In what sounded like an audition for secretary of state, Sen. Chris Murphy tells an Israel lobby group Joe Biden will restore a “decision” the two parties made long before Trump came along not to argue about Israel. He said Donald Trump’s “anti-Muslim” actions had the unfortunate effect of making Netanyahu’s policies toward Palestinians look racist to some Democrats, but those days will end under Biden.
Perpetual handmaidens of the far-right, pro-Israel groups are not simply willing to dehumanize Palestinians by stigmatizing basic empathy with their plight. Now, as the Senate run-off in Georgia shows, they are willing to sacrifice fundamental progressive goals to preserve uncritical loyalty to Israel.
The Israeli settlers in the Nablus district are notoriously violent, and are routinely recorded as attacking Palestinians and their property year round. But once the olive harvest comes around every year, settlers typically focus their attacks onto Palestinian farmers and their olive trees.
Unlike the other Democratic GA Senate candidate, Jon Ossoff has not made a misstep on his Israel positions, but shrewdly given nods to both conservative and liberal Zionists. He says the two-state solution is on “life support,” but has couched criticism of Israel in the language of Zionism. “I oppose Israeli annexation of the West Bank. What I want is for Israel’ s security as a homeland for the Jewish people to be secured and strengthened with U.S. support.”
The focus might currently be on Trump’s attempts at a judicial coup, but eyes are also turning to Georgia’s upcoming Senate runoffs.
According to a report from Nahal Toosi at Politico, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has developed a process to deem certain human rights groups antisemitic. “If Pompeo goes through with it, it’ll be interesting to see if Biden tries to roll it back & how & what blowback he’d get,” Toosi writes.
In its sixth year, the Leeds Palestinian Film Festival will feature discussions with filmmakers Annemarie Jacir and Saeed Taji Farouky, as well as a panel discussion including US filmmaker and social-justice activist Dr. Alice Rothchild to accompany the UK Premiere of documentary Jews Step Forward.
The export of wines from the Golan Heights to Dubai marks Trump’s legacy in the region: perceived legitimacy for the occupation and expanded markets for settlement businesses.
Trump will push annexation of West Bank, and if Netanyahu sees it as in his political interest to be antagonistic to Biden, he will accede, say two prominent Israel lobbyists. The issue could be Trump’s way of sowing difficulties for Biden.
More than a dozen filmmakers have honored a call by Queer Palestinians to withdraw from TLVFest, the Israeli government-partnered LGBT film festival, over its role in the Israeli government’s pinkwashing agenda.