The Shift: Don’t get ‘hopeless’ about soaring Palestinian sympathy among Dems, says Senator Michael Bennet

There’s been a “sea change” in U.S. politics, says former Israeli ambassador Michael Oren — and that’s the Gallup poll showing Democrats sympathize with Palestinians over Israelis by 49 to 38 percent.

That change is leaking into our media and the leadership– to the point that Colorado Senator Michael Bennet advises the Democratic Majority for Israel not to get “hopeless”!

But I’ll get to that. There’s a lot in the news.

U.S. establishment turns on Israel over brutal treatment of worshipers in Al Aqsa

This week Benjamin Netanyahu finally did the right thing and said there would be no Jewish prayer allowed on the Israeli-occupied Haram-al-Sharif/Temple Mount– though only till the end of Ramadan. Netanyahu clearly acted under American pressure, following the horrifying videos of Israeli forces attacking Muslim worshipers inside the mosque that went around the world, causing a p.r. debacle for “the Jewish state” and enraging Jordan.

The U.S. establishment expressed surprising anger over the Israeli attacks.

Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, told Andrea Mitchell of NBC on April 5, that the raids were “mindnumbingly stupid”:

I think it was a mindnumbingly, just stupid– I don’t know any other word for it, sorry to be so blunt, decision to send Israeli forces into one of the holiest shrines of Islam because people were piling rocks and fireworks really? The bar for Israeli entry into an Islamic holy site. sending ought to be sky high. This wasn’t even close to it, If the Israelis want to undermine the Abraham Accords, want to make it impossible for Saudi Arabia to ever move toward peace with Israel, they want to start another intifada, there’s no better way to do it than we have just seen.

Mitchell chimed in: “I’m just shocked looking at the video, sitting here in California. It is mindblowing.”

Leon Panetta made similar comments to Mitchell: “A democracy respects the institutions of a democracy, and freedom of religion, very frankly, and the step of going into a mosque and doing it in a very brutal fashion only exacerbates the troubles that Israel’s in right now. Israel has enough problems.”

The Washington Post chimed in: “Every time a minister or a Knesset member or a member of an extremist settler group goes up to the al-Aqsa compound, they are eroding the status quo.”

Israel advocate Michael Koplow pointed out the ways the public relations disaster is hurting Israel’s vaunted image:

By now nearly everyone has seen the clips of Israeli police beating worshipers in al-Aqsa Mosque with clubs and rifle butts, videos that raced around social media and provided the excuse for Palestinian rockets from Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria…. .

[W]hen Israel’s argument in the aftermath of the ensuing public relations disaster is that it was simply concerned with protecting freedom of worship, it is talking about curtailing Muslim freedom of worship for thousands during their holiest month at the sole site in Israel where Muslims believe they have the upper hand in order to improve freedom of worship for a few hundred Jews.

Does the State Department regard the U.N. Security Council as “irrelevant”?

The U.S. government was obviously disturbed by the raid but expressed its concerns mutedly. The Biden administration stopped the U.N. Security Council from issuing a statement on the Israeli raid. State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel explained that was about the “two-state solution”:

[D]iscussing these issues and litigating these issues through the UN is not productive. It further incites tensions and takes us away from a two-state solution and takes us away from what we believe is important, which is maintaining the status quo.

Reporter Said Arikat responded that the statement would have just said “we condemn the storming of the mosque while people are worshiping.” And doesn’t the U.S. say such things when the Chinese attack a Uyghur mosque? Patel:

Said, I’m not going to get into hypotheticals. 

Here’s another hypothetical. A reporter asked if the Security Council is irrelevant, and Patel said it is not, but this is an “issue and a topic that needs to be decided and determined and discussed between the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority.” (Yes, and who has all the power in that discussion?)

As Ali Abumimah points out, “It is literally none of Israel’s business” what Palestinians do in their own land.

Apartheid made two appearances on public radio this week

Roger Waters says we are winning because you can’t talk about Israel now without bringing the word “apartheid” into the discussion, and National Public Radio is complying!

Arun Venugopal did a piece on WNYC, about Columbia University’s controversial plan to put a center in Tel Aviv.

“’There are a number of people who would not be able to use that global center because of Israel’s essentially apartheid policies,’” said Katherine Franke, a law professor.”

While Rashid Khalidi explained that the center would be off-limits to a great number of people, including Palestinians and those who support BDS.

