly independent “state.” Needless to say, such a proposal was unlikely ever to be accepted by the Palestinians, nor did it bear much resemblance to the independent statehood they had actually been seeking. Netanyahu let the mask drop even further in July 2014, when he stated in a press conference that “there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan,” essentially outlining a position of permanent military occupation of Palestinian territories. In the run-up to the 2015 election, when he publicly disowned the idea of Palestinian statehood, Netanyahu would specifically repudiate his 2009 Bar-Ilan speech, stating that “there will be no withdrawals and no concessions,” and that the speech was “not relevant.” As recently as last week, Netanyahu told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that “we need to control all of the territory for the foreseeable future,” before adding darkly that Israel “will forever live by the sword.”

Photo: Alex Brandon/APFormer President Bill Clinton on Monday met in secret (no press allowed) with roughly 100 leaders of South Florida’s Jewish community, and, as the Times of Israel reports, “He vowed that, if elected, Hillary Clinton would make it one of her top priorities to strengthen the U.S.-Israel alliance.” He also “stressed the close bond that he and his wife have with the State of Israel.” It may be tempting to dismiss this as standard, vapid Clintonian politicking: adeptly telling everyone what they want to hear and making them believe it. After all, is it even physically possible to “strengthen the U.S.-Israel alliance” beyond what it already entails: billions of dollars in American taxpayer money transferred every year, sophisticated weapons fed to Israel as it bombs its defenseless neighbors, blindly loyal diplomatic support and protection for everything it does? But Bill Clinton’s vow of even greater support for Israel is completely consistent with what Hillary Clinton herself has been telling American Jewish audiences for months. In November, she published an op-ed in The Forward in which she vowed to strengthen relations not only with Israel, but also with its extremist prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Her comments on Israel have similarly contained implicit criticisms of Obama’s foreign policy: namely, that he has created or at least allowed too much animosity with Netanyahu. In her Forward op-ed, she wrote that the Israeli prime minister’s “upcoming visit to Washington is an opportunity to reaffirm the unbreakable bonds of friendship and unity between the people and governments of the United States and Israel.” She pointedly added: “The alliance between our two nations transcends politics. It is and should always be a commitment that unites us, not a wedge that divides us.” And in case her message is unclear, she added this campaign promise: “I would also invite the Israeli prime minister to the White House in my first month in office.” Last month, Clinton wrote an even more extreme op-ed in the Jewish Journal, one that made even clearer that she intends to change Obama’s policy to make it even more “pro-Israel.” It begins: “In this time of terrorism and turmoil, the alliance between the United States and Israel is more important than ever. To meet the many challenges we face, we have to take our relationship to the next level.”

“With every passing year, we must tie the bonds tighter,” she wrote. Tie those bonds tighter. Thus: As part of this effort, we need to ensure that Israel continues to maintain its qualitative military edge. The United States should further bolster Israeli air defenses and help develop better tunnel detection technology to prevent arms smuggling and kidnapping. We should also expand high-level U.S.-Israel strategic consultations. As always, there is not a word about the oppression and brutality imposed on Palestinians as part of Israel’s decadeslong occupation. She does not even acknowledge, let alone express opposition to, Israel’s repeated, civilian-slaughtering bombing of the open-air prison in Gaza. That’s because for Clinton — like the progressive establishment that supports her — the suffering and violence imposed on Palestinians literally do not exist. None of this is mentioned, even in passing, in the endless parade of pro-Clinton articles pouring forth from progressive media outlets.

Israel’s Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, has publicly called for “settling the Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights within the framework of the Israeli – Palestinian negotiations” adding that “part of this comprehensive bargain has to cover an understanding between Israel, the international community and the USA” and adding that “the Golan is part and parcel with Israel”.

The statement prompted a response by the Syrian government to the UN Secretary General and the President of the Security Council. The statement confirms information nsnbc received from a Palestinian intelligence expert in 2011 and 2012, who warned that Israel plans to permanently annex the Golan, parts of southern Lebanon and most of the West Bank, while planning to recognize a Palestinian State in the Gaza Strip plus micro enclaves in the West Bank. The statement also substantiates Christof Lehmann’s warnings about joint Israeli – US plans to that effect, issued in 2011, after the 66th Session of the UN General Assembly. During the 66th Session, US President Obama refused to recognize Palestine as a State, saying that “a solution for Palestine only could be found within the framework of a comprehensive solution for the Middle East“.

