Guardian readers write in about anti-semitism versus criticism of Israeli policies, Palestine and the right to protest. Who keeps confusing these distinct positions? Not the LPO4, one of whom is defending her right to her beliefs at an employment tribunal (3rd letter plus last item)

Ethiopian Jews, airlifted to Isael in several operations 1984-91, have long complained of discrimination against them in Israel. In this recent demonstration they won some high-profile support. Unlike Palestinans, who are semitic but, these days, rarely Jewish, Israeli Ethiopians are Jewish and may have their status enhanced by anti-racism laws (2nd item) – though not if they are Ethiopian or Sudanese ‘infiltrators’

Israel’s strategy of control via roadblocks and checkpoints, walls and no-go areas, has made some strategies of resistance inoperable. But this doesn’t mean Palestinians have to choose between negotiation or struggle. Both are needed in preference to passive waiting for outside deliverance argues Salim Tamari, director,Institute of Jerusalem Studies and associate professor of sociology at Birzeit University

All the candidates to be Republican candidate in the next US presidential election have referred to the Palestinians, with varying degrees of inaccuracy and invention. Such (well-financed) disinformation becomes part of popular political beliefs. Hasan Abu Nimah sommons the historical imperative on the Palestinians’ side.

Sheik Raed Salah, who is awaiting his appeal hearing against deportation from the UK, was acquitted by an Israeli magistrates’ court last week of the charge of ‘non-compliance with a legal order’. Further charges, of incitement and attacking a police office, are still to be heard.

A right-wing judge who lives in an illegal West Bank settlement has been appointed to Israel’s Supreme Court, despite 2) a formal objection from Yesh Gvul, the group of ‘selective refuseniks’. 3, Satirist B. Michael describes his role in getting this judge elevated to his Supreme position and calls on Brecht to make the case. Reports from +972 and Ha’aretz

Violent settler rampages continue unchecked by Israeli police or army. Palestinian olive treesand cars are the latest targets. In Hebron Hana Abu Haikel has begun a hunger strike in protest at frequent settler violations and inaction by the Israeli state

Egypt’s policies have always been central to Palestinian-Israeli relations. The revolution has changed Egypt’s role – but the new parliament is ‘ideologically skewed, incoherent at best, and overwhelmingly gendered’ says Khalid Abdalla

During the visit of PA President Mahmoud Abbas to London on January 16th, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg accused Israeli settlers of acts which make peace negotiations impossible. Last September the UK insisted negotiating was the proper course for Palestinians. The formal speeches of David Cameron and Mahmoud Abbas are posted second

Despite widespread cynicism, talks to set up talks between PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat and Israeli envoy Yitzhak Molcho have continued in Amman. Media reports in the west and Israel – few and dismal, Arab press – many and more feisty. Examples from JPost, Ma’an, Naharnet news

Following PM Netanyahu’s successful mission to eastern Europe to get support against the Palestinian bid at the UN, thousands of work permits have been issued to Romanian and Bulgarian men to work on Israel’s building sites. Mutual satisfaction – except for Palestinian and Chinese labourers, and those who have accidents. Roy Arad blogs, readers comment.

Israel’s High Court has rejected a legal challenge to the law on Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law which prevents people from the West Bank and Gaza as well as Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan and Yemen – all deemed enemies of Israel – from living with their spouses in Israel. Security is the given reason; fear of a growing non-Jewish population is suspected. Ben White reports

A ‘pro-Israel’ lawyers’ group – UK Lawyers for Israel – is trying to make its mark by demanding the prosecution of the people who disrupted the Proms concert by the Israeli Philharmonic concert in London last September. The group has also acted against the Co-op Bank and the Palestinian Authority

Being ‘pro-Israel’ means, for many, seeing the rest of the world as, at best, alien and at worst as consisting of ’100s of millions’ who want to destroy the country. The views of 24 people, almost all Israeli or Jewish American men (what, no Christian evangelists?) were solicited by Moment magazine. They include critical and analytic, paranoid and racist and the view that ‘Jews who are anti-Israel’ have a genetic sickness

Sodastream is an Israeli company which makes devices for turning tap water fizzy and syrups to flavour the water. Its main production plant is in the West Bank settlement of Mishor Adumin and so has attracted a growing boycott campaign. The company has called on the aid of Edelman, global American PR agency with clients including News International and Twitter. It hasn’t helped. News release and article

Too commonplace to make the news most of the time, the death and injury of Palestinian people in the occupied territories (oPt), the destruction of their property and seizure of their land accelerated during 2011. The UN office OCHA publishes the aggregate figures for the year. We add their most recent weekly report.

“Of all the antidemocratic laws that have descended on us of late, it is perhaps the most shameful…From now on, work seekers from Africa who enter Israel illegally can be imprisoned for three years, without the benefit of a trial and without any distinction between asylum seekers and labor migrants.” A very angry Haaretz editorial

Historian Yehuda Bauer talks to Al Jazeera about Jewish identity and extremism in Israel today. 2nd, ‘We are still teaching about the generals, about the politicians, and about the philosophers. We are avoiding the recognition of the dark side of history’ Bauer said in his address to the Bundestag. He discusses the genocides of modern times and the world-wide Nazi ambition that made the Shoah particular

Lillian Rosengarten, one of the seven elderly Jews who tried to reach Gaza in the Jewish boat to Gaza, is aghast at what some Jews can do to other Jews and enraged at how Israelis use caricatures and religious nationalism to render Palestinians sub-human.

Six months after the Obama administration scuppered Palestine’s bid for UN recognition saying negotiations with Israel should be the path, Americans are returning to the debate about what diplomacy can achieve. Slate organized the sold-out debate on 10th January – speakers’ advance positions are here. In the posting Daniel Kurtzer’s presents his strategy for a negotiated two-state deal