Well, well. Look who's getting "thrown under the bus," to use the current catchphrase. Advocates for a just peace with the Palestinians, and secularists. What a surprise. From the New York Times' The Caucus blog, Sept. 5:

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — President Obama, seeking to quell a storm of criticism from Republicans and pro-Israel groups over his support for Israel, directed the Democratic Party to amend its platform to restore language declaring Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.

There was no middle ground in reactions to the Haifa District Court ruling Aug. 28 rejecting a lawsuit brought by the parents of Rachel Corrie, a US Palestine solidarity activist crushed to death by an army bulldozer in the Gaza Strip in 2003. Israeli officials are welcoming the ruling as a long-due exoneration, while the Corrie family and their attorney denounced it as a "black day for human rights." Attorney Hussein Abu-Hussein said that the ruling showed that there was injustice across the Israeli legal system. At a press conference, he displayed photographs which had been presented in court, and which he said proved that the bulldozer operator must have seen Corrie. He also said the photos disproved the court's finding that the bulldozers were active, but not demolishing homes at the time of the incident. Hussein also argued that there was no basis for applying the "combatant activities" exception in the case, because there was no battle going on at the time of Rachel's death.

Hamas security forces on Aug. 15 arrested a senior Salafi sheikh who was injured in an Israeli airstrike in June . Sheikh Abu Suhaib Rashwan was detained as he left a hospital, where he was recovering from wounds sustained in the June 20 airstrike in Rafah. The missile strike on a motorcycle wounded Rashwan and a companion, Ghaleb Ermilat, who the IDF described as a "global jihad operative." Israel accused the two of being behind an ambush along the Egyptian border two days earlier that killed an Israeli civilian, and said they were members of Tawhid wal Jihad, a "global jihad terror movement that is responsible for ongoing terror attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers."

Families of murdered Iranian nuclear scientists told reporters at a press conference on Aug. 15 that they have filed lawsuits against the US, UK and Israel for their governments' alleged involvement in the assassinations. The father of one of the scientists revealed that the families would ask Iran's judiciary to pursue their complaint internationally. At least five nuclear scientists have been murdered since 2010. Iranian authorities announced earlier this month that 14 individuals have given confessions in association with the killings and that some had confessed to being trained in Israel. The US and UK have repeatedly denied involvement in the killing of the nuclear scientists despite their objections to Iran's nuclear program.

We've warned before that if Israel continues on its accelerating trajectory deeper into Jewish chauvinism and monocultural supremacy, it may have to forfeit its long-touted claim to the title of the "Middle East's only democracy." (Especially given that Israel is ironically fast becoming a more closed society simultaneous with the unprecedented political opening in the Arab world.) We've also warned that one way this chauvinism is manifesting is in the Judaization of geography in Jerusalem, and censoring of old Arab place names by municipal authorities. Now a similar controversy emerges from Tel Aviv. From Ha'aretz, Aug. 10:

Reacting to the Aug. 5 armed attack on an Egyptian military post near the Rafah crossing on the border with the Gaza Strip, the Muslim Brotherhood website that the attack "can be attributed to Mossad," Israel's foreign intelligence service. Read the statement: "Evidently, this crime may well be the work of Israel's Mossad, which has sought to abort the revolution ever since its launch, and which issued instructions to Israeli citizens in Sinai to leave immediately, just days ago. It is clearly noticeable that every time a warning like this is issued, a terrorist incident takes place in the Sinai." More than 15 Egyptian soldiers and border guards were killed in the night attack, and the assailants reportedly seized two armored personnel carriers. The militants briefly penetrated Israeli territory, before their vehicle was shelled by an Israeli air force helicopter. A statement on the Israeli Defense Forces website said the attack was carried out by "global jihadists"—a term the IDF uses to describe members of Salafist groups linked to al-Qaeda's network in the region. 

Hamas spewed some predictable ugliness about a Palestinian official's visit to the site of the Auschwitz death camp in Poland—and the mainstream and Zionist press predictably plays it for all it is worth. Ziad al-Bandak, an adviser to President Mahmoud Abbas, made the visit this week, prompting Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum to say: "It was an unjustified and unhelpful visit that served only the Zionist occupation." He called the visit "a marketing of a false Zionist alleged tragedy....at the expense of a real Palestinian tragedy." The comments were picked up by Reuters and flaunted with open glee by the settler organ Arutz Sheva, which also offers more such gems from Hamas sympathizers.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on July 22 ordered the demolition of eight Palestinian villages in the hills south of Hebron because the Israeli military needs the land for training exercises. A total of 1,500 residents will be evicted from their homes and have their lands confiscated in the villages of Majaz, Tabban, Sfai, Fakheit, Halaweh, Mirkez, Jinba and Kharuba. Evacuation orders were first issued in 1999, but were frozen by an injunction from the Israeli High Court of Justice.