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 demonstrations have been Zionist-only. If Israeli liberals cannot make common cause with Palestinians, they will go extinct and have only themselves to blame. They will have thrown in with a rampaging society in the name of Jewish supremacy.
Some American protesters of the Israeli government fear for the future of the Israel lobby– that Israel’s fascistic steps could make it hard to sell the “special relationship” between U.S. and Israel.
The obsessive focus on the Israeli flag within the current anti-government protest movement shows its goal is simply to preserve the apartheid status quo.
The fascistic new Israeli government is a step too far for liberal Zionists; and segments of the pro-Israel community are calling on American Jews to criticize Israel, and bring the politicians. Some even say, It’s apartheid. Or “Jewish supremacy.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken should publicize Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s call for a Palestinian village to be “erased” and use his global “megaphone” to discredit Smotrich, says Tom Friedman of the NYT. But Chuck Schumer is yucking it up with Netanyahu to please American Jews.
The media hypes threats by industry to leave Israel over Netanyahu’s “judicial coup.” But Palestinians have demanded divestment for years without press. The double standard shows anti-Palestinianism.
Phil Weiss speaks to Tony Greenstein about his new book, “Zionism During the Holocaust: The Weaponization of Memory in the Service of State and Nation”.
The Israeli government’s moves to hamstring the judiciary and to steal more Palestinian land for Jewish settlements are causing further breakup in the pro-Israel consensus in the United States.
My friend the late writer Yossi Gurvitz was an apikoros in the best sense of the word, the Jewish term for a freethinker. His heresy led him to support BDS. Educated in yeshivas, he broke out as a teen when he discovered Plutarch, reading real not bible history. That independence led him in time to become “Israel’s first serious anti-occupation blogger” and to point out the vicious ethnocentrism in the basement of Jewish religiosity that Israel was awakening– “and every demon that was pushed into the basement is up and has an M16.”