The State Department has shut down rumors of an imminent transfer of the United States Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, however officials have yet to announce whether the waiver to keep the embassy in Tel Aviv would be signed by U.S. President Donald Trump by the required time, Dec. 4.

Israel can expect more understanding from Donald Trump’s negotiating team because they are all observant Jews, Natan Sharansky of the Jewish Agency said Tuesday night. Netanyahu will come forward with a ‘serious’ proposal for peace, Sharansky says, and Arab countries will put pressure on Palestinian leadership to accept it.

“During one of my visits, as I stood reading the names engraved on the wall, I noticed the name of Maria Teresa El-Tit, one of Villa Grimaldi’s disappeared prisoners. I paused. It was a Palestinian family name, and I was in front of a different story – a story I had found resonance of in other conversations and settings. I wondered: had some members of her family arrived from Palestine in the early 1900s as other immigrants had? I thought of the Palestinian martyrs’ bodies which Israel refuses to hand over to their families, and thus denying them the act of saying goodbye to their loved ones and living with the pain. I thought of Palestinian martyrs, of prisoners, and of those who were, and continue to be, tortured and subjected to multitude forms of violence.”–Basil Farraj

Last week Dr. Hatem Bazian, a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, became subject to intense criticism and calls for his dismissal after it came to light that months earlier he had retweeted an anti-Semitic meme. The incident follows years of false accusations of anti-Semitism and outlandish claims. Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi, a professor at the nearby San Francisco State University, explained in emails this week to her colleagues and the UC Berkeley Chancellor that Bazian is being victimized by a campaign: “I urge you to strong reject this bullying and smear campaign. I call on you to publicly defend Dr. Bazian against this witch hunt.”

Ahmed Alnaouq pens a letter to an Israeli drone: “Dear friend, I didn’t want to write you this letter, but I was provoked—you could say I was driven to it by your incessant nagging, keeping us up all night long. I have known you for a long time, since 2008. I remember when I saw you for the first time. You were terrifying—tiny, but terrifying nonetheless. It was just days after the launch of what would become a 21-day war on Gaza. When I heard your low, persistent whine, I had no idea what you were. Your sound alone caused chills to go up and down my spine. Then, seeing your sleek, silvery shape in the sky filled me with wonder and fear.”

Liberal Zionists are in crisis. Alon Ben-Meir says the left is alive and strong in Israel, and it will revive the two-state solution. While Danny Seidemann of Peace Now warns that Netanyahu has approved a “Doomsday settlement” that would cut off Bethlehem from Jerusalem for Palestinians, meaning the dream of a Palestinian state is dead.

“The light disappears.
Was it real?
Again he lifts his wings
and prepares to fly.
Nothing.

He turns to the tree,
as if to ask if she sees.
His olive tree is silent.”–Basman Derawi

In an apparent escalation of Israel’s anti-BDS policy, an American Jew disclosed to Mondoweiss that in order to receive a valid visa they were forced to sign a loyalty oath to the state of Israel. The individual, who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, was summoned to the Interior Ministry’s office and forced to write and sign a letter declaring allegiance to the state in order to receive a tourist visa. Handwritten on official Ministry of Interior Population Immigration and Border Authority stationery, the letter, as dictated to the individual by an agent of the ministry reads: “I declare that I will not do any activities against Israel, the army, and its institutions.”

“Suggesting, as the posters do, that Jews have been driven out of their land (like indigenous people) and have finally returned to Israel–a trajectory that all indigenous people should unite behind–is a crude and cynical manipulation of (Jewish) history and a vulgar fabrication that not only makes no sense, but is also offensive in its use and abuse of indigenous peoples’ histories of oppression,” writes professor Gil Hochberg.

55 Israeli lawmakers including the Prime Minister and several ministers have petitioned the President Reuven Rivlin to reconsider his refusal to pardon the soldier-medic-killer Elor Azarya. Azarya is likely to get out of prison next spring, but he is so popular in Israel these lawmakers don’t want him to spend the winter in prison.