There were indications this week that evidence of Israeli genocide in Gaza is breaking in on the American mind, including the historic pro-Palestine demonstration in D.C. — and can things ever be the same?
“In some places we are judged wrongly by what we do and how strategic we are.” Israel’s president Isaac Herzog tells American Jews to fight those “judgmental attitudes” and preserve “our only Jewish state in the world.”
Many experts have said Israel/Palestine is a one-state reality characterized by apartheid, but the establishment finally seems ready to listen, maybe because the two-state solution is so farcical no one is buying.
A new report from Americans for Justice in Palestine Action documents that the “rightwing Zionist” lobby spent $70 million in 2022 to knock off critics of Israel, and warn politicians “to not object to Israel’s crimes.” That big money explains why Joe Biden and Kirsten Gillibrand gush over Benjamin Netanyahu in the runup to 2024 reelection campaigns.
The use of the word apartheid to describe Israel’s treatment of Palestinians just keeps growing. David Rothkopf, the former editor of Foreign Policy, baldly states that Israel is an apartheid state in a piece published by Haaretz last weekend.
The “demise” of the two state solution has made it untenable not to talk about Israeli apartheid, even inside the Washington establishment.
The new generation leaders of the American Jewish Committee and Anti-Defamation League were both silent today as Netanyahu’s explicitly-racist far-right government was sworn in. The silence is amazing, and reflects the fact that Netanyahu blew off Jewish leaders’ warnings not to lead such a coalition or it would damage relations with the U.S. While the anti-Zionist Jewish group Jewish Voice for Peace said that the Jewish “consensus on the ‘democratic’ character of Israel has broken apart.”
Ted Deutch debuted as CEO of the American Jewish Committee in a 45-minute video that erased Palestine. The former Congressman repeatedly praised the “miracle” of “our state of Israel” but did not once refer to Palestine or Palestinians. The cheerful CEO epitomized anti-Palestinianism in the Jewish leadership. He was eager to talk about any place and people but Palestinians: Uzbekistan, Russia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Cyprus, Haiti, Buenos Aires, Paris, the United Arab Emirates, the Gulf countries, Europe, Boca Raton, the African American, Hispanic and Asian American communities. All got name-checked by Ted Deutch. Never Palestinians.
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.
While Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz was launching his assault on seven Palestinian NGOs on Thursday, Prime Minister Yair Lapid was pressing the United States closer to an attack on Iran that could send the entire region into an unprecedented conflict.
Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL says anti-Zionism is antisemitism, and as dangerous to Jews as white nationalism. His speech is strategic. Greenblatt’s core audience is the political establishment and the Jewish establishment. He is trying to make sure that Democratic Party doesn’t accept the growing number of human rights reports accusing Israel of apartheid. And he is trying to keep more young Jews from saying Israel has no right to exist.