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Wilson Dizard

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Huma Abedin, a top Hillary Clinton aide, announced Monday that she is divorcing her husband, Queens-native Weiner, a disgraced former New York Congressman whose sexting of pictures of his engorged genitals to his fellow Americans cost him his political career in 2011. Her decision comes in the wake of yet another report of his digital infidelity. Before gaining international infamy for his online philandering, Weiner had distinguished himself as one of Israel’s most ardent apologists in Congress, apologizing for Israeli militarism, denying the existence of a military occupation in the West Bank and scolding critics of Israeli policies, even condemning the New York Times for its lack of Zionist cred.

Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders on Wednesday delivered a speech from Burlington, Vermont to his die-hard fans nationwide, calling on them to continue to support progressive politicians to achieve goals like campaign finance reform, universal healthcare and fixing an unfair criminal justice through the new Sanders-backed non-profit, Our Revolution. Absent from his address was any mention of Israel/Palestine or American foreign policy in the Middle East. “I think it shows a lack of courage,” said Robert Akleh, co-founder of Arabs for Bernie, a Brooklyn-based grassroots group.

Israel has banned an American activist who has worked for years helping Palestinians in Gaza, after denying her entry into the country, detaining her for hours and deporting her against her will. The woman’s ban comes after Israel banned five U.S. citizens at the border in July, all of them the U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation, and another American woman last week crossing from Jordan.

Breitbart News head Stephen Bannon has replaced Paul Manafort as Donald Trump’s primary campaign adviser. Bannon describes his site as a “platform for the Alt-Right,” referring to the growing white nationalist movement, and noted pro-Israel Islamophobe Pamela Geller has praised Bannon in heroic terms. What this revamped campaign means for Trump’s take on the middle east remains to be seen, but alt-right leaders are already imagining a future where they are directly influencing foreign policy.

The defiant display of Palestinian flags in Glasgow last week by Scottish fans of the Celtic soccer team has roused over £100,000 (just over $130,000) in donations online, all marked for helping Palestinians. As the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) is mulling what consequences Celtic fans should face for showing solidarity with the “illicit banner,” the Green Brigade, the hardcore cadre of Celtic fans who raised the Palestinian flag, responded to the threat of sanction with a call for donations for Palestinian medical aid and a refugee camp.

Green Party Presidential Candidate Jill Stein on Wednesday night provided an alternative vision for U.S. policy with Israel that questioned whether Washington was doing “Israel any favors” by dumping money into warfare and occupation.

Donald Trump received his first classified briefing from U.S. intelligence officials on Wednesday, two days after laying out his vision for foreign policy that measures the worth of alliances by whether countries oppose the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Although there are big differences in Trump’s and that of the White House, there are significant similarities, analysts say. For one, both Trump and President Barack Obama are willing to look the other way when it comes to human rights violations committed in campaigns against the ISIS. More than that, both Trump and Hillary Clinton talk about a world where Muslim loyalty to the United States hinges on their condemnation of terrorism.

Hundreds of New Yorkers gathered Monday in Queens to say goodbye to a Bengali American imam and his assistant who were shot down by a gunman in broad daylight on Saturday. Police charged a suspect in the killing, 35-year-old Oscar Morel of Brooklyn. The man’s brother told The New York Post that Morel felt “hatred” against Muslims after the September 11 attacks and many in the Ozone Park immigrant community fear the murder was a hate crime. The funeral and the neighborhood rallying with cries of “Justice!” all took place in the midst of unprecedented racist and xenophobic election-year rhetoric.