“How long would the Afghan people accept the presence of armed foreigners in their country? Even a message of help can be humiliating, more so when it is backed by a gun. The Americans underestimated the importance of dignity and the extent to which their very presence in Afghanistan was deeply offensive.” –Nir Rosen’s analysis in 2010 was prescient about the Taliban’s nationalist appeal.

You would think that the Afghanistan debacle is another blow to neoconservatives: That the school of foreign policy experts inside the Beltway who gave us the Iraq war would be further discredited by the fall of Afghanistan. And you would be wrong.

When Rep. Rashida Tlaib faulted people for making record profits from Gaza tp Detroit, Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL accused her of antisemitic “dogwhistling.” And Bari Weiss joined in the smear campaign, saying, “So many people have been willfully blind toward the worldview of this congresswoman.” Tlaib’s actual crime is being Palestinian.

Anne Applebaum has supported Israeli attacks on Palestinian journalists as “legitimate targets.” Why is she being honored by The Royal Society of Literature?

Journalists get fired for sharing political opinions, except when that opinion is in support for U.S. foreign policy and endless war. This is playing out vividly now as the mainstream press effectively spins its coverage on the U.S. withdraw from Afghanistan into an argument for continued military occupation.

U.S. Jews and not Christian Zionists are Israel’s “bridge” to the Congress and the White House, Israeli minister Nachman Shai tells the American Jewish Committee. “I believe only in you.” And that means shutting down the “Squad” in Congress. “I don’t want to hear those voices coming from the Democratic Party sidelines of refusal to send arms to Israel or to support Israel internationally.” P.S. Shai is a J Street hero.

Once again, the danger of conflict between Israel and Iran is rising. Once again, the mainstream U.S. media is either ignoring or distorting the news.

Shalev Hulio, the Israeli spyware-maker who is at the center of an international controversy, says the BDS campaign pushed the investigation of his company, and Ben & Jerry’s decision to stop selling in occupied territory. Hulio is right that a new era of accountability has begun for Israel.

Nina Turner, running for Congress in Ohio, says a group is targeting progressive candidates of color with “dirty money”– in an apparent reference to Democratic Majority for Israel. Turner has called for conditioning U.S. aid to Israel, while her rival Shontel Brown recently visited the country at the behest of a rightwing Israel lobby group.

A recent debate over the term “settler colonialism” in the English version of Haaretz seeks to raise doubts over the appropriateness of using it to describe Israel. This is exactly how good solid hasbara works.