“Lebanese cannot go, Syrians cannot go, Palestinians from the occupied territories cannot go, by Israeli law or by Israeli practice,” he said. “There are Columbia faculty and Columbia students who cannot go to Israel, either because of their national origin or their passport or their political views. Israel has a policy of denying entry to people who supposedly support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.”

Israeli leftist Avishai Margalit told David Remnick that it’s kind of apartheid, in a discussion of the democracy protests on the New Yorker Radio Hour:

[C]an Israel have this double phase being a democracy within the Green Line and running a mixture of a military occupation, colonial ruling, and even an apartheid elements of it combined? All of them are undemocratic and the question was, what is the nature of the body polity if you take the whole range, namely from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean? Is it a democracy if almost third of the population are under military occupation?

Netanyahu’s Judicial coup is the BDS campaign’s dream

Gideon Levy reports the hopeful view of the giant democracy demonstrations in Israel–they open the door to anti-apartheid voices.

The BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement’s dream is rapidly materializing. A key manager in one of the country’s investment firms told me this week that the rate of money leaving his office and going overseas is currently 10 million shekels a day ($2.76 million), and growing…

This is how the supporters of a boycott on Israel wanted things to unfold: a withdrawal of investments from Israel, a boycott of Israel’s economy culminating in international opposition, up to the imposition of sanctions….

When Israelis start paying for the follies of their leaders, they might find the time to reconsider the greatest folly of all: the apartheid state they live in, paying for it with the blood of their sons and with the image of their country. Only then will a new dawn break.

Remember, that even a former Israeli PM has called for an “international boycott” of the Israeli government over its judicial overhaul.

Israel is the world’s ‘one essential country’ — Senator Michael Bennet

The Senate is trying to keep everything positive. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand returned from a bipartisan Senate trip to Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco in January saying she has “never been more optimistic than today” about the future of peace and cooperation.

Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado was another of the seven senators on the junket, and last month he gave a webinar to the Democratic Majority for Israel about the trip. The 58-year-old Jewish legislator reports:

In Israel we met with Prime Minister Netanyahu. This was the fourth meeting I had with him and the longest. It lasted for two hours. I can summarize those two hours very easily. Iran consumed the first hour and Saudi Arabia consumed the second.

Translation, He lectured us. (Netanyahu is becoming tone deaf, people say.)

The group of senators refused to meet with the fascist extremists in Netanyahu’s government — even the three Republicans went along with the shunning — and met with the Palestinian Prime Minister. Bennet was troubled by the hopelessness of Palestinians:

“It has been very troubling to see the level of turmoil and anxiety in the West Bank. The CIA director… thinks that things are potentially more difficult on the West Bank than since the Second Intifada… Something we really have to pay attention to I think because the hopelessness that people feel there is very very combustible tinder.”

But of course, Bennet continues to support a two-state solution even though he is less clear than he has ever been about how that will come about. And the U.S. has to stay on Israel’s side:

“Israel is one of our most important allies. I have called it on the Senate floor the world’s one essential country… I think our job is to make sure that Israel is there and survives as a democracy.”

Don’t be “hopeless” about Israel’s tanking polling in Democratic Party — Bennet

Democratic Majority for Israel pressed Bennet about how to deal with the growing sympathy for Palestinians in the Democratic Party. Bennet changed the subject, talking about his mother’s generation of Holocaust survivors.

I think it’s important as that generation continues to move on, we have got to make sure that we are educating the next generation of Americans and of people around the world about the history of the Holocaust and the history of antisemitism and the present antisemitism and as I said earlier, the essential nature of Israel not just to Jews but to humanity.

Yes, but what about the polling showing soaring sympathy for Palestinians, 49-38 among Dems. Bennet pooh poohed it:

Poll numbers– I know they go up and they go down. You shouldn’t think they are hopeless. Let’s have positive constructive engagement. Not being Pollyannish, not being dishonest, not papering over disagreements when they’re real.

And BDS, how do we fight it? Label portions of the campaign “antisemitism.” And:

To the extent that they’re not motivated in that regard, but are motivated in regard to just delegitimize Israel as a sovereign entity, we need to push back on that.”

Bennet wants to quiet the campuses by buying off Palestinians (just like Tom Nides): “With respect to college campuses in particular, I think it is very important for us who are advocates of a US-Israel relationship and advocates of a democratic Israel to be on the side of creating economic opportunity and social justice for the Palestinian people as well.”

And let’s talk about history: “This is an issue of hearts and minds, and I think most people, when confronted with an accurate picture of what the history looks like, are going to be able to overcome voices that are making the kind of the claims that the BDS movement and others are making on college campuses.”

