On June 1, the Israeli Knesset passed a preliminary reading of a bill pushed by Likud Party MK member, Eli Cohen, to ban the display of “enemy flags” across Israeli state-funded institutions. Although the bill refers to “enemy flags,” the only flag that is explicitly noted is the Palestinian one. The bill must pass three additional Knesset votes before it becomes law. For Palestinians, the bill is not merely an attack on their flag, but is symbolic of a continued and systemic assault on symbols which express Palestinian identity.

Coming soon if a Palestinian-American wants to travel to the occupied West Bank to visit their family, they will need to apply to the Israeli government for advanced permission, reveal the personal information of the relatives they plan on visiting, along with data of any land they own or stand to inherit in the territory. These are just some of the invasive restrictions that Palestinians who hold foreign passports would be subjected to according to a new ordinance published by the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, the Israeli government agency responsible for enforcing Israeli policy in the occupied territory. “This is Apartheid in action,” Ahmed Abofoul, a lawyer with Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq told Mondoweiss of the new policy.

It’s been more than five months since Israel designated six Palestinian civil society organizations as terrorist groups, and the groups are demanding that action be taken to reverse the decision. In a joint statement the groups called on third party states, including the US, EU, and intergovernmental organizations to “take concrete action against the Israeli occupation authorities’ continued harassment and criminalization of Palestinian human rights defenders and civil society organizations by calling for full revocation of the designation.”

Idit Silman has quit the Israeli government saying she “will not abet the harming of the Jewish identity of the State of Israel.” Her issue? Allowing leavened bread in hospitals.

House Speaker Pelosi is leading a delegation of Democratic Congress members to Israel this week, including progressives Barbara Lee and Ro Khanna. The US Campaign for Palestinian Rights calls on the politicians to cancel the “apartheid delegation” amid “Israel’s escalating ethnic cleansing” of Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem.

According to a classified cable, Israel’s government is launching a campaign to discredit a United Nations commission investigating the country’s 2021 attack on Gaza. Axios’ Barak Ravid reports that Israel’s Foreign Ministry sent a cable, to all the country’s diplomatic missions, referring to the investigation as a “top priority” and announcing that it’s launching a diplomatic effort to derail the probe. They also expressed concern that the Commission of Inquiry’s report (which is expected to be released in June) will refer to Israel as an “apartheid state.”

The French writer Sylvain Cypel went to Israel as a young man to join the army and build the country. Now he is deeply dismayed by its rightwing nativism and indifference to international human rights law and has penned a lacerating book about the threat of Zionism to Palestinians and to Jewish tradition.

Addameer is one of six Palestinian NGOs designated by Israel as a terror organization. The prisoners rights group says the accusations against them are unfounded, and could have potentially devastating consequences for the Palestinian human rights movement.

If you want to understand the power imbalance between the United States and Israel, the farce over Biden’s broken promise to Palestinians to reopen the former U.S. consulate in Jerusalem is a good place to start. The State Department has beseeched Israel to relent in its opposition to the reopening. But the Israeli government is adamant against it. And guess who wins?

Mondoweiss founder and senior editor Phil Weiss speaks to Khaled Elgindy about the first meeting between President Joe Biden and newly installed Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.