A gushing interview of Netanyahu in the New York Times repairs a relationship hurt 3 years ago by the Times publishing gossip about his wife; but it is a serious dereliction in its refusal to raise Israeli officials’ charges that the government is fascistic.

Is there a connection between Israel and the fact that the U.S. continues to send billions of dollars of weapons and military aid to Egypt’s dictatorship? Of course there is, and even Michael Oren says that to defend western freedom, the US must support Middle East tyranny.

The BDS Movement celebrated a victory at the Mennonite Church Canada Assembly this weekend in Saskatoon, with an overwhelming majority of delegates supporting a resolution on that encourages BDS. With 350 delegates in attendance only one person opposed the resolution.

An internal Jerusalem department report reveals Israeli border police “initiated friction activity” to deliberately provoke violence in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Isawiyah, according to Haaretz.

Over 150 renowned writers, poets, translators, artists and literary figures signed an open letter in solidarity with Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour. Susan Abulhawa, Rae Armantrout, Carl Dennis, Dave Eggers, Carolyn Forché, Jorie Graham, Naomi Klein, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Naomi Shihab Nye, Claudia Rankine, Tracy K Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Ayelet Waldman, Alice Walker and Jacqueline Woodson were among the award-winning literary figures who joined the call for the immediate release of the Palestinian poet who was imprisoned for her poetry.

The Old Testament allowed rape of women during battle, and Eyal Qarim, who has been appointed the chief rabbi of the Israeli army, seemed to endorse that code in 2003 when he said that soldiers were permitted to succumb to their “evil urge” for the cause of the army’s success.

Israel’s security cabinet said Sunday it will spend $13 million to expand social and education programs in West Bank settlements “in order to make it easier” for residents “to deal with the effects of the security situation and minimize its impact on the daily routine.” Peace Now said the funding was a backdoor policy to build up settlements under the cover of responding to the recent bout of violence.

The old narrative of a blameless Israel, fighting off Palestinian “terrorists”, is over. BDS will win because it is the brave and steady labour of people of conscience to move the stalled, bogus “peace process” forward by applying economic pressure, plain and simple.

Bar-Ilan University students demanded the head of business teacher Uri Weiss when he said settlers exhibit “collective psychosis” and school disciplined him. But Weiss continues to criticize occupation.

Ma’an reports: “Israeli forces shot and injured at least five Palestinians and detained three others in the southern occupied West Bank district of Hebron overnight Saturday, as Israeli forces continued to impose a strict siege on the village of Sair after an Israeli man was shot and injured while driving his car around midnight near the nearby illegal Israeli settlement of Teqoa.”