Gilad Erdan, Israeli minister of strategic affairs under Netanyahu, says his government campaign against BDS has produced laws in U.S. “Our efforts are producing results. 27 US states now have counter-BDS legislation.” He vows to “promote” even tougher laws against advocacy for boycott. And you worry about Russian interference in U.S. politics?
NBA champions have refused to go to the White House for the last two years, and the Toronto Raptors should reject part-owner Larry Tanenbaum’s notion that the team will visit Israel. There has been silence about the plan for 3 weeks. But activists have been rallying opposition to the trip, and Marion Kawas hopes it is in the dustbin of history.
Israeli citizens opposed to their government’s policies of oppression, occupation, apartheid and ethnic cleansing ask Jennifer Lopez to honor the Palestinian call for BDS and cancel her upcoming concert in Tel Aviv.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is scheduled to announce his support for a new resolution that targets the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement today. “I have long believed that the BDS effort is a profoundly biased campaign to delegitimize the state of Israel, and I look forward to Congress passing the resolution with overwhelming bipartisan support,” Schumer told the online publication Jewish Insider.
Last week, the news broke in Israeli media that Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs had launched a “stealthy campaign” that resulted in the shuttering of some 30 bank accounts affiliated with the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. Ramallah-based human rights NGO, Al-Haq, slammed Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan’s smear campaign against Palestinian rights groups as “spurious, unsubstantiated and libelous,” constituting what it called an “illegal interference” with Palestinian civil society under the Hague Regulations.
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft has pledged $20 million to establish a foundation that will fight anti-Semitism and BDS (the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement). Kraft made the announcement while in Israel accepting The Genesis Prize, a $1 million award that Time Magazine has called “the Jewish Nobel.”
Andom Ghebreghiorgis is challenging Israel lobby-stalwart Eliot Engel in the his upcoming Democratic primary. “Whether it’s in the U.S. or abroad, I believe in equal rights and freedom for all. We therefore must commit to a political solution that centers those values for Israelis and for Palestinians. Sadly, Eliot Engel has been one of the staunchest supporters of Israel’s right wing policies,” Ghebreghiorgis tells Mondoweiss.
Israel’s threat of annexation is a crisis for liberal Zionists because it makes them confront a reality: There is not going to be a two-state solution. Yesterday Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street warned supporters: “Members of the Trump administration are opening the door to a one-state scenario where Palestinians will live as second-class citizens.” But that scenario exists right now, and liberal Zionists have done precious little to oppose it.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has called Florida the most Israel-friendly state in the country and…
MA Rep. Seth Moulton has taken progressive stances on Israel, supporting a bill against funding Israel’s detention of Palestinian children and standing up for BDS advocates’ right of free speech. But he appears to have flipflopped on both positions now that he is running for president and the blob hit him.