The Netanyahu government is causing leading U.S. advocates for Israel to finally acknowledge realities that only critics raised before like Israel practices apartheid and U.S. aid to the rogue government should be cut.
The Biden administration is determined not to criticize the extremist Israeli government even in the wake of settler terrorism licensed by officials. It wants no daylight between Democrats and Republicans on Israel.
The Israeli government’s moves to hamstring the judiciary and to steal more Palestinian land for Jewish settlements are causing further breakup in the pro-Israel consensus in the United States.
The new Israeli government shows that Zionism is finally a nightmare for Jews. Israeli leftwingers report that they are “under attack,” “afraid,” and blacklisted, and that anti-occupation activists will be subject to violence of the sort Palestinians have always faced. And the “Reform movement is enemy number one” for the new government.
The rightwing Israel lobby is enraged by the new report by the Special Rapporteur to the U.N. accusing Israel of “apartheid”– a “landmark moment of recognition of the lived reality of millions of Palestinians,” says Amnesty International. But J Street has had nothing to say about the report. It surely hopes it will go away, because these reports foster demands among progressives to actually do something about human rights violations beyond acknowledging their existence.
Sunrise Movement DC’s decision to withdraw from a voting rights rally because of the participation of three Zionist groups reflects the view of many on the left that you can’t be progressive and be a Zionist. This political future is disturbing to the Jewish establishment and rightwing groups called the decision “antisemitic” while liberal Zionists condemned the decision on cancellation grounds (though they cancel anti-Zionists all the time).
AIPAC’s cancellation of its annual conference in 2022 shows that the Israel lobby is in complete disarray, with young American Jews distancing themselves from a country that 38 percent of them call an “apartheid” state. The liberal Zionist group Americans for Peace Now has repeatedly credited the “apartheid” charge against Israel, while J Street rejects the label.
Liberal Zionist groups ran away from a rally in DC equating criticism of Israel with antisemitism– as even an organizer admits that Israel is just too “divisive” an issue in the Jewish community these days. The event had a rightwing religious feeling. The Washington Post said “hundreds” attended the affair.
Israel watchers are predicting a government openly committed to one “Jewish” state between river and sea, with no interest in allowing even a shadow of Palestinian sovereignty in the occupied territories. Indeed, the Israeli “center” and “left” are shattered, and the possibility exists that the Labor party that founded the state will disappear from the parliament in the next election.
The Israel lobby is splitting into two branches. Last week Hadar Suskind of Americans for Peace Now called on the AJC to dissolve over its failure to oppose annexation. Now David Harris of AJC lashed at the liberal Zionists. He railed against “leftwing” “ideologues” in organized Jewish community who play to donors by taking “muscular macho” stands against Israel.