This is a long, thoughtful interview with Balad MK Haneen Zoabi by Jonathan Cook and IOA. Amongst much else she explains why she is more hostile to leftwing than rightwing Zionists, why Palestinians must look to the new tools demonstrated by the Arab revolutions and the effect of Israel redefining itself as a Jewish rather than democratic state

Threats, insults, shackled to a chair, hung upside down, deprived of sleep, solitary confinement – the punishments for throwing stones in Israel. But only if you are a Palestinian minor, who can be arrested and detained under military law. Stone-throwing adult settlers walk away free.

Ben White, a familiar name on this website for his blogs on Israel/Palestine, is openly defamed as an antisemite in Ynet news. He regards it as cover for the attack on Arab MK Hanin. The use by an Israeli paper of the term that described the persecution and genocide of the Jews in the past to describe a journalist’s critique of Israel today is shocking. The ‘Jewish leaders’ said to accuse White of antisemitism are unnamed

The Habima theatre company has been booked by Shakespeare’s Globe theatre to perform The Merchant of Venice during the World Shakespeare festival and Cultural Olympiad. Israel’s Boycott from Within says the company has performed to Israeli-only audiences in the West Bank. The Globe says Habima are committed to ‘sensible dialogue’ between Israelis and Palestinians, it’s about words not nations.

The Church of England vicar, Rev Stephen Sizer, has been the regular target of criticism by the Jewish Chronicle, especially by blogger Jonathan Hoffman. Sizer is critical of many policies in Israel, a supporter of boycott campaigns and of inter-faith dialogue. He also made the mistake, common to web novices, of quoting from, thus linking to, sites which lead to other sites with antisemitic links.

In the week of the UK’s Holocaust memorial day (Friday January 27th) Robert Cohen writes a letter to Anne Frank’s spirit, wondering what she would make of a cruel legacy in which ‘The Holocaust has been used to explain and justify every aggression’, Palestinians have been dispossessed and every criticism of these acts has been called antisemitic.

Britains’s FCO pressed the country’s ‘Jewish community leaders’ to meet and talk with Palestine’s President Mahmoud Abbas on his visit to London last week The unnamed community leaders first asked Daniel Taub, the Israeli ambassador to London, for the Israeli government’s opinion – and chose the advice of the Israeli government (don’t talk) to that of the British government.

The indigenous peope of the Negev, the Bedouin, face massive displacement and dispossession by the Israeli state. JfJfP is committed to speaking up for their rights. One way anyone can do this is to sign the petition set up by Care2, an online network to help connect activists and causes. anywhere in the world.

EU diplomats in Ramallah and Jerusalem have recommended that the European Commission make it illegal for member states to support Israeli settlements and that the EU should adopt a more “active and visible” implementation of its policy. 2) Such positions help explain the scorn and antipathy being shown by Israeli rightists and US Republicans to their ancestral European homeland.

In her account of one Christian family trying to reach Nazareth for Christmas, even Amira Hass admits defeat in trying to understand the rules which direct Palestinians, with the right permits, to spend the day driving in circles, never to arrive, on ‘general’s orders’

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