Testifying before Congress, Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL quotes Bruce Springsteen song titles to bash Amnesty International report calling out Israeli apartheid. “I’m on fire,” Amnesty International is having its “glory days,” but there will be “no surrender” to its “brilliant disguise.” Making a cute performance out of Palestinian suffering.

Amnesty International’s bombshell report on Israeli apartheid has unleashed angry attacks from Israel lobbyists who say that the report endangers Jews, is “steeped in antisemitism,” and its “real agenda” is “Jew hatred.” And by the way, it dismisses 2000 years of Jewish history. While the liberal Zionist group J Street, which rejects the report, says that such accusations are inappropriate; and Americans for Peace Now says that the mainstream organizations are manufacturing outrage without having read the report, which reflects Palestinian experiences.

The pro-Israel tactic of accusing advocates for Palestinian rights of antisemitism is weakening, as shown by a series of recent attacks. Now labelling Amnesty International an antisemitic organization for stating that Israel practices apartheid can only discredit those tactics further. Palestinians are becoming more relatable to the world, and the antisemitism charge is transparently its own form of bigotry, for it denies Palestinians the right to self-determination.

News that Amnesty International will issue a report tomorrow declaring Israel an apartheid state has caused panic and outrage among Israel lobbyists. Jonathan Greenblatt of ADL says that Amnesty “must accept responsibility” for attacks on Jews that will ensue from the report casting aspersions on Israel. While David Harris of the American Jewish Committee shrills, “Israel has nothing to do with apartheid and apartheid has nothing to do with Israel.”

Israel’s assault on Gaza last May alienated many American Jews, and a lawsuit against a Westchester temple for firing 26-year-old Jessie Sander, an avowed anti-Zionist, for her blogpost condemning Israeli “genocide” and the pro-Israel “propaganda” of American Jewish institutions, highlights the fissures inside the Jewish community.

Cracks in apartheid’s firewall: Seven establishment Jewish groups including the Anti-Defamation League sent a letter to Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett saying Enough’s enough, take action against settler violence; it is “undermining Israel’s image and relations with the U.S. government.” I.e., we can’t do our job of selling Israel in the U.S. with this sort of publicity. The complaint is of a piece with liberal Zionist Jeremy Ben-Ami’s “rant” on twitter about a “horrific” week of violence against Palestinians. These organizations know that the Democratic base is getting sick of supporting Israel as it commits human rights violations.

Mainstream media are at last humanizing Palestinians with great potential political consequences. Ali Velshi of MSNBC met the Palestinian activist Hajj Suleiman in 2019 and when Israel killed him last week, Velshi honored his resistance with a searing report describing an Israeli occupation of nearly 700,000 illegal settlers encroaching on traditional villages and destroying their bread ovens.

Omer Bar-Lev, a Laborite who is Israel’s police minister, recently visited a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank and posted a video showing border police training at a staged set of Damascus Gate. The video is a colorful proof of the apartheid reality of Israel’s rule of Palestinians and shows that there will never be a two-state solution. Even leftleaning Jewish pols bend over backward to appease the settlers.

A new Reut Group study on anti-Zionism’s steady gains in U.S. discourse sounds like reefer madness of an Islamophobic character: There’s an “Islamo-leftist” coalition of progressives allying with Muslims associated with “Muslim Brotherhood organizations” that are “driven by a vision of establishing an Islamic Caliphate.” Who knew! Jewish progressives have taken this new order to heart, and they “undermine” Jewish “identity, values, narrative, and relations with Israel.”

The Nation runs a righwing religious endorsement of Zionism in an apparent sop to its New York base. The article opposes BDS, citing Jewish fears stemming from Nazis and “centuries of forced exile from a historic homeland.” And leaves out the forced expulsion of Palestinians from their land. And anyone who doesn’t acknowledge that Jewish connection is “goysplaining” to Jews, Alexis Grenell writes.