Two Israeli writers explain the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh as the price of Israel’s clamping down on terrorism originating in the West Bank, with no consideration of the Palestinian experience under an apartheid army. Yet these talking points are echoed by Biden administration officials. Even as the Lapid government moves forward on more Jewish settlements on Palestinian lands, colonies that the Netanyahu government didn’t approve.

Liberal Zionist organizations could provide Joe Biden with the political capital inside the Jewish community and Democratic Party to confront Israel on its recent designation of six Palestinian human rights organizations as “terrorist organizations.” But so far they have have done little to take on the designation and even offered a platform to the Israeli government to defend the charge. It’s little wonder the Biden administration is keeping its mouth shut.

Mike Pompeo is issuing alarmist claims about Iran as he considers a run for the presidency. His views are not very different from those of Yossi Alpher, who says the U.S. should have killed Khomeini in 1979 and Israel should be propping up dictatorship thru the Middle East by spying on dissidents. And a liberal Zionist organization, Americans for Peace Now, gives a platform to Alpher’s amorality.

The Jewish National Fund has been “redeeming” Palestinian land by giving it to Jews for 100 years, but liberal Zionists are alarmed by a new plan to buy up Palestinian land in the West Bank to bolster illegal Jewish settlements.

Israel watchers are predicting a government openly committed to one “Jewish” state between river and sea, with no interest in allowing even a shadow of Palestinian sovereignty in the occupied territories. Indeed, the Israeli “center” and “left” are shattered, and the possibility exists that the Labor party that founded the state will disappear from the parliament in the next election.

The Israeli hospital system would collapse without Palestinians, who make up a sizeable percentage of doctors, nurses and pharmacies, but the Jewish politicians who are trying to form the country’s next government exclude the 15 Palestinian legislators from any real role in that future. And they call that a democracy?

The only country that supports Trump’s assassination of Soleimani is Israel. And no surprise, because the killing bogs America down in Israel’s regional conflicts in the Middle East and the “obsession” with Iran is “just not in the American interest,” says Ilan Goldenberg, formerly a foreign policy aide in the Obama administration.

Donald Trump’s decision to abandon former Kurdish allies in Syria has been a shock to Israel and its US lobby. Israel thought it had a very special place in Trump’s worldview, but the withdrawal appears to gives Iran far more leeway. We are on our own against Iran, several Israeli officials and Israel supporters conclude fearfully. War is more likely than ever, one expert concludes.

If there’s any consensus from the political chaos in Israel, it’s that the Trump peace plan will get kicked down the road again for months, right into the U.S. election season, so it may disappear entirely. Several Israel observers say the plan is over. They warn that Trump will be even more of a presence in Netanyahu’s next campaign, but the prime minister is badly wounded by his failure to make a government.