The Freedom of Religion Act introduced Wednesday in the House of Representatives tries to stop Donald Trump’s “temporary’” ban on Muslims entering the country. The act expands the age-old prohibition on religious tests on public office, a previously uncontroversial part of the Constitution, to prohibit religious tests that would bar entry into the country based on a person’s faith. “It is unthinkable that in the 21st century a religion bar would be considered. Virtually every American believes there can be no religious test or exclusion of an immigrant to our country. That was the very first principle and it’s time we put that very first principle into law.” said D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, one of the co-sponsors of the bill.

“The Jewish state is a modern day miracle—a vibrant bloom in the middle of a desert—and we must nurture and protect it,” Hillary Clinton tells Jewish leaders in denouncing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) as a manifestation of anti-Semitism.

Led by the U.S., the Quartet is preparing a report saying that Israeli settlements are the main obstruction to a peace deal, according to the AP– even as Israel announces another illegal settlement for a population on the West Bank and East Jerusalem, 570,000, as large as that of Milwaukee.

Pew Research Center released a new survey of American attitudes toward the world yesterday, and…

What seems to unite all Trump supporters, terrifyingly enough, is their shared fear of Muslim infiltration into American life. Trump has proposed measures that include the tracking and surveillance of American Muslims, and has received standing ovations for it. In the coming weeks Trump will attempt to suture together his party with Islamophobia and Wilson Dizard says we should expect Trump to push anti-Muslim rhetoric very hard, knowing that it is central to uniting disparate communities in his campaign.

Indiana’s vote for Bernie Sanders notwithstanding, Hillary Clinton’s path to the Democratic nomination remains all but guaranteed. For the defenders of Palestinian rights who have flocked to Sanders, this is grim news. But in terms of actual U.S. policy in the Holy Land, does it really matter? Is there really a fundamental difference between Clinton and Sanders on this issue? Sandy Tolan says yes. And no. And maybe. In that order.

Hillary Clinton was “swayed” by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in seeking to set back the Iran negotiations in 2012 when Secretary of State John Kerry was willing to take risks to achieve the deal, according to a New York Times investigation by Mark Landler, published too late for most Democratic voters.

Legendary investigative journalist Sy Hersh says that Bernie Sanders’s freedom from having to go to pro-Israel NY Jews to raise money to mount a presidential race may allow the United States to finally get a peace deal in the Middle East. “A forbidden statement,” he tells Amy Goodman

Wilson Dizard reports from Washington DC where Donald Trump gave a speech this week outlining his foreign policy: “The nation-state remains the true foundation for happiness and harmony,” Trump said. That was kind of the scariest thing he said, and also the most indicative of his white, christian-ness trumping the constitution, a document designed in a secular spirit to defuse the deep religious rivalries between Europeans in the New World. It specifically prohibits religious tests, but one of Trump’s main platforms is the banning of Muslims from entering the country. Trump embraces Western values, but all the worst ones. The ones that put Westerners first and everyone else second.”

If Sheldon Adelson would buy the world, then Jeffrey Goldberg would be alright. But his troubles are beginning. He is a ruthless propagandist for Israel at a time when young American Jews don’t think it’s cool to shoot wounded Palestinians dead in the name of ethnic solidarity.