Ma`an - Qalandia refugee camp residents Jamal Abu al-Leil, 50, and 47-year-old Raed Fayez Mteir declared hunger strikes on Feb. 16, after being imprisoned by Israel without charge or trial for one year under the widely-condemned policy of administrative detention. Israeli authorities have issued six-month administrative detention orders for the two prisoners three times since they were detained. The two have joined imprisoned journalist Muhammad al-Qiq who has been on hunger strike for at least 10 days to protest his administrative detention. [bz for dn]

Mitchell Plitnick - The Third Way - This sort of thinking is the inevitable result of the unequal relationship between an occupying power that is a stable, economically healthy, regional superpower and a dispossessed and occupied people. The decision is entirely Israel’s, and it is based entirely on Israel’s concerns, not on any notion that Palestinians have inalienable rights and are entitled to the same freedoms as everyone else. [bz for dn]

Charlotte Silver - EI - PEN America came under heavy criticism last year for accepting funding from the Israeli government, which jails Palestinian journalists and writers in Israel and the occupied West Bank for their work. More than 250 writers, poets and publishers, many members of PEN, had signed an appeal urging the group to end the relationship with Israel’s government. They include Wallace Shawn, Alice Walker, Eileen Myles, Louis Erdrich, Russel Bank, Cornel West, Junot Dםaz and Viet Thanh Nguyen. [bz for dn]

David Rothfield - Many progressive Jews, in Israel and the diaspora, once hoped for an Israel that would live in peace with its Palestinian neighbours on a basis of mutual recognition and respect. Netanyahu has put paid to those hopes. His dream is different. He wants a strong Jewish Israel ruling the lands of biblical Israel where a Palestinian presence will be tolerated with certain conditions. With agility and resilience, he has pursued that vision for 20 years with great success. Shockingly, he may now have an ally in the White House. It seems Prime Minister Turnbull was unwilling to raise these issues while Netanyahu was here. As a Jewish member of the Greens, I appreciate the strong statements of our Greens MPs Scott Ludlam and Lee Rhiannon criticising Netanyahu and the human rights violations his government is committing. [bz for dn]

Haggai Matar - +972 - Israeli soldiers fire volleys of tear gas to break up the protest, prevent the march from reaching the street Israel has forbidden Palestinians but not Jews from walking or driving down.[bz]

AFP/Yahoo news - Hundreds of Palestinian protesters clashed with Israeli soldiers Friday in the powderkeg West Bank city of Hebron on the anniversary of a 1994 massacre carried out by a far-right Jewish settler. Soldiers fired tear gas and sound grenades to disperse the crowd as cannons doused them with stinking water, an AFP correspondent said. There was no report of injuries. Jewish settlers, of whom 500 are entrenched in the centre of the city of around 200,000 Palestinians, hurled stones at the protesters who also pelted soldiers with stones. [bz]

Abdulhadi Hantash - Mondoweiss - The writer of this 2016 report is a field consultant to the Palestinian Prime Minister for Wall and Settlement Affairs, and he chairs the non-profit organization, Land Defense Committee for the Hebron District in the West Bank, where he has worked as a land surveyor/cartographer for more than 30 years. [bz]

Ma`an News Agency - "According to Salim Madi, the head of the police’s explosives engineering department in the city of Rafah, an operation carried out north of the city destroyed a large number of unexploded Israeli rocket shells and grenades.Madi added that the explosive devices were dismantled and destroyed in accordance with international standards." ca

Ma`an News Agency - "Israeli forces delivered 30 demolition orders to several structures in the village of Yatta in the southern occupied West Bank district of Hebron on Thursday.Popular and national committee coordinator in the southern West Bank Ratib al-Jbour told Ma’an that Israeli forces had placed the demolition orders on lands near the structures, which included a school, tents, water wells, barracks, homes, and stockyards. He said Israeli forces also took pictures of the structures. Al-Jbour added that Israeli forces gave the owners of the structures three days to challenge the demolition orders, but said that three days was not enough for the residents to prevent the demolitions." ca

IMEMC - "The Israeli High Court authorized, Thursday, the demolition of the family home of Fadi Ahmad al-Qanbar, who was killed six weeks ago, after ramming and killing four Israeli soldiers in Jerusalem. The court said that the demolition was an “acceptable punishment,” and alleged that al-Qanbar family “knew about his intentions before he carried out the attack.” Fadi al-Qanbar, 20, was a former political prisoner from Jabal al- Mokabber, in occupied Jerusalem; he was killed on January 08, 2017, after ramming Israeli soldiers with his truck, killing four, and wounding two others." ca