On Wednesday, the Syrian Foreign and Expatriates Ministry responded by sending two identical letters to the offices of the UN Secretary General and the President of the US Security Council, reports the Syrian news agency SANA. The letters inform the UN Secretary General and the UNSC President, that Lieberman made the statement on 31 January 2014, while visiting the occupied Syrian Golan. In the letters, the Syrian Foreign Ministry stressed that the Israeli Foreign Minister’s statements embody an insolent approach to the events in Syria and recklessness with regard to relevant UN resolutions, such as UNSC resolution 497 (1981) and others, which call on Israel to end the occupation of the Syrian Golan and all Arab lands which Israel has occupied since 1967. The Syrian government quotes Lieberman as claiming that: ” The dangers to security, linked to our capability to defend the North of the country, require a recognition of Isrel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights by the international community”. The Syrian Foreign Ministry stressed that Israel is sponsoring terrorism in Syria and that Israel seems as if it mistakenly believes that it can exploit its sponsorship of the terrorist war on Syria to achieve its expansionist ambitions. The Syrian Foreign Ministry also stressed that 47 years have passed since Israel’s occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights and that Israel has defied hundreds of resolutions and calls on ending the occupation and to stop its inhuman racial policies and its killing of civilians in the Israeli occupied territories.

Likud Central Committee chairman Danny Danon, who is challenging Binyamin Netanyahu for leadership of the party, on Saturday night called on Israel to respond to an expected UN recognition of the Palestinian Authority (PA) as the "state of Palestine" by declaring sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. "We must clarify in the clearest terms to the world that every unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state will bring Israeli sovereignty," declared Danon in a meeting with Likud activists in Judea's Gush Etzion region.

Erekat announced last Friday that the UN will likely vote on Monday on a unilateral PA resolution, which demands recognition, Israeli withdrawals from eastern Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria by 2017, and prior to that a 12-month deadline for wrapping up negotiations on a final settlement. "If on this coming Monday the UN recognizes a Palestinian state, the state of Israel must respond with unilateral steps (as well), including implementing sovereignty," declared Danon.

Two weeks ago the European Parliament voted to recognize "Palestine," following a string of European nations voting to recognize the PA as a state - the parliamentary vote came the same day Hamas was removed from the European Union's (EU) official terrorist organization list on an alleged "technicality."

Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories have been convulsed by a wave of escalating violence in recent days. The lethal tensions ratcheted up sharply last Thursday when a married couple, Jewish settlers from Neria in the northern West Bank, were shot and killed in a car in front of their four children near Beit Furik, allegedly by members of a five-man Hamas cell who were subsequently arrested. Two more Israelis were stabbed and killed in Jerusalem’s Old City on Saturday by a Palestinian youth, who was shot dead at the scene. On Sunday, an 18-year-old Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli forces in clashes near the West Bank town of Tulkarem. The mounting friction has seen attacks by settlers on Palestinians, clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces and attempted attacks continue. On Wednesday. there were incidents in Jerusalem, where a Palestinian woman stabbed an Israeli man who then shot and seriously wounded her in the Old City, the southern Israeli city of Kiryat Gat, where a Palestinian was killed after reportedly trying to seize a gun from a soldier and stabbing him, and when a female Israeli settler’s car was stoned near Beit Sahour, which adjoins Bethlehem, in an incident in which it appears other settlers fired on Palestinians, seriously injuring a youth.

On the Palestinian side, anger escalated earlier this week after a 13-year-old boy in Bethlehem’s Aida refugee camp was shot and killed by an Israeli sniper in an incident the Israeli military has claimed was “unintentional” as soldiers were aiming at another individual.

Jerusalem has remained tense now for almost a year. Most analysts blame the recent heightened tension on several factors. Key among them has been the issue of the religious site in Jerusalem known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary, and Jews as the Temple Mount. A long-running campaign by some fundamentalist Jews and their supporters for expanding their rights to worship in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound on the Temple Mount, supported by rightwing members of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s own cabinet, has raised the suspicion – despite repeated Israeli denials – that Israel intends to change the precarious status quo for the site, which has been governed under the auspices of the Jordanian monarchy since 1967.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly urging U.S. lawmakers to protect his country from Palestinian claims that Israel engaged in “war crimes” during recent Gaza fighting that left nearly 1,900 Palestinians dead. A top Israeli lawmaker told The New York Post that Netanyahu is urging U.S. lawmakers to “help Israel avoid war crimes charges.” The Israeli leader is reportedly appealing to American legislators to resist a seemingly global backlash against the Gaza fighting, saying that Israel took “extraordinary measures” to avoid civilian deaths in the recent month-long conflict.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly urging U.S. lawmakers to protect his country from Palestinian claims that Israel engaged in “war crimes” during recent Gaza fighting that left nearly 1,900 Palestinians dead. A top Israeli lawmaker told The New York Post that Netanyahu is urging U.S. lawmakers to “help Israel avoid war crimes charges.” The Israeli leader is reportedly appealing to American legislators to resist a seemingly global backlash against the Gaza fighting, saying that Israel took “extraordinary measures” to avoid civilian deaths in the recent month-long conflict.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly urging U.S. lawmakers to protect his country from Palestinian claims that Israel engaged in “war crimes” during recent Gaza fighting that left nearly 1,900 Palestinians dead. A top Israeli lawmaker told The New York Post that Netanyahu is urging U.S. lawmakers to “help Israel avoid war crimes charges.” The Israeli leader is reportedly appealing to American legislators to resist a seemingly global backlash against the Gaza fighting, saying that Israel took “extraordinary measures” to avoid civilian deaths in the recent month-long conflict. According to Gaza officials, three-quarters of the 1,900 Palestinians killed in the fighting were civilians, although Israeli Defense Forces have stressed that Hamas has intentionally used civilians as human shields. Three Israeli civilians and 64 Israeli soldiers have also been killed in the Gaza conflict. Netanyahu said that “90percent of the fatalities could have been avoided had Hamas not rejected the ceasefire it accepts now,” according to The Post.

