ICC ruling that it has jurisdiction to investigate Israeli war crimes has put the country’s leadership on the defensive. Netanyahu calls it “pure antisemitism” and Israel’s US advocates, AIPAC, AJC, and Dennis Ross rush in to say that the ICC has no jurisdiction.

Netanyahu is running for reelection by saying there is “one state” between the river and the sea in which Jews and Arabs work together. He’s solidifying the apartheid reality under the nose of the Biden administration, which says pointedly that it won’t be undertaking negotiations because Israeli Palestinian trust is at a “nadir”.

Dennis Ross gets to trash Yasser Arafat on NPR: “Defiance is very much a part of the historic Palestinian narrative.” And the popular show, “Fresh Air,” offers no Palestinian perspective when Ross blames breakdown of peace talks on Yasser Arafat.

The Israel lobby expects that Joe Biden will name a Zionist Jew as ambassador to Israel, continuing a tradition that Bill Clinton began 25 years ago. But as Dems call for greater diversity in ambassadorial appointments, this is one post that would benefit from a nod that does not seem loaded on one side of a conflict.

Netanyahu’s reported historic meeting with the Saudi crown prince this morning in Saudi Arabia at the behest of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is a power move. The Saudi monarchy gets Israel lobby on its side to counter Biden’s human rights objections. Israel gets Saudi ally to help tie Biden’s hands against reentering Iran deal as posing a threat to peace in the Middle East.

Israeli snipers shot nearly 8,000 protesters at the Gaza fence, killing 214, including 59 on the day that the US moved the embassy to Jerusalem; and advocates for Israel such as Dennis Ross ignore this river of suffering when they say that “Nothing happened” when we moved the embassy.

Dennis Ross says Netanyahu is deluded about Joe Biden’s potential support for annexation. “[Netanyahu’s] view of the gains unfortunately is not very real. You only establish an international baseline if in fact everyone is prepared to adjust to it. Now maybe if Trump has a second term, there is more of an impulse to adjust to it. But if Trump doesn’t have a second term, no one else internationally of any meaning is going to recognize this new baseline. And if Joe Biden comes in and says, ‘I was opposed to it, I still believe in the two-state outcome, I want negotiations, I saw what Trump did was antithetical to achieving that, so we’re not recognizing that as a baseline…”

Rashid Khalidi’s great great great uncle tried to tell Herzl not to colonize Palestine in 1899 but Herzl assured him that Zionists would bring Jewish acumen to the country and improve everyone’s lives. Yet after 100 years of settler colonialism, aided by superpowers, Palestinians remain undefeated. An interview with Khalidi about his new book.

Before the smartphone, elites promoted Israel’s message, says former ambassador Ido Aharoni. “Israel was… communicated to the world through the eyes of people like Tom Friedman and Dennis Ross and of course the political leadership. And they were great people.”

The news that Israel’s new government plans to begin annexing the West Bank in July has been greeted with outrage– and resignation. Even some peace processors seem to accept that the two-state moment is passed. Former White House aide Dennis Ross says, “1 state for 2 peoples is more likely.”