Ted Kennedy was ready to drop out of challenge to Jimmy Carter in winter 1980, then Carter endorsed a UN Security Council resolution calling Jerusalem occupied. Kennedy went on to win NY primary and weaken Carter ahead of his loss to Reagan. So reports Stu Eizenstat, Israel advocate for Carter and Hillary Clinton.

The liberal pro-Israel group J Street endorsed more than half the members of the new Democratic majority in the House. It is taking on AIPAC in a battle for the Israel lobby, and argues that it represents US Jews, who support the two-state solution. So Trump has succeeded in politicizing Israel.

Last night’s midterm elections saw a historic opening for critics of Israel. Three women stars of the Democratic Party who have openly criticized Israel’s human rights record were elected to Congress. But the new Democratic faces include many big backers of US Israel special relationship: Max Rose in Staten Island, Mikie Sherrill in northern New Jersey, both in the Congress, and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

The day before the midterms Donald Trump reimposed sanctions on Iran and Israeli PM Netanyahu lavished praise on him as “courageous, determined” in an embrace that is sure to aggravate American Jews growing distance from the Jewish state.

Senator Cory Booker’s endorsement of the Israel Anti-Boycott Act following the massacre in Pittsburgh can only be described as a cynical use of real antisemitism as an excuse to dismiss Palestinian rights so as to further his political career.

“I slept on the porch of the Swarthmore College president’s house so we would divest from South Africa,” ardent Zionist and Israeli business leader Danna Azrieli brags in a speech to American Jews. But her ethnocentric appeal to stick with Israel never mentions Palestinians or the occupation or Gaza, and just once uses the word “settlements” to signal the divide between American and Israeli Jews.

The alleged Pittsburgh shooter saw Jews as warriors for a liberal democracy. This is a role the brothers Rosenthal may not have known they were playing, but we should honor them and the nine other victims by championing refugees and migrants and civil rights for minorities.

According to a new scoreboard on pro-Israel legislative actions, a whopping 63 percent of House members score 100 percent pro-Israel, and 78% of Senate incumbents (25 of 32) had a rating of 80% or higher. They are ignoring the majority of Americans who want balance in our policy and think we give too much money to Israel.

“President Trump, you are not welcome in Pittsburgh until you fully denounce white nationalism,” Bend the Arc, a progressive Jewish group, informs the president ahead of his Tuesday visit. J Street and Jewish Voice for Peace also hold the president responsible for inciting anti-Semitic violence in statements on Saturday’s massacre of 11 Jewish worshipers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL, who has been everywhere in the media explaining Pittsburgh, has a history of accusing leftwing critics of Zionism of anti-semitism as “damaging” as white nationalism. Last January he accused IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace of taking extreme views on Israel in reaction to Trump, and he said his former boss President Obama had made a “series of missteps” on Middle East policy.