The last three Democratic presidents took a “cautionary tale” from Jimmy Carter and decided not to push the issue of Palestinian justice because it might cost them a second term, says Eric Alterman.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich published a shocking plan in 2017 to advance Israeli apartheid. Now that it is being put into action veteran journalist Ron Ben-Yishai finally recognizes the danger.

U.N. human rights investigator Miloon Kothari has now apologized for criticizing the “Jewish lobby.” But Israel advocates including Alan Dershowitz, Stu Eizenstat, JJ Goldberg and Bari Weiss have long acknowledged the power of the Israel lobby in forming U.S. policy, and said it expresses the goals of the Jewish community.

Progressive forces enjoyed a triumph for Palestinian human rights last week before House leadership called for a standalone vote that went 420-9 for Israel military aid. The pro-Israel lobby still has a “stranglehold” over policymaking because it has the overwhelming backing of the organized Jewish community, and a lot of money to spend on political races.

More than 1000 academics, artists and intellectuals have signed a “Declaration on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid in Historic Palestine.” There used to be a mainstream prohibition on the word apartheid. In 2021, that logjam has broken. The world’s civil societies have had enough. Across countries and continents, across age groups and ethnicities, the marches, the manifestos, the opeds, the motions passed overwhelmingly have swelled into a torrent.

“[T]he occupation is not temporary, and there is not the political will in the Israeli government to bring about its end,” write Alon Liel and Ilan Baruch. “It is time for the world to recognize that what we saw in South Africa decades ago is happening in the occupied Palestinian territories too… and take decisive diplomatic action… and work towards building a future of equality, dignity, and security for Palestinians and Israelis alike.”

The Democratic Party is about to become the latest “existential threat” to the Jewish state. And there’s one thing you can be sure of, Zionists won’t take U.S. defection lying down. Tom Friedman worries that things here could “blow up.”

Israel lobbyists have opened a new front in their effort to characterize Palestinian solidarity as “antisemitic.” Now that two House members and leading human rights groups have said Israel practices “apartheid,” Israel’s friends want to shut down the discussion. It’s a good battle to have, as even mainstream groups say the shoe fits Israel.

Now Trump is gone. Liberal Zionists can no longer comfortably argue that injustice in Israel/Palestine is mainly caused by Benjamin Netanyahu and Jewish settlers. Nathan Thrall showed calmly and persuasively that the liberal Zionists and the Peace Processors have been running a long con game for decades, insisting that Israel will agree to a 2-state solution only if you don’t criticize and give them whatever they want.

Several recent findings that Israel is an apartheid state reflect a mounting international recognition. But the indifference to them in the U.S. is also in a long tradition: ignoring apartheid pronouncements about Israel in the U.S. To accept the finding would create a crisis in the Democratic Party and require support for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, and the Israel lobby including its liberal branch insists that BDS is antisemitic.