Media marginalize critics of US Israel policy. Chris Matthews says the Democratic Party platform is riven by “red hot” Cornel West and James Zogby, but censors their concern about Israel. And Foreign Affairs publishes a navel-gazing issue all about Israel that leaves out the depths of extremism in Israel, let alone Palestinian conditions.
Netanyahu is experiencing “Stockholm syndrome” after he was taken “hostage” by rightwing extremists, says former Israeli PM Ehud Barak. Netanyahu’s commitment to a Palestinian state is “hot air,” his government is “deaf” and “paralyzed,” and it’s time for American Jews to stop speaking in “unison” in support of Israel.
Jesse Sbaih, the Nevada Congressional candidate who said he was discouraged from running by Sen. Harry Reid because of his Muslim faith, lost badly in Tuesday’s Democratic primary. Sbaih, whose Palestinian-refugee parents immigrated from Jordan when Jesse was 11, got 12.81 percent of the vote compared with 62.19 percent for Jacky Rosen, Reid’s hand-picked candidate. Both were seeking office for the first time. Rosen in president of a Henderson, Nevada synagogue. In March Sbaih made news when he asserted Reid told him, “You are not going to be able to win because you are a Muslim.”
“For too long the Democratic Party has been beholden to AIPAC,” Sanders surrogate Cornel West says at Democratic platform drafting hearing, as Clinton forces urge the party to stop dividing over Israel so that Hillary Clinton can defeat Donald Trump.
Wilson Dizard reports from San Francisco where members of the city’s LGBT community, rallied and marched with thousands of others down Market Street on Sunday night, a show of defiance and unity against anti-gay bigotry and gun violence itself. In the speeches by local politicians, activists and parents of gun violence victims, Islamophobia, homophobia and the National Rifle Association were San Francisco’s common enemy, not Islam or Muslims. Yet, by Monday, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were duking it out in one of the first major battles of what promises to be an election season full of them. Although Clinton paid lip service to rejecting Islamophobia, her proposal for what to do about people like killer Omar Mateen were similar to Trump’s.
Islamophobia in our time: Former Israeli ambassador Michael Oren says Trump should stress alleged Orlando shooter’s Muslim name, Omar Saddiqui Mateen, in order to reap an advantage in the presidential race over Hillary Clinton.
The Democratic party is coming to a crossroads over Palestinian rights, one that may be as important to its future as its metamorphosis from the party of segregation into the party of Obamacare. Nominee or not, there’s nothing Hillary Clinton can do about it. Just as liberal, Roosevelt Democrats in the North realized that segregation in the American south was a ghastly and cruel institution in need of dismantling, so too are Bernie Democrats wising up to the idea that separation and equality don’t mix in Israel/Palestine.
Andrew Cuomo’s stand against BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) Sunday was an intentional political move by Democratic Party leadership, as Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street and Rep. Steve Israel both call on the party to oppose BDS in the party platform. The Sanders base is surely pro-BDS; but will they take a stand in Philadelphia over this issue?
Dr. Jill Stein is running for president as a member of the Green Party and yesterday her campaign released a statement on US Foreign Policy, Palestine-Israel, and BDS: “the Stein campaign supports actions of nonviolent resistance to the policies of the occupation and of the Israeli apartheid regime, including those of the global boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign, which was endorsed by the Green Party of the United States in 2005 and is supported by thousands of civil society peace activists and organizations.”
As Donald Trump plans his first trip to Israel as a presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton’s team promises to fight BDS and protect Israel in the Democratic Party platform. Katie Miranda says only Bernie Sanders seems focused in the U.S.