On October 1 Barbra Streisand (who has almost 800,000 Twitter followers) tweeted, “When does anti-Zionism…

Rashida Tlaib hit a nerve. It is obviously very important to the Israel lobby to maintain the claim that you can be progressive and support Israel. Being truthful about Israeli apartheid undermines this effort. Liberal Zionists are divided. J Street has condemned Tlaib’s comment. But like nearly all the Dems who attacked Tlaib, they didn’t even mention the apartheid part of her comment. Democrats don’t want to address it. They don’t want to engage with what Israel actually does and how Palestinians live.

Former Google employee Ariel Koren says the company has “sustained a culture of silencing anti-Zionist Jews and creating toxic and unjust conditions for Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim workers.”

We are U.S. Jews who are deeply troubled by a recent speech given by the Anti-Defamation League’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, in which he defames grassroots and civil rights organizations committed to Palestinian justice and falsely conflates anti-Zionism with far right and violent extremism. Jewish communities must embrace anti-Zionist and non-Zionist voices, along with all other voices for justice.

The latest escalation by the ADL against CAIR, Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, labeling them as antisemitic because they are anti-Zionist, is further proof of the ADL’s desperation. The ADL has long worked to secure total impunity for the Israeli government. For the Palestinian community, Zionism is the political ideology that has enabled their violent subjugation and systematic dispossession. People must be able to discuss and debate these issues without being falsely smeared as anti-Semites. 

Last week all 25 Jewish congresspeople took the highly unusual step of condemning Paul O’Brien, director of the U.S. branch of Amnesty International, for remarks opposing Israel’s definition as “a state for the Jewish people” and questioning Jewish support for Israel. The Congress members were acting strategically: trying to discredit the recent Amnesty report that Israel practices “apartheid.” But they and O’Brien have raised a key issue. Just how many American Jews oppose the idea of a Jewish state?

Noura Erakat writes in the book, “A Land With a People,” that the volume tackles power head-on, “charting the struggle against Zionism within the Jewish communities that Zionism purportedly serves. Its anti-Zionist Jewish stories are critical to decolonization.” Dr. Hatim Kanaaneh relates that the book traces some of his own history with the organization “Jewish Voice for Peace,” as he struggled to bring Palestinian narratives to a global audience.

The new book “A Land With A People: Palestinians and Jews Confront Zionism” shares voices and visions rarely heard on the question of Zionism’s impact on Palestinians and Jews.

We are cosponsoring a talk by French author Sylvain Cypel on Tuesday February 15 at noon. “Will diaspora Jews gradually emancipate themselves from a thug nation that claims that it alone can speak in the name of Judaism?” he writes. “More and more American Jews are awakening to the idea that its political rightward drift is a calamity, and that the consequences for them could be disastrous. And that explains the anger of those among them who turn their back on Israel.”

Testifying before Congress, Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL quotes Bruce Springsteen song titles to bash Amnesty International report calling out Israeli apartheid. “I’m on fire,” Amnesty International is having its “glory days,” but there will be “no surrender” to its “brilliant disguise.” Making a cute performance out of Palestinian suffering.