The leader of the Israeli “left” opposition faction Zionist Union, Avi Gabbay, says, “The left has forgotten what it means to be Jewish,” a virtual carbon copy of Benjamin Netanyahu’s comment from 20 years ago. The parallel shows the collapse of any real opposition to the hard right in Israeli politics.
United States Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) introduced on Tuesday a bill to the U.S. House of Representatives that seeks to bar U.S. government aid and funding from supporting Israeli military detentions of Palestinian children and their prosecution under Israel’s military court system. The legislation is said to be the first time a bill on Palestinian human rights has ever been introduced to U.S. Congress.
On November 7, the House Judiciary Committee held hearings over the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, a bill that would broaden the definition of antisemitism to include criticism of Israel. Dr. Barry Trachtenberg, the Chair of Jewish History at Wake Forest University, argued that the act’s definition of antisemitism was deeply flawed because it defines all accusations of American Jewish dual-loyalty as inherently antisemitic. Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center accused Trachtenberg of providing ”cannon fodder for antisemites”. In many ways, the exchange between Cooper and Trachtenberg mirrored the debate the American Jewish community has been having about dual loyalty since the establishment of Israel.
Israel backed al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in Syria in an effort to weaken Bashar al-Assad and Iran. The effort has failed and now Israel and Saudi Arabia are turning their attention to Lebanon where two mysterious events over the past week indicate that Hezbollah may be in Israel’s sights.
David Brooks does a limited confession of his mistake in supporting the Iraq war. He was naive. “People like me used to advocate for spreading democracy around the world. Sometimes we were naive. And Iraq was Iraq and it didn’t work out. But at least it was a belief in essential progress.”
No individual had as large a role in Israel’s shift from an embattled settler state to a regional power as James Angleton, the head of counterintelligence at the CIA in the 50s-70s, who relied on Israeli intelligence in his battle against communism. Angleton overlooked Israel’s acquisition of nukes, Jefferson Morley relates in his new biography of Angleton, The Ghost.
In 2014 when nine activists climbed onto the roof of the Elbit UK drone factory to protest the Israeli war on Gaza, Nick Cave’s support helped spread the news of their protest. Now, those same nine activists write Cave to ask him to support the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions and to cancel his upcoming show in Israel.
Reuters reports on Palestinian couples who can only live together in a slum, “When 23-year-old Yacout Alqam, a resident of East Jerusalem, first met her fiancé, she loved that he was ‘very kind. Very free. Everything.’ There was just one catch: ‘The problem of identification cards,’ said Alqam, the wide smile on her small frame fading.”
Thirty years ago, Prince Charles said that U.S. support for Israel is a cause of terrorism and that the “Jewish lobby” tied an American president’s ability to address the issue. He wrote in a 1986 letter: “I know there are so many complex issues, but how can there ever be an end to terrorism unless the causes are eliminated? Surely some US president has to have the courage to stand up and take on the Jewish lobby in US? I must be naive, I suppose!”
Israeli settlers celebrating the life of Sarah in the Torah turned threatening toward Palestinians in Hebron last week. Badia Dwaik of Human Rights Defenders says, “Israel is the only state in which there are two armies, namely the organized official army and the army of settlers armed with weapons. Where Jewish settler festivals have become a hell for Palestinian families.”