“The prospects for a just and sustainable peace are dire. The Oslo framework and the two-state solution are no longer fit for purpose (if indeed they ever were). And yet it is entirely possible that the current situation could limp on for a while longer – like a zombie that refuses to die.” This short opinion piece, by Mandy Turner of the Kenyon Institute in East Jerusalem, argues that a new movement and a new strategy are urgently required.

UN News Center: “Condemning the demolition by Israeli authorities of the homes of Palestinian Bedouins in the West Bank, a senior United Nations relief official today called on Israel to end such destruction and halt its plans to forcibly relocate Bedouin families.”

In statements reminiscent of extreme right-wing ideologues, Netanyahu fuels ethnic hostility, holding all Palestinian citizens of Israel collectively responsible for Tel Aviv new year’s day shooting attack.

Nir Hasson reveals how the Israeli Administrator General in the Justice ministry helps settlers expropriate property in Silwan in East Jerusalem. And the Israeli Supreme Court colludes, issuing a gag order prohibiting Haaretz from publishing details that could identify those involved in these purchases in Silwan…

Sarah Champion MP calls on the UK government to establish a watch list of those involved in the illegal military detention, transfer and treatment of Palestinian children by Israel, and to make a commitment to arrest and prosecute them should they enter the UK.

Following six days of war in June 1967, military law was imposed by the Israeli authorities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A number of military courts were established in which Palestinians violating this law could be prosecuted. Although international law does permit the establishment of military courts to prosecute civilians in limited circumstances, the authority is subject to one overriding limitation – military occupations must be temporary and cannot be maintained indefinitely.

In accordance with the principle that no state is permitted to discriminate between those over whom it exercises penal jurisdiction, there is no legal justification for treating Palestinian and Israeli children differently under Israel’s military and civilian legal systems. Military Court Watch monitors the systematic violation of this principle…

Foreign funds do flow into Israel – but much, much less to support human rights organisations than to fund the occupation. Dror Etkes investigates.

Israeli security officials and political leaders are increasingly worried that the Palestinian Authority — which along with Israeli security forces is responsible for governance and security in the West Bank — is on the verge of collapse, and that when it does collapse, law and order in the West Bank will erode, bringing disaster for Palestinians there and potentially opening the territory to a takeover by Hamas or other extremists. Jennifer Williams assesses the likelihood of this happening…

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ refusal to name a successor, hold elections, or reform the PA’s corrupt institutions is pushing his rivals to unite against him.

The staunchest of enemies—from members of Hamas to former members of the PA, including the Western-educated reformer Salam Fayyad and the exiled Fatah strongman Mohammad Dahlan—have found common ground in their quest to dethrone the aging Palestinian leader.

B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories – reports on recent house demolitions carried out by Israeli occupation forces, with Israeli High Court approval – a collective punishment in clear breach of international law.

Why are American Jews kowtowing to Netanyahu?

“Imagine”, writes, Chemi Shalev in Ha’aretz, ” the outcry among American Jewish liberals if the U.S. government in 2016 would ban a book from public schools because it could promote racial intermarriage. Try to conjure the reaction to Congressional legislation stipulating that Native Americans could not be taught in their own schools about the tragic history of their own people. Picture the outpouring of horror and dismay if a desperate GOP presidential candidate tried to spur his white constituency to vote by telling them that Hispanics are flowing to the ballots in droves.”

In 2015, Israel ushered in the most right-wing government in its history. But the same election produced another notable outcome: for the first time, Arab parties joined in a bloc with the sole Jewish-Arab party, Hadash, to form the Joint List, with 13 seats in the current Knesset, making it the third largest party and second largest in the opposition.

Ayman Odeh, Chair of the Hadash party and head of the Joint List, is interviewed on a wide range of issues by Mitchell Plitnick.

Robert Cohen’s commitment to rescue the Hebrew covenant one blogpost at a time remains undimmed.

Here he sets out his stall for 2016 as a digital activist: pursue peace with justice; challenge the deniers; support BDS; occupy Judaism; keep a sense of proportion and a sense of humour

An unlikely dialogue, involving two Knesset members from the Zionist Camp and one from Meretz, a former member of the Palestinian Cabinet, clerics from the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, a senior Arab League diplomat and three other diplomats — an American, a European and a Turk. Akiva Eldar offers five insights.

In an anguished and hard-hitting critique, Naomi Chazan, former Deputy Speaker of the Knesset and former chair of the New Israel Fund, lays bare the “democratic regression” that is taking place in Israel today and calls for those who care for the values of tolerance and freedom to “awaken from their slumber and finally truly break their silence”.

A new bill compelling Israelis to wear badges if they represent an NGO and Israeli NGOs to make public any funding from foreign public sources has passed most stages on the way to becoming law. It was devised by the Israeli cabinet as a means of demonstrating that concern about Palestinians and human rights are foreign infiltrations. The right-wing is richly funded by private foreign bodies and individuals. Fear that Israeli democracy will be severely wounded spreads across much of the political spectrum.

Palestinian security forces have cracked down sharply on group protests. Journalists have been violently manhandled for reporting on popular protests about Israeli restrictions and checkpoints. The PA’s primary role as Israel’s police officer is now widely rejected by Palestinians.

Saeb Erekat, former negotiator, now PLO secretary general denies that he proposed secret talks with Israel. But former Israeli negotiator Silvan Shalom, says the PLO proposal was rejected by Israel, in secret, so the US would blame Palestinians, not Israel, for no negotiations.

As the French historian Ernst Renan famously pointed out a nation is made as much by what it forgets as what it chooses to remember. By razing Palestinian villages, the Israeli state has hoped Palestinian memory will be erased. Noga Kadman, in a book reviewed here, proves how wrong they were.