Bill Kristol touts the old neoconservative nostrum, “regime change,” in four countries, Syria, Iran, Russia and North Korea. The leader of Never Trump suddenly likes Trump’s “normal” foreign policy.
Obama “assented” to a “holocaust war” in Syria, says Marty Peretz; while Shmuley Boteach says “Trump is in danger of becoming a great man.” And Mort Klein says “Everyone knows that blacks are on average better dancers than other people.” Ever wonder why Zionism has become a dirty word?
The New York Times has hired Bret Stephens as a columnist, elevating an Islamophobic neoconservative who regularly pronounces on the “disease of the Arab mind” and the “communal psychosis” of Palestinians, while Israel is blameless.
Many of us are surely lacking in knowledge of the Holocaust– including White House reporters. You can see from Sean Spicer’s infamous press briefing where after he made his gaffe about Hitler not using chemical weapons, as Bashar al-Assad had allegedly done in Syria, 12 minutes went by and Spicer fielded 16 questions on matters such as North Korea, Ivanka Trump, and tax policy before Cecilia Vega of ABC brought up his comment, apparently because it was blowing up on Twitter.
Matt Katz of WNYC extols a Haggadah that defies Trump over refugees’ rights without mentioning Israel’s treatment of Palestinian refugees. The double standard is obvious, and damaging.
In the last week there have been four momentous events in the Jewish political world, two of them soul-crushing, two of them uplifting. The events signal a major change in Jewish political culture that is likely to leave many of us speechless in months and years to come, and signal that a revolution in Jewish community definition is coming. The radicalization of liberals by Trump is accelerated inside the Jewish community by Israel’s failures, supported by the Jewish establishment.
There is no middle ground; you’re either with Israel or against it these days, as J Street, the liberal Zionist group, found out yesterday. Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street says it was shocking when the Jewish establishment allowed a speaker to call his group “anti-Semitic” at a UN summit against BDS. But the same event smeared Bassem Tamimi, the leader of nonviolent resistance in Nabi Saleh in occupied Palestine, without protest from J Street.
The Obama administration was hard on Israel from start to finish, in perception of US Jews. Donald Trump’s messaging is better “out of the gate,” says leading liberal Zionist rabbi Elliot Cosgrove.
US politicians swearing fealty to Israel at AIPAC know there are cracks in US support. “When people sometimes say to me, the United States is so overwhelmingly partial to Israel in this discussion, I say Yes of course. We have been friends for a long time,” Nancy Pelosi admits.
Donald Trump’s draft of a deal between the Israelis and Palestinians sets the peace process back 20 years by talking about a “provisional entity,” not a Palestinian state and by allowing settlement construction in Jerusalem, Khalil Jahshan of the Arab Center reports. It also assures the parties that Trump will be “personally involved in the process,” and that’s the “scariest part of the plan.”