As the Iran talks go to the wire, we can only marvel at the political fireworks we are seeing. Newsweek follows up on the the Wall Street Journal report that Israel was spying on the US talks and leaking details to friendly members of congress. “I’m betting there are going to be some willing leakers now about stories such as AIPAC’s operations against Congress,” a former US intelligence operative predicts.
Evangelical pastor John Hagee, the leader of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), the US’ largest pro-Israel organization and the most powerful group in the Christian Zionist movement, has adamantly insisted that Christian Zionism is anti-Semitic.
Amira Hass says Oslo’s failed promise includes the hope of resolving the conflicting histories of the conflict; Palestinians were ready to accept Zionists as not just colonialists, but escapees from Europe.
The Missouri History Museum canceled a presentation on Ferguson and Palestine after being pressured by a local Jewish group to remove the Palestine part, emails released by Jewish Voice for Peace disclose.
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.
Hatim Kanaaneh reflects on the recent Israeli election and strains to find optimism in what he sees as a rising tide of fascism in the country: “It is my belief that the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel has a mission it cannot shirk: forcing true democracy on the Jewish majority that continues to slide down the slippery slope of racism. It is our ordained destiny, it seems, to save Israel from its the-whole-world-is-against-us paranoia. It is our role to coax Israel back from its Masada Complex stand. We have little choice but to fulfill this impossible mission; the alternative is too bleak to contemplate.”
Prof. Johan Galtung proposes a region-wide solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: “A genuine approach to peace would exclude all talk of the USA as a dispassionate honest “broker” and engage in Israel & Palestine negotiations by honestly: Pointing out that USA & Israel are in alignment on almost everything but the settlements, and working on how to integrate Israel into a regional community with its five Arab border states and the states bordering on the latter.”
Prime Minister elect Benjamin Netanyahu recently issued an apology to “Israeli Arabs” for his outlandishly racist Election Day remarks that “Arabs voters are going to the polls en masse.” Netanyahu chose to render his apology to a crowd of elderly men rather than the 12 recently elected Palestinian Arabs from the Joint List that actually represent the majority of the country’s Arabic speaking population. His message? Palestinians seeking genuine representation and influence in the body politic are not welcome.
With less than a week before the March 31 deadline to finalize the outlines of a nuclear deal, the relative positions of Iran and the Western powers are coming into focus. Israel sees its regional nuclear monopoly hanging in the balance and has sent a national security delegation to Paris to influence the negotiations. Meanwhile, the nascent U.S.-Israel breach continues to widen, as anonymous White House sources accuse Benjamin Netanyahu of using information obtained through espionage to lobby Congress against a deal.
Boldly defying the U.S., the international community, and the Palestinian people, Netanyahu said in the clearest terms possible, “If I am elected there will be no Palestinian state.” What Netanyahu stated publicly is what has been true of all of Israel’s prime ministers, whether from the left, the center, or the right. For the past 22 years, all have been lying and misleading the world, pretending to seek peace with the Palestinians while pursuing policies to ensure there will never be peace and never be a Palestinian state. The irony is that the greatest of all these liars is the one who finally told the truth and we should thank him for it.