Writer Eric Flamm says after four trips to Israel, his 15-year-old son has become an anti-Zionist and supports BDS. “Because he couldn’t support the notion that in Israel the Jews received preferential treatment over Palestinians in all aspects of life, such as education, housing, employment, and access to justice.”

The pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC once prided itself on doing its business in the dark. But today loving Israel too much is being politicized in the age of Trump. The battle between the liberal Israel lobby and the rightwing Israel lobby portends a day when leftwingers who support boycotting Israel will not be railroaded instantly from US politics.

The DNC’s list of nominees to the platform committee ahead of the 2020 convention is stacked with pro-Israel advocates, including rightwingers with AIPAC connections. The DNC is planning to battle against the progressive wing on Israel, opposing BDS and with all its guns a-blazin. If you wonder why Buttigieg and Warren seem to have tempered their criticisms of Israel, this is why.

The Trump peace plan was brought to you by the Jewish community. Over the last 20 years, vigorous opposition to the pro-Israel right inside the US Jewish community has been quashed, and liberal Zionists have enforced that line by refusing to organize as equals with the community Israel is oppressing: Palestinians.

Liberal and centrist American Zionists regard Trump’s plan as an existential threat to “the Jewish democracy.” These Israel supporters say the plan will move Israel toward annexing much of the West Bank, thereby ending any possibility of a two-state solution and leading to a binational state in which Palestinians will demand equal rights.

A new University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll gives us further insight into what Americans think about the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. One obvious conclusion is the high-profile BDS battles of 2019 have raised awareness for the movement, and that awareness has come with increased support.

Republicans are trying to paint Democrats as the anti-Israel party. Not to worry. Rep. Jan Schakowsky sounded a lot like an old segregationist when she said that equal rights for Palestinians is a bad thing. In one state, “equal rights and equal votes for all” would mean that “in short order the Jewish population would be in the minority, and Israel as a Jewish state would cease to exist.”

Israel would have reached a deal with the Palestinians and allowed a Palestinian state years ago if it did not have blind American support to go on taking more and more Palestinian land. The Israel lobby, which has prevented criticism in both parties in the U.S., is the root cause of the conflict, and the lobby’s role as Israel’s supporter in western capitals is a fundamental principle of Zionism.

Last week Ami Ayalon, a former Israeli security official, urged American Jews at J Street to restrain Israel’s “unjust” war in Palestine because it fuels anti-Semitism around the world. The statement is remarkable because that view is generally seen as anathema: saying that Israel’s actions have any role in the growth of anti-Semitism.

The spirit of J Street conference was young Jews telling of shattering experiences in Palestine. The issue is not complicated, says Brett Rosenberg of an Obama foreign policy thinktank. Israel’s occupation is immoral and Americans must take action.