“The status quo is no longer tenable.” Nearly 600 Conservative rabbis and leaders, most of them North American, wrote a letter to Benjamin Netanyahu expressing “dismay, anger and sense of betrayal” over official Israeli discrimination against non-Orthodox Jews. But not a word about Israel’s discrimination against Palestinians.
A rightwing campaign has begun against a Jewish organization, the Center for Jewish History, to fire its new executive David N. Myers, who has called for discussions of the Nakba and against demonizing the BDS campaign (boycott, divestment and sanctions). And happily, it appears that this campaign will fail.
This is an incredible story about the power of the Israel lobby inside Democratic Party politics, and in Chicago. Daniel Biss, a progressive state senator contending for the Democratic nomination to be governor of Illinois, has dropped his running mate, Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, over Israel issues — two days after Illinois congressman Brad Schneider revoked his endorsement of Biss, because Ramirez-Rosa had supported Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel.
US ambassador David Friedman and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu are a tag-team in supporting settlements and denouncing Palestinians, and even UN Sec’y General Guterres is caught up in blaming Palestinians. While the press goes to a farcical level to dignify a “peace process.”
Brad Schneider, Illinois congressman who once worked for AIPAC, rescinds endorsement of State Senator Dan Biss for Illinois governor because his running mate, Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, supports BDS. Biss is Jewish, and the news is evidence of the growing American Jewish divide over rightwing Israel.
Trump’s ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, refers to an “alleged occupation” in an interview with the Jerusalem Post, and says settlements pose no real obstacle to peace but Palestinians’ “culture of hate” does. Once again, the White House acts as Israel’s lawyer.
Eleven years after Jimmy Carter was excommunicated for using the word “apartheid” to describe Palestine, the description is showing up in more mainstream places. The Israeli human rights organization Peace Now says that Hebron has an “apartheid system,” and Israeli journalist Avi Issacharoff says in the New Yorker that it’s only a matter of time before Europe says “No more apartheid!” to Israel.
The New Yorker runs a long article about an Israeli TV series involving an Israeli military unit in the West Bank, and it’s filled with the usual shooting-and-crying theme — the oh so sensitive but tough Israelis telling an American journalist about the occupation.
The never-ending deathbed vigil for the two-state solution has reached a new stage. The Trump administration’s refusal to commit to the two-state solution is horrifying liberal Zionists who fear threats to the Jewish state, but Netanyahu is overjoyed. He celebrated the settlements this week: “This is the inheritance of our forefathers, this is our country… We came back here to stay forever. There will be no more uprooting of settlements in the Land of Israel.”
American Jews have “tremendous power” over the government of Israel, but they should never criticize the Netanyahu government on its policies toward Palestinians, just “stand up for” Israel in the U.S., says American-born Israeli politician Dov Lipman, at the American Jewish Committee forum in June.