“I want to ensure this ridiculous messenger movement against Israel never sees the light of day in our state,” MD State Senator Bobby Zirkin says in sponsoring a bill against BDS, boycott, divestment and sanctions. His statement is a frank rejection of free speech.

Hoda Katebi responds to one of the enduring images from the Women’s March on Washington, “From all the photos these past few days filling our social media feeds of white people with red hats and white women with pink beanies with ears, people holding signs of cheetos, and enough pro-Hillary slogans to make this Muslim woman of color uncomfortable, there was one particularly striking image that was consistently shared and re-shared and praised by the ‘left.’ The American-flag-clad Hijabi woman illustrated in the trademark style of Obama’s ‘hope’ poster is not short of striking. But maybe not for the right reasons.”

“Has liberal Zionism died and has religious nationalism won in Israel?” New Yorker editor David Remnick asks, acknowledging that many see “only one state” in Israel and Palestine. But he suggests it’s a recipe for endless conflict.

Donald Trump seems to have cold feet about moving U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, with his spokesperson saying he will consult “stakeholders” in a “decision-making process.”

The al-Mezan Center for Human Rights reports that Ahmad Hassan Shubeir, a 17-year-old from Gaza City, died of a congenital heart defect after refusing to serve as a collaborator for Israel in exchange for a travel permit to receive medical care.

“The workshop lasted five hours…. Hopefully, it will herald the new normal in Germany,” Norman Finkelstein says of a lecture he gave today in Halle despite international pressure on the Max Planck Institute to cancel.

Haim Saban called Keith Ellison “clearly an anti-Semite” and a “disaster” for the Democratic Party’s relationship to Jews. Ellison has turned the other cheek, announcing that he has had an “amicable” phone call with Saban and their relationship “is on the road to recovery.”

It was mobilizations like the Saturday women’s marches against Trump that ended the war in Vietnam. The word spread then to the soldiers in Vietnam, and they stopped fighting and it was all over. That’s what could happen here. Trump could be all over. We know now we can stop Trump and his deplorable cabinet.

“I understood, firsthand, what it means to hold the monopoly of violence,” Maya Avis says of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians living in umm al-Hiran village in the Negev last week. What does it say when the only witnesses who count are Ashkenazi Jews?

Gaza’s fishing industry suffers a severe recession as a result of Israel’s naval blockade and daily aggressive practices against boats. The Israeli navy bans sailing in a distance beyond three to five miles from shore and has killed one fisherman lately and injured three others.