Palestinian messaging about human rights is working. A rightwing Israeli thinktank says anti-Zionism is growing in the U.S. Jewish community. A “possibly significant minority (which may be up to 25%) appears to hold beliefs that are intensely critical of Israel and Zionism itself, including attitudes that Zionism may be a colonial and/or racist, apartheid movement as practiced in Israel today.” Even more, 31 percent, would vote for Rashida Tlaib because she is a progressive!
The deals with the UAE and Bahrain show Israel’s economic power and favor in Washington–and expose its persecution of Palestinians in the name of “the one and only Jewish state,” as Netanyahu describes his country.
Trump’s Bahrain-Israel pact is a power politics move and has been embraced by Israel lobby groups, Democratic reps, and the NYT, all of which bash Palestinians. But in fact it only advances the one-state struggle for democracy inside Israel and Palestine.
“We don’t have to be in the Middle East, other than we want to protect Israel,” Trump tells a rally in North Carolina. And the comments have gone all but unreported in the mainstream press.
Once the hope of liberal Zionists, Benny Gantz is now siding with settlers against Netanyahu for political advantage. Angered by the move, dedicated Zionist Michael Koplow urges U.S. Jewish community to open discourse to include a one-state outcome.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz says Trump “blindsided” and “endanger”-ed Israel by agreeing to give the UAE F-35s in its deal with Israel. So Biden is running to Trump’s right on Israel to win FL, where older Jewish voters are surely pleased by Trump’s doing whatever Israel has wanted.
Guccifer 2.0, the Russian account said to have hacked Democratic emails in 2016, was registered with an Israeli phone number, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence reported last month, just one of many instances that Israelis appeared to help Russia interfere in U.S. election. But the new cold war is with Russia, so US media ignore the Israeli connection.
The UAE deal with Israel under which it gets F-35s from the US may set off bids from other Arab countries for U.S. favor. “Each one has their own pet project, what they would get for normalizing,” says Nimrod Novik. Morocco wants its occupation of Western Sahara accepted. Sudan wants off the U.S. terror list.
There’s a reason Joe Biden is running so far right on Israel. He fears Trump upping his share of Jewish vote in battleground states by citing his pro-Israel record and winning them. Matt Brooks of the RJC describes the strategy.
It’s a “canard,” says Halie Soifer of the Jewish Democratic Council of America. A “false story,” says former ambassador Dan Shapiro. Biden’s surrogates in the Jewish community go to great lengths to try to debunk a story that Joe Biden took on Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin over settlements in 1982. But the encounter is documented in the New York Times.