Jewish thinkers have long warned that Israel’s dependence on western Jews’ political support to gain impunity for its human rights abuses could contribute to antisemitism in the U.S. and even make Jews’ lives “precarious.”

Even a scholar who opposes the label says, “Israel does not have a case against apartheid.” That is the power of the apartheid framing. The label for Israel has gained broad acceptance because of the widening awareness of the death of the Two State Solution — that Israel never really wanted a legitimate, contiguous Palestinian state. Because of American support for Israeli impunity, it may take years for the apartheid name and frame to achieve the result we are hoping for. But at least we now have a tool for organizing and persuasion of great potential potency, if we bang the apartheid drum often and loudly. 

Annexation will cast Israel as an “ethnonationalist country” that practices apartheid in the West Bank and Israel will become a “wedge issue” in the 2020 election, Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL says. Yes but what about the downside?