‘The Palestinians became a charity case, seeking handouts from the Arab world so that the PA could help maintain the occupation rather than lead the resistance. Thanks to Oslo, Israel became normalised in the region, while paradoxically the Palestinians found themselves transformed into the foreign object.’

The entrance to Abu Dis could not be more disconcerting, given reports that the Trump administration intends it to be the capital of a future Palestinian state, in place of Jerusalem. The eight metre-high grey slabs of Israel’s separation wall silently attest to a divided land and a quarter-century of a failed Middle East peace process.

In their relentless attacks on Jeremy Corbyn, the Israel lobby are being required for the first time to air the racist premises that always underpinned their arguments. That exposure is going to harm, not benefit, Britain’s apologists for Israel.

The Trump administration’s decision to scrap all future aid payments to UNRWA, the main agency helping Palestinian refugees, marks a new – and most likely disastrous – chapter in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Has Israel been covertly fuelling claims of an “anti-Semitism crisis” purportedly plaguing Britain’s Labour Party since it elected a new leader, Jeremy Corbyn, three years ago? That question is raised by a new freedom of information request submitted this week by a group of Israeli lawyers, academics and human rights activists.

Israeli citizens are not supposed to be loyal to a democratic principle, or universal human rights, or even the welfare of their compatriots. In Israel, “loyal” citizens are required to bow down before the Jewishness of the state and uphold the values of Jewish supremacism, even if it means their own permanent abasement.

Uri Avnery, a self-confessed former “Jewish terrorist” who went on to become Israel’s best-known peace activist, died in Tel Aviv on Monday, following a stroke. He was 94. As one of Israel’s founding generation, Avnery was able to gain the ear of prime ministers, even while he spent decades editing an anti-establishment magazine that was a thorn in their side.

Beinart’s views echo those of many liberal American Jews no longer willing to turn a blind eye to Israel’s sytematic abuses of Palestinians. In detaining him at the airport, Israel effectively declared that it no longer represents millions of Jews overseas.

Druze army general leads protests to overturn nation-state law that makes explicit the privileged status of Jewish majority Middle East Eye – 15 August 2018 Israel’s small Druze community, long seen as “loyal” to the state, is on a collision course with the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu over a new law guaranteeing superior citizenship Read More

For leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Israel has led the way. It has shown that ethnic politics is not discredited after all, that it can work. For Europe and America’s new ethnic nationalists, Israel has proven that some peoples are destined for greatness, if they are allowed to triumph over those who stand in their way.

Israel is hurrying though the destruction of the Palestinian village of Khan Al Ahmar because it would clear the path to building a substantial bloc of new settler homes to sever the West Bank in two. Those same settlements would also seal off West Bank Palestinians from East Jerusalem, making a mockery of any peace agreement.

Reports have been rife in the Israeli and Arab media of moves to pressure Egypt into turning over a swath of territory in northern Sinai, next to Gaza, for infrastructure projects designed to alleviate the enclave’s “humanitarian crisis”. Under cover of Trump’s peace plan, Israel stands on the brink of achieving its ambition of destroying any hope of a Palestinian state.

The humble kite has awakened Israel and the outside world to the cost of leaving two million human beings to rot. It has been transformed into a flaming emissary, bringing a new kind of reckoning to Israel when it lands on the other side of the fence encaging Gaza.

Trump’s ‘deal of the century’ peace plan may be only days away from being unveiled, according to reports. But while US officials have given away nothing publicly, the plan’s contours are already evident, say analysts. They note that Israel has already started implementing the deal – entrenching “apartheid” rule over Palestinians – while Washington has spent the past six months dragging its heels on publishing the document.

Just as Israel’s belligerent rule in the occupied territories is under ever greater scrutiny, so too is its claim to be a democracy conferring equal rights on all citizens. After decades of repression, Israel’s Palestinian minority has gradually grown more confident in highlighting the country’s severe political deficiencies.

Under Trump, the Israel lobby has come to exercise unrivalled power, because it is now far more than just one lobby. It is a five-headed Hydra worthy of Greek mythology, and only one of its heads relates directly to Israel or organised American Jewry.

Fathi Harb’s was believed to be the first example of a public act of self-immolation in Gaza. He doused himself in petrol and set himself alight on a street in Gaza City shortly before dawn prayers during the holy month of Ramadan. It was his act of protest, in a world that has denied Palestinians any right to resist their imprisonment and colonisation.

For seven decades, the West has pampered Israel at every turn. The lack of any meaningful punishment for violating Palestinian rights led directly to Monday’s massacre. And the failure to inflict a price on Israel for this massacre – in fact, the reverse: visible rewards with a relocated US embassy and the chance to host the Eurovision Song Contest – will lead to the next massacre.

Now that young Palestinians in Gaza take up mass civil disobedience, their plight is barely attracting attention, let alone sympathy. Instead, they are criticised for “breaching the border” and threatening Israel’s security. The only legitimate struggle for Palestinians, it seems, is keeping quiet, allowing their lands to be plundered and their children to be starved.