Guatemala won U.S. approval by moving its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Now America is silent as Guatemala abolishes an anti-corruption probe. Thus do foreign countries seek to cultivate the US government by doing favors for Israel.

Yoav Litvin interviews Holy Land Trust Executive Director Sami Awad on the role of Christian theology and nonviolence in the struggle for Palestinian justice. “True justice is not defined as revenge or retaliation, but a holistic means to address violence through accountability, repentance and forgiveness for the atrocities that have been committed and the pursuit of a future that is based on equality, rights and opportunity for all,” Awad says.

Just days after Palestinian children returned back to school, the Trump administration announced it would be cutting all funding to UNRWA — the UN agency responsible for providing life saving services to 5 million Palestinian refugees across the Middle East. Mondoweiss spoke with some of those affected, who expressed fears of losing essential services like food assistance, jobs, water, and most importantly, education.

Frank Sinatra got $2 million in 1981 to defy boycott calls and play South African apartheid venue Sun City. Lana Del Rey just heeded boycott calls, giving up a $700,000 appearance fee, nearly 10 times her usual reported fee, and canceled Israel’s “escapist” Meteor festival. See the parallel?

Tamam Abusalama writes, “An inclusive and intersectional feminist movement should address the struggles of women in different contexts. It should also acknowledge that there are huge gaps of privileges between women in the West and in the East. It shouldn’t ignore the long-lasting impacts of colonization on women from colonized countries. It should understand that an inclusive movement would never be successful without acknowledging the main colonial, imperial and capitalist elements, differently shaping women experiences. There is hope but we have always to keep on calling for a diverse, inclusive, de-colonial and intersectional feminist movement.”

The Trump administration threatened to sanction the International Criminal Court and its staff yesterday on the eve of an impending announcement where The Hague-based tribunal will decide if it will investigate American soldiers for war crimes committed in Afghanistan dating back almost two decades. Speaking at a Federalist Society event in Washington DC, National Security Advisor John Bolton outlined a series of retaliations the U.S. would take if the investigation is opened. “If the court comes after us, Israel or our other allies, we will not sit quietly,” he cautioned. 

On Saturday, the Trump administration’s announced it would be cutting $25 million in aid to Palestinian hospitals in occupied East Jerusalem. “We ask the American government, why do the sick people in the hospital have to pay the price of political conflict?” the Secretary General of the East Jerusalem Hospital Network Walid Namur asked during a press conference on Monday. “We are humanitarian organizations and hospitals, and should be left out of political problems. We serve to treat sick people.”

If the Oslo peace process between Israel and Palestine had succeeded, Donald Trump would not have been elected, says the eminent Israeli journalist Akiva Eldar. He surely imagines a scenario in which neoconservatives did not push the Iraq war, which helped Trump defeat Clinton in 2016.

The Trump administration ordered a Palestinian representative office to close today, ending the near 25-year diplomatic presence of the PLO Mission in Washington DC. “This is yet another affirmation of the Trump Administration’s policy to collectively punish the Palestinian people, including by cutting financial support for humanitarian services including health and education,” PLO official Saeb Erekat said in a statement.

From the author of “P is for Palestine,” comes Goldbarg Bashi’s next children’s book “Counting Up the Olive Tree: A Palestine Number Book,” due out in January 2019. Young readers learn to count with a band of Palestinian children who ditch their soccer game to save “the last olive tree” from a “woeful woodcutter.”