The floodgates have begun to open across Europe on recognition of Palestinian statehood. On Friday the Portuguese parliament became the latest European legislature to call on its government to back statehood, joining Sweden, Britain, Ireland, France and Spain. But while Europe is tentatively finding a voice in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, silence reigns across the Atlantic. The White House appears paralysed, afraid to appear out of sync with world opinion but more afraid still of upsetting Israel and its powerful allies in the US Congress.

Steven Salaita’s rude tweets served to change American society on the Gaza onslaught, which should have provoked moral outrage but did not, says UMass philosophy prof Joseph Levine

In recent days, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has offered herself as the great progressive hope of the Democratic Party but remains silence on the Israeli occupation. Well, here’s some encouragement to Warren to move left on the question. Shibley Telhami reports Democratic Party politicians are out of touch with their grass roots on Israel/Palestine. Women, African-Americans, Hispanics and young Dems all want the U.S. to show less favoritism to Israel than it does now.

Under the supervision of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Youth Rights (PICYR), 30 families whose houses had been totally destroyed during the last Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, have been offered flats to live in as a temporary solution. The campaign, held by PICYR, carries the tagline, “I will not let my brother suffer from the cold winter.”

Allan Brownfeld explains that Liberal Zionism has never existed, because Zionism was always based on an illiberal idea, denying the Palestinian presence and removing indigenous people from the land

The Palestinian Authority has announced it will seek a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution calling for an end of the Israeli occupation within a specific time period. The draft legislation gives Israel two years to remove its forces from lands occupied in June 1967 and reaffirms per-existing agreements for a framework of negotiations, said Ashraf Khatib a spokesperson for the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Negotiations Affairs Department via telephone to Mondoweiss. While the resolution makes no explicit mention of land swamps, it does support previous accords where the PLO granted Israel the possibility of territorial exchanges where up to 60% of settlers could remain in the West Bank.

Executive Director of Jewish Voice for Peace Rebecca Vilkomerson writes the latest message in the series What Mondoweiss Means To Me: “Mondoweiss’s platform amplifies a critical message for everyone organizing on this issue, JVP included: true justice and peace for Palestinians and Israelis will only be possible when the U.S. stops enabling Israel’s actions through economic, diplomatic and military cover. Please join me today in supporting Mondoweiss, the essential herald that brings the world news of all who dare speak out.” We are asking Mondoweiss readers to help to raise $60,000 by December 31. Please donate and tell us what Mondoweiss means to you.

The face of Israeli diplomacy is increasingly the sort of angry diatribe against western diplomats that journalist Caroline Glick launched at Danish ambassador Jesper Vahr last week to justify the colonization of “Judea and Samaria”

The fate of Israel’s embattled Arab parties is in the balance as Israel’s next parliamentary elections approach. The election season officially started this week when Knesset formally dissolved itself setting an unconfirmed date at the polls of March 17, 2015. Yet as campaigns take off the question of Israel’s smaller parties and the survival of Arab political groups in particular run in the background. Next year’s early elections will be the first after Israel raised the voter threshold to require 3.25-percent of the popular vote in order for a party to secure a seat in Knesset. None of the Arab parties have reached this threshold on their own and will either have to merge, or forgo being a part of the government.

How do you tell children about the atrocities of Gaza? Emma Williams, Ibrahim Quraishi and Jean Stein came up with the answer: a modern fable for children about the donkey who is painted to look like a zebra to entertain the besieged children in the strip.