LA Jews for Peace’s Jeff Warner and Dick Platkin make the case that now is the time to advocate for U.S. sanctions on Israel: “a December 2016 Brookings public opinion poll reveals that nearly half of the U.S. public supports sanctions on Israel – including a majority of self-identifying Democrats. This increased support for U.S. government sanctions indicates that now is the time for political groups committed to a just resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict to lead public opinion, not follow or ignore it.”

Enacting sanctions on Israel, that is ending the U.S. government’s unflinching support of Israel, should be the key action item for organizations leading the BDS movement, yet most of them are conspicuously silent on this topic.

Within days of President Obama’s framework agreement on the Iran nuclear program polls showed that the American public supported the framework by almost 2-to-1, but the support weakened as opposition to the deal emerged from the Israeli government, AIPAC, other members of the Israel lobby. Jeff Warner and Dick Platkin deconstruct a column by Jewish Journal of Los Angeles publisher David Suissa which parrots the Israel lobby opposition to the deal.

In the past month much has been written about two incidents of anti-Semitism at University of California campuses. According to the NY Times and the Los Angeles Times, they represent a national trend of revived campus anti-Semitism. Jeff Warner and Dick Platkin think an even cursory look at these two incidents reveals a different story, with some surprising revelations about them and the new role of Israel itself as the cause of a new anti-Semitism.