Once Israel annexes the Jordan Valley, the 65,000 Palestinians living there won’t become Israeli citizens, but will be in an “enclave,” Netanyahu says. “Call it what you want,” he says of Palestinian bantustan state that might result. “At the heart of the Trump plan are foundations we have only dreamed about.”

With the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s passage of the United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2020 last week, the current Congress is now poised to enact with little transparency its most far-reaching bill related to Israel at the height of a national public health emergency.

The Palestinian Authority officially declared an end to the coronavirus lockdown in the occupied West Bank on Monday, nearly three months after the first state of emergency was declared.

Joe Biden’s idea of criticizing Israel was being 90 minutes late to dinner at the Netanyahus on the day the Israelis insulted him as vice president in 2010 by announcing more settlements. And Biden embraces Trump’s move of the embassy to Jerusalem and offers only mild criticism of annexation plans.

Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations has an article at Foreign Policy saying that the U.S. should phase out aid to Israel and “end the special relationship” because the peace process has attained its real objective: Israel is established as a secure country with a standard of living rivaling the UK and France, and no real military threat.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared an end to “all agreements and understandings” with Israel and the United States in response to Israeli plans to annex parts of the West Bank with U.S. support. But many are doubtful he will follow through.

“The Middle East is a… place where the most bizarre theories often have real policy consequences,” Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg writes in full Orientalist mode. Yes well what about his bizarre theories about Saddam’s links to Al Qaeda that helped get the U.S. into the Iraq war?

It’s been nine months since Laith Abu Zeyad, an Amnesty International staff member based in the occupied West Bank, was banned from traveling outside of the country and from entering Israel. After months of rejected petitions, unanswered questions, and painstaking delays, Abu Zeyad is finally getting his day in court — even if he is not allowed to be there.

Last week, both Missouri and Oklahoma’s state legislatures passed bills prohibiting the state from entering into contracts with businesses that boycott Israel. “Year after year, activists in these states successfully fought back against anti-boycott bills. This year, while legislative sessions were truncated due to COVID-19, and people sheltering in place were unable to fight back, lawmakers made the time to pass bills aiming to silence constitutionally protected speech in support of Palestinian rights,” Palestine Legal’s Meera Shah tells Mondoweiss.

Rep. Ilhan Omar’s challenger, Antone Melton-Meaux, repeats talking points of pro-Israel lobbyists. And his willingness to do so has earned him a sizeable warchest, nearly $500,000.