Prominent Jews, including Molly Crabapple, Dave Zirin, Tzvia Thier, Naomi Klein, Ilan Pappe, Rebecca Vilkomerson, Shir Hever, and Moshe Machover sign a statement standing by Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar for her criticism of AIPAC. As long as the US gov’t stands behind Israeli crimes, the 229 signatories and counting will point to the outsize role of the Israel lobby.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be indicted for bribery, fraud and breach of trust in three separate cases, pending a hearing. While it is too early to tell the extent to which Netanyahu will be affected by the announcement, nearly all of his rivals have called on him to step down, and political analysts have said it could spell disaster for him come April 9th.

It is quite typical for Israeli politicians to carry out confrontational measures against Palestinians shortly before general elections are due. Ramzy Baroud argues Netanyahu’s closure of a gate that leads to Al-Aqsa mosque was a move to appease extremists at the expense of Palestinians.

The United Nations Human Rights Council just issued a damning report that said Israel may have committed crimes against humanity during the Great March of Return in Gaza last year. Although U.N. investigators charged Israel with far worse crimes than anything that the government of Venezuela has been accused of, the New York Times coverage of the South American nation has been considerably more extensive.

Ilhan Omar is accused of antisemitism in fostering a “hoary myth of dual loyalty” to Israel. But Jews from Joe Klein to Eric Alterman to Melissa Weintraub to MJ Rosenberg say that allegiance to Israel is actually an important factor in the support for Israel in the United States, to the point that some support Israel’s interests over America’s.

Many Israelis would like us to believe that the Palestinian struggle to achieve self-determination has been defeated, and that it is time to admit that Israel is the victor and Palestine the loser. But Richard Falk says recent events paint a different picture than this premature Israel triumphalism.

The United States’ much ballyhooed conference in Warsaw, the purpose of which was to gather support for more pressure on Iran, is now over. This exercise in futility did not gain the so-called ‘benefits’ that President Donald Trump and his racist, jingoistic cohorts had hoped. Rather, it exposed disagreements between the U.S. and many of its allies, and worsened some of them.

The decision to indict Netanyahu is likely to knock down the right wing vote, and may give a path to the centrist Blue and White to form a governing coalition after the April 9 election. One thing is clear though: the indictment will have no effect on Palestinian conditions.

When the leading party in the Israeli elections, Blue and White, says it won’t work with “Arabs” to form a coalition, and the Labor Party announces its new agenda of “Three Paths to Separation” from Palestinians, you’d think there’s something wrong with the Israeli Jewish polity. But liberal Zionists can’t catch a clue…

We are pleased and proud to announce that the team here at Mondoweiss will be growing this spring. From a one-man operation in 2006, we’ve grown to a core team of eight today, plus hundreds of freelance contributors each year. The two positions we are looking to fill now are 1) a U.S.-based News Reporter and 2) an Individual Giving Manager. Both openings require, above all, a passion and dedication to the mission of sharing the facts about Palestine with a global audience, in order to strengthen the struggle against systematic oppression.