“It’s a shame [ISIS] doesn’t catch them before they reach Israel” was one of many racist responses in Israel to news that 3 asylum seekers who left Israel so as not to be detained were killed by ISIS in Libya

Bill Clinton came out four-square for the Iran deal today: “I hope and pray that we will leave behind a system where we can say with some confidence that we can keep really big, bad things from happening. That’s why this negotiation with Iran is so important.” A good sign for Hillary Clinton’s position.

Congress’s meddling in the Iran deal is reminiscent of Congress’s repudiation of Wilson’s League of Nations, which led to US isolation from its European allies and the lack of leadership that helped produce the second world war, Chas Freeman explains

Does Obama have a winning hand on Iran deal? Bill Kristol says the neocons may have walked into a “trap” on legislation that was supposed to stop the deal, but may actually clear the way for it, while Marco Rubio may push an amendment that Iran must recognize Israel’s right to exist.

Subhiya Abu Rahme, 60, propped up on her elbows and recounted her son’s last morning before the Israeli army killed him. Six years ago on April 17, 2009 Bassem Abu Rahme, 30, was shot in the chest with a tear gas canister in his West Bank hometown of Bil’in outside of Ramallah. The morning was a scorcher. Bassem went into the bathroom to cool off, musing, “I will shower or I will die.” Once clean and dressed, he walked to the garden behind the house. “I was working. He told me don’t tire yourself. It’s not good for you,” Subhiya said, relaying Bassem’s final words to her.

Palestine was too small to become the Jewish national home without harming the rights of non-Jews. The British and early Zionists understood this, and spoke of Palestine as a single state with perfect equality between Jew and Arab, the common home for two peoples. Is there hope for harmony and mutual respect even today?

Netanyahu’s speech on Holocaust remembrance day was mostly about Iran, saying it is “just like the Nazis” in seeking to control the world and “exterminate 6 million Jews.” And we let this man anywhere near our foreign policy?

When one looks at the actions of the US on the international stage, it’s obvious that the world’s lone superpower is the least trustworthy of the parties negotiating in Lausanne, Switzerland.

NYT obit for Gunter Grass puts his 2012 poem criticizing Israel in paragraph 4, ahead of his global bestseller about Germany during the war, The Tin Drum. Grass was the “conscience of a generation,” BBC said today, but he became “virtually a persona non grata” after the poem.

The UN Relief and Works Agency sent along this first picture of escapees from Yarmouk…