In his new book War Against the People, Israeli-American writer-activist Jeff Halper argues that Israel has positioned itself as the preeminent vendor of hi-tech tools and tactics for waging “full spectrum” war, smashing “terrorist” entities, policing borders and internal ghettos, and “securitizing” restive populations — all combat-proven, under real-life conditions in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and besieged, hopeless Gaza. In the global, post-9-11, permanent war economy, says Halper, Israel has parlayed its permanent subjugation of the Palestinian people into a huge competitive advantage — deeply attractive to powerful elites within the “core” and far off in the periphery.

“For too long the Democratic Party has been beholden to AIPAC,” Sanders surrogate Cornel West says at Democratic platform drafting hearing, as Clinton forces urge the party to stop dividing over Israel so that Hillary Clinton can defeat Donald Trump.

Zeina Azzam presents the case against “normalization”. She says that meaningful discussion of Israel/Palestine cannot start with the status quo but must address, up front, such issues as the abnormal practices of occupation, settlements on occupied territory, the separation wall, house demolitions, severe restrictions on movement, and military assaults: “As long as Israeli policymakers and citizens continue to perceive the status quo as ‘normalized,’ then deviant and volatile perspectives will keep on building until an explosion—or perhaps a series of explosions—will greatly harm everyone involved and set the efforts back irreconcilably.”

Wilson Dizard reports from San Francisco where members of the city’s LGBT community, rallied and marched with thousands of others down Market Street on Sunday night, a show of defiance and unity against anti-gay bigotry and gun violence itself. In the speeches by local politicians, activists and parents of gun violence victims, Islamophobia, homophobia and the National Rifle Association were San Francisco’s common enemy, not Islam or Muslims. Yet, by Monday, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were duking it out in one of the first major battles of what promises to be an election season full of them. Although Clinton paid lip service to rejecting Islamophobia, her proposal for what to do about people like killer Omar Mateen were similar to Trump’s.

A video of the March 24 killings of two Palestinians in Hebron after an alleged attack on an Israeli soldier shows a soldier kicking a knife in the street closer to the incapacitated form of one of the alleged assailants, Abd asl Fatah al-Sharif. The group Human Rights Defenders released the video.

On Thursday, Israeli bulldozers demolished the Palestinian Bedouin village of al-Araqib in the Negev desert for the 99th time. A local resident told Quds Press that several Bedouin families became homeless again after Israeli bulldozers escorted by police forces stormed the village and razed all their homes.

Islamophobia in our time: Former Israeli ambassador Michael Oren says Trump should stress alleged Orlando shooter’s Muslim name, Omar Saddiqui Mateen, in order to reap an advantage in the presidential race over Hillary Clinton.

The condemnation that Israel demands for the Tel Aviv murders last Wednesday is a card of sympathy for its violent policies of collective punishment, and general terrorizing of a whole population. I am concerned that I will end up supporting Israeli terrorism, by condemning the Palestinian version.

Governor Cuomo just makes his executive order against BDS worse with stupid statement “New York stands with Israel because we are Israel and Israel is us.” No wonder the NYT rejected this slop and it shows up in the Washington Post.

An Israeli settler ran over a flock of sheep belonging to a Palestinian shepherd near the al-Zubeidat village in the occupied West Bank district of Jericho on Friday, causing the death of 25 of the sheep, according to Palestinian sources