88 Senators warn Palestinians against taking unilateral actions against Israel at the UN. But Warren and Sanders don’t sign on for once, joining a refuser caucus that includes Tammy Baldwin, Rand Paul and Lisa Murkowski
More fallout from Megan Marzec’s dramatic call for Ohio University to divest. State treasurer Josh Mandel says that Ohio is fully invested in Israel, which is “our friend, ally and beacon of American values.”
From Inside Higher Ed: Steve Cicala, an assistant professor of economics at the University of…
Katherine Franke speaks at U of Illinois and stands with Steven Salaita in the face of well-funded campaign to shut down free speech for Palestinians in the name of civility. “Whatever else civility may be, it is not an academic norm. Rigor is an academic norm. Making arguments backed by evidence is an academic norm.”
From Steven Salaita’s firing at the University of Illinois, to Bruce Shipman’s being forced out at Yale, to Michelle Nunn’s positioning in the Georgia Senate race, to rabbis refusing to criticize Israel, pro-Israel donors play a significant role in the U.S. discourse on Israel/Palestine. Here are several stories that underline the importance of pro-Israel money and show that elites are particularly vulnerable to donor pressure. These same elites are crucial to the lobby because Israel has lost the grass-roots. In fact, there is now a battle raging inside elite opinion.
From the Jewish Journal two days ago. “David Brooks’ son is in the Israeli army.…
The New York Times buries the news: young Jews don’t feel attached to Israel and their rabbis want to criticize the country in the wake of Gaza, but keep their mouths shut because of older donors. Rabbi Jill Jacobs speaks courageously on the divide.
New York Times reporter Jodi Rudoren neglects to explain the Golan Heights are occupied territory in a story about Israel shooting down a Syrian fighter jet.
Two weeks after a Yale chaplain lost his job for saying that Gaza has fostered anti-Semitism in Europe, Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch refers to “anti-Semitism that flared in Europe in response to Israel’s conduct in Gaza war,” and is slapped by Jeffrey Goldberg for doing so. But Israel itself has promoted the confusion of Zionism with Judaism.
The special relationship is suddenly problematic. James Bamford says that the US had no right to give surveillance info to a country that is “hostile” to Palestinian-Americans. And Chris Matthews says neocons pushed the Iraq war to make Arab nations into “friendly neighbors of Israel.”