“Jews and allies for Rashida in Detroit are tired of profits, greed, and unchecked power being put before people. Last night was a demonstration of the strength of our community and an invitation to join us in the fight ahead.” said JVP Action Organizer Reuben Telushkin after the event, “The challenges faced by Palestinians are all too familiar to many Detroiters, who also contend with severe economic and racial injustice — and the horrifying ways those inequalities accelerate infection right now.”

Jones Challenges Tlaib This week, Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones officially announced that she…

Israel lobbyists are thrilled by Bernie Sanders’s recent stumbles at the polls. A Democratic Party Israel lobby group spent $1.4 million against Sanders, and Obama’s former ambassador to Israel writes, “No issue brings out [Joe] Biden’s passion more than his commitment to the U.S. partnership with Israel.”

Trump has a political calculation in embracing Netanyahu’s annexation of the West Bank. He wants to get 40 percent of the Jewish vote, as Reagan did in 1980. And in a warning to Democrats, Haim Saban, Hillary’s big supporter, said he likes the plan.

The assault on BDS in the US and the rise of Democratic Party organizations to support Israel are evidence of the progress on the Palestine issue in the U.S. in the last decade. At last the matter is politicized. Some Democratic pols openly support Palestinian rights. This is where the struggle really needs to be, in Washington; and we can thank Benjamin Netanyahu and Bari Weiss for the damage they’ve done to their own cause.

MuzzleWatch is a new Mondoweiss column that will focus on attempts to silence the voices, actions, and campaigns working for justice in Israel and Palestine. In the first installment, Rob Lipton looks at how Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib have been targeted by a “vast international operation” that leverages Facebook far-right pages to “inflame Islamophobia for profit.”

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) revealed in late October that members of Congress are planning another delegation to Palestine and this time “the permission has to include Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar.” Pocan’s remarks introducing Palestinian writer Yousef Aljamal show that support for the rights of all Palestinians is growing within the 98-member-strong Congressional Progressive Caucus.

US Ambassador David Friedman blatantly lied to Congress when he said he would oppose Israel’s annexation of West Bank lands and support a Palestinian state. He should be impeached for those misrepresentations, as well as for helping to block the visit to Palestine of Congress members Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar.

A liberal Zionist group promotes the view of Israeli professor Jonathan Rynhold that progressive Democrats will support Israel once Netanyahu is gone. His argument would be more persuasive if he even mentioned the human rights violations and Gaza massacres that are at the heart of progressive disaffection with Israel.

Trump’s refrain that the Democrats are anti-Israel is a strategic effort to foster division among Democrats over Israel so that he can get Jewish donors and voters in 2020. That division exists. The party’s progressive base wants to strip US aid to Israel, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Israeli President Rivlin are leaping in to assure the Democratic establishment that Israel is above politics.