On July 3, Lebanese police arrested a sixty-four-year-old woman named Um Wissam for violating a set of laws that make it extremely difficult for Palestinians like herself to build new homes. Um Wissam is a resident of Rashidieh, the country’s second largest Palestinian “refugee camp”—which in reality is a small city populated mainly by Lebanese-born Palestinians whose parents or grandparents fled Israel during the 1948 war. Bassam Tawil comments:

The Lebanese government hardly misses an opportunity to condemn Israel for defending itself against Palestinian terrorism. Yet, this is the same Lebanon that has for decades practiced systematic discrimination against Palestinians and keeps them in squalid, ghetto-like camps surrounded by barbed wire and walls. This is also the same Lebanon that has thrown a Palestinian woman into jail for the crime of lacking a building permit.

In 1997, the Lebanese authorities issued a decree that banned Palestinians refugees from transporting building materials into refugee camps in the southern part of the country. The Lebanese authorities claimed that the purpose of the ban was to prevent Palestinians from establishing permanent residence in Lebanon. . . . The Palestinian camps in Lebanon . . . are ghetto-like settlements, sometimes surrounded by segregation walls, barbed wire, and military surveillance.

Had Um Wissam been arrested by the Israeli authorities, her story would have made headlines on the front page of every major media outlet in the West. Her plight would have been highlighted by the United Nations, by every so-called human-rights organization, and by every anti-Israel group on university campuses across the U.S. . . . Foreign journalists would have been standing in line outside her family’s home while hoping to trash Israel further by using the details of her case. But as Um Wissam had the misfortune of being imprisoned by Lebanese authorities, her case holds no interest for the West.

Yesterday, the Iranian foreign minister flew to Geneva to meet with European diplomats. President Trump, meanwhile, indicated that cease-fire negotiations might soon begin with Iran, which would presumably involve Tehran agreeing to make concessions regarding its nuclear program, while Washington pressures Israel to halt its military activities. According to Israeli media, Iran already began putting out feelers to the U.S. earlier this week. Aviram Bellaishe considers the purpose of these overtures:

The regime’s request to return to negotiations stems from the principle of deception and delay that has guided it for decades. Iran wants to extricate itself from a situation of total destruction of its nuclear facilities. It understands that to save the nuclear program, it must stop at a point that would allow it to return to it in the shortest possible time. So long as the negotiation process leads to halting strikes on its military capabilities and preventing the destruction of the nuclear program, and enables the transfer of enriched uranium to a safe location, it can simultaneously create the two tracks in which it specializes—a false facade of negotiations alongside a hidden nuclear race.