Announcing construction on a key Jerusalem settlement 5 hours before inauguration, utterly foreclosing the possibility of a Palestinian state, Netanyahu sought an “altercation” with Joe Biden, says Jerusalem watcher Daniel Seidemann. And who won? Biden has said nothing.
What happens when B’Tselem, an Israeli NGO, has effectively described the State of Israel as a racist endeavor? Thanks to B’Tselem’s apartheid report, British Jewish groups that seek to display progressive or radical outlook appear tame, weak, their courage lacking.
Historian Jerome Slater reinterprets the Cold War in the Middle East: “It’s an easy case to make that it was the United States, specifically Nixon and Kissinger… who sabotaged Soviet inititatives that I think were very fair for a two state settlement guaranteed by the super powers.” The Soviets wouldn’t have been in the Middle East if the U.S. hadn’t supported Israel so vigorously, which left Arab states no choice but to align with the Soviet pole. But the Soviets pushed peace in an effort to thwart a global conflict.
Last week, Israel’s leading human rights group, B’Tselem, declared for the first time that Israel is an apartheid regime, a move that sent shock waves around the globe. But so far neither the New York Times or Washington Post have reported on it.
By giving hundreds of millions to Bush and Trump, the late Sheldon Adelson helped destroy the peace process and crush peace with Iran. Sadly the media never sought to expose and discredit his antidemocratic power, bigotry and extremism, because his mere presence fed antisemitic stereotype, of the puppetmaster, as even Trump referred to him.
Racist Capitol Hill rioters brandished Israeli flags for a reason, because they admire Jewish supremacy as a guiding principle in that country. Democratic Party supporters of “Jewish democracy” who call for diversity in U.S. politics are living a contradiction that gets more glaring by the minute.
Israeli plans to annex the West Bank are “dead,” says reporter Barak Ravid. That’s a demonstration of the power of Israel lobby organizations in the U.S. to stop the Israeli government. They could do the same thing on unending settlements, if they would just take a stand.
At 65, having worked at this site for 15 years, I’ve thought about how to move on. But the murder of Ali Abu Alia in Palestine reminds me of my commitment. My Jewish privilege gives me a lot of responsibility.
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.
Lillian Rosengarten writes, “What is there to understand about the German Holocaust that demands blanket support of Israel? How dare we continue to support white Democracy which so similarly could sound like white Aryan supremacy? Have we become as insane as the lies and destruction of Zionism?”