Jared Kushner is related by marriage to Hart Hasten, a Holocaust survivor and kingmaker in Indiana. The Hasten-Kushner clan is the Jewish connection Trump and Pence shared before they became political partners.

Monday, April 10, 2017, marked a significant victory for social justice activism in the state of Maryland. After a vigorous and well-organized campaign, legislation targeting the BDS movement was roundly defeated for the third time in four years. Kim Jensen talks to the activists who went up against powerful outspoken anti-BDS advocates like Dennis Ross, Governor Larry Hogan, and Senator Ben Cardin and won.

AFP reports: “When wedding planner Salama Al Odi was blocked by Israel from importing a limousine for his business in Gaza, he was not dissuaded. Instead, he built his own – from five other cars.”

My poor white friends turned to Trump (“it’s about time we were seen”), my white liberal friends turned to something else (“the world is ending”), my black friends turned to protest (“we have been here before”), and my undocumented students turned to sleeping in my office. But we shouldn’t turn inward, we must build broader communities.

SNL stays away from Israel jokes but comic Vanessa Bayer highlighted Jewish alienation from Israel in mentioning “my uncle Simon even though my dad says he is so blinded by his devotion to Israel that he ignores all reason.” The line got a pretty good laugh.

An honest press account of the Syrian war would still make Assad look like the war criminal he is, but the negative effects of our massive military aid to Assad opponents and the complexity of the war are ignored in favor of one sided moralizing with us as the good guys who haven’t intervened enough. Indeed, some liberals in the press prefer Trump to Obama in Syria.

If Massachusetts Democratic state committee passes resolution opposing Israeli settlements, party leader Steve Grossman warns many Dems will say, “that’s the last straw. This is not a place I feel comfortable any longer.”

Marking Marwan Barghouti as a ‘terrorist’ is very important for Israel and the New York Times, too. The Times did not impose such standards when it was celebrating Nelson Mandela.

Israeli grandmother Carol Cook was visiting a Palestinian village near Yitzhar, an extremist Israeli settlement funded by the family of senior White House advisor Jared Kushner, when she was attacked, “We, three women in our 60s and 70s, wanted to see the settlement reality for ourselves. We got a smaller but bitter taste of the violence and hatred Palestinians in the area experience as routine.”

Uri Avnery and Salman Abu Sitta first met during a debate in Paris hosted by the United Nations, “years ago.” Since then the have maintained a correspondence, pieces of which have already been published by Avnery in his column. In the exchange Abu Sitta writes, “I realize you did not wish to reply to my letters. They are either painful or could not be rebutted. Certainly they are not irrelevant. I keep writing to you since we met in Paris over a decade ago because I think you have unique characteristics. You have been a terrorist. You witnessed al Nakba, so you cannot deny it. You tried to forge peace with Palestinians (only on Zionist terms). You have a grasp of all the facts. So you cannot claim ‘I did not know’. Then WHY you are still in a Denial Bubble?”