The new two-state bill in the House promoted by progressive Congresspeople describes Israel as the “national home of the Jewish people.” This language is “unacceptable” to Palestinians, says Jafar Farah of the Mossawa Center in Haifa, because it prolongs discrimination embodied by the fact that Palestinians are not permitted to build a university in Nazareth over 40 years of demanding that right.

As Mondoweiss has grown over the last 15 years we’ve had a number of landmarks, but none gives us greater pleasure than to announce this news: We’ve hired a full time Gaza correspondent, the great young writer Tareq S. Hajjaj!

As Tareq begins his position with us, our focus is on making sure we can back him and his work to the absolute highest degree. We need your help to do that. By Sunday we are hoping that 100 Mondoweiss readers will step up as new monthly donors – and a group of generous donors has agreed to match your entire first year of donations.

Supporters of Palestinian human rights are always accused of antisemitism. Ben Cohen of Ben and Jerry’s gave a strong answer to such charges when he said he is “totally fine” with them because they are absurd. “I mean, What? I’m anti-Jewish! I mean, I’m a Jew, all my family is Jewish, my friends are Jewish.”

Mike Pompeo is issuing alarmist claims about Iran as he considers a run for the presidency. His views are not very different from those of Yossi Alpher, who says the U.S. should have killed Khomeini in 1979 and Israel should be propping up dictatorship thru the Middle East by spying on dissidents. And a liberal Zionist organization, Americans for Peace Now, gives a platform to Alpher’s amorality.

As more and more young Jews say that Israel practices “apartheid” or “genocide” against Palestinians, Israeli President Isaac Herzog calls on the U.S. Jewish community to push back against these Jews. But he never mentions Palestinian conditions that alienate American Jews.

Kamala Harris visited a political science class at George Mason University in Virginia on Tuesday and after a Middle Eastern student described personal pain over Israel committing “ethnic genocide and displacement of people, the same that happened in America,” Harris nodded and said everyone’s perspective must be included in a democracy. The interchange became a scandal — and Harris has rushed to assure pro-Israel groups that she disagrees with the student.

Israel bombs Palestinian attackers and kills some “innocent” civilians in Gaza, according to Israel advocate Robert Wexler. Do Palestinians have the same right: to attack their attackers in Israel?

Progressive forces enjoyed a triumph for Palestinian human rights last week before House leadership called for a standalone vote that went 420-9 for Israel military aid. The pro-Israel lobby still has a “stranglehold” over policymaking because it has the overwhelming backing of the organized Jewish community, and a lot of money to spend on political races.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett gave a speech to the U.N. General Assembly Monday in which he said that Israel has a diverse democracy “in the toughest neighborhood on earth,” and Iran is trying to destroy Israel through its “terror” proxies.

After the Squad openly criticized Israel in the House during the Gaza onslaught last May, Nina Turner came under pressure to disavow her friendships with those reps. “I was told by a prominent Jewish businessman, we’re coming at you with everything you got, you need to disavow the Squad. If I didn’t do it they were coming for me.” Turner lost in August after an onslaught of negative ads paid for by pro-Israel groups.