❶ Israel plans expanding illegal West Bank settlement
. . . . . ― (ᴀ) Official report: Israeli government encourages killing Palestinians
❷ Historical document reveals possible collusion with Israeli occupation pre-Six Day War
❸ How the Palestinian leadership came to accept the Partition Plan

• Background: “The ‘Al-Aqsa Intifada’ as a Result of Politics of a Transition.” Arab Studies Quarterly.

❹ France [expresses desire] to recognize Palestine as part of European Union
❺ POETRY by Abu Salma
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ ISRAEL  PLANS  EXPANDING  ILLEGAL  WEST  BANK  SETTLEMENT
Palestine News Network – PNN 
Dec. 3, 2017 ― Israeli occupation authorities are planning to set up new large settlement on the western borders of the occupied West Bank, Israeli media reported on Wednesday.
___According to Quds Press, the Israeli news website 0404 revealed that a special committee was assigned by the Israeli interior ministry six months ago to prepare for this plan.
___The committee offered its recommendation, noting that the committee recommended bringing a number of settlements together to create a large settlement applicable for expansion.   MORE . . .
.  .  .  .  .  ―  (ᴀ)  OFFICIAL  REPORT:  ISRAELI  GOVERNMENT  ENCOURAGES  KILLING  PALESTINIANS 
The Palestinian Information Center 
Dec. 3, 2017 ― The Palestinian national office for the defense of land and resistance of settlement accused Israeli war minister Avigdor Lieberman with inciting settlers to kill Palestinians. The office also charged the Israeli government of confiscating Palestinian lands.
___In a weekly report on Saturday, the office referred to Lieberman’s remarks in which he praised the Jewish settler who cold-bloodedly murdered martyr Mahmoud Odeh last Thursday near Qusra town to the south of Nablus.     MORE . . .
[Lieberman said, “The use of a weapon for self-defense is a moral value that is defended by every democracy.  My thanks and recognition to the armed escort who saved the hikers from a clear and present danger to their lives.”]
❷ HISTORICAL  DOCUMENT  REVEALS  POSSIBLE  COLLUSION  WITH  ISRAELI  OCCUPATION  PRE-SIX  DAY  WAR 
The Middle East Monitor – MEMO  
Dec. 1, 2017 ― A historical letter sent from the late King Faisal of Saudi Arabia to the then US President, Lyndon B Johnson, in 1966 reveals the monarch’s possible collusion with the US over Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula. Published by Al Motamar net news website, it has been described as “dangerous” by former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has long promised to reveal the contents of the document.
___“King Faisal’s letter to US President Lyndon Johnson said that the Egyptian forces would not withdraw from Yemen unless Israel moved to occupy Gaza, Sinai and the West Bank,” explained Saleh. The Head of the General People’s Congress urged the current Yemeni president and the rest of the Arab countries participating in the Saudi-led coalition, especially Egypt, to withdraw immediately from the alliance fighting in Yemen. “The events in Saudi Arabia, the blockade on Qatar, and the Sudanese President’s visit to Russia are all a part of the changing equations [in the Middle East],” he claimed.   MORE . . .
❸ HOW  THE  PALESTINIAN  LEADERSHIP  CAME  TO  ACCEPT  THE  PARTITION  PLAN 
+972 Magazine Blog 
Jerome M. Segal
Dec. 1, 2017 ― A few days ago, Israel and its supporters worldwide marked the 70th Anniversary of the 1947 Partition Resolution, which was passed by the UN and called for the division of Palestine into two states, one Arab and one Jewish.
___Why did the Palestinians say “no” to partition? The answer is simple. They believed that it was unjust, that all of the land was rightfully theirs, and, more to the point, they believed they did not have to accept it. Everyone knew that war was imminent, and the Palestinian could not imagine that 600,000 Jews could withstand the overwhelming power of the Arab armies.
___But in their celebrations, the commemorators missed a different anniversary. It occurred, largely unnoticed, two weeks earlier: the 29th anniversary of the Palestinian Declaration of Independence, proclaimed by the PLO on November 15, 1988.   MORE . . .

