The United Methodists of the U.S. said today they members passed a combined 23 resolutions supporting Palestinians, and some backed the right to organize boycotts against and divest from Israel: “Over the last 13 months, thousands of clergy and lay delegates representing over 1 million United Methodist Church members (based on data at www.umdata.org) have approved resolutions defending the right to boycott and divest: in 2017, the annual conferences of Minnesota, New England, Upper New York, Great Plains (Nebraska and Kansas), Desert Southwest (Arizona and Utah), Oregon-Idaho, and Florida; in June and July 2016, the California-Nevada Annual Conference and the Western Jurisdictional Conference, which represents United Methodists in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.”

Thousands of Palestinians took to the streets in Dheisha refugee camp to lay to rest 18-year-old Baraa Hamamda on Friday. The teen was shot dead by Israeli forces when clashes broke out due to Israeli forces invading the camp during a pre-dawn raid.

Rawan Yaghi meets an Israeli student at Oxford University and is amazed how little she knows about Gaza: “This girl may not deserve my direct sentiments of disgust and anger. But since her comfortable life and her plans in life are made possible by the sheer misery of myself and everyone I know from Gaza and in Gaza at the moment, I could not walk away without feeling like I’ve just met a human that disregards other human beings as less worthy creatures, less worthy of the mere knowledge of their/our existence.”

Four Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli forces early Friday morning, while two Israelis were shot and killed by Palestinian gunmen in the deadliest day for Palestinian civilians in more than one year. The attack on the Israelis resulted in Israeli forces blockading the Al Aqsa mosque compound.

June 8 marked the 50th anniversary of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, killing 34 American sailors. The case remains a mystery that is the subject of a Haaretz investigation in Israel and a new book, but U.S. media won’t even address the controversy, leaving the case entirely to Letters to the Editor.

The Times of Israel reports, “Canadian food inspectors have ordered liquor stores to stop selling wines made in the West Bank, saying their label identifying them as Israeli contravenes Ottawa’s policy on the territory … News of the order emerged with the issue of a letter Tuesday from the Liquor Control Board of Ontario to liquor vendors, detailing the ruling by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency a week earlier ‘that ‘Product of Israel’ would not be an acceptable country of origin declaration for wine products that have been made from grapes that are grown, fermented, processed, blended and finished in the West Bank occupied territory.’ The ruling extended to wines from ‘any other territory occupied by Israel in 1967’ that carried such a label, which would be ‘considered misleading,’ specifically mentioning the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and Gaza, as well as the West Bank.”

In predicting that France would succumb to Sharia law by 2022, novelist Michel Houellebecq made the mistake of predicting events in 2017. They have already proven completely wrong, thereby undermining his warnings about the dangers of leftwing political correctness.

Students, staff, and faculty at San Francisco State University are under investigation by the university on trumped up charges of anti-Semitism brought forth by San Francisco Hillel. This is the latest in a long history of accusations made against Palestinians and Palestinian advocates at SFSU by the pro-Israel organization. Saliem Shehadeh unpacks the latest accusations and writes, “Hillel’s baseless complaint, in this case, is intended to wash out the grievances that the Arab, Muslim and Palestinian community have made to SFSU. And the university’s misconduct of this investigation affirms that the university is not able to make an objective decision based on the facts.”

Netanyahu’s culture minister Miri Regev boycotts the work of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish and wears a dress celebrating Israeli colonization. But David Grossman will join a delegation with her in New York later this month, as the Israeli government sponsors a production of a play based on his novel.

A $2.3 million Israeli lawsuit against the family of Fadi Qanbar, who crashed a truck into soldiers in Jerusalem in January, killing four, demands that his widow reimburse the state for the compensation it awarded the soldiers’ families. If she cannot raise the astronomic sum, the debt will pass to her four children, the oldest of whom is currently only seven. Israel is reported to be preparing many similar cases.