But, it’s apartheid right now

CIA says Mossad is pushing anti-Netanyahu demonstrations, and no one’s happy

As I’ve reported, the demonstrations in Israel have a militant character, with heavy participation of reservists and intelligence and military figures. This was evidently confirmed in a leak of classified documents to social media, supposedly from the Pentagon, “deeply rattling U.S. officials,” per CNN, that show that the U.S. is spying on Israel– of course — and that the Mossad has a role in the demonstrations.

An intelligence report about Israel, meanwhile, has sparked outrage in Jerusalem. The report, produced by the CIA and sourced to signals intelligence, says that Israel’s main intelligence agency, the Mossad, had been encouraging protests against the country’s new government – “including several explicit calls to action,” the report alleges.

The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office responded on the Mossad’s behalf Sunday morning, calling the report “mendacious and without any foundation whatsoever.”

“According to the Washington Post, the document said senior members of the Mossad in February advocated for the agency’s staff and Israeli citizens to protest ‘including several explicit calls to action that decried the Israeli government,'” Axios reports.

The State Department was asked about the leak, and dodged the question— “our partnership with Israel is deep.” Axios says that that the U.S. told Israel to stay chill about the leak.

Fears of AIPAC and DMFI inside the Democratic Party

The Nation has a good piece on the power of DMFI and AIPAC over Democratic progressives. Alexandra Rojas and Waleed Shahid of Justice Democrats say that Democratic candidates are under financial pressure to comply with AIPAC.

As we head into another cycle of competitive Democratic primaries, conference calls among Democratic Party strategists and progressive organizations keep ending on the same question: “So, what is our AIPAC strategy?… Some Democratic operatives are suggesting that prospective candidates just get “AIPAC’s target off their back” by conceding to the anti-Palestinian spending network (made up of not just AIPAC but also Democratic Majority for Israel, Pro-Israel America, NORPAC, and others) through vague or overly conciliatory positions regarding the billions in largely unrestricted military aid that American taxpayers provide the Israeli military. This view was summarized in one conference call last year in which a consultant suggested to a progressive candidate: “Why don’t you just tweet something about how you support Israel if you want to avoid $5 million in attack ads?”…

And they note: “The AIPAC network is spending millions of dollars precisely because it is losing the generational and partisan battle to progressive Democrats.”

However, because of the massive political and financial power of the anti-Palestinian lobby, only 14 percent of Democrats in the House of Representatives have signed legislation to condition aid to Israel on ending the expansion of settlements.

Ken Roth on the antisemitism ploy

Great tweet from Ken Roth: “Those who follow me on Twitter will see that despite my extensive criticism, I am not called anti-Chinese, anti-Russian, anti-Syrian or anti-Saudi. Only when I criticize Israel am I called antisemitic. That cheap ploy is due to a controversial definition.”

Cynicism about the lessons of Passover

Last week I wrote about how cynical the Passover story makes an anti-Zionist Jew. Well, here’s more cynicism. The Jewish Council for Public Affairs reissued a Passover video celebrating the U.S. civil rights struggle in the context of Jewish tradition. But the vid made no reference to Palestinians and contained the usual hypocrisy:

Reform Rabbi David Saperstein: “Freedom requires that government insure that no one’s rights as a citizen nor the human rights of any dwelling in our nation be dependent on their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity, age, disability, or religion… This story is found in our Hebrew scriptures, it’s a source of pride for every Jew as we see it continue to be the call for freedom that humanity must march to…”

(BTW, here is Rabbi Saperstein speaking up for Netanyahu near the White House as he massacred 2000 in Gaza in 2014. “The Administration, the Congress and overwhelmingly, the American people stand with Israel.”)

Zionism on the defensive

The Center for Jewish History is having an all-day event about Zionism and American Jews at the end of the month. “Generationally as well as politically, American Jews appear to be more divided about Zionism than ever.” That sounds pretty good. But the 22 speakers include hawk David Makovsky and firebreather Einat Wilf, a Laborite who says that anti-Zionism is antisemitism, and the roster does not include a Palestinian, though Palestinians know Zionism very well. So this forum is a bit self-involved– when it is a matter of urgency that the U.S. Jewish community get its head out of its tuchis.

Zionism on the defensive, part 2

The Forward has a headline, “Is having a Jewish State Worth It?” The link there is to the latest Zionist tract by Daniel Gordis, who emigrated to Israel — when Palestinian refugees cannot return to their homes — but I can imagine how most American Jews would answer the question now.