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.

At its conference, J Street sought to triangulate support for the “Jewish state” and the progressive left as political bedfellows. But there is an inherent contradiction there, and simply hoping for the two-state solution to arrive some day — after Israel has rejected a Palestinian state for its entire existence — may get J Street access in the Democratic Party but won’t preserve its alliances on the left.

If Palestinian anti-apartheid activist Issa Amro was one of the Russian or Chinese human rights defenders being accused of bogus charges and unfairly convicted by a military court, we would have certainly heard his name on the Senate floor or during a White House press briefing, says Jamil Dakwar.

Liberal Zionists’ moral problem is that they are so wed to “the right of the Jewish people to a state” they seek to discredit any real program to pressure Israel for Palestinian rights. Liberal Zionists could maintain this contradiction when fighting Trump seemed more important to Americans than fighting rightwing Israel; but they have now lost this figleaf, and there is an urgent need for real action, not lip service, on Palestinian rightslessness.

The murder by Israeli soldiers of Ali Abu Alia was the 6th killing of a Palestinian child in the occupied West Bank this year. And though Israeli soldiers have killed 155 children in West Bank in recent years, they have had near complete impunity– a process “unworthy of a country that proclaims it lives by rule of law,” the U.N. says. And liberal Zionist organizations maintain that impunity by insisting Israel keep getting U.S. military aid.

Despite predictions 30% of Jews would vote for Trump, the number was 21% to Biden’s 77 in exit polling– the mirror opposite of Israel, where Jews overwhelmingly support Trump. Only 5% listed Israel as their most important issue, down nearly 100 percent since 2016, which is bad news for the Israel lobby.

One of Joe Biden’s political achievements this year is that he has taken what seemed to be a big issue for Trump– Israel — out of the campaign. The Israel lobby trusts Biden because he promises to use American force overseas and try to end the politicization of the Israel issue here. Biden and Harris have actually run against their own Democratic base on Palestinian rights.

Palestinian messaging about human rights is working. A rightwing Israeli thinktank says anti-Zionism is growing in the U.S. Jewish community. A “possibly significant minority (which may be up to 25%) appears to hold beliefs that are intensely critical of Israel and Zionism itself, including attitudes that Zionism may be a colonial and/or racist, apartheid movement as practiced in Israel today.” Even more, 31 percent, would vote for Rashida Tlaib because she is a progressive!

Peter Beinart’s abandonment of belief in the Jewish state has caused Congress members to question two-state belief. Why such influence? Because Beinart was part of the liberal Zionist Israel lobby, and his loss of faith threatens the lobby’s power politics not to mention a solemn commitment by the west to a Jewish state.

It would be fair to say that a major earthquake has been happening in the Zionist camp this past week, with Peter Beinart’s essay that he no longer believes in a Jewish state, and J Street and the peace processors are doing all they can to wish the desertion away.