Alan Dershowitz gave a pep talk on Jewish influence to an orthodox audience in Scarsdale Tuesday night. His theme? Jews earned their influence in the U.S. by contributing more to its success than others, so now use your influence: “We have contributed disproportionately to the success of this country. We have done so much for this country. When you think of how much better this country has become since our grandparents and great grandparents took the risk of coming, here, we have not only the right we have the obligation to speak out, and use every piece, every bit of power available in support of Israel.”

Israel commits serious human rights violations, Bernie Sanders says at the Carter Center, defending his signing on to a letter attacking the UN for singling out Israel for condemnation.

In an appearance at Columbia University, former Clinton foreign policy adviser Jake Sullivan characterized Donald Trump as “a person who does not look at America’s role in the world as having a special positive-sum nature.” But what’s so great about America’s role in the world!

Some Palestinians are looking to President Mahmoud Abbas’s visit to the White House as presenting real hope for a breakthrough in the 70 year impasse on the world’s promise to give self-determination to the Palestinian people. Jibril Rajoub, a Fatah leader, writes in Newsweek: Let us not miss the Trump opportunity!

Why are Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, and Sherrod Brown, the progressives of the Democratic Party, lining up behind Trump officials Nikki Haley and Erin Barclay? Because partisanship drops dead when it comes to defending Israel against any criticism.

There is no proportionality applied to the question of foreign interference in U.S. politics. If there were, we would have a far more substantive investigation of Israel than Russia. But if anyone mentions the truth about Israel’s clout, the person is immediately smeared as “anti-Semitic” and targeted by Israel’s extraordinarily sophisticated lobby and its many media/political allies for vilification and marginalization.

When Israeli soldiers carried her novel in one hand and a gun in the other into Gaza in 2014, trying to kill “bad guys,” that was all that a writer could ask for her work, Israeli writer Dorit Rabinyan says in New York, in a tour sponsored by the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

Jared Kushner is related by marriage to Hart Hasten, a Holocaust survivor and kingmaker in Indiana. The Hasten-Kushner clan is the Jewish connection Trump and Pence shared before they became political partners.

If Massachusetts Democratic state committee passes resolution opposing Israeli settlements, party leader Steve Grossman warns many Dems will say, “that’s the last straw. This is not a place I feel comfortable any longer.”

The crazy response to the Marwan Barghouti op-ed in the New York Times — Michael Oren called it a “journalistic terror attack” — reflects a growing insecurity on the part of Israel’s leaders about the country’s reputation.