Protests are being held in solidarity with Palestine around the world this week, with large…
As U.S. State Department calls on Palestine and Israel to “deescalate” tensions in Jerusalem, the US progressive movement and several politicians blame Israel for the violence.
COVID-19 did not invent systematic injustice, but it has exposed and sharpened injustices already there. Israel’s refusal to vaccinate Palestinians is but the latest chapter of its decades-long practice of colonialism, ethnic cleansing, military occupation and, of course, apartheid against the Palestinian people. The U.S. is itself a settler-colony with centuries of systematic racism to its name, and the tolls of COVID-19 remain systematically centered around Indigenous, Black and brown people. There is a name for this, and it’s medical apartheid. It’s time to take a stand to end all military funding to an apartheid regime overseas and to demand the end to apartheid right here.
At its conference, J Street sought to triangulate support for the “Jewish state” and the progressive left as political bedfellows. But there is an inherent contradiction there, and simply hoping for the two-state solution to arrive some day — after Israel has rejected a Palestinian state for its entire existence — may get J Street access in the Democratic Party but won’t preserve its alliances on the left.
Moving on from the IHRA definition of antisemitism that bars harsh criticism of Israel, an Israel lobby group says that U.S. progressives usurp the Jewish right to identify as “unique historic” victims, and this “antisemitism” is now threatening Israel’s status as a bipartisan cause. The report singles out Rashida Tlaib and SNL! And it was written by an AIPAC veteran.
Progressive lawmakers are calling on the Biden administration to ditch Trump’s Israel policies
Ted Cruz: “Do you agree that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and do you commit that the United States will keep our the embassy there?”
Biden nominee for sec’y of state Tony Blinken: “Yes and Yes.”
Saying that the dehumanization of Palestinians is a cancer in the Jewish community, Peter Beinart is no longer showing deference to the Jewish guardians of the communal victimhood discourse. This is his cultural importance,” claiming Jewish authority for himself and discrediting Bari Weiss’s discourse of victimhood.
This year has been a slog, but from the Squad to BDS victories there have also been things to celebrate in 2020.
When Israeli soldiers killed a 15-year-old Palestinian boy for protesting Jewish settlers taking his land, it ought to have been a George Floyd moment for liberal Jews. But Americans for Peace Now chatters about John Lennon not Ali Abu Alia, and dreams about a two-state solution that will never happen. It is time for Zionism to experience a crisis, and Jews must support the only hope for change in Palestine, BDS.