Jodi Rudoren, the editor of the Forward, offers a frank rationale for Zionism, stating that it is opposed to equal rights in the American tradition.
Despite near unanimity of support for Israel in the US political establishment these days, some voices are making it into the mainstream media to explain the causes of violence and state that while they condemn the Hamas attacks on civilians, they were not “unprovoked.”
CPAC’s rightwing gathering in Hungary this week was rightly criticized because of the ethnonationalist bigotry of Hungary’s prime minister. But the racist rhetoric Israeli politicians regularly deploy against Palestinians is not very different– they are a demographic threat or deserve another Nakba — and has helped to earn Israel the label of apartheid state. Democrats ought to heed the example, and stay away. But Biden is bound and determined to visit this summer.
“We got to make sure that we stand by Israel and their right to defend themselves.” The newly anointed chair of House Foreign Affairs also assails Palestinians for “fighting” in grotesque commentary that is oblivious to the fact that Israel just murdered a child protester.
Annexation compelled Brian Lehrer of WNYC to host an anti-Zionist, and Yousef Munayyer said Annexation is a “clarifying moment” for Americans because it asks us whether we wish to continue to support apartheid against an indigenous people who have been treated as Native Americans were in our country in the 19th century.
The only country that supports Trump’s assassination of Soleimani is Israel. And no surprise, because the killing bogs America down in Israel’s regional conflicts in the Middle East and the “obsession” with Iran is “just not in the American interest,” says Ilan Goldenberg, formerly a foreign policy aide in the Obama administration.
“We’re not going to solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem this morning,” WNYC public radio host Brian Lehrer told listeners Monday at the close of his all-Jewish discussion with NY Times Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Rudoren and Time columnist Joe Klein about the Netanyahu victory aftermath. They might have come a little closer if his guests had included a Palestinian instead of two Zionists. Klein called Netanyahu’s race-baiting Election Day speech “beyond tragic. It is shameful and embarrassing.” Unknowingly, he nails it. For liberal Zionists, it’s not the tragedy of generations of Palestinians exiled, slaughtered or marginalized because powerful outsiders claim their land—it’s the shame and embarrassment of those who have to reconcile their support for all of that with their liberal self-image.