Young Jews from IfNotNow say the Jewish community has been waiting for them to come and defeat AIPAC. But not all progressives are on their side: Neera Tanden and three other experts from the Democratic Party linked thinktank CAP are speaking at AIPAC this year, in the 50th year of occupation. That’s the fault line in the Democratic Party.

A necessary and productive debate has been going on in US feminist circles following the International Women’s Strike on March 8, with its openly anti-colonial, pro-Palestine platform. In an Op-Ed, writer Emily Shire questioned whether there was room for Zionists in the feminist movement. This exchange is the latest chapter in a long conversation in activist circles around Palestine as a feminist issue. The question Shire should have asked is “Is there room for Zionists in any justice movement?” The answer is No.

Even as UN agency accuses Israel of apartheid, NPR runs feel-good story about occupied Abu Tor in East Jerusalem that never mentions occupation or settlers or fact that Palestinians there are “permanent residents.”

Residents of the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of ‘Issawiya inaugurated what was described as the highest minaret in Jerusalem on Friday. Activist Omar Atiyeh, who was among a number of locals who supervised the construction of the minaret, told Ma‘an that the structure was 73 meters high. According to Atiyeh, the concept for the mosque’s minaret emerged more than a year ago as an attempt to emphasize the Arab and Islamic character of the neighborhood, which he said has been “completely surrounded” by Illegal Israeli settlements, a building belonging to Israel’s Hebrew University, and Israel’s Hadassah Hospital.”

Israel has both effected and veiled a comprehensive policy of apartheid directed at the whole Palestinian people in Israel, in occupation, and in exile, the stunning UN report says — and it was promptly veiled.

“I find myself incapable of bowing to fearmongering and threats, and not because of my role as an employee of the United Nations, but simply as a sane human being” — Rima Khalaf, former executive sec’y of UN ESCWA, after being forced to withdraw report labeling Israel an apartheid regime.

Around 2,000 mourners marched on Friday in the Bethlehem-area village of al-Walaja for the funeral of slain Basil al-Araj, 36, who was slain by Israeli forces March 6. Al-Araj’s ideology against normalization and security coordination is popular among leftist Palestinian youth. His success in eluding Israeli forces for six months, and then refusal to surrender when he was found, only made his ideas more popular.

If a definition of Deep State is being impervious to elections, then what about the influence that AIPAC has exercised in both parties: fostering Trump’s Islamophobia and trampling a Democratic Party thinktank’s efforts to expose that Islamophobia. Eli Clifton shows that AIPAC supported Frank Gaffney, the Islam-basher, to the tune of $60,000.

Last week a man in Salem, Oregon was charged with assault, intimidation and unlawful use of a weapon after he yelled at an employee working in a Middle Eastern restaurant, “go back to your country, terrorist” and then attacked him with a plastic pipe. The victim’s daughter, Layla Abdel-Jawad writes the man, Jason Kendall, suffers from a mental illness and should not be charged with a hate crime.

Gerald Kaufman, who died on February 26th 2017 at the age of 86, served as a member of Parliament for 47 continuous years and became the Father of the House of Commons. In his early years as an MP Kaufman was a strong supporter of the Israeli state and was a member of both Labour Friends of Israel and Poalei Zion, the British wing of the Israeli Labour Party. Tony Greenstein writes, “Perhaps the most fitting tribute to Gerald Kaufman that there can be was that he wasn’t a hypocrite. Kaufman had grown up with Labour Zionism and its myth of making the desert bloom, but unlike most supporters of Zionism in the Labour Party today, Gerald Kaufman was sincere in wanting to see a two-state solution. For him it wasn’t a convenient cover for an apartheid Greater Israel. Kaufman was quite sincere in his hostility to Israeli rule over millions of Palestinians and he didn’t hesitate to speak out against the occupation and repression that it entailed.”