The Trump presidency as hateful and unpleasant and regrettable as it has been, has created great openings for the left. We are now living in a radical age, and the left is getting to offer its answers, on such matters as capitalism and the patriarchy. If Clinton had won, the sexual harassment wave wouldn’t have happened.
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tipi Hotovely was hoisted by her own petard and Prime Minister Netanyahu has been reported as “checking the procedure” for firing her. Hotovely’s sin is that she committed a classic gaffe: she was caught on tape saying what she thought. About American Jews. In English.
Nasser al-Qudwa, spokesperson for the Palestinian party Fatah, said that if the Trump administration follows through on the congressional effort to shut down the PLO mission in Washington, D.C., “there will be a serious repercussion” — possibly the collapse of the efforts by Trump’s negotiating team of Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt to restart peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians.
Lashing out against American Jews, Israel’s top diplomat Tzipi Hotoveli said that they were living “quite convenient lives” and that they don’t send their kids to the military. “People that never send their children to fight for their country– most of the Jews don’t have children serving as soldiers, going to the Marines, going to Afghanistan, or to Iraq.”
By playing Tel Aviv, Nick Cave silenced Palestinians, explains flutist and composer Nai Barghouti, who offers the Australian musician a description of how Israeli forces at an occupation checkpoint stopped Barghouti at 13 when Barghouti was trying to go to an important music lesson in Jerusalem.
“Your child is taken to an interrogation room and bullied into confessing a “crime”–insulting the honor of a soldier, for instance, or throwing stones at a wall. Like you, your son was born into a military occupation and under military law a soldier’s honor is worth 10 years of your son’s life.”–Nyla Matuk
David Harris of the American Jewish Committee says it’s his “Jewish duty” to put aside political differences with Trump and advocate for Israel. Speaking to a liberal Westchester synagogue, Harris also took a shot at the president. Asked, “Has Jared Kushner sought your counsel?” he shot back: “You’d have to ask Moscow.”
Open Hillel, IfNotNow, and Jewish Voice for Peace, have all decentralized Zionism from Jewish political life, and the Zionist Organization of America’s gala honoring Steve Bannon is assisting that process. The drama of Zionist donors, cozying up to figures of Christian nationalism and regressive nostalgia, brings to mind Theodor Herzl’s attempt at collaboration with Russian anti-Semitic Interior Minister von Plehve.
Kenneth Marcus, Trump’s nominee to head the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education, actively works to pass and enforce legislation that suppresses civil and human rights and criminalizes constitutionally protected free speech. His nomination points to the increasing convergences of white supremacy, fascism, and Zionism.
“Have you gone mad?” Tamar Zandberg of Meretz challenged Labor after it supported Netanyahu’s plan to deport 40,000 African refugees. But Avi Gabbay, the Labor leader, is pushing the faction to the right in order to meet the Israeli public where they stand, in racist policies.