The race for the Democratic nomination to be NY’s mayor is heating up, and Israel is a big part of the discussion. Leading Democratic Party candidates for NY mayor all oppose BDS, with Ray McGuire denouncing the human rights campaign and Andrew Yang saying it’s rooted in Nazi thought. Though Shaun Donovan panders best of them all on Israel: “I have not visited Israel but I have visited both Dachau and Auschwitz.”

According to Dahlia Scheindlin’s polling, some left-wing Jews will vote for a right-winger, Gideon Sa’ar. And as for the young being so right-wing — “the romantic spirit of the nation is militarist and nationalist” going back to the 1950s among the young.

Several recent findings that Israel is an apartheid state reflect a mounting international recognition. But the indifference to them in the U.S. is also in a long tradition: ignoring apartheid pronouncements about Israel in the U.S. To accept the finding would create a crisis in the Democratic Party and require support for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, and the Israel lobby including its liberal branch insists that BDS is antisemitic.

Response to Netanyahu’s deal with right wing racist party shows that US Israel lobby is getting tired of fighting for the good Israel. That drumbeat of racism and Jewish supremacy is working on American advocates for Israel. They’re losing their own illusions. What was “dangerous and deeply concerning” two years ago is just more of the same today.

Israeli politics continue to lurch rightward. The only way to knock out Netanyahu is for Naftali Bennett to join Gideon Sa’ar in opposition, and no room for Palestinians. The Netanyahu opposition would go from left to far right, but at least that way it’s a Zionist coalition with ability to govern, says Amir Tibon of Haaretz.

Nathan J. Robinson, a former columnist for the American edition of the ‘Guardian,’ says he was “fired” without ceremony after he published a tweet in December mocking the amount of US aid to Israel and the top editor said it smacked of antisemitism.

The ICC ruling on Israeli war crimes in occupied territory is a Rubicon moment for progressives. And it should get liberal Zionist backing as a real step toward 2 states. But they want no real pressure on Israel, just “criticism.”

ICC ruling that it has jurisdiction to investigate Israeli war crimes has put the country’s leadership on the defensive. Netanyahu calls it “pure antisemitism” and Israel’s US advocates, AIPAC, AJC, and Dennis Ross rush in to say that the ICC has no jurisdiction.

If Palestinian anti-apartheid activist Issa Amro was one of the Russian or Chinese human rights defenders being accused of bogus charges and unfairly convicted by a military court, we would have certainly heard his name on the Senate floor or during a White House press briefing, says Jamil Dakwar.

An Israeli military court could send anti-apartheid activist Issa Amro to jail next week for among other absurd charges using the word “stupid” with an Israeli soldier. An international campaign to stop Amro’s sentencing now includes the Canadian mission to Ramallah, novelist Raja Shehadeh and the liberal Zionist org J Street.