“[T]he occupation is not temporary, and there is not the political will in the Israeli government to bring about its end,” write Alon Liel and Ilan Baruch. “It is time for the world to recognize that what we saw in South Africa decades ago is happening in the occupied Palestinian territories too… and take decisive diplomatic action… and work towards building a future of equality, dignity, and security for Palestinians and Israelis alike.”

Netanyahu used a visit from Tony Blinken to turn the subject to Israel’s supposed “existential” threat, Iran. This claim is taken seriously inside the beltway, but Assal Rad writes that it is spurious. U.S./Israel alignment has been harmful to regional and global security.

Bill Maher tells New York Rep. Ritchie Torres that he was “incredibly gutsy” for defending Israel’s recent attacks.

An important difference between apartheid in South Africa and Israel is that South Africans openly embraced white supremacy as law and apartheid. In the case of Zionism, the untruth of inequality is anything but transparent. It has been disguised and denied by a relentless barrage of shifting alibis, exculpations, mitigations, as well as heavy demonization of critics.

The Israel lobby is under huge pressure these days as the Democratic Party base becomes more sympathetic to Palestinians in the wake of the latest Israeli onslaught. A pro-Israel group, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, held an event on the Gaza conflict last week, and there were two surprising responses to the progressive shift.

“Israel fights my daughter because she is telling the story of Sheikh Jarrah,” Nabil El-Kurd told journalists and supporters outside the police station following the arrest of his children, Muna and Mohammed El-Kurd.

In the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof asks if his criticisms of Israel were fair during the recent Gaza attack and says, Yes. Spanish and Irish precedents for terrorism show that negotiation of political issues is the only way to end war crimes over territorial questions.

Of Palestinians who tested positive in the last week, 84% were in Gaza and 16% in the West Bank.

Israel’s new president Isaac Herzog has said that left wing critics of Israel are responsible for murderous attacks on Jews. And when asked about growing American Jewish criticism of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, Herzog says it is because “American Jews have no clue about” what life is like for Israelis and have only a “superficial” and “short-sighted” understanding of the conflict.

The recent condemnation by Pomona College administrators of a unanimous student government vote in favor of BDS is nothing other than an abuse of institutional power to bully undergraduates who took a principled stand for social justice.