Netanyahu easily moved U.S. policy for over a decade, due to the force of his will and the use of the powerful Israel lobby in U.S. politics, especially on the Democratic side. Today one force is gone– Netanyahu is an opposition politician to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett — and the other is in disarray.

Liberal Zionists are secretly exultant over Naftali Bennett unseating Benjamin Netanyahu, hoping it will end the politicization of Israel in U.S. politics. But Apartheid is a hard sell and Bennett will quickly be on a collision course with a lot of people in the United States who think Palestinians should have rights.

“[T]he occupation is not temporary, and there is not the political will in the Israeli government to bring about its end,” write Alon Liel and Ilan Baruch. “It is time for the world to recognize that what we saw in South Africa decades ago is happening in the occupied Palestinian territories too… and take decisive diplomatic action… and work towards building a future of equality, dignity, and security for Palestinians and Israelis alike.”

The Israel lobby is under huge pressure these days as the Democratic Party base becomes more sympathetic to Palestinians in the wake of the latest Israeli onslaught. A pro-Israel group, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, held an event on the Gaza conflict last week, and there were two surprising responses to the progressive shift.

In the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof asks if his criticisms of Israel were fair during the recent Gaza attack and says, Yes. Spanish and Irish precedents for terrorism show that negotiation of political issues is the only way to end war crimes over territorial questions.

Israel’s new president Isaac Herzog has said that left wing critics of Israel are responsible for murderous attacks on Jews. And when asked about growing American Jewish criticism of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, Herzog says it is because “American Jews have no clue about” what life is like for Israelis and have only a “superficial” and “short-sighted” understanding of the conflict.

The US Jewish crisis over Israel mounts: Liberal Zionist Rabbi Shira Stutman of Sixth and I Synagogue in DC gives a sermon expressing love for an Israel “terrorized” by rockets, and refuses to judge its response, but also says Israel “categorically dismisses, discriminates, ethnically cleanses and …cares little for the basic human rights of millions of people that live under its administration.” And which statement do you think she had to apologize for?

A leading U.S. Israel lobby group honors Netanyahu in a morning meeting then throws him under the bus in the afternoon– its CEO saying that a Naftali Bennett government would make it easier to sell Israel to the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party is about to become the latest “existential threat” to the Jewish state. And there’s one thing you can be sure of, Zionists won’t take U.S. defection lying down. Tom Friedman worries that things here could “blow up.”

The New York Times does an unprecedented thing for a paper that has long supported Israel: puts the faces of dozens of Palestinian children slaughtered by Israel in Gaza on its front page. “Never thought I’d see the day when Palestinian victims were pictured, named, & their stories told,” says James Zogby.