When Bret Stephens, the new super-Zionist columnist at the New York Times, states that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, the “ancestral Jewish homeland,” who can take him seriously? Joseph Levine states, “My roots can be traced back to Eastern Europe, and earlier than that is all speculation and conjecture, nothing that can compete with the Palestinians’ actual residence on the land for the past hundreds of years.”
The largest Jewish denomination in the US, Reform Jewry, showcased a leader of the dispossession of Palestinian lands at its biennial last week: the head of the Jewish National Fund. So the Union for Reform Jewry has embraced the violence inherent in Zionism. Shouldn’t Jews debate this?
NYT columnist Max Fisher is realistic when he says in the wake of Trump’s Jerusalem decision that Israel must choose apartheid or granting “Palestinians full rights, establishing a pluralistic democracy that is no longer officially Jewish.” More journalists should be so honest about the death of the two-state solution.
Trump’s Jerusalem announcement has created a great opportunity for those working for justice. It has exposed the failure of the British Jewish establishment, which supported occupation and abdicated political and ethical responsibility to lobby for 2-States. Now it will find itself defending apartheid and injustice without the cover of a peace process to protect its reputation.
Political analysts Mark Shields and E.J. Dionne say Trump decided to call Jerusalem Israel’s capital to sway evangelical voters in Alabama to vote for Roy Moore on Tuesday. Both leave out the name Sheldon Adelson. But there is endless evidence that Trump’s biggest donor pushed for the move. These reporters are dishonest about the role of the Israel lobby.
By recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, Donald Trump gave a license to Israel to ethnically cleanse more areas of the city and finish off the peace process. Liberal Zionists of conscience understand the seriousness of this moment. It is time for liberal American Jews to come out for equal rights, and to reject the rightwing nationalism that Zionism has produced.
The late Arthur Finkelstein converted Israeli society to identity politics by having politicians pose two simple questions, says Ehud Barak. Are you an Israeli first, or a Jew first? Do you love Arabs or do you hate Arabs? If you think of yourself as an Israeli and you love Arabs, you are left. If you hate Arabs, you are right.
Netanyahu famously once said that the United States “can be easily moved.” Here are 9 examples of his seeking to move United States policy, from pushing the Iraq war to pushing war on Iran, that would make Putin blush.
Israeli consul general Dani Dayan warns American Jews that recent differences with Israel must not lead to a divorce from that country. “We may be Jewish but our marriage is Catholic, there is no divorce in our marriage. We may need a lot and apparently we do need a lot of marital counseling, but– no divorce in our marriage,” he said.
Israel can expect more understanding from Donald Trump’s negotiating team because they are all observant Jews, Natan Sharansky of the Jewish Agency said Tuesday night. Netanyahu will come forward with a ‘serious’ proposal for peace, Sharansky says, and Arab countries will put pressure on Palestinian leadership to accept it.