IMEMC - "Palestinian farmers in Qarawat Bani Hassan and Deir Istiya, to the west of Salift, said that Israeli bulldozers have been leveling their land lots in an attempt to expand the adjacent (and illegal) Hafat Yair settlement outpost.PNN reports that, according to the Palestine Information Center (PIC), Israeli forces and settlers declared the razed area a “nature reserve”, preventing Palestinians from growing crops or reclaiming their private lands." ca

Haggai Matar - +972 "After 10 months of administrative detention, it appears the army no longer views Omar Nazzal as a dangerous threat — just like countless other administrative detainees who sit in prison for months, if not years...The Israeli army and Shin Bet Security Service claim Nazzal is affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which Israel views as a terrorist organization. Nazzal repeatedly denied the charge and demanded to either sentenced or released. According to his lawyer, Nazzal was jailed by Israel for his repeated criticism of the Palestinian Authority." ca

Agence France Presse - "Hamas rejected the announcement. Spokesman Fawzy Barhoum said in a statement it "strengthens divisions and serves Fatah politically." ca

Agence France Presse - The Daily Star "OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Israeli warplanes on Thursday shot down over the Mediterranean a drone controlled by the Gaza Strip`s Islamist rulers Hamas, the army said."An (Israeli) fighter aircraft shot down a Hamas-owned unmanned aircraft flown from the Gaza Strip to the Mediterranean," an army spokeswoman said.The drone fell into the sea without entering Israeli territory, she added." ca

Sebastiaan Faber - The Nation "Amsterdam, The Netherlands—On January 23, Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister and leader of the center-right Liberal Party (VVD), wrote a 500-word letter “to all Dutch people” that appeared as a full-page ad in the country’s major newspapers...Polls predict that Wilders—who wants to leave the European Union, “de-Islamicize” the Netherlands by putting a ban on Muslim immigrants and refugees, lower taxes, abolish public broadcasting, and dramatically increase military spending—will garner close to 20 percent of the vote, corresponding to 30 deputies in the 150-seat Parliament. Rutte’s own party will likely end up in second place, with around 16 percent of the ballots." ca

Human Rights Watch - " Israeli authorities denied Human Rights Watch’s application for a work permit for its Israel and Palestine director on the grounds that it is not a real human rights group, the organization said today.In its February 20, 2017 letter denying a work permit for Omar Shakir, the Interior Ministry cited an opinion received from the Foreign Ministry that Human Rights Watch’s “public activities and reports have engaged in politics in the service of Palestinian propaganda, while falsely raising the banner of ‘human rights.’” The denial comes as the authorities seek to limit the space for local and international human rights groups to operate in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories." ca

Mieke Zagt - Electronic Intifada "Booking.com is headquartered in the Netherlands. It should, therefore, abide by Dutch and European Union law.In November 2015, the EU published guidelines for firms doing business in the Middle East. They state that the Union “does not recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the territories” it has occupied since 1967 – the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), Gaza and the Golan Heights – and “does not consider them to be part of Israel’s territory.” ca

Robert Fisk - Independent - It was almost as funny to listen to the “experts” on US channels trying to summarise Donald Trump’s ravings on the Middle East as it was to listen to his original gobbledegook at his press conference with Bibi Netanyahu. Unable to understand what the President’s inanities actually meant, the lads and lasses of the satellite channels were telling us that he was not as committed as his predecessor to the “two-state” solution but might favour a “one-state” solution – yet wasn’t ruling out a “two-state” solution. Oh yes, and he’d like Bibi to “hold back” on settlements. Most of the “experts” chose to leave out the pathetic Trump addendum – “for a little bit” – because they had no more idea than Trump what this actually meant.-rh

Daoud Kuttab - Almonitor - The strong reaction to blocking the secretary-general from appointing a qualified Palestinian has left a mark on the Trump administration and has inadvertently resurrected the profile of a Palestinian leader the world had forgotten. It even brought about agreement within Palestinian society and its leadership. Fayyad and Palestinians are not the real losers in this case. Rather, that distinction belongs, unfortunately, to the people of Libya, who have been denied a competent, Arabic-speaking world class talent to help bring their splintered society together.-rh

Bernard Avishai - The New Yorker - Things did not work out as planned. On Monday night, Michael Flynn, Trump’s national-security adviser, who was expected to amplify Netanyahu’s claims of an Iranian threat, resigned. Washington was in tumult over reports of Flynn and other Trump advisers’ communications with Russian intelligence officials. Netanyahu himself arrived compromised by personal scandal and political strain. He is the target of three criminal investigations, and an indictment in any of them could force his resignation, much as corruption allegations forced the resignation of his predecessor and rival Ehud Olmert, in 2008. The most serious of these accusations has undermined his support in Israel’s security establishment, which he purports to represent. Meanwhile, Netanyahu has been cornered by zealots in his coalition, who had assumed, with his encouragement, that Trump’s election would allow them to freely pursue the settlement project, unhindered by talk of a Palestinian state.-rh