The concerns of Palestinian-American delegates to the Democratic National Convention went unheeded earlier this week during the party platform drafting process. According to a document shared with Mondoweiss, DNC delegates expressed their outrage at the exclusion of Palestinian-American voices while pro-Israel lobbyists openly bragged about their efforts to strip out language critical of Israel.

A dozen pro-Israel donors give over $2 million to Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, among them Haim Saban whose one issue is Israel and to whom Hillary Clinton wrote about her “alarm” over BDS in 2016. So that’s why Joe Biden and the Democratic Party leadership also oppose BDS. Just do the arithmetic…

On Monday, the Democratic National Committee’s platform committee voted down an amendment that would have added the word “occupation” to its platform and conditioned aid to Israel if the country moved forward with its proposed annexation of the West Bank.

All 15 members of the Israeli Knesset’s Joint List have sent a letter to congressional Democrats, calling on them to oppose annexation. “Democrats have a decision to make,” JVP Action’s Beth Miller tells Mondoweiss. “Will they keep wringing their hands and expressing ‘concern,’ or are they going to do something about it?”

Former security officials want the Democratic platform to improve on Palestine, but they don’t want to condition military aid to the country.

Michael Arria interviews Jim Zogby on the uphill battle over Palestine within the Democratic party over the past 40 years.

We never know where pro-Israel groups – AIPAC in particular – will draw their red lines,” said James Zogby tells Mondoweiss, In ’88 when I was representing Jackson in the platform fight, they wouldn’t allow the ‘P’ word. I was told that if we raised it, ‘you will destroy the Democratic Party.’ 

The Shift is a weekly politics newsletter from Michael Arria taking you to the front…

Since former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg bought his way into the Democratic race, it’s been a little difficult to keep up with all the stories from his past that are filtering out. One issue that hasn’t got much coverage is his reaction to Israel shelling schools in 2014.

Elizabeth Warren’s very-carefully modulated position on Israel/Palestine– praising Israel as a great ally and liberal democracy but also saying she might condition aid over annexation of the West Bank — reflects official liberal thinking, and the J Street line.