In 1656, Amsterdam’s Portuguese Jewish community excommunicated Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza for heresy. Today, the same community banned world-renowned Spinoza scholar trying to make a film about the philosopher.

A response to Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s designation of 6 Palestinian civil rights groups as terrorist. “I understand the people who hate us so much that they want to kill someone. I understand people who want to kill me – not as a person they know, but simply as a Jewish Israeli, a representative of the master race that terrorizes them daily.”

Within Israel, Apartheid is so deeply entrenched that dismantling it appears as viable as dismantling Zionism itself. But this is what needs to happen. In fact, abolishing Apartheid means abolishing Zionism and burying the idea of Jewish supremacy, which for all the sugar coating, stands at the core of Zionism itself.

Har Bracha is a Jewish settlement outpost that regularly terrorizes the Palestinian village of Burin, whose lands it stole. President Isaac Herzog, who is routinely celebrated by liberals in the U.S., toured the settlement Tuesday and declared that the Jewish people’s connection to that land cannot be “denied or diminished.” So much for all the liberal Zionist talk of a two-state solution that would yield land to Palestinians.

Israel withholds Palestinian tax funds from the PA so as to enforce its collective punishment of the families of militants. Now Defense Minister Benny Gantz is seeking to “loan” the P.A. that money in line with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s promise to Joe Biden to improve Palestinian conditions.

Israeli leaders are forced to balance calls for “lethal” military bravura, essential for garnering Zionist Jewish support internally, with maintaining its image abroad.

Israel’s Diaspora Minister Nachman Shai tells the American Jewish Committee: “if we see more of the radical left or the progressive liberal Jews continuing to support BDS and Black Lives Matter, as similar to the Palestinians, and they relate to Israel as a genocide state or an apartheid state, we may lose America.”

The extremist response by Israeli leaders to Ben & Jerry’s — that it is antisemitic or terrorist — ignores the fact that McDonald’s has refused to operate in Israeli settlements for many years. McDonald’s just didn’t make a big splash about it. Ben & Jerry’s very public move is fostering the BDS campaign that sees Israeli human violations on both sides of the Green Line.

Israel is determined to pressure Unilever to change the Ben & Jerry’s decision not to sell ice cream in occupied territory; and six left-of-center Jewish parliamentarians originally signed on to a letter deploring the decision. They backed out later, but their instinct shows how broadly committed Jewish Israelis are to “Judea and Samaria” as part of Israel.

Meretz represents the far left of Israeli politics and even its leader says even he buys settlement products. This more than anything shows the overwhelming Israeli political consensus behind the settlements.