Israel’s renewed policy of punitive home demolitions was challenged in its highest court yesterday. The case comes as the Israeli government has ordered the homes of six Palestinians suspected in a series of Jerusalem attacks to be demolished. In the past judges have heard arguments to overturn demolitions on a case by case basis, but this was the first in Israel’s history to address the legality of the practice as such. And the hearing came with immediate consequences. The homes of five Palestinian families are slated for demolition, and one demolition has already been carried out.

Frank Luntz’s latest propaganda is that Americans side with Netanyahu over Obama on Iran. He’s working alongside AIPAC to destroy the negotiations

Israel’s proposed law to declare it the nation state of the Jewish people has dropped the mask from an ethnocracy, and the American media are at last reflecting Palestinian criticisms of the country

Dan Cohen reports from Gaza where eight years of siege and three wars in six years have left the besieged Strip in a state of perpetual disaster with no end in sight. After this summer’s assault, tens of thousands of Palestinians are sentenced to living in rubble wastelands that are scarcely recognizable from the thriving neighborhoods they once were. “The survivors are the real victims of war,” Hamza Saftawi, 23, said. “They have to live in the aftermath.”

In Westminster last Monday, Dec 1, MPs called for the government to take concrete action to sanction Israel, with several calling for a complete arms trade embargo. The backbench debate highlighted increasing frustration within Parliament around the government’s failure to respond to the Oct 13 call for recognition of the Palestinian statehood, and on its wider failure to act to hold Israel accountable to its obligations under international law.

The Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul has cancelled a major collaboration deal with Israeli military company Elbit Systems in the wake of protests over the firm’s role in oppression of Palestinians.

A group of civil rights organizations – including Palestine Solidarity Legal Support, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Lawyers Guild, Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus, and others – submitted a letter to over 200 universities cautioning administrators against heeding calls to censor or stifle expression criticizing the state of Israel or advocating for Palestinian human rights.

Al-Akhbar reports: Israeli Occupation Forces killed nine Palestinians and arrested 650 others in November, Ahrar Center for Detainees’ Studies and Human Rights, a Palestinian rights organization said in a report on Monday. The child Mohammed Amin al-Syam, who died in Turkey after sustaining severe wounds in the latest Gaza war, is among the nine Palestinian victims.

“Swift elections must be held, and a new, united and strong government must be formed,” Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu announced this evening calling for early Knesset elections hours after firing opposition members Yair Lapid and Tzipi Livni from his cabinet. The move comes after Lapid, Livni and Avigdor Lieberman all announced their parties were leaving the ruling coalition.

On a 2013 visit, possible Def Sec’y nominee Ashton Carter lauded the Israel-US bond and called Israeli army dogs “the fun part” of military life. Israel used dogs to quell Palestinian stone-throwers in protests against the occupation. Shades of Birmingham.