The news that Israel’s new government plans to begin annexing the West Bank in July has been greeted with outrage– and resignation. Even some peace processors seem to accept that the two-state moment is passed. Former White House aide Dennis Ross says, “1 state for 2 peoples is more likely.”

Palestinian lawmakers decry the political deal in Israel. Aida Touma-Sliman calls new Netanyahu-Gantz government “dangerous” and vows to fight its plan too annex portions of the occupied West Bank.

The Israel lobby gained “superabundant” powers through what George Washington warned was a constitutional flaw, “passionate attachment” to another country. And it has “killed” US politicians who wanted to be realistic or national interest-oriented, Ian Lustick explains.

Liberal Zionists who now call on Democrats to stop Israeli annexation should have applied sanctions pressure years ago. But they feared the left’s call for democracy and sided with rightwing Israel supporters on lavishing aid to the Israeli occupation. No wonder Israeli leaders have always ignored liberal Zionists.

The American Jewish Committee decided that it must support Israel over President Bush in 1991 over settlements, even though many of its officials privately supported Bush, because the AJC had a “primary responsibility” to back the “collective will” of the Jewish people, which Israel represents, Steve Bayme, an AJC official says in a Zoom webinar.

Rabbi Noah Zvi Farkas tells AIPAC that Zionists have to tell progressives about their need for Israel because of Jewish “vulnerability” and “trauma” from “thousands of years on the margins of society” in order to get them to stop “preaching BDS.” And it’s working, he says.

Israel’s third election inside a year shows the rightwing continuing to gain ground. This is what Jewish nationalists want. A society governed by an authoritarian leader, no matter how corrupt. Just so long as there are no Arabs anywhere near power. The only hope politically is the burgeoning Joint List of Palestinian parties, which reject apartheid and discrimination.

Writer Eric Flamm says after four trips to Israel, his 15-year-old son has become an anti-Zionist and supports BDS. “Because he couldn’t support the notion that in Israel the Jews received preferential treatment over Palestinians in all aspects of life, such as education, housing, employment, and access to justice.”

Condemnation for the recently-published UN list of companies doing business in illegal Israeli settlements has been across the Zionist spectrum in Israel, and it’s pretty much the same in the US Congress.

Former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert says Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is the sole partner for peace, while Netanyahu has blocked peace with “provocative, aggressive” actions and it’s not a story in the US press.