Ma‘an reports: “Thousands of Palestinians participated in a march on Wednesday in Israel commemorating the 58th anniversary of the Kafr Qasim massacre, amid a comprehensive strike across the city.”
Haaretz reports: “A plan to build the first new Arab city in Israel since the establishment of the state will come before the National Planning and Building Council for approval next week. The city, to be built adjacent to the Arab community of Jdeideh Makr, which is just east of the northern coastal city of Acre, is planned for a population of 40,000. Planning for the new city, initiated by the Israel Lands Authority, the Housing and Construction Ministry and the planning administration in the Interior Ministry, has been in the works for the past four years in fulfillment of a 2008 cabinet decision.”
972 mag reports: “Nine Jewish Israeli families took over two empty buildings in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan in East Jerusalem overnight Sunday. According to the NGO Ir Amim, the families took control over 10 housing units in two buildings in the heart of Silwan. They moved in under the auspices of Ateret Cohanim, a settler organization based in the Muslim quarter of the Old City that works to create a Jewish demographic majority in East Jerusalem.”
Reuters reports: “A mosque [Abu Baker al-Saddiq] was set alight in a suspected arson attack in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday and the name of an Israeli vigilante group called ‘price tag’ was found scribbled on an outside wall, Palestinian officials and witnesses said. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin condemned the incident in ‘Aqraba, a village east of Nablus, and urged Israel’s police chief to head an investigation adding that the case ‘should be treated as terrorism.'”
Ma‘an reports: A large group of Israeli settlers on Saturday morning violently beat a young Palestinian woman while she was picking olives from trees in an orchard in the village of Yasuf in the Salfit district in the central West Bank, a Palestinian official said.
Devastation as far as the eye can see is our Yom Kippur geography. If a closing prayer is a must, chant the Amidah. The Shema. Anything that comes to mind. With a caveat. Stop the prayers if they don’t make sense in the Gaza rubble. If a prayer doesn’t make sense when the names of the murdered are read, call up another prayer. This goes for any comments that are made as well. If they make sense in the presence of the Gazan dead. Otherwise be silent.
Ma’an reports, “Israeli settlers early Tuesday occupied 23 houses in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan south of the Old City of Jerusalem, a local information center said.”
According to retired church personnel of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America the new presiding bishop, The Rev. Elizabeth Eaton, is seeking to retrench the church’s position on Israel/Palestine. And they fear a witch-hunt against those church workers who demand substantive action.
Haaretz reports: “Agriculture Minister Yair Shamir said during a visit to the south on Sunday that he was examining ways to lower the birthrate of the Bedouin community. Shamir heads the ministerial committee on Bedouin resettlement arrangements. “We have to take all the Bedouin and get them out of the desert a bit and bring them closer to a normal state from the perspective of legislation, life expectancy, education and livelihood,” Shamir said. “Perhaps we could even deal with the phenomenon of multiple wives to reduce the birthrate and raise the standard of living.”