Progressive politicians are silent about Palestinian human rights because of the power of the Israel lobby, and “civil rights activists and organizations have remained silent as well… because they fear loss of funding from foundations, and false charges of anti-Semitism,” Michelle Alexander writes in a groundbreaking piece in the New York Times. Guided by MLK, she says she will be silent no longer.
The 2009 Goldstone Report accused Israel of war crimes in Gaza when it killed more than 300 children, but the only trial Israeli generals had was a meeting with an American State Department official under Obama who pressed them to counter the p.r. damage of the report by telling the “Israeli story” better and announcing “lessons learned.”
Jeffrey Goldberg, Jennifer Rubin, David Frum, Bret Stephens and the other American Bibi-ists went from All Netanyahu all the time to No Netanyahu ever, Yakov Hirsch explains. Because they can’t be leading the moral charge against Trump’s “evil plan to crush the press,” while offering obfuscation about Netanyahu’s actual evil plan to crush the press, as they once did, when they were empowering the now-run-amok prime minister.
Marc Ellis writes that the rescinding by the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute of an award to Angela Davis raises issues about the Black-Jewish alliance and the ability of Jews to set parameters for African Americans to speak on Jewish questions, including Israel. There is a war over that question. The Jewish establishment sees Angela Davis as an enemy. Jews of Conscience see her as an ally.
“I wouldn’t have just moved the embassy to Jerusalem and not asked for something in return from Netanyahu or, or the Palestinians,” Tom Friedman says on CNN. Really? The embassy move was a kick in the gut to Palestinians, and the gaffe just reveals the reflexive need of a mainstream pundit to blame Palestinians for the conflict, even when they are blameless.
The Birmingham Holocaust Education Center has trampled on the credo, Never Again, by objecting to Angela Davis’s humanitarian award because she supports Palestinian rights. Dr. Hatim Kanaaneh calls on the Education Center to apologize for the damage it has done to Palestinian human rights.
The Senate bill punishing support for BDS against Israel failed again yesterday. Israel has never been so openly politicized before, and many Democratic supporters are expressing the fear that the issue is going to divide the party leading up to the 2020 election.
The decision by the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute to withdraw an award to Angela Davis because of her support for BDS has become a giant embarrassment to the Institute and the Jewish groups that put pressure on it to reconsider. Both the Birmingham Holocaust Education Center and the Birmingham Jewish Federations have tried to walk back statements critical of the award.
Rabbi Michael Davis writes to Rabbi David Stern, a leader of Reform rabbis in America: A year has passed since you returned “shaken” from a visit to the “prison” of the West Bank. I have a collegial challenge. Invite a Palestinian to speak from the same Dallas pulpit from which you gave a sermon that has been widely circulated. And call on your congregants to oppose Congressional legislation that would punish advocacy for BDS.