The reason I won’t join up  with J Street is that it cannot face two fundamental truths: There will never be a two state solution. There is apartheid in the occupied territories and that extends to Israel. J Street is incapable of acknowledging these realities because it is sworn to the idea of a Jewish state, and these realities obliterate that fantasy. Countless human rights organizations and people of conscience have said it’s apartheid– the humiliation and brutalization of people based on non-Jewish ethnicity. J Street’s leadership is D.C. establishment, but its rank and file know this.

Mainstream pro-Israel groups and politicians have made the Boston Mapping Project into a punching bag. Many are using the Mapping Project to bash the campaign targeting Israel with boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) and to affirm the center-right pro-Israel line that anti-Zionism is antisemitism. A group of Congress members even stated that the project was likely to result in “violent attacks by supporters of the BDS movement” against Jews and Jewish organizations. The FBI has met with Jewish groups in Boston and said it is “tracking” the project over these concerns.

Pressure mounts on Joe Biden to stand up for Shireen Abu Akleh 6 weeks after Israeli forces killed the Palestinian-American journalist. A letter from 24 senators demands that the FBI and State Department undertake an investigation of the killing and rejects Israeli claims that it can do so. Six weeks have passed and there has been “no significant progress” toward establishing a transparent investigation. The “only way” for there to be a “credible” investigation is for the U.S. to undertake it, the senators say. AIPAC, Israel’s U.S. mouthpiece, urged senators not to sign the letter.

The battle between J Street and AIPAC to influence the Democratic Party is also opening space for Palestine solidarity to enter the mainstream.

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.

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.

It’s O.K. in the Democratic Party to critique white supremacy in the U.S. but dare to bring up Jewish supremacy in Israel and cite apartheid reports and you will get railroaded as a supposed antisemite. Aided by megadonor Haim Saban, the Israel lobby group AIPAC has raised nearly $16 million in three months to take on Democratic candidates who might “undermine” the relationship with Israel.

Rabbi Seymour Rosenbloom does the right thing for J Street at Passover by admitting that the Tantura massacre of Palestinians took place in the early days of Israel’s existence. But he cannot acknowledge that Israel was then and is now an apartheid state that continues to push Palestinians out of their homes. The rabbi’s view that “Israel’s challenge is to reclaim the ‘child we prayed for'” is simply a delusion, especially in light of rightwing governments that are all committed to maintaining military occupation.

In a highwater mark of mainstream opposition to the unending Israeli occupation, 50 members of Congress have signed a letter to Secretary of State Blinken urging him to try to stop Israel’s demolition of 38 Palestinian houses in al-Walaja, a village in the occupied West Bank, because the demolitions will undermine “Palestinian dignity” and “long-term Israeli security.” The demolitions are also an issue in a Michigan congressional race between two Democrats, with Rep. Andy Levin calling them “unjust.”

The rightwing Israel lobby is enraged by the new report by the Special Rapporteur to the U.N. accusing Israel of “apartheid”– a “landmark moment of recognition of the lived reality of millions of Palestinians,” says Amnesty International. But J Street has had nothing to say about the report. It surely hopes it will go away, because these reports foster demands among progressives to actually do something about human rights violations beyond acknowledging their existence.