RAMALLAH (AFP) -- President Mahmoud Abbas has rejected US proposals for Israel to keep troops in a future Palestinian state along its border with Jordan, a Palestinian source said on Friday.Following a meeting on Thursday evening with US Secretary of State John Kerry in the West Bank city of Ramallah, "President Abbas has rejected the ideas presented by the secretary of state", the source said.Abbas also gave Kerry a letter on "Palestinian red lines," the source added, singling out "the refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state."Abbas "rejected the ideas on security because there is not a third party."This refers to a plan by former US national security adviser James Jones under which a third party would deploy along the Palestinian-Jordanian border.The Palestinian source said that "all disputed issues must be settled."Israeli and Arab media reports say the plan envisaged by Washington would see Israel maintain a military presence on the border after a peace agreement with the Palestinians.An international force would be acceptable to the Palestinians, but Israel opposes such a solution.

The Portuguese parliament, on Friday, voted in favor of a recognition of Palestine. The vote comes against the backdrop of the 2014 Israeli – Palestinian conflict, increased tensions and violence in Israel and Palestine, and similar votes by other European countries over the past months. “A” recognition of “a” Palestine is, however, even controversial among Palestinians.  The motion in the Portuguese parliament was filed jointly, by the governing center-right majority government and the opposition Socialist Party. Speakers for both fractions stated that the vote in favor of a recognition of the Palestinian State comes within the context of a coordinated policy within the European Union.

The Portuguese parliament’s vote followed similar votes in other European countries. Sweden officially recognized Palestine as sovereign and independent State, which prompted Israel to recall its ambassador from the Scandinavian country’s capital Stockholm. Legislators in both Spain and in the House of Commons in the UK passed similar resolutions. On Thursday, the Upper House of the French Parliament voted in favor of the recognition of Palestine by France. The ultimate decision, however, rests with the French government of France’s ruling Socialist Party led by President Francois Hollande. The wave of recognition of Palestine by European nations followed Israel’s unprecedented bombing of Palestine’s coastal region, the Gaza Strip.

The wave of recognition may also have been promoted by the fact that corporate and state-sponsored media bled viewers, listeners and readers to independent media and the fact that the marked increase in users of independent media forced mainstream media to adjust their, usually, pro-Israel biased coverage.

But now that Mr. Netanyahu has won after aggressively campaigning against a Palestinian state and Mr. Obama’s potential nuclear deal with Iran, the question is whether the president and prime minister can ever repair their relationship — and whether Mr. Obama will even try.On Wednesday, part of the answer seemed to be that the president would not make the effort. Continue reading the main story Related Coverage Win in Israel Sets Netanyahu on Path to Rebuild and Redefine GovernmentMARCH 18, 2015 Palestinian Leaders See Validation of Their Statehood EffortMARCH 18, 2015 Netanyahu Soundly Defeats Chief Rival in Israeli ElectionsMARCH 17, 2015 News Analysis: Deep Wounds and Lingering Questions After Israel’s Bitter RaceMARCH 17, 2015 In strikingly strong criticism, the White House called Mr. Netanyahu’s campaign rhetoric, in which he railed against Israeli Arabs because they went out to vote, an attempt to “marginalize Arab-Israeli citizens” and inconsistent with the values that bind Israel and the United States. The White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, told reporters traveling with Mr. Obama on Air Force One on Wednesday that Mr. Netanyahu’s statement was “deeply concerning and it is divisive and I can tell you that these are views the administration intends to communicate directly to the Israelis.”

And with Mr. Netanyahu’s last-minute turnaround against a Palestinian state alongside Israel, several administration officials said that the Obama administration may now agree to passage of a United Nations Security Council resolution embodying principles of a two-state solution that would be based on the pre-1967 lines between Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip and mutually agreed swaps.Most foreign policy experts say that Israel would have to cede territory to the Palestinians in exchange for holding on to major Jewish settlement blocks in the West Bank.

