Israel’s defenders explain to Rashida Tlaib that it’s not anti-Semitic to criticize Israel, so long as you say it’s a vibrant democracy. So the oppression of millions of Palestinians is a golden opportunity for Israelis to show off their country. The bigotry is the same as justifying slavery by the fact that Lincoln and Douglas debated it, and Frederick Douglass was able to get in one word edgewise.

A ‘New York Times’ analysis of the Israeli government’s refusal to allow two American congresswomen to visit the West Bank embraces a central claim of the Israel lobby, that bipartisan support for Israel is critical to US national security, and leaves out Trump’s largest donors, the Adelsons, for whom Israel is the overriding issue.

41 Democrats went to Israel…but they didn’t seem to want you to know it.

Rep Elissa Slotkin of MI says Republicans are talking up Democrats’ supposed anti-Semitism so as to get Jewish donors. “I will just be very honest, right, they are not looking for our votes, because we are a relatively small community, they are looking for our donors, right?” Wait, didn’t Rep. Ilhan Omar get smeared for offering the same insight?

Mckayla Wilkes and Briana Urbina, the two progressives hoping to unseat Democratic House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, have criticized the Maryland Representative for leading a congressional delegation on a trip to Israel while Americans mourn the victims of mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio.

House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer landed today in Israel with 41 other Democratic Representatives for a week-long, all-expenses-paid junket sponsored by the the educational branch of the lobbying organization AIPAC. Dr. Craig Holman, Government Affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen, who drafted the 2007 Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, designed to curb the influence of lobbyist money in congressional travel, is unequivocal that the trip “defies the spirit as well as the letter of the law.”

Democrats voted 209-16 for a resolution that characterizes the nonviolent BDS campaign that targets Israel as bigoted. The Dems made the Israel lobby group AIPAC grateful for bipartisan support, and fought off Trump’s efforts to characterize Dems as “anti-Israel.” The vote demonstrates the importance of the Israel lobby for the 2020 presidential race, but if you call out the lobby the NYT will say you’re anti-semitic.

Donald Trump’s charge that four congresswomen are Israel haters is a political tactic aimed at taking pro-Israel donors away from the Democratic Party. Liberals set the table for Trump’s racist comments by roundly condemning Rep. Ilhan Omar as anti-semitic, when she was addressing an important issue in US politics: the role of the Israel lobby in setting foreign policy in the Middle East.

The young Jews of IfNotNow are making Israel’s occupation an issue in the Democratic race, and the group Democratic Majority for Israel is fighting back, calling IfNotNow anti-Israel and advising candidates to avoid answering IfNotNow’s questions. IfNotNow says the Democratic Majority group is a front for AIPAC, the Israel lobby, which has long had a home in the Democratic Party.

Democrat candidate for president Mike Gravel writes that the two-state solution is dead, the US killed it, and “The most obvious and humane path forward is the creation of a secular, democratic, binational state with equal rights for all.”