Archive

2022

Browsing
Thomas Friedman. Photo: Charles Haynes.

Offering the new Israeli government as a model for fixing American democracy, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman leaves out the fact that its policies are as rightwing as Netanyahu’s, that numerous human rights organizations say it practices apartheid, and that it exalts a Jewish nation state law that gives Jews exclusive rights that Palestinians don’t enjoy. All in a day’s work for the man who pushed the Iraq war in his “personal crusade” for democracy in the Arab world and refuses to apologize for doing so.

Tzedek Chicago logo (Image: Facebook/Tzedek Chicago)

Given the reality of the historic and ongoing injustice at the core of Zionism, Congregation Tzedek Chicago has concluded that it is not enough to describe itself simply as “non-Zionist.” In a statement explaining the decision its board of director’s writes, “We believe this neutral term fails to honor the central anti-racist premise that structures of oppression cannot be simply ignored; on the contrary, they must be transformed. “

President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, January 28, 2020. (Photo: Koby Gideon/GPO)

When Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-CA) introduced a nonbinding resolution in support of a two-state solution in 2019, Rep. Mike McCaul (R-TX) called it “a one-sided take on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” and Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) was even more direct: “I stand against a two-state solution.” Mast doesn’t represent some sort of hardline minority — he was voicing what has now become the GOP consensus.