Such a Security Council resolution would be anathema to Mr. Netanyahu. Although the principles are United States policy, until now officials would never have endorsed them in the United Nations because the action would have been seen as too antagonistic to Israel.Continue reading the main story “The premise of our position internationally has been to support direct negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians,” a senior White House official said. “We are now in a reality where the Israeli government no longer supports direct negotiations. Therefore we clearly have to factor that into our decisions going forward.”

Israel is set to become a major exporter of gas and some oil, if all goes to plan. The giant Leviathan natural gas field, in the eastern Mediterranean, discovered in December 2010, is widely described as “off the coast of Israel.”

Coupled with Tamar field, in the same location, discovered in 2009, the prospects are for an energy bonanza for Israel, for Houston, Texas based Noble Energy and partners Delek Drilling, Avner Oil Exploration and Ratio Oil Exploration.

However, even these estimates may prove modest. In their: “Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas Resources of the Levant Basin Province, Eastern Mediterranean”, the US Department of the Interior’s US Geological Survey, wrote in 2010: “We estimated a mean of 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil and a mean of 122 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas in this province using a geology based assessment methodology.”

Abbas pledged to join the ICC and lodge charges against Israel there. On Wednesday evening he took the first step, signing the request along with applications to join 20 other international conventions during a meeting broadcast live on PA television, despite US criticism. Speaking to Arutz Sheva, Shurat Hadin legal center's director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner said that if Abbas follows through on his threats, the PA's case would likely center around alleged war crimes committed by the IDF during the past summer's war with Gazan terrorists, as well as "settlement-building" - a euphemism for any Jewish communities built in Judea, Samaria, and large parts of Jerusalem. The veteran attorney and legal campaigner warns that if such a case is launched the prospects for Israel are bleak. "Israel will of course try to defend itself, but chances are they will lose. And if they lose and they're convicted for war crimes, it would be a game-changer. It would drop Israel to the bottom tier internationally," she said.

The ICC has faced serious criticism over the years for only focusing on "third-world" countries, and particularly the African continent, (since its founding in 1998 all eight cases handled by the ICC have been in African states,) and there is heavy pressure for the court to also try a "western" or allied country as well to dispel those allegations. "They need to take a different type of case, and they would gladly take upon themselves the Arab-Israeli conflict... it's a more interesting and sexier issue to be involved with, and there is tremendous pressure from countries all over the world for the court to get involved." Despite that pressure, until now the ICC has been unable to get involved due to a lack of jurisdiction.

But could the move be a blessing in disguise, providing Israel with an opportunity to decisively knock down the many allegations against it in the international arena - including both the legality of "settlements" and alleged war crimes - once and for all? "No, this is a biased court," Darshan-Leitner answers bluntly. "Of course Israel will bring international legal experts and explain why the territories (Judea-Samaria) are only disputed, not occupied, and how Jordan never had a right to them in the first place, for example - but Europe, and many other countries, have a different perspective," and it's from that political perspective that the ICC will analyse the case. "Once Israel is charged with war crimes it's the 'end of the game' - that's why Israel should do whatever it can not to be charged." If found guilty, "Israel would have to extradite to the court those individuals or officials, IDF commanders, etc, who will be individually charged for war crimes. Israel will obviously refuse to do so - Israel is not insane, so it's not going to extradite its own people to be blamed for war crimes - and then as a result Israel will be sanctioned... then there will be a real boycott against Israel from the court's member states.

Students in Chicago received a death threat after taking part in a Palestine solidarity protest. Another student activist in Santa Barbara, California, was physically assaulted during an argument with an Israel supporter. These are just two of dozens of on-campus incidents reported across the United States over the last four weeks, according to Palestine Legal.

Five days later, one of the students received a threatening email message directed at Students for Justice in Palestine. The message stated: “If there is one more demonstration in the quad from your petty organization, consider it to be your real bodies falling next time. What you did was downright anti-Semitism. Don’t underestimate the Jewish presence on campus. #jewhater.”

Meanwhile, a member of SJP at the University of California at Santa Barbara was physically assaulted during a peaceful protest as part of the international day of action. Daniel Mogtaderi said he was filming the demonstration on his phone as a matter of protocol, so that SJP can document any harassment or violence it might encounter. A young man who appeared to be another student began arguing with Mogtaderi about the 13-year-old Palestinian boy who was accused of a stabbing attack and critically injured and taunted by Israeli settlers as he lay bleeding on the ground two weeks ago. The assailant became aggressive when he realized Mogtaderi was recording the encounter. “At that point he forcibly took hold of the phone, held on to the phone for some time, and shoved Mogtaderi two times before returning the phone and leaving the scene,” SJP stated. Mogtaderi’s video recording of the argument between himself and the assailant can be viewed here.