Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s AIPAC speech was about ‘the good, the bad and the beautiful’. All about equality and justice – but not for Palestinians.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today that he wants the West Bank to remain under Israeli’s military control and does not want the Palestinians living there to become citizens or “subjects” of Israel, revealing an apparent hope to annex the occupied Palestinian territory while leaving its residents stateless.

In a wild speech in Munich, Netanyahu warned of a global Holocaust if Iran gets nuclear weapons. And he said that Iran was similar to the Nazis, in its supposed desire to annihilate 6 million Jews in Israel. Netanyahu is seeking any distraction he can get from the corruption investigation that is closing in on him, Jonathan Ofir writes.

Following on the heels of the Israeli police recommendation to indict Benjamin Netanyahu on corruption charges a new book on David Ben-Gurion shares new discoveries on the first Israeli prime minister’s marital unfaithfulness. Jonathan Ofir says that regardless of the personal failings of Israel’s leaders, the state building project they are carrying out has always been corrupt to the core: “The deceit that Zionism applies in order to cover up for its colonialist designs to erase Palestine is a constant factor, and the goal is always corrupt.”

Ayelet Shaked, the Israeli justice minister has done it again: She has spelled out Israeli Apartheid in unequivocal terms, and tied it directly to Zionism: “There is place to maintain a Jewish majority even at the price of violation of rights.”

Israel’s ruling Likud party announced last Sunday a new bill that seeks to apply Israeli domestic law directly to settlements, which would de facto annex all of the illegal West Bank settlements to Israel. Whether the bill is finally passed or not, it is clear is that Israeli annexation policies will continue unstopped, as they have since the beginning of the occupation.

When Israeli lawmaker Oren Hazan, a member of the governing coalition, told BBC he’d kick Ahed Tamimi’s face and land her in hospital, Israeli apologist ‘Honest Reporting’ attacked the BBC, in a piece titled “BBC News Kicks Israel in the Face”. But Hazan was saying what other Israeli leaders have said.

And on the day the story of the struggle is told,

You, Ahed Tamimi,

With red hair,

Like David who slapped Goliath,

Will be mentioned in the same line  

As Joan of Arc, Hannah Szenes and Anne Frank.

On Monday, Israeli poet Yehonatan Gefen posted a poem on his Instagram honoring Ahed Tamimi. Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman was so infuriated by this he called for all media outlets to ban Gefen and his work completely.

Israeli officials in the Population and Immigration authority have begun distributing an ‘information page’ for African refugees at the Holot desert detention center. The document is chilling. It does not name the third country the refugees would be deported to, but ends with a warning that “if you do not agree to leave voluntarily to a third country, enforcement and deportation steps will be taken against you.” Not mentioned in the document is the new rule that refusal to leave will entail indefinite incarceration. The document ends with a “best of luck” wish.

There was no end to the denunciation by Israelis of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s speech last Monday: “Laced with vile antisemitic conspiracy theories,” Abbas has “lost his marbles,” “disgraceful lies.” But Abbas’s crime, as Gideon Levy points out, is correctly identifying Zionism as a colonial project. That must not be said, and marks Abbas as an extremist.