Obama told Jewish leaders in 2009 that he wanted “daylight” between the U.S. and Israel so that Israel would change its policies. He has to eat his words, and Biden is reversing that policy.
A leading U.S. Israel lobby group honors Netanyahu in a morning meeting then throws him under the bus in the afternoon– its CEO saying that a Naftali Bennett government would make it easier to sell Israel to the Democratic Party.
The Conference of Presidents, a powerful Jewish organization, caves to Islamophobic rightwing campaign on its leadership choice and liberal constituent groups dont walk away. Americans for Peace Now and Ameinu have stuck with the pro-settler organization for years, out of pro-Israel solidarity.
Netanyahu’s discussion of Palestinian submission to the “radical” and “historic” terms of the Trump “peace plan” sounds very much like surrender. Recognize Israel as “the Jewish state,” accept Israeli sovereignty over much of the West Bank, including every Jewish settlement. Accept Israeli military control forever. Netanyahu laid out these terms in a speech to rightwing American Jews from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
Peter Beinart takes another brave step inside the Zionist community by endorsing conditions on US aid supporting Israeli atrocities, but he continues to count on US Jewish community to change US policy when the track record is miserable. Progressives have more diverse coalitions, and respect the fact that BDS originates from members of the oppressed group.