Robert Fisk in the Independent.

Ask Rabbi Sam White what he thinks of the global political row over plans to expand the community in which he lives, prays and studies, and he answers bluntly: "I don't see the problem. God gave us the land of Israel." The notion that the location of Ramat Shlomo, on land occupied after the 1967 Six Day War and officially expropriated six years later, might belong to another people is wholly alien to the 32-year-old Salford-born rabbi. "There's no question. It's in the Torah, which says that God gave the land to the Jewish people."

Rupert Cornwell in the Independent.

The words have flown fast and furious in Washington since Israel, by accident or design, delivered this blow to the "peace process" with the Palestinians that the US is working so hard to revive -- at the very moment vice-President Joe Biden was visiting the country. But there is no sign that the Obama administration, however genuine its anger, is about to take specific action to punish its ally.

Guardian report.

Israel's relations with the US are at their worst for 35 years amid a continuing row over Jewish settlement plans in East Jerusalem, the Israeli ambassador to Washington admitted today.

Reuters story.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected on Monday any curbs on Jewish settlement in and around Jerusalem, defying Washington in Israel's deepening crisis with U.S. President Barack Obama's administration.

"For the past 40 years, no Israeli government ever limited construction in the neighbourhoods of Jerusalem," he said in a speech in parliament, citing areas in the West Bank that Israel captured in a 1967 war and annexed to the city.

Independent report.

Israel's government was yesterday facing the worst chill in relations with the US since taking office after a top White House official said the announcement of plans to expand an East Jerusalem settlement seemed "calculated to undermine" the negotiating process.

[...]

Israeli officials also denied reports -- in both The New York Times and The Washington Post -- that last week's announcement violated an informal understanding that if the US got talks going there would be no announcements of settlement building in East Jerusalem that might trigger a walkout by the Palestinians.

Mark Perry in Foreign Policy.

There are important and powerful lobbies in America: the NRA, the American Medical Association, the lawyers -- and the Israeli lobby. But no lobby is as important, or as powerful, as the U.S. military. While commentators and pundits might reflect that Joe Biden's trip to Israel has forever shifted America's relationship with its erstwhile ally in the region, the real break came in January, when David Petraeus sent a briefing team to the Pentagon with a stark warning: America's relationship with Israel is important, but not as important as the lives of America's soldiers. Maybe Israel gets the message now.

Thomas L Friedman in the New York Times on Biden / Netanyahu.

He should have snapped his notebook shut, gotten right back on Air Force Two, flown home and left the following scribbled note behind: "Message from America to the Israeli government: Friends don't let friends drive drunk. And right now, you're driving drunk. You think you can embarrass your only true ally in the world, to satisfy some domestic political need, with no consequences? You have lost total contact with reality. Call us when you're serious. We need to focus on building our country."

Guardian article.

Last year, during protests against the attack on Gaza, a mixed group of demonstrators clashed with police. But when the alleged culprits were arrested in dawn raids, nearly all those taken were young Muslims.

[...] "I woke up and tried to get out of bed. The next thing is three police officers jump on top of me with their knees, and they handcuffed me so hard I screamed. That's when I really woke up." Hamza had been sleeping in shorts. When he asked if he could put a shirt on the police said no and opened the window. "It was freezing. I was shaking."

Three months earlier, in January last year, Yahia had been outside the Israeli embassy on a fractious demonstration against Israel's sustained bombing of Gaza.

Guardian report.

Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour MP for Islington North who chaired the meeting, said that the sentences amounted to an attack on the Muslim community and the right to protest.

He said: "Some of the sentences that have been handed down to these young demonstrators are extraordinary and out of all proportion to the crimes committed. What possible justification can there be for handing down a year in prison for a 19-year-old lad, studying dentistry, who threw a plastic bottle in the direction of the Israeli Embassy?"

Andrew Sullivan comments on the Atlantic.

I cannot read Netanyahu's mind. But I can observe Israel's actions. They intend to occupy and colonize the entire West Bank for ever. They may allow some parceled enclaves for Palestinians, but they will maintain a big military presence on the Eastern border of West Bank, and they will sustain this with raw military power and force. I certainly cannot see any other rationale for their actions these past few years that makes any sense at all. Many Israeli politicians now use the term "apartheid" for this future.

From McCltchy.

What an Israeli newspaper called "The Slap Heard 'Round the World" brought sharp condemnation from Biden, who met Palestinians leaders in the West Bank on Wednesday.

However, the White House appeared eager to move on to just-announced indirect Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Israeli columnists predicted that Netanyahu would suffer little more than a diplomatic tap on the wrist.

Independent leading article.

[...] Israel calculates that no US president -- not even Barack Obama who has spoken so movingly of the historical injustice visited on the Palestinians -- will dare deliver it a serious slap. And who is to say that calculation is wrong?

Laura Rozen in Politico.

Publicly, Vice President Joe Biden tried to keep up a positive tone in his good will visit to Israel this week. But privately, the Israeli press reports, he had sharper words for Israeli decisions Biden said jeopardize the peace process and U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq, fight insurgents and stabilize Afghanistan and Pakistan, and strengthen an international and regional alliance to pressure Iran.

Wall Street Journal article.

Today, Israel's political and military establishment appears to be tilting toward one of his long-ignored views: Israeli support for Iran's opposition movement -- and not a miltary strike -- is the best way to combat the regime in Tehran.

[...]

Mr. Lubrani says that witnessing the Iranian revolution gave him faith in the power of the Iranian people to affect change. From a remote seventh-story office in an old Ministry of Defense building, he oversaw a four-man team that quietly supported the Iranian opposition and sowed unrest inside Iran's borders.

Max Blumenthal on Lobelog.

On the evening after two days of talks between US Special Envoy for the Middle East George Mitchell and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Netanyahu appeared onstage with the far-right Texas-based Pastor John Hagee in Jerusalem.

The occasion was Hagee's Night To Honor Israel, an event the preacher typically organizes as a forum to tout his ministry's millions in donations to Israeli organizations and to level bellicose rhetoric against Israel's perceived enemies.

On this evening, Hagee called Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "the Hitler of the Middle East" and denounced the Goldstone Report as "character assassination by an unbiased and uninformed committee."

Friday Lunch Club comments.

The "bond" thing was earlier in the day, during Biden's visit to Israel ... However, with the Interior Ministry adding insult to injury, (announcing a plan to build 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem, on top of the new settlements on the West Bank) the VP came out sort of swinging, here.