Donald Trump’s Israel advisor again raised the possibility of his candidate backing the Israeli annexation of the occupied West Bank, while dining with the representative of a settler organization in New York during the “last two weeks,” according to a report published by Israel’s Channel 2 who obtained a video of the meeting.
After a weekend of separate sit-downs between the prime minister of Israel and both Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump in New York, the Palestinian leadership condemned Trump for statements that broke away from the U.S.’s official position on Jerusalem.
For Arab travelers through Israel’s Ben Gurion airport, it is common knowledge that lengthy questioning and strip searches come before boarding. As it turns out, forcing passengers into airport back rooms and requiring them to remove clothing is illegal under Israeli law, says legal rights group Adalah.
Most Democrats think the $38 billion dollar aid package the U.S. signed with Israel last week—the highest in U.S. history—is “too much or way too much” money, while Republicans are split on the amount, according to a survey conducted by the Brookings Institute.
An all-female crew has set sail on two vessels headed towards Gaza on Wednesday in attempts of breaking the nine-year Israeli blockade on the coastal Mediterranean strip. The “Women’s Boat to Gaza” is the fourth of its kind, captained by women-only with 30 female activists and high-ranking officials aboard the Arabic-named Zaytouna (“Olive”) and the Amal (“hope”).
Upcoming municipal elections in the West Bank and Gaza were cancelled yesterday by a Palestinian high court in Ramallah, after ruling in favor of a lawyers guild’s petition to strike down the race because East Jerusalem Palestinians were not eligible to cast ballots, or compete for seats in the government. Although the decision was said to have been made over a procedural technicality, some speculated political motives from members of the West Bank-based Fatah were at play.
Over the summer, one of the founding villages of the Palestinian non-violent movement, Nabi Saleh, decided to stop holding the weekly Friday demonstrations that brought the small West Bank town international attention. The move comes following scores of arrests and a general fatigue among protesters. “The tear gas is inside the village, the clashes are inside of the homes, and it’s a small village which makes it difficult for the people to continue,” said Bassem Tamimi, a leader in Nabi Saleh who helped organize weekly marches over the past six years. He estimates that more than 350 people from his 600 person town have been injured in clashes with the army since 2010, and 50 were left physically disabled.
After falling behind Hillary Clinton in the polls, Donald Trump and his campaign are looking to the one corner of the world where he stands to sweep come November — Israel. In an effort to bolster Republican voter turnout in the country Republicans Overseas has hired a team of noted political operatives from the Israeli right-wing and are campaigning hard for votes in the Jewish state and West Bank settlements. To do so they have traded the candidate’s iconic, “Making America Great Again” for a less patriotic appeal: “Trump. The Israeli interest.”
Israel’s military has cleared soldiers of criminal wrongdoing in alleged human rights violations committed during the 2014 summer war in Gaza. According to a report published yesterday, Israel closed investigations into the killing of three Palestinian families and other civilians, and the shelling of a medical clinic, Gaza’s main power plant, and a United Nations shelter, among other offenses. “We did not expect anything less than Israel’s justification of war crimes,” chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said after the publication of the military report, and urged the International Criminal Court to investigate the offenses.
After Palestinian Ahmed Abu Ghosh won Jordan’s first-ever Olympic gold medal in Rio on Friday for the men’s 68-kg Taekwondo event, claims that the athlete’s roots in the Jerusalem area are “Israeli,” and that his family “relocated” or “moved” to Jordan decades ago have followed.