News Roundup for January 18, 2022

January 18, 2022
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J Street works to promote an open, honest and rigorous conversation about Israel. The opinions reflected in articles posted in the News Roundup do not necessarily reflect J Street’s positions, and their posting does not constitute an endorsement from J Street.

Top News and Analysis

Committee Advances Plans for New Jerusalem Homes Beyond Green Line, Times of Israel
The Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee advanced a 1,465-unit plan for a new neighborhood in the capital, half of which would be in the contested area over the 1967 ceasefire line. The new neighborhood — known as the Lower Aqueduct — has been planned for the land between the Jewish neighborhoods of Givat Hamatos and Har Homa, both of which are located beyond the Green Line.

Palestinian Family Protests East Jerusalem Home Eviction, AP News
Palestinian residents of a flashpoint east Jerusalem neighborhood were locked in a tense standoff with Israeli authorities on Monday as police came to evict them from a disputed property. Several residents of a home in Sheikh Jarrah climbed onto the roof of the building with gas tanks and threatened to set them alight should the Jerusalem municipality follow through with the eviction. They come down from the roof late Monday after Israeli police and work crews appeared to have backed off.

News

Israeli Military Restricts Palestinians, but Allows Settler Event at Evicted Outpost, Haaretz
Some 1,200 people participated in a Tu B’Shvat seder on Sunday at the evacuated settlement of Homesh in the West Bank, although the site is a closed military zone and the event was held without IDF permission or coordination. Other events there since the killing of local yeshiva student Yehuda Dimentman were coordinated with the army.

Israeli Entrepreneurs to Set up First Medical Center in Arab City, Al-Monitor
Entrepreneurs from the Arab city of Sakhnin are done waiting on the government and working with Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital to establishment a local medical facility.

Family of Elderly Palestinian American Who Died After Israeli Detention Demands International Inquiry, The Washington Post
The American family of a Palestinian American man who died last week after being detained by Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank called for an international investigation Sunday, saying Israel could not be trusted to hold accountable troops who allegedly pulled the 78-year-old from his car and left him lying unresponsive on the ground.

Iran Demands Legal Pledge That U.S. Won’t Quit Nuclear Deal Again, Wall Street Journal
As the Biden administration tries to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, one of the biggest obstacles is Tehran’s demand that the U.S. provides a guarantee that it won’t again quit the pact and reimpose sanctions, diplomats involved in talks in Austria say.

Israeli Army: Suspect Shot in Attempted Stabbing Attack in West Bank, Haaretz
A Palestinian man was shot after attempting to stab an Israeli soldier at the Gush Etzion Junction in the West Bank, the military’s Spokesperson’s Unit said Monday.

Opinion and Analysis

‘Breaking the Ghettos’: The Struggle to Desegregate Tel Aviv’s Schools, +972 Mag
Ben Reiff writes of Tel Aviv, ‘The city that brands itself a ‘liberal haven’ is forcing asylum seekers’ children into separate, impoverished schools. And the parents are fighting back.”

Israel Conquered the Negev, Again, Haaretz
Odeh Bisharat notes, “I had thought, naively, that governance was all about guaranteeing livelihood, housing, education, roads, water and electricity, but when it comes to Palestinians, the country’s leaders have a different interpretation: demolishing homes, destroying groves and orchards, expropriating land – in short, displacement. Jews have five-star governance; Arabs have apartheid governance.”