Shibley Telhami says that Netanyahu got the nuclear deal with Iran because he tried to play Obama in 2011-2012 to believe that Israel was about to attack Iran. Netanyahu wanted to hurt Obama in the election and get the Americans to attack Iran. Jeffrey Goldberg piece played right into the strategy.

Gershom Gorenberg uses the rendering of Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s newly published “Go Set a Watchman” to draw an analogy between readerly reinterpretations of literary texts and the putative ways historians have revised their understanding of Israel. He says if Israel can make peace now it will change the way people view the Nakba. Joel Doerfler says, “Whatever one makes of Gorenberg’s thoughts about the reading and interpretation of imaginative fiction, his historical musings are manifestly problematic.”

AFP reports: “Most Israeli Jews favour the reconstruction of a block of settlements in the Gaza Strip, a decade after Israel withdrew from the Palestinian territory, a poll published on Monday showed.”

Maurice Cotter talks to students at Collège des Fréres, a private Christian school in Bethlehem, as they compete to represent Palestine at this year’s World Schools Debating Championships, set to take place in Singapore. This will be the first time that Palestine has ever competed.

Abdulhadi Hantash, land surveyor for the Palestinian Authority, has compiled a record of crimes against Palestinians near Hebron in 2014 by settlers and soldiers that includes 30 wells destroyed, 3778 trees uprooted, 16 Palestinians killed and many cases of sexual provocation and one attack on graves

For those trying to read developments between Israel and Gaza over the past weeks, the picture has been unusually puzzling. Does Israel want Hamas weakened or strengthened?

Katie Miranda imagines what life will look like if Bernie Sanders is elected president. Some aspects of U.S. politics look radically different, others . . . not so much.

Four weeks ago tomorrow, we announced our midyear fundraising campaign, “Be The Mondoweiss Megaphone.” We set an ambitious goal of $50,000 in donations—more than twice what the site has raised during the same period in other years. Today we are thrilled, humbled and grateful to announce that your contributions have exceeded the goal—and gifts are still coming in! Now, as we thank you from the bottom of our hearts, we want to put your support and the site’s progress in context.

Heidi Morrison reports from the public pool near her Los Angeles home where Palestine unexpectedly became a conversation topic.