HAMAS CONFIRMS IT DOESN’T WANT PEACE, WILL TORPEDO TRUMP’S PLAN: As elements in Israel and the international community work on a new Middle East peace proposal, they continue to ignore the fact that a sizable portion of the Palestinian population simply isn't interested in a peace that enables Israel to continue existing. Unfortunately, that part of Palestinian society, even if it is a minority, is large enough to effectively scuttle any efforts to end the conflict. Case in point, the last Palestinian legislative election was easily won by Hamas, a group that reaffirmed just this week that its primary goal remains the downfall of the Jewish state. And a majority of Palestinian voters chose these guys to lead their government. At an event in the Gaza Strip, Hamas leaders declared that they remain dedicated to the mission of "liberating the land of Palestine and the holy places of Islam and Christianity." Hamas further vowed to do everything in its power to torpedo the so-called "deal of the century" being formulated by USA President Donald Trump. (Israel Today)

PALESTINIAN USA CONGRESSWOMAN-TO-BE VOWS TO VOTE AGAINST ISRAEL AID: Rashida Tlaib, the soon-to-be first Muslim congresswoman in the United States, said that she would "absolutely" vote against military aid for Israel when questioned during a media interview on 13 August 2018. “For me USA aid should be leverage," said Tlaib. "I will be using my position in congress so that no country, not one, should be able to get aid from the USA, when they still promote injustice." Talib, when asked about her views on the Arab-Israeli conflict, said that "So much is about choosing a side. I am for making sure that every single person there has the right to thrive." The future congresswoman is a Detroit native and born to a family of Palestinian immigrants to the USA. On 7 August, 2018 she won her district's Democratic nomination for Michigan's 13th Congressional district, encompassing parts of Detroit and surrounding suburbs and home to one of the largest Muslim and Arab-American populations in the United States. Since no one ran in the Republican primary, Tlaib is poised to win the seat. (J.Post) 

ELIE WIESEL’S CHILDHOOD HOME IN ROMANIA VANDALIZED WITH ANTI- SEMITIC GRAFFITI: Unidentified individuals spray painted offensive graffiti on the external walls of a museum for Elie Wiesel in Romania, where he was also born. The florescent pink graffiti that was painted on the Memorial House Elie Wiesel in Sighet in eastern Romania read “public toilet” and “Nazi Jew lying in hell with Hitler” as well as “Anti-Semite pedophile.” Wiesel was one of the world’s most famous Holocaust survivors before he passed away in 2016 at the age of 87. A Nobel Prize laureate for literature, he was honored last year by locals in his hometown. They marched from the museum, which was built where Wiesel was born and grew up, to the train station where in 1944 he boarded with his family a train to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland. “What was done is unforgivable,” said Chaim Chesler, co-founder of Limmud FSU. Chesler’s group sets up cultural events for Jews across the former Soviet Union and other places where many Russian-speaking Jews live. “Elie is a symbol for all Holocaust survivors and that makes this incident especially painful. Everything must be done so that such cases not repeat themselves.” (JTA)

ERODOGAN CONGRATULATES ‘BRAVE’ PA TEEN WHO SLAPPED SOLDIERS: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday, 29 July 2018 congratulated Palestinian Arab teen Ahed Tamimi in a phone call hours after her release from an Israeli prison. Tamimi, 17, who was filmed slapping an Israeli soldier during a protest of leftists and Palestinian Arabs in her town of Nabi Saleh, was sentenced to eight months' imprisonment and fined 5,000 shekels as part of a plea bargain. Erdogan lauded her “bravery and determination to fight”. After her release, Tamimi went to Ramallah, where she met with Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas. The PA chairman said during the meeting that "the Palestinian young woman Ahed Tamimi is an example of the Palestinian struggle for freedom and independence and for the establishment of our independent Palestinian state." In a press conference in Ramallah, Tamimi said, “We will continue the resistance to achieve the freedom of the Palestinian people. We must boycott and isolate the [so-called Israeli] occupation and put it on trial.” (Arutz-)

  Yet another Palestinian child; raised, encouraged in, and lauded for violence…