“My north star is maintaining a democratic Jewish state. That is the single most important thing I believe that I can do as American ambassador” –US ambassador to Israel Tom Nides on his job description. And that means praising the Israeli military repeatedly despite the fact that it killed a Palestinian-American journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh. Nides justified the killing by saying Abu Akleh had gone into a “dangerous place.”
The Israel lobby just led an attack on Rashida Tlaib to stop any criticism of Israeli colonization of Palestinian land. What else can it do? It has helped stop the Iran deal and promoted Abraham Accords, bribery of Arab monarchies to normalize Israel and overlook Palestinian human rights. But surely the biggest sign of the lobby’s power is that it is not scrutinized in the press. When it is called out for corrupting influence, it says the criticism is antisemitic.
Rashida Tlaib hit a nerve. It is obviously very important to the Israel lobby to maintain the claim that you can be progressive and support Israel. Being truthful about Israeli apartheid undermines this effort. Liberal Zionists are divided. J Street has condemned Tlaib’s comment. But like nearly all the Dems who attacked Tlaib, they didn’t even mention the apartheid part of her comment. Democrats don’t want to address it. They don’t want to engage with what Israel actually does and how Palestinians live.
House Foreign Affairs Committee votes to stop funding Palestinian curriculum that include teaching that Israel is an apartheid state. Rep. Brad Sherman of Los Angeles explains, Israelis and Palestinians live side by side in separation, just like the Dutch and the Germans live on either side of a border, so to characterize Israeli rule as apartheid is an “extreme and ridiculous conclusion.”
Two Israeli writers explain the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh as the price of Israel’s clamping down on terrorism originating in the West Bank, with no consideration of the Palestinian experience under an apartheid army. Yet these talking points are echoed by Biden administration officials. Even as the Lapid government moves forward on more Jewish settlements on Palestinian lands, colonies that the Netanyahu government didn’t approve.
The bond between the U.S. and Israel is in the “souls” and “DNA” of Americans because we are both democracies facing terrorists, US Ambassador Tom Nides says. And so he does not mention the 17 children Israel killed in Gaza last month, even as he praises Israel for keeping the besieged Strip “relatively calm.” Nor does he mention Israel’s killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in May in the occupied West Bank.
We must support Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi, who has been systematically undermined by the administration of San Francisco State University for her work championing Palestinian liberation
A few years ago it felt like Roger Waters might be blacklisted by Israel supporters over his support for Palestine. But this summer he is filling stadiums around the country talking about Palestinian liberation.
Israel and its proxies in Washington are stepping up their efforts to promote war against Iran in response to the increasingly positive outlook for a renewed Iran Nuclear Deal. Their arguments, however, can be easily debunked.
The liberal Zionist organization J Street is adamantly opposed to BDS, the nonviolent boycott campaign targeting Israel, and proudly declares that it is “Pro-Israel.” But one of its student leaders evidently disagrees with the organization. Eliana Blumberg supports BDS and says that the effort to say that being “pro-Israel means being pro-democracy, not pro-apartheid” is “futile.”