If you had any question why Joe Biden went to Saudi Arabia and destroyed his own credibility by making friends with the murderous Crown Prince, AIPAC and the Democratic Majority for Israel gave you the answer Tuesday night. In a House district in Maryland just over the D.C. line, they spent more than $6 million to get a mainstream candidate, Glenn Ivey, the Democratic nomination over progressive former Congresswoman Donna Edwards. Because Donna Edwards has at times been critical of Israel.

Why is Biden is telling Israeli leaders that the relationship with the U.S. is “bone-deep”? To please the Israel lobby back home, which has flexed its muscles in Michigan and Maryland, pouring millions into two Democratic primaries. Biden doesn’t want to alienate those donors. Even if Democratic voters don’t care. Ads in those primaries don’t even mention Israel!

Polling by Huwaida Arraf, a Democratic House candidate in Michigan, shows that her position of cutting off aid to Israel is not unpopular. “Palestine is a political positive…Attitudes toward military aid to Israel undermine claims by AIPAC that strong support for Israel is ‘good politics… [S]ix in ten (60%) voters under 45 want aid to Israel reduced or ended,” a memo to donors asserts.

Mainstream pro-Israel groups and politicians have made the Boston Mapping Project into a punching bag. Many are using the Mapping Project to bash the campaign targeting Israel with boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) and to affirm the center-right pro-Israel line that anti-Zionism is antisemitism. A group of Congress members even stated that the project was likely to result in “violent attacks by supporters of the BDS movement” against Jews and Jewish organizations. The FBI has met with Jewish groups in Boston and said it is “tracking” the project over these concerns.

The battle between J Street and AIPAC to influence the Democratic Party is also opening space for Palestine solidarity to enter the mainstream.

J Street’s battle with AIPAC and Democratic Majority for Israel is good and important because two branches of the Israel lobby are making Israel a political football. Maybe progressives will get a voice here too.

A couple weeks ago President Biden addressed the importance of journalism during his remarks at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. This is a great sentiment, but of course it can’t possibly be taken seriously.

In a highwater mark of mainstream opposition to the unending Israeli occupation, 50 members of Congress have signed a letter to Secretary of State Blinken urging him to try to stop Israel’s demolition of 38 Palestinian houses in al-Walaja, a village in the occupied West Bank, because the demolitions will undermine “Palestinian dignity” and “long-term Israeli security.” The demolitions are also an issue in a Michigan congressional race between two Democrats, with Rep. Andy Levin calling them “unjust.”

When Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-CA) introduced a nonbinding resolution in support of a two-state solution in 2019, Rep. Mike McCaul (R-TX) called it “a one-sided take on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” and Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) was even more direct: “I stand against a two-state solution.” Mast doesn’t represent some sort of hardline minority — he was voicing what has now become the GOP consensus.

“In Hebron, I saw what to me looked like two Americans coming towards us, but they were escorted by four or five Israeli soldiers with rifles. And I was hoping to have a conversation with them. But before I got too close– the rifle kind of came out, to push me away, when it was clearly evident that I’m a tourist. It was an unnecessary reaction. Because I wasn’t at all threatening. But these were American dignitaries, and I think it was part of the deal. To illustrate this is a dangerous place. ‘Okay, we’ll take you to Hebron, but you need to have a five-soldier escort.’ That’s the narrative that is played up. Our security is paramount no matter what happens.”