Israeli poet Yehonatan Geffen caused a furor in Israel for his comparison of Ahed Tamimi to Anne Frank, but he has now recanted his offending comparison. This followed incitement by Israeli government ministers creating what he calls “effective house arrest” for the past week. Not so bad compared to Ahed Tamimi’s detention or Dareen Tatour’s house arrest.

Michael Oren has made himself a laughingstock by starting an investigation into whether the Tamimi family of Nabi Saleh is “a real family”, because they wear baseball caps backward. The more important question is whether Israel is a real country; and it gets harder and harder to believe that it is.

And on the day the story of the struggle is told,

You, Ahed Tamimi,

With red hair,

Like David who slapped Goliath,

Will be mentioned in the same line  

As Joan of Arc, Hannah Szenes and Anne Frank.

On Monday, Israeli poet Yehonatan Gefen posted a poem on his Instagram honoring Ahed Tamimi. Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman was so infuriated by this he called for all media outlets to ban Gefen and his work completely.

The Israeli military spying unit 8200 came to public attention in 2014 when reserve soldiers refused to serve as “tools for the deepening of the military regime in the occupied territories.” Now, facing a shortage of soldiers the unit will be seeking to get its recruits from the 10th grade.

Israeli officials in the Population and Immigration authority have begun distributing an ‘information page’ for African refugees at the Holot desert detention center. The document is chilling. It does not name the third country the refugees would be deported to, but ends with a warning that “if you do not agree to leave voluntarily to a third country, enforcement and deportation steps will be taken against you.” Not mentioned in the document is the new rule that refusal to leave will entail indefinite incarceration. The document ends with a “best of luck” wish.

There was no end to the denunciation by Israelis of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s speech last Monday: “Laced with vile antisemitic conspiracy theories,” Abbas has “lost his marbles,” “disgraceful lies.” But Abbas’s crime, as Gideon Levy points out, is correctly identifying Zionism as a colonial project. That must not be said, and marks Abbas as an extremist.

If you think Trump’s “shithole countries” statement is bad, consider that such statements are routine in Israel, whose leaders have likened Palestinians to “cancer” and snakes and cockroaches, said that disloyal Palestinians should be decapitated with an “axe” or drowned, and have actually had a Muslim ban since the country was established.

A month after she slapped a soldier in occupied Nabi Saleh, 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi faces a final bail hearing today at court. She has been imprisoned since December 19. Professor Asa Kasher, author of the IDF ‘ethics code, opines that Ahed Tamimi is dangerous, because she may slap again.

Rebecca Vilkomerson’s acknowledgment of Israel’s travel ban of Jewish Voice for Peace — “as we at JVP are now feeling the pain of exclusion, we are very aware that Palestinians have always faced profiling and bans on entry to Israel” — recalls Spinoza’s gracious acceptance of his excommunication by Amsterdam Jews in 1656. As history now shines on Spinoza, one day it will shine on Vilkomerson and JVP.

Zionism’s adherents see the ideology as a kind of ‘essence of life’, essential to the survival of Jews. Therefore the person who breaks with the ideology has betrayed a social contract, and by citing liberal values, has offended Zionists and made them feel lesser, Jonathan Ofir explains. No wonder the person who breaks often is socially ostracized or regarded with great mistrust.