Durham County, North Carolina has taken towards dropping private company G4S’ contract to provide security for libraries, parking lots and other municipal buildings. The move by Durham County commissioners followed a months-long campaign by a coalition of activists who criticized G4S, a British-Danish company, for its ties to the Israeli occupation.

Mondoweiss’ Alex Kane spoke with scholar Steven Salaita last week at the end of his three-week speaking tour. Salaita was set to join the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign’s American Indian Studies program when a pro-Israel pressure campaign targeted him. Salaita’s contract with the university was terminated, and he has become a cause celebre for academic freedom advocates and Palestine solidarity activists. Now, Salaita and his lawyers have sued the university for not releasing emails that would shed light on how the decision to fire him was made.

On November 2, Linda Wafi participated in the 26.2 mile-New York City Marathon. The 33-year-old Palestinian resident of Washington, D.C. was not just running for exercise, though. Wafi was raising money for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, a nonprofit that brings injured children from the Middle East to hospitals around the world for treatment. The fund is busy these days with helping Palestinians who were injured during Israel’s last military operation in the Gaza Strip, an area Wafi lived in for ten years.

A California Hillel chapter has partnered with a D.C.-linked public relations firm to fight the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, according to leaked emails obtained by Mondoweiss. The PR firm 30 Point Strategies has discussed how to combat BDS at the University of California, Los Angeles campus with Hillel staffers there. 30 Point staffers have advised UCLA’s Hillel to stay largely silent in the event of a student government resolution that recommends divestment from Israeli military-linked corporations. The revelation that a Hillel chapter has turned to a professional public relations firm shows that UCLA Hillel is stepping up its work to fight BDS on campus.

Hundreds of young Jews from around the country converged on Harvard over the weekend for the Open Hillel conference. The event succeeded in creating a space where open dissent on Israel is welcomed and where conversation and debate is the norm. At the heart of the Open Hillel network is a conviction that Hillel should be a place that welcomes all Jews–not just those who follow the establishment line on Israel.

The last time President Obama said he intended to strike Syria, anti-war sentiment surged in the U.S. But this year, as airstrikes against the Islamic State continue to pound targets in Iraq and Syria, the anti-war movement is facing a different battle. Organizers are struggling to gain traction in the face of headwinds that include fear over the Islamic State, a media incessantly broadcasting news of ISIS atrocities and the loss of one obvious leverage point: Congress.

Meet If Not Now: a new, Jewish group that emerged out of the wreckage of the Gaza conflict. Dedicated to demanding that mainstream Jewish leaders take an anti-occupation stand, the group’s grassroots, social media-savvy messaging has lead others around the nation to take up its banner. The rise of If Not Now, a group whose founding members are deeply rooted in Jewish communal life, is just one of the latest signs that dissent on Israel is rising amongst young people.

Accusations that Israel committed war crimes in Gaza during its latest military operation there have come in hard and fast. But the burning question is whether the Israeli soldiers or commanders responsible for the alleged crimes will be held accountable. The prospects for accountability are slim, but there are three main tools the Palestinians can wield to attempt to put Israel in the dock.

The cease-fire that ended seven weeks of hell in Gaza is only two days old. But the countdown to the next round began as soon as the ink dried on the agreement between Israel and the Palestinian armed factions. The deep-rooted problems bedeviling the Palestinian people and Israel have not gone away. The only question is when that next spasm of violence breaks out.

Israel and the Palestinian armed groups waging war in Gaza for the past seven weeks…