Phil Weiss interviews Susan Abulhawa about her new novel Against the Loveless World. “My exile and the destruction of my family and the destruction of everything, of our whole world, has defined my whole life in so many ways and in very personal ways,” says Abulhawa.
Israel has a hidden motive to kill Iranian nuclear scientist: to destroy any possibility of Joe Biden renewing the Iran deal, and “cripple” his ability to make policy. But you can’t say this inside the Beltway.
Construction bids for a new Israeli settlement cutting off Palestinian access to their supposed capital of Jerusalem will come in days after Biden takes office. The EU and Palestine have decried Givat Hamatos as the death of the two state solution. Experts say Biden will likely do nothing to prevent construction in February.
Tony Blinken reflects Joe Biden in spinning highly scripted and cagey responses that steer a delicate path around Israel’s clout in Washington while doing nothing to offend the so-called Jewish state. He says, We need to reenter the Iran deal if Iran reenters it, because trashing the deal has made Israel unsafer; We need to leave troops in Syria and check with Israel on all our actions in the Middle East because it’s the anchor of democracy; and we need to call out Israel’s settlement activity as unhelpful but then not do anything about it.
In this episode of the Mondoweiss Podcast, Yumna Patel discusses her visit with Palestinian farmers who were attacked by Israeli settlers, and Michael Arria talks about the outcome of the 2020 election.
In what sounded like an audition for secretary of state, Sen. Chris Murphy tells an Israel lobby group Joe Biden will restore a “decision” the two parties made long before Trump came along not to argue about Israel. He said Donald Trump’s “anti-Muslim” actions had the unfortunate effect of making Netanyahu’s policies toward Palestinians look racist to some Democrats, but those days will end under Biden.
Trump will push annexation of West Bank, and if Netanyahu sees it as in his political interest to be antagonistic to Biden, he will accede, say two prominent Israel lobbyists. The issue could be Trump’s way of sowing difficulties for Biden.
US election showed that American Jews and Israeli Jews could not be more different, American Jews dislike Netanyahu two-to-one, and so the Israel lobby is divided forever, because the Jewish community is divided on the Israel question, with many young Jews supporting boycott. And that divide will continue to spur political debate.
The New York Times buries the report that Defense Department officials worry that Trump might order American troops to fire weapons at Iran. While Elliott Abrams is in the Mideast, pushing for a “flood” of new sanctions on Iran.
Benjamin Netanyahu wants as much as he can from the last weeks of the Donald Trump presidency, so he took his time to congratulate Joe Biden– waiting till after midnight last night, many hours after other world leaders had sent Biden their best wishes– then lavishly thanked Trump too.