Northwestern University Hillel’s tour of Israel for student leaders is the same old propaganda trip to promote the country, but with a little more realism thrown in. Like a flyby in Ramallah with “Palestinian leaders,” on the same day that the students drink beer at Taybeh brewery in the West Bank and do three other events.

Canary Mission is threatening young people who advocate for Palestinians with negative career consequences. These young people need support from organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace and career help from older professionals, and all Palestinian solidarity activists ought to register on Against Canary Mission.

David Rothkopf, Carnegie scholar and former editor of Foreign Policy, calls for “all manner of pressure,” including “boycotts” of Israel, because its new nation-state of the Jewish people has rendered it an “apartheid society,” an “un-Jewish state,” and undermined its “legitimacy.”  

WNYC host Brian Lehrer rationalizes Israel’s nation-state law by saying that Israel under Netanyahu is in the same pickle as the U.S. under Trump. While guest Rabbi Farber says that the Israeli army is a “moral armed services… committed to preserving life.”

The new Israeli nation-state law makes racism “the national character,” foreign policy maven David Rothkopf says, and Israel is no longer in his heart. “American Jews have gone from a duty to support Israel to a duty to oppose Israel,” he writes.

“Gaza should be a thriving Mediterranean paradise,” if only the siege were lifted, Noam Chomsky says on Democracy Now! And: “Israeli intervention in U.S. elections vastly overwhelms anything the Russians may have done.”

Salim Joubran, the first Palestinian justice on the Israeli Supreme Court (2004-2017), earlier this year derided the law the Israeli parliament passed this month declaring Israel the nation state of the Jewish people.
“This law is a very, very, very bad law for the state of Israel… The only thing is to cause damages to the Arab population.”

Head of the US Union for Reform Judaism calls deportation by Israel of Ariel Gold “disgraceful”. US religious leaders are trying to delay the day when they will have to say that Israel is disgraceful, though they never want to say that about Zionism.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may not know enough about Palestine, but she needs to hear from real progressives, not from the various shades of Zionism that have long held the Democratic Party hostage. She needs to understand that whereas Palestine may not be a regular topic of conversation around the kitchen table in a Porto Rican house, it is nevertheless an issue of national import.

Alan Dershowitz calls the new Israeli law declaring Israel “the nation state of the Jewish people” a mistake that was unnecessary and that will give ammunition to Israel’s critics and alienate American Jews. Israel lobby groups the ADL and J Street also say the law was unnecessary, and Israel’s Finance Minister calls it a “mistake.”