“The Zionist left is the real enemy of freedom, of fighting the occupation in Israel, much more than the right wing is,” says Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy. “They are the founding fathers for the settlement project. Who started it? Netanyahu, Begin, Sharon? No no no no no! Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin– Nobel Peace Prize winners, peacemakers– they are responsible. They also enable us Israelis to feel so good about ourselves. Because they were always the laundry of any crime. We have this prestigious, world-famous Supreme Court, this castle of liberalism and freedom, part of the Zionist left, and this Supreme Court enabled any crime of war, from the settlements to the tortures, everything went through the Supreme Court and everything was washed there, and it was accepted. If the Supreme Court says there are no torturing or the settlements are legal– so who are we to say or to think different?”

A highlight of the Israel lobby conference held at the National Press Club by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs last Friday was a speech by singer/songwriter Roger Waters in which he read from letters to musicians urging them not to play Israel in line with the call of the BDS campaign. When Australian singer Nick Cave performed in Israel in 2018, he rejected Roger Waters and Brian Eno’s call to respect the BDS boycott campaign, saying it was “cowardly and shameful.” Waters says he responded to the “louche” artist with disbelief, rage and sorrow. “We hurl our glasses in the fire of your arrogant unconcern and smash our bracelets on the rock of your implacable indifference.”