A year ago, PM Netanyahu approved the creation of a space at the Western Wall where men and women could pray equally and together. On June 25 this year he rescinded that decision, preferring to face the anger of women, especially in the US, rather than lose the Orthodox Jews who maintain his coalition. As in other religions, the rule that women must bear as many children as possible while men pursue the higher things has become sacrosanct for the orthodox.

Israel’s Labour party was a child of European Ashkenazi immigrants. It seems to have lost that voter base – which is going to Yesh Atid. More than half of all Israelis are now Mizrahi or Sephardi Jews. Although they provide Labour’s leadership that has not changed Labour’s image or platform. Mazal Mualem comments.

The Palestine/Israel conflict is pre-eminently a militarised conflict. Yes? In Gaza, the entity most damaged by military conflict, women have staged their own demands: equal pay, an increase in employment and the creation of an independent Palestinian state. In that order.

Danielle Berrin is an Israel-loving Jew who is shocked by the Ultra-Orthodox revival of ancient practices – presented as the true Judaism – which are centred on policing women’s ‘modesty’, perhaps to stop men succumbing to sexual mania. Here she defends the validity of criticism of Israel where sexist habits are entrenched.

Palestinians lacks many necessities. But not sunshine which they enjoy from 7 and a half to over 11 hours a day. What better way to provide electricity than through solar panels, obviating the need for costly fuel? The Dutch government provided the panels to a Palestinian village. Israeli authorities removed them – ‘no permit’. The Dutch government is demanding their return. Amira Hass reports.

This last week, June 26th to July 2nd 2017 the use of violence against Palestinians by the wholly more powerful Israeli state came up in a particularly repugnant way. In two cases the treatment of children by the bureaucracy and security forces of Israel actually made the news. The first exposure was in Washington DC […]

Does the Labour right believe masses turned out for Jeremy Corbyn and joined the Labour party because they longed to belong to an antisemitic party? From its nest inside the JLM the Right-wing prefers to use its feeble energy to pursue its old grudges against Chakrabarti, Livingstone, Jackie Walker and sundry others who, by not signing up to the IHRA, are de facto antisemitic. JfJfP signatory Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi makes the points.

Enter the Gaza Strip now and you will be assailed by the stench of sewage and death. Lack of fresh water and sanitation (no electricity) is causing diarrhoea and vomiting – fatal for the young and elderly. Israel and the PNA share responsibility for this atrocious situation. Where else would it be allowed to continue when there is an easy solution?

This is a scathing assessment by Jonah Shepp of New York magazine of the man Pres. Trump, in an act of ‘reckless, corrupt nepotism’ sent to Israel. His son-in-law Jared Kushner has no qualifications whatsoever for his post.

This is a summary of a long report on Palestinian nationalism issued by the Carnegie Endowment. Having acknowledged that the official leadership (PNA, PLO) is effectively dead, that Hamas has no strategy, other forms of political expression are explored, from armed militancy to student, trade union – only mentioned – and civil society groups. The Rights-based ones are shaping a strategy.

Zionism as an ideology (and not a knowing, demonic force as it is sometimes treated here) has had several meanings over time. Yakov Rabkin and Philip Weiss see Zionism and liberal values as having become inherently in conflict, with terrible consequences – including the morphing of Jewish bodies into vassals of Israel. In an added note, Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken explains what he understands by Zionism and why he shares that ideology.

This is not an argument for one binational state. It is a bleak assessment by Mohamed Hassan of Turkey’s TRT World of the possibility of dividing the land between 2 states (none he thinks). It’s the policy of the West which has no will to deliver it.

Osnat Ita Skoblinski grew up in the hothouse atmosphere of Jewish self-righteousness and intrinsic Arab evil. Only when she met an actual Palestinian did she escape into reality. Now she works for B’Tselem.

Yachad, the J-Street-like pro-Israel pro-peace group, should be flattered. One ‘Adam Cohen’, an American claiming to be a Londoner, has spent energy, time money, on attacking it. We don’t know who or what is behind this but assume Yachad is the target because, to ‘Adam’, its position might seduce the middle ground.

It’s rare that Americans get the chance to hear Palestinian voices or evidence of Israeli cruelty to Palestinian children. They had a chance on June 8th when the video of a very sober panel discussion on the treatment of children was released. But just in case they watched it, says Peter Beinart, The Israel Project rushed out its own video and claimed the panel discussion was an “anti-Israel hatefest” and antisemitic. No wonder the Jewish establishment is so ill-informed.

There are many ways of depicting the dire state of Gaza. The rising suicide rate of young men in particular is one of the most telling. The rate of unemployment in the Gaza Strip is now the highest in the world.

The religious right peddles a mythology based on a falsehood – that it is they who pioneered settlements. In fact, the first settlement was set up by a leftist and then became the national policy of all governments, Labor as much as Likud, writes Gershom Gorenberg in American Prospect.

Summary of, and links to, this week’s postings on the JfJfP website

The question is asked by Amos Harel in one of his wonderfully sardonic monologues. The answer by most people accustomed to the services that make life comfortable would probably be to leave as quickly as possible. No chance.

This is the main section of a report by the NGO ‘The Reality of Aid’ on the effects of aid to Palestine and Israel . It argues convincingly that Aid does not reduce poverty – the purported aim – but is absorbed in such a predetermined highly militarised context that it further fragments Palestinians and reinforces Israel’s military control.