Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu released an ISIS inspired campaign video late Saturday evening where his Likud party suggested a vote for his opponents will lead to Israel’s takeover by the Islamic terror group.

After a half-year suspension and a row to remove from office Arab member of Knesset Hanin Zoabi, right-wing parties succeeded in disqualifying her from participating in Israeli elections next month. Yesterday the Central Election Committee in the Knesset voted Zoabi and hardline candidate Baruch Marzel could not run. The two were accused of incitement against Israel. Both cases will now be reviewed by Israel’s high court.

Since last August when professor of international law William Schabas was appointed as the head of a United Nations war crimes inquiry into violations committed in Gaza over the summer, Israel has repeatedly sought to remove him. Last week, Israel won. Schabas recused himself amid allegations of bias in a favor of the Palestinian government, but the resignation is not enough for Israel. It wants the entire investigation scrapped.

In his latest campaign ad Netanyahu plays the “Bibi-sitter” and says that his opponents cannot be trusted to watch after Israel’s children. He goes after Labor leader Issac Herzog by saying, “By the time we get home we won’t have a house left!” meaning that a centrist government would agree to end Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and turn over the occupied territories to the Palestinians. In the mindset of the commercial, this is as disastrous and foolish as giving away one’s own house.

Khalid Ja’ar once worked for Birthright, showing American Jews the “Bedouin experience” in the Negev. But after his son was killed by Israeli police and the town of Rahat has become a focus of Palestinian resistance, and Ja’ar’s world has changed.

While Israel’s government entered into elections over the very serious matters of economy and politics, in that order, the election season has been dominated by not so serious campaign ads. Just about every major party has produced some sort of satirical clip that would never air on U.S. television. While American ads go negative, Israel’s version of bashing an opponent’s record, or arrest history, is making fun of the other parties’ constituents.

Today, a Palestinian man from the West Bank town of Tulkarem stabbed 13 passengers on a Tel Aviv bus seriously injuring four. The attacker Hamza Matrouk, 23, told police interrogators he was motivated by Israel’s 50-day summer war in Gaza and tensions at the al-Aqsa Mosque compound where right-wing Israeli politicians have have taken groups of religious-nationalists throughout the fall. Although no Palestinian political faction took credit for the attack, Israeli leaders were quick to place blame on Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas.

Veteran CNN journalist Jim Clancy’s resignation this week is one of the odder media fallouts from the Charlie Hebdo Paris attack. On January 7, 2015 Clancy got into a late night Twitter spat regarding the French satirical magazine with online adversaries. He told them they were ganging up on him and practicing “hasbara,” the Hebrew word for “explaining” that describes pro-Israel advocacy. As it turns out, Clancy was not off base. Some that spared with him have worked for the Israeli government and pro-Israel lobby groups.

A prosecutor for the International Criminal Court has opened an inquiry into possible war crimes carried out by Israel in advance of the Palestinian government’s official ascension to the court. Meanwhile, the Palestinians plan to re-file a UN Security Council resolution to end Israel’s occupation.

Around 2,000 mourners gathered on Tuesday for a somber state funeral in Jerusalem’s Givat Shaul neighborhood laying to rest the four victims of a hostage attack at a Paris kosher grocery store on Friday. The bodies of the deceased were interred in a Jerusalem commemoration after an invitation to host the burial was extended to relatives of the slain by the Israeli Foreign Ministry who later sought payment from families of $13,000 each for the ceremonies. Economic Minister Naftali Bennett intervened late Tuesday night, lifting the fee.