Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton acknowledges the contradiction between democracy and a Jewish state: “If you actually had a true one state where Palestinians and Israelis had equal rights– a democracy, right?– then demographically the Palestinians are probably going to take over the Israelis in relatively short order, they would outvote them, and that means you would really lose the concept of a Jewish state. For everybody who advocates for a Jewish state and the right for the Jewish people to have a Jewish state in the world, it’s hard to see how that works under a truly democratic single state as one would be necessarily constructed here. And that’s something that people don’t like to talk about frankly.”

“It comes down to: Are you with the Russians or are you with the United States and the West?” asks former Defense Secretary William Cohen. The White House and some Republicans are criticizing Israel’s mixed signals on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The lead Israel lobby group AIPAC brought 40 members of Congress to Israel, including Democrats who met with Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, even as he trashed the Iran deal. Some Democrats reportedly met with disgraced rightwing former premier Benjamin Netanyahu. Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries toasted the “land of milk and honey” while Rep. Ritchie Torres celebrated an illegal Israeli settlement in occupied Jerusalem.

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid says that in 2022 the debate over Israeli apartheid will be “unprecedented in its venom and in its radioactivity,” and Israeli journalists repeat the claim without reviewing the facts.

Right after Israel’s foreign minister derided social media portrayal of Israel at an ADL conference, two New York Times staffers came on to criticize social media for spreading antisemitism and conspiracy theories. Their appearance was an implicit endorsement of the Israel lobby group, with the imprimatur of the New York Times.

Phil Weiss has a wide-ranging conversation with Palestinian businessman Sam Bahour about Palestinian politics in the wake of the May 2021 Unity Intifada, and alternatives to the two-state solution.

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid visited Washington and Democratic leaders embraced him and offered empty statements about the Palestinian future. Nancy Pelosi and the Israel lobby group Democratic Majority for Israel were thrilled by the restoration of bipartisan support for Israel that Trump and Netanyahu threatened.

At a time when some American Jewish congregations are avoiding the Israel subject as divisive, the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York has doubled down on its support for the “Jewish state,” and that support was rewarded during its Rosh Hashanah service with a video speech from Israel’s Foreign Minister, Yair Lapid, who told the congregation that Israel loves American Jews and is waiting for them to come to Israel.

Mondoweiss founder and senior editor Phil Weiss speaks to Khaled Elgindy about the first meeting between President Joe Biden and newly installed Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

Shocking images of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the restoration of Taliban government have become a “talking point of the Israeli right,” says Israeli journalist Neri Zilber, speaking on an Israel lobby event. Israel must never withdraw from Palestinian territories it has occupied for 54 years, the right says. “We can’t agree for such an arrangement with the West Bank… Withdrawal from the West Bank should never be countenanced, considered seriously.”