Whatever evidence is produced – like counting the bodies of children, women, the elderly – about the indiscriminate shelling and bombing of the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2014, every unit of the IDF and government insists it has examined its actions and found itself not guilty. This is about the report from the IDF’s MAG.

Israelis continue on their new track of denying the Jewish history of the diaspora. Now their claim to Palestinian land is that ‘Jews have always lived here’. So they carry on erecting Jews-only houses and destroying Palestinian ones. Bibi has learned to ignore US disapproval because the military/financial arrangement just continues.

To the Israeli governors of Palestine, media news reports are ‘incitement’ and thus must be stopped. The IOF is accountable to no-one for its definition of incitement which may be simply telling the truth (the first casualty of war).

No wonder Sami Chakrabarti’s primary recommendation on antisemitism and Labour was that all members should use civil language. Perhaps she had donor Michael Foster in mind. His campaign against Jeremy Corbyn has been relentless. He even went to the High court about Corbyn’s right to stand as Labour leader (he lost). And his language (see inset in posting) has been foul. Disciplinary action?

This article by Akiva Eldar and report from Badil tell us that the IDF, under Lieberman’s orders, are engaging in an orgy of destruction and arrest of young Palestinian men in refugee camps. The favourite tactic seems to be crippling them by shooting them in the leg. These tactics says BADIL are a crime under international law.

The small and primitive village of Susiya has become the international symbol of Israel’s ruthless attempt to wipe the area clean of Palestinians and of the villagers’ resistance. The village has the support of many European countries, the US State Department and here the Washington Post.

The rhetoric is Israel is the state for all Jews and all should move there. The reality is that for adults it is alienating. It’s not the foreign language and alphabet. It’s the refusal to recognise the qualifications of professionals – who feel the country wants their children to be brought up as proper Israelis but not the unassimilatable adults. First published by the JTA 5 months ago, it is still pertinent.

Here Yves Engler speculates in Palestine Chronicle about whether Canada’s Green Party leader has been influenced by Christian Zionism. He doesn’t know but does give us an interesting piece about the power of Christian Zionism. Anglicans were the first to promulgate despatching Jews to Palestine.

MidEast watchers have been waiting to find out what Avigdor Lieberman will do with his power as defence minister. Jonathan Cook describes his strategy to make Palestinian aspirations for self-determination unattainable.

This is an argument taking place in, and about, Haaretz as well as the unresolvable question of what Zionism is. Rogel Alpher says Amos Schocken, Haaretz publisher, is deluded when he thinks international pressure will end the Occupation allowing the recovery of a Zionism which Schocken admires.

Here we are at the end of August 2016 (week August 22-28, 2016) more than two years after OPE, the IDF onslaught on Gaza, and the consequences of that orgy of destruction are amongst the most decisive factors in Palestinian lives. The UN has called urgently for more humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza. […]

In 2 articles from Haaretz we can see that what women wear is not personal choice. It follows cultural conventions on shame and modesty in women. The face-covering of Asian women can seem hostile in the West. The line between expected ‘modesty’ and ‘shame’ is invisible and the arbiters of whether a woman wears too much or too little are enforcing their own conventions.

The ADL (Anti-Defamation League) has been organising trips to Israel for American police officers reveals Mondoweiss. They go to learn about counter-terrorism. This could be an illustration for Jeff Halper’s book ‘War Against the People’ – pacification techniques pioneered by Israeli state forces.

This begins with a straightforward report on the call by UN agencies for more humanitarian aid for Gaza. Then there are two reports on accusations by Israel that UN employees are diverting rubble and money to Hamas, or perhaps to rebuilding Gaza. This seems too small an issue to make headlines but it does divert attention from why Gaza is in such dire straits to the venality or treachery of Palestinian aid workers.

Israel is no longer the bipartisan issue in American politics that it has been since its foundation. Prof. Dov Waxman tells Mitchell Plitnick, FMEP, what this means.

In the USA, Jews are most likely to vote Democrat – because of or despite candidate Clinton. In Israel, home of 200,000 Americans with voting rights, Trump is more likely to get the ex-pat vote (he’s set up 5 offices in Israel to get these votes in). Obama’s serious efforts to get peace-talks going are regarded by the ex-pats as hostile to Israel. Trump abhors everything about Obama.

The good news is that the PNA is trying to implement a UNSC resolution on empowering women and girls and has produced a programme. The bad news is that their brothers oppose their going out to work and subject them to increasing violence.

If Israelis (and Palestinians) really want peaceful co-existence they would surely learn other’s history, especially the Nakba, at school. It is shocking that accounts of the Nakba shock young Israeli Scouts,

This injunction seems to have been the IDF’s aim in the 2014 OPE. As the shelters are homes and schools, as the IDF cannot identify and target ‘terrorists’ it follows they will cause mass death and destruction. Ma’an on Israel’s self-exoneration.

The mosque on Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount is not just a mosque. It is the most symbolic mosque in Israel/ Palestine. Under the guardianship of a Jordanian agency, Muslims have permission to worship there. Jews do not – but right-wingers try. The fanatically religious disdain man-made law. Many fear what will happen including Daoud Kuttab.