The Jewish community must open its eyes to the grotesque armored thing that is modern Israel, and denounce its actions if only in order to save ourselves. And yes it’s true: Palestinians who denounce Israel are pleasing their grandparents and parents; and we are not. But that’s a lame excuse for a thoughtful person in America.

So long as Jews and Palestinians don’t have equal rights, Israel risks “dictatorship,” say 750 academics in letter urging U.S. Jews to denounce “apartheid.”

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.

In an interview with the Foundation for Middle East Peace, Ken Roth shares the details of how Harvard denied him a fellowship following donor pressure because he had supervised Human Rights Watch’s report accusing Israel of apartheid.

Former Israeli negotiator Daniel Levy told the U.N. Security Council this week that the two-state solution is over. “75 years ago, this United Nations offered partition as the political paradigm for the Holy Land. Today that land is de facto united under one dominion.” And it’s apartheid. And influential Jewish organizations who denounce such allegations as antisemitic are a “threat to freedom,” Peter Beinart writes in the New York Times.

Israel is now walking a tightrope above very unpredictable waters of public opinion in the west. The overwhelming wave of opposition to Russian aggression is justifying boycott, divestment and sanctions as well as resistance as responses to the Russian military occupation, measures for which Palestinians have vainly sought western approval. And meanwhile, Israel is playing footsie with Russia so as to maintain its freedom to conduct missile attacks in Syria against Iranian targets.

Israel’s assault on Gaza last May alienated many American Jews, and a lawsuit against a Westchester temple for firing 26-year-old Jessie Sander, an avowed anti-Zionist, for her blogpost condemning Israeli “genocide” and the pro-Israel “propaganda” of American Jewish institutions, highlights the fissures inside the Jewish community.

Why is the “open secret” of Israel’s nuclear weapons kept secret? Because if the US government revealed what it knows it would immediately raise uncomfortable questions about the legality of foreign aid to Israel.

The Israel lobby is under huge pressure these days as the Democratic Party base becomes more sympathetic to Palestinians in the wake of the latest Israeli onslaught. A pro-Israel group, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, held an event on the Gaza conflict last week, and there were two surprising responses to the progressive shift.

The international delegitimization of Zionism has begun. Palestinian resistance to further ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem has been answered with a cascade of mainstream voices saying that Israel practices “apartheid” and Palestinians deserve equal rights, not missiles.