Stephen Maher writes in the Eletronic Intifada: “[A]s we shall see, the lobby thesis does little to explain US foreign policy in the Middle East”…

Israeli NGOs that provide evidence of Israeli complicity in war crimes are targeted and threatened with closure in proposed new Knesset bill…

In extracts from his new book “Hopes and Prospects” Noam Chomsky provides an overview of recent history of Gaza, of the settlements and of Washington’s changing responses to Israel. He sees little substance to Obama’s commitment to democracy and human rights in relation to the conflict…

The Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights is pleased to announce the publication of the Winter-Spring 2010 issue of al-Majdal (issue #43), titled “The Jewish National Fund: A Para-State Institution in the Service of Colonialism and Apartheid”…

28 April 2010: Ten Israel Prize laureates and more than 50 academics and intellectuals wrote to the Israeli Defense Minister today asking him to cancel the sweeping ban Israel has imposed, since 2000, on Palestinian students from Gaza studying in the West Bank…

Demonstrative report from Al Jazeera’s Jacky Rowland on the differences in access to central Jerusalem for two sets of commuters trying to get to work: residents of the illegal settlements and Palestinians from Shuafat and Beit Hanina.

The name J Street is already taken, so this is called J Call. A new European Jewish movement for peace is being launched in Brussels on 3rd May. Le Monde reports on this initiative, so far largely based in Francophone Europe. But J Call’s petition is available in six European languages so…

The fifth Bil’in International Conference on the Popular Struggle took place last week and committed itself to establishing legal accountability, promoting a BDS strategy and building an international network in support of Palestinian popular non-violent resisdtance…

A new International Crisis Group report on the changing strategy of of PLO who “seek to redress the power imbalance with Israel by pressing their case internationally, reinvigorating statebuilding, and encouraging a measure of popular resistance…”

Two evaluations of the South African Jewish community’s Goldstone scandal: Larry Derfner “What the South African Jewish community did last week was shameful” published in the Jerusalem Post on 22nd April 2010; and Gilad Isaacs “What South African Community Leaders Should Have Done – The Goldstone Scandal” published on Mondoweiss on 25 April 2010…

“The next step should be involvement in groups on campus that promote unbiased discussion and that call upon Brown to divest from companies that profit from the Israeli occupation of the Palestinians…”

On 16 April Elie Wiesel published a full page ad signed by himself in the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, calling for Jerusalem to be taken out of current political discussions – “For me, the Jew that I am, Jerusalem is above politics.” Jewish protestors at Sheikh Jarrar have issued a response…

Rachel Shabi assesses the attempt of the Palestinian Authority to reinvent itself as a popular movement and is sceptical about its seriousness…

Bradley Burston writes, after attending one of the weekly Sheik Jarrar protests: “Our fellow Israeli Jews, inveterate world travelers that they are, literally go out of their way to avoid this place, which is called East Jerusalem. Some steer clear because it scares them, others simply because it feels so, well, foreign. In the end, what they miss out on, is the view from here. If just once they’d make the trip. On a clear day, they could see their own future…

The continuing re-emergence of the Israeli left, in this weekend’s Financial Times.

The creation and increasing political weight of J Street, the “pro-peace, pro-Israel” US lobby group continues to upset some Israel apologists. An attack from Alan Dershowitz in the Huffington Post describes J Street as having “gone over to the dark side.” (No really, it does. Those quotation marks are there for accuracy, not to indicate [...]

Yes, that ought to have read 5th-12th, or maybe 16th-23rd. Normally, we do a round up of published posts each week, but due to a combination of school holidays and closed airspace stranding one of our site editors in southern Spain with very slow internet access, it’s almost three weeks since a round up has [...]

Further to our earlier round up of articles covering George Mitchell’s Middle East trip, The Forward’s Gal Beckerman has an in-depth examination of the “strain[ed]” nature of US-Israel relations, including the increased use of the anti-semitic “dual loyalty/treason” slur and raising questions about the nature of the future relationships between not only the US and [...]

Links to English translations of Maariv article on Im Tirtzu campaign and to the executive summary of the right wing organisation’s latest report. Plus news of NIF president Naomi Chazan speaking in London in June.

Coverage – mainly from the US and Israel – of Senator George Mitchell’s current visit to the Middle East, Netanyahu’s rejection of an East Jerusalem settlement freeze (echoing earlier public comments from Lieberman and Knesset Speaker Rivlin) and today’s intriguing report that Netanyahu’s coalition partners ARE considering a settlement freeze. Plus reaction to Elie Wiesel’s ad on Jerusalem and criticism of Ron Lauder’s letter to Obama.