Arabs are threatening to take over Israel and reduce the Jewish state to a 60-mile stretch of land on the coast, Defense Minister Benny Gantz warns a party meeting, reading out a crazed and surely-fake rant he received on WhatsApp. The Defense minister’s feverish credulity shows how unhinged and dangerous the thinking of Israel’s leaders is. But who is paying attention?

CPAC’s rightwing gathering in Hungary this week was rightly criticized because of the ethnonationalist bigotry of Hungary’s prime minister. But the racist rhetoric Israeli politicians regularly deploy against Palestinians is not very different– they are a demographic threat or deserve another Nakba — and has helped to earn Israel the label of apartheid state. Democrats ought to heed the example, and stay away. But Biden is bound and determined to visit this summer.

Rep. Henry Cuellar has declared victory in Texas’s 28th congressional district despite the fact that the runoff was too close to call on Wednesday morning. AIPAC spent nearly $2 million on the anti-choice, NRA-backed Democrat in Texas’s 28th district. It looks like it narrowly paid off.

By taking off on a nine-day junket to Israel, Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin not only shirked his responsibilities to city residents, but also made a mockery of his own progressive pretensions and the city’s proud tradition of opposition to apartheid. Arreguin didn’t dare mention the trip on twitter, though others on the Israel lobby-sponsored junket said they “danced till our feet hurt.”

AIPAC’s tactics are receiving increasing attention within the mainstream.

Two Democratic primaries in Pennsylvania this week were particularly instructive for advocates of Palestinian freedom and rights but carried very different lessons.

A recent poll showed Summer Lee up by 25 points in Pennsylvania’s 12th District Democratic primary, but that lead quickly shrank as Israel lobby groups pumped more than $3 million into the race.

The latest escalation by the ADL against CAIR, Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, labeling them as antisemitic because they are anti-Zionist, is further proof of the ADL’s desperation. The ADL has long worked to secure total impunity for the Israeli government. For the Palestinian community, Zionism is the political ideology that has enabled their violent subjugation and systematic dispossession. People must be able to discuss and debate these issues without being falsely smeared as anti-Semites. 

J Street’s battle with AIPAC and Democratic Majority for Israel is good and important because two branches of the Israel lobby are making Israel a political football. Maybe progressives will get a voice here too.

Mainstream Democrats were shocked by the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, but their calls for an investigation were vague, even suggesting that Israel could investigate itself– a recipe for “whitewashing,” says a human rights group. No mainstream leader approached the position of progressive Congresspeople, that the U.S. must investigate Israel, or the view of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, that Israeli “apartheid” is the context of the killing.