In an interview with Benjamin Netanyahu, Bill Maher compared Kanye West’s recent antisemitic comments to criticisms of Israel by Democratic House members.
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During a televised debate Arizona treasurer Kimberly Yee touted her opposition to BDS and accused her opponent of antisemitism for tweeting “Free Palestine.”
Yom Kippur begins tonight and I reflect that the most prominent moral voice in the extended American Jewish community is today Rashida Tlaib. Young Jews look to her for the appropriate response to apartheid. She inspires us. At a time when virtually every establishment Jewish organization has abandoned any pretense to universal moral values, Tlaib has led the way.
For Democrats in the United States and the political “centrists” in Israel—represented by Joe Biden and Yair Lapid, respectively—the loss of credibility for the two-state solution has meant losing more and more support for Israeli policies. This helps explain the theater we have witnessed in recent days at the United Nations General Assembly and in the American media scene, where the lone Palestinian woman ever elected to Congress has come under unrelenting attack from her own party as well as the opposition.
The Israel lobby just led an attack on Rashida Tlaib to stop any criticism of Israeli colonization of Palestinian land. What else can it do? It has helped stop the Iran deal and promoted Abraham Accords, bribery of Arab monarchies to normalize Israel and overlook Palestinian human rights. But surely the biggest sign of the lobby’s power is that it is not scrutinized in the press. When it is called out for corrupting influence, it says the criticism is antisemitic.
Rashida Tlaib hit a nerve. It is obviously very important to the Israel lobby to maintain the claim that you can be progressive and support Israel. Being truthful about Israeli apartheid undermines this effort. Liberal Zionists are divided. J Street has condemned Tlaib’s comment. But like nearly all the Dems who attacked Tlaib, they didn’t even mention the apartheid part of her comment. Democrats don’t want to address it. They don’t want to engage with what Israel actually does and how Palestinians live.
On September 18 the New York Times published an article by Ellen Barry titled How Russian Trolls Helped Keep the Women’s March Out of Lock Step.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib finds herself under fire from members of her own party yet again over remarks she made during an annual seminar organized by the group Americans for Justice in Palestine Action.
House Foreign Affairs Committee votes to stop funding Palestinian curriculum that include teaching that Israel is an apartheid state. Rep. Brad Sherman of Los Angeles explains, Israelis and Palestinians live side by side in separation, just like the Dutch and the Germans live on either side of a border, so to characterize Israeli rule as apartheid is an “extreme and ridiculous conclusion.”