In an unprecedented show of strength by House progressives, Democratic leadership was forced to strip $1 billion in funding for an Israeli arms system from a government spending bill. House Majority leader Steny Hoyer rushed to assure Israeli Foreign Minister that the money would go through next week.
A liberal Zionist group promotes the view of Israeli professor Jonathan Rynhold that progressive Democrats will support Israel once Netanyahu is gone. His argument would be more persuasive if he even mentioned the human rights violations and Gaza massacres that are at the heart of progressive disaffection with Israel.
A resolution affirming that Americans have the right to participate in the boycott of foreign countries has four new cosponsors, including New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The number of cosponsors on the bill has more than doubled since the House overwhelmingly passed a resolution condemning the BDS movement earlier this week.
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.
Liberals want leftwing votes, but they dismiss leftwing goals. Michelle Goldberg says Democrats must “court” nihilistic leftists, but what does courtship mean? Supporting a warmonger, Hillary Clinton, because she’s a foreign policy genius. And the same on health care and the climate crisis: we are supposed to settle for policies that are at best inadequate and at worst catastrophic. Who are the nihilists here?