Airbnb’s pulling of listings in Israeli illegal settlements in the West Bank is highly selective. But Israeli leaders are viewing it as a total attack on Israel, and have plans to punish Airbnb. They are making the case for a comprehensive boycott of Israel as a whole, per the BDS campaign; for the government is utterly dedicated to the settlement enterprise.
In a first, US Ambassador to UN Nikki Haley declared that she would vote against a resolution condemning Israel’s control of Syrian Golan since 1967. Israel took the land for strict reasons of greed, as then Defense Minister Moshe Dayan conceded, though the illegal occupation is rarely mentioned in the US press.
A lot of drama is ostensibly playing out in Israel – Defense Minister Lieberman resigned because he opposed a ceasefire and being soft on Hamas. But this drama is more about politics than actual security – it is about Israel’s upcoming elections
Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent statement, “Empires have conquered and replaced entire populations and no one is talking about it,” is yet another fascistic justification for ethnic cleansing from Israeli leaders. It goes back a long ways, and it has support from the worst regimes in the world.
In the wake of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, leading Orthodox Jewish rabbis would not recognize that the Conservative synagogue was indeed a synagogue. This is because they fear legitimizing other forms of Judaism that may endanger their political-Zionist-state monopoly in Israel. Their intolerance should be a wake up call to liberal Zionists, to recognize the dangers of mixing religion and state, a core principle for Israel.
Israeli responses to the Pittsburgh massacre are exploiting it to promote their anti-Palestinian and exclusivist agenda. That understanding is at the core of Zionism; and it is no answer to anti-Semitism or the white supremacist who killed 11 Jews.
Trump is beginning to turn against Saudi Arabian leader Mohammed Bin Salman, but liberal Zionists in Israel are suggesting we go easy on him.
The Saudis have finally changed their story – they do not deny that Kashoggi was killed at the Consulate in Turkey, but say that it was merely an accident, due to a fist fight. And Donald Trump finds the story “credible,” in his capacity as apologist for Mohammad Bin Salman.
The defense of Lara Alqasem who was barred entry by Israel for her studies, was based on the notion that she does not currently practice BDS. Thus, her victory at Supreme Court is also a blow to BDS and a victory for liberal Zionists. She has become a pawn in an internal Israeli-Zionist political game, where the right and left compete against each other about who is a “better Zionist”.
Two New Zealand BDS activists who counseled pop-star Lorde to cancel Israel concert have been fined by an Israeli court for harming the “artistic welfare” of three fans, but the two are not paying, and directing funds to Gaza mental health efforts.