Even now, 25 years after the assassination, the majority of the Israeli center and left cannot divest itself of the Oslo Accords and of the chimera of a two-states solution. They are, after all, sacred. They are what Oseh Shalom Bimromaiv planned. Any attempts to deviate from it is denying scripture. And so the devotees of Oslo and Rabin become the equivalent of monks, dead to the world and singing the sacred hymns. The divine plan has long lost any connection to reality, but anyone challenging it quickly becomes anathema.

Sarah Ariyan Sakha wonders who the Apple TV show “Tehran” was made for, and why; but as an Iranian-American she knows it certainly was not made for her.

Like the rest of the world, Palestine has been hit hard with the coronavirus. The city of Bethlehem in particular has perhaps been impacted the most by the pandemic. At any given time of year the streets of Bethlehem’s Old City are filled with tourists from all over the world, but now shops have been closed and the streets are empty. According to local experts, short-term losses as a result of COVID-19 have reached up to 500 million dollars in Bethlehem alone, and people here are wondering if life will ever return back to normal.

For Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Zionism was a “vogue” movement filled with promise. She could have used the occasion of accepting an Israeli prize in Tel Aviv in 2018 to talk about the massacre of Palestinians taking place in Gaza. She didn’t.

A landmark event in the politics of Palestine has just taken place: Congressional star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York withdrew from a scheduled memorial to Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli Prime Minister who was slain in 1995 by a rightwing extremist, after critics pointed out Rabin’s human rights record. Americans for Peace Now is sponsoring the Oct. event, with host Mandy Patinkin saying, “We would have peace today had he been with us all this time, I am absolutely certain of that.”

Today – on Capitol Hill, on U.S. campuses, and among the public at large – candidates, movement leaders and everyday people are questioning blind support for Israel’s apartheid policies. Mondoweiss brings you news about Palestine/Israel that other media ignore – news that helps shape attitudes among influencers, politicians and the public at large. We’re looking for 50 new monthly donors ready to support Mondoweiss’s journalism for justice.

Benny Gantz, who became an American liberal Zionist hero over the last 18 months as he tried to replace Netanyahu– and then folded–spoke at a Friends of Israel Defense Forces gala of a “people’s army” that protects the “Jewish homeland” and draws its ranks from “every walk of life… every type of background.” But very few Palestinians serve in the Israeli army. Only Jews are required to do so.

Liz Rose reflects on Rosh Hashanah: “We made the desert bloom,” my mother said when I was ten years old. “How did we do this,” I asked, “from the other side of the world?” My mother pointed to the blue JNF box full of loose change. “That’s how.” And then I felt a selflessness in me, learning to give to others who required help, like Israel, who I believed–because my mother believed–needed money to help make the empty forest grow.

The wave of protests against Benjamin Netanyahu that sprouted in the spring continue throughout this latest lockdown. The most recent protest was last night with 2,000 demonstrators.

Forget the normalization efforts of Gulf state oligarchies. As the South African struggle against apartheid showed it is the power of ordinary people that matters.