[Note: this article provides contemporaneous background for the events Segal explains in his article.]
Schulz, Helena Lindholm.
“THE  ‘AL-AQSA  INTIFADA’  AS  A  RESULT  OF  POLITICS  OF  A  TRANSITION.” 
Arab Studies Quarterly, vol. 24, no. 4, Fall2002, p. 21.
[. . . .] Perhaps the most substantial representation of Palestinian national identity is to ‘struggle,’ which serves as the action or the strategy through which to transcend and refute the denial, humiliation and dispossession which have served as core experiences informing Palestinian identity. . . .  Struggle through the resistance and revolution, which followed upon the 1967 war, nurtured a revolutionary political culture, promoting values related to a romanticizing discourse on heroic fights and militarism.
[. . . .] However, in the Palestinian Declaration of Independence, the future ‘independent’ state was defined as ‘democratic,’ based on constitutionalism, parliamentarianism and respect for civil rights. Democracy has thus not been absent from the political discourse of the PLO. . . .
[. . . .]  Both the PLO Charter of 1964/1968 and the Declaration of Independence of 1988 circle around the notion of ‘struggle’:
“___And in generation after generation, the Palestinian Arab people gave of itself unsparingly in the valiant battle for liberation and homeland. For what has been the unbroken chain of our people’s rebellions but the heroic embodiment of our will for national independence? And so the people was sustained in the struggle to stay and to prevail.”
[. . . .] The battle between elites led to different conclusions regarding the implementation of democracy as a form of governance. In abstract terms, even Arafat loyalists . . . .  adhered to democracy as the principle of governance in the long run. However, in their view the lack of sovereignty and the continuous negotiations with Israel were of overall importance and the political system had to direct itself towards securing control over land and solving the conflict with Israel. There was a need for the Authority to centralize power in order to deliver effectively in the form of tangible results of the peace process.  SOURCE . . .

❹ FRANCE  [EXPRESSES  DESIRE]  TO  RECOGNIZE  PALESTINE  AS  PART  OF  EUROPEAN  UNION
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Dec. 3, 2017 ― Ambassador of Palestine to France  Al-Harfi Sunday said the French government has expressed desire to recognize Palestine, but as part of the European Union.
___He told WAFA in a phone call that France wants to recognize a state of Palestine, but with other European countries taking part, because it will safeguard the peace process.   MORE . . .
SITUATION:  FRENCH  PARLIAMENT  VOTES  TO  RECOGNIZE  PALESTINIAN  STATE,  The Times of Israel,  Dec. 2, 2014 

“MY  COUNTRY  ON  PARTITION  DAY,”  BY  ABU  SALMA
My country! Live in safety, an Arab country,
may the jewel of your tradition keep smiling
Though they’ve partitioned your radiant heart
our honor denies partition.
We’ve woven your wedding clothes with red thread
dyed from our own blood.
We’ve raised banners on the Mountain of Fire***
marching toward our inevitable destiny!
History marches behind our footsteps
honor sings around us.

Rise, friend, see how many people
drag their chains of dented steel.
Behold the serpents slithering endlessly among them!
They’ve prohibited oppression among themselves
but for us they legalized all prohibitions!
They proclaim, “Trading with slaves is unlawful”
but isn’t the trading of free people more of a crime?
In the West man’s rights are preserved,
but the man in the East is stoned to death.
Justice screams loudly protecting Western lands
but grows silent when it visits us!
Maybe justice changes colors and shapes!
Live embers scorch our lips
so listen to our hearts speaking,
call on free men in every land
to raise the flag of justice where we stand.
――Translated by Sharif Elmusa and Naomi Shihab Nye
***The City of Nablus was called the “Mountain of Fire” because it was the seat of rebellion against the British Mandate and its Zionist policies.

Abu Salma (Abdelkarim Al-Karmi) was born in 1907 in Haifa. He studied law and worked in Haifa until April 1948 when the Israelis occupied the city. He then moved to Akka. Shortly after he moved from Akka to Damascus. Abu Salma kept the keys to his house and office in Haifa hoping to return. Abu Salma was awarded The Lotas International Reward for Literature in 1978 by The Association of Asian and African Writers. He was also given the title “The Olive of Palestine.” Abu Salma died in 1980.
From  ANTHOLOGY  OF  MODERN  PALESTINIAN  LITERATURE.  Ed. Salma Khadra Jayyusi. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. Available from Columbia University Press.