In the closing hours of his political campaign, Benjamin Netanyahu announced his opposition to a Palestinian state and evoked Jewish fears of Palestinians outside and inside of the state of Israel. Netanyahu’s honesty caught the American Jewish leadership by surprise. It seems that Netanyahu compromised a special Jewish Occupation Code honed over many years. In essence, Netanyahu cast an unwelcome light on a thoroughly compromised American Jewish establishment that has enabled Israeli policies toward Palestinians for decades. Netanyahu stood up for injustice without apology. It’s time for Jewish leaders to tell us – without apology – where they stand.

The 70th anniversary of liberation of Auschwitz and investigation of Israel at the Hague are signs that the Holocaust-Israel axis, so central to Jewish identity over the last decades, is on oxygen support.

70 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, Jews must recognize that they live after that era of Jewish history and after the Nakba too. Jewish identity must reflect both, Marc Ellis says

Avraham Burg has a hopeful view that Israel will evolve beyond Zionism in the next 20 years and Palestine and Israel will be one state with Arab ministers in the government and a true defense force. But he has a French passport. And things could get worse before they get better.

Marc Ellis writes, “While heartfelt, the various “Je suis” campaigns are diversions that draw us deeper into the international security abyss.”

Obama should reach out to Palestine as he has Cuba. His legacy would be assured, Marc Ellis writes at Mondo

Kairos has been around for five years and the facts on the ground are worse. Marc Ellis calls for a renewal of Jewish prophetic thought, rooted in an awareness that Palestinians have been wronged and there is one state between the river and the sea.

During the five years of the existence of the landmark Kairos document on Palestinian conditions, solidarity with Palestinians has increased. But the reckoning that Kairos Palestine calls for hasn’t happened. It won’t happen in the near future either. The powers that be in the world are uninterested in Palestinian freedom

In Jerusalem, “here we go, again again again” — Descent, a poem from Marc Ellis

Bloodshed in Jerusalem and beyond won’t be remedied by apolitical prayers and statements from Rabbis for Human Rights and Jewish Voice for Peace, Marc Ellis says