Ma‘an reports: Israeli excavators on Sunday morning began work on infrastructure for two Jewish-only settlements in the former Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran in the Negev desert in southern Israel, locals said. Locals told Ma‘an that excavators and bulldozers were building a new road under heavy protection of Israeli forces.

Peter Beinart says a one-state future in Israel and Palestine is utopian because the Jewish-Palestinian army of “Israstine” would soon descend into civil war. He should stop bringing up bogeymen and look at the Israeli army today, which institutionalizes racism worse than the U.S. army pre-1948.

To American sensibilities, the Negev town of Dimona, Israel recalls the Jim Crow south. Throughout through the town of 33,000, racist graffiti can be seen in abundance on signs, walls and buildings. “Death to Arabs” is a common sight, and stickers promoting Lehava, the state-funded anti-miscegenation group, are posted around town.

Jewish American rapper Matisyahu (the stage name of Matthew Paul Miller) was disinvited from a music festival in Spain because of his support for Israel. Organizers of the Rototom Sunsplash European Reggae Festival say they were pressured to cancel the performance by supporters of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. After Spain’s foreign ministry condemned the cancellation of the performance, the festival apologized and re-invited Matisyahu. Denying accusations that the decision to cancel Matisyahu’s performance was motivated in any way by anti-Semitism, Spanish BDS activists maintain that they objected to Matisyahu’s “incitement to racial hatred and his defense of Israeli war crimes, including in his lyrics,” and “his hateful and racist views that dehumanize Palestinians and justify their oppression.”

Alert! It’s time for some housekeeping around here and we are switching servers. This means that as of 2 pm EDT on Friday, August 21 all posting and comments will be put on hold until all files are moved over to the new server. See you soon!

Jerrold Nadler is the only Jewish member of Congress from NY to support the Iran Deal, and his statement repeatedly stresses his devotion to Israel, lest he will pay for this decision

Egypt recently opened the Rafah crossing with Gaza for four days; the first time it had been open in over two months. Isra Saleh El-Namy interviews people trying to leave Gaza through Rafah, including families trying to receive medical treatment, students attempting to return to school and workers hoping to return to jobs. Suhaib Sameh, a university student who had been stranded in Gaza says, “I started to feel as if I am living in a nightmare.”

New York Review of Books calls Israeli policy toward “frequent and intimate” terrorism a model for the U.S., including detention rules and targeted killing procedures.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and Senator Cory Booker appear to be breaking up on Facebook over the Iran Deal. They are flinging quotes at one another.

“The government of Israel has no desire for a two-state solution, which is the policy of all the other nations in the world,” Jimmy Carter said today, when describing his greatest hope for the world, peace for Israel and its neighbors