U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman interviewed by Washington Examiner
Referring to the Trump administration's peace plan, U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman explained, "There ought to be a means to get at least closer to a point where the Palestinians have more control over their lives in a way that doesn't jeopardize Israel's security." The plan "will hopefully, if nothing else, provoke a serious discussion that hasn't taken place in a long time."
Friedman has sought out business leaders and other nonpolitical figures in the West Bank to understand ways to improve Palestinians' quality of life. "I'm happy to meet with Palestinians, even if they don't agree with me or like me. Their thoughts and perspectives make me smarter, thoughtful, and more creative."
He views the U.S. embassy move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem last year as a shift in the U.S. message, that "this is not a conflict where the Palestinians have a veto on progress. At some point...things will move forward with or without them. The U.S. is not going to ignore reality. We are not going to indulge the Palestinians in the fantasy that somehow Jerusalem can be disconnected from Israel or the Jewish people....The idea that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel is a fact...a reality, not a negotiation point," though its boundaries are negotiable.
"The idea that one could approach this conflict with a sense of neutrality...is pretty insulting to Israel. The reason Israel holds the territory it holds today, in simple terms, is because it kept getting attacked, wars kept getting fought, and Israel kept winning. The reason Israel hasn't given back all of it, and they gave back a lot, is because to give it away would be an existential risk to the country." Friedman said any other way of looking at the conflict is trying to make peace based on an "alternative reality."
"The biggest danger in this part of the world is to be consumed with wishful thinking. You should see a better future down the road, but you can't wish your way to that. You have to protect yourself along the way."
As humans, one of the hardest things to do is give up something we love. When something is held so close to the heart, our strongest instinct tells us to guard it with all of our might.
The State of Israel may be relatively young, but Zionism is not nearly as new. The yearning to live in our ancestral homeland has existed for thousands of years. We’ve known, since the beginning of time, that this land was something we had to protect for eternity.
Today, despite our love for Israel, we understand that others will stop at nothing to cause it harm. This is why, on Israel’s end, there have been countless attempts to ease tensions with the Palestinians through land partitions and peace offers, all of which were rejected by the Palestinian leadership.
In 2005, in an attempt at making peace with the Palestinians, Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza. This decision divided the country; many believed that this was a huge mistake, while others argued that it was worth the risk.
Gush Katif was a Jewish neighborhood established in the Gaza Strip in 1970. Unfortunately, the situation there intensified during the year 2000, when the Second Intifada broke out. During this time, attacks on Israelis escalated dramatically.
Five years later, residents were notified that Israel would be withdrawing from Gaza in order to achieve peace, and to empower the Palestinian people. If this plan proved to be successful, it would have served as confirmation that the Palestinians were ready for their own state.
As part of the disengagement, the Israeli Army forcibly removed around 8,000 Jewish residents from Gush Katif, displacing hundreds of families. All of the private property within the settlement was completely destroyed, the settlement was dismantled, and the entire Gaza Strip was handed over to the Palestinians.
What Abbas's Fatah faction and Hamas -- both of which glorify terrorism against innocent Israelis and call for international sanctions against the state of Israel -- keep neatly under wraps, however, is the frequency with which they themselves have turned to Israel for medical care, often for cancer treatments.
In 2016, for instance, Abbas' Qatar-based brother, Abu Lawi, was treated for cancer at the Assuta Medical Center in Tel Aviv, and not for the first time.
In 2015, Abbas' brother-in-law received life-saving heart surgery at that same hospital. Abbas' wife, Amina, underwent surgery there in 2014.
In 2014, as well, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh's mother-in-law was treated for cancer at Jerusalem's Augusta Victoria Hospital. That same year, Haniyeh's daughter was treated at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv. She was among the more than 1,000 residents of Gaza and the Palestinian Authority treated at Ichilov every year.
Also in 2014, Hamas spokesman Moussa Abu Marzouk's sister was treated for cancer at an Israeli hospital.
In 2013, Haniyeh's baby granddaughter was treated at the Schneider Children's Medical Center in Petah Tikvah.
Most recently, in May 2018, Abbas himself was treated by an Israeli specialist, who joined a foreign team of doctors caring for him in the intensive care unit at a hospital in Ramallah, in the Palestinian Authority.
Israel proudly joined its counterparts around the globe on February 4 to mark World Cancer Day, initiated by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC). It is time for the world to cease and desist in its efforts to demonize Israel, and to admit to its use of and reliance on the innovation and technology for healing that Israel -- turning no one away -- always graciously provides. It would be a welcome change if its adversaries were half as ethical.
If you want to learn what a "peaceful" Middle East will look like, it makes sense to look at the 40th anniversary of Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty being marked this month.
If peace is the absence of war, then the treaty is an unqualified success. From four major wars in 30 years to zero wars in 40 years is an impressive achievement.
But if peace means friendship and normal relations, this has been a failure. Anti-Israel and antisemitic articles are still commonplace in Egypt/
To see which side really wants peace, look at how each country is marking the occasion.
In Israel this week, there was a major conference at Hebrew University to mark the event:
There were many major speakers, including Israel's President Rivlin.
No Egyptians spoke..
Today, there is another major conference by INSS marking the anniversary, with many well-known speakers as well.
In this case, there are two Egyptians speaking: One is the head of the Egyptian-American Business Association and the other is an Egyptian doctoral student who studies in Tel Aviv.
No Egyptian government officials are attending.
On the Egyptian side, I cannot find any official or unofficial commemoration of the event. To Egyptians, 40 years of peace is not something to celebrate.
In fact, the Cairo24 news site is covering today's INSS conference - and the article is meant to shame the two Egyptian citizens who are speaking.
It is obvious which side actually embraces and celebrates peace and which side looked upon it as a tactical move, but not something that should actually be used to improve relations between the two countries
This is probably the best that Israel can ever hope to achieve with other Arab countries. Peace is wonderful, but realize that the Arabs will never truly accept Jews as equals in the Middle East.
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An Israeli who thinks about Israel's friends in Europe would probably not rank Sweden high on the list. For many years, Sweden has been making headlines here mainly following harsh anti-Israel statements by members of its government, especially Foreign Minister Margot Wallström.
But they do not tell the whole story.
Since January, Margot Wallström and her party have led a narrow minority government that has to rely on two central parties who are not satisfied with her anti-Israel positions. In the meantime, there are a few prominent pro-Israel politicians and others who demand fair treatment for Israel. The first step in this direction is a bill to transfer the Swedish embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Similar proposals have been made by the Swedish Democratic Party and the Christian Democratic Party, a relatively small right-wing party, but they are no longer the only ones in the picture. The latest proposal has attracted much interest in the parliament, which has become much pro-Israeli since the last elections and the passage of the proposal seems to be becoming a real possibility. With support from the extreme right and the center, it is hard to believe that the moderate party, the largest party of the Swedish Right and certainly pro-Israeli, will remain outside and align itself with the socialist left.
The four parties expected to support the resolution - the moderates, the democratic Swedes, the Christian Democrats and the Liberals - together represent 174 seats out of 349; That is exactly one less than most. The leftist parties are expected to object, but the centrist party (31 seats) has not yet been heard from.
Whether the proposal passes or not, and even if the embassy moves or not (in any case the proposal speaks of a future transfer and probably will not affect anything in the meantime, as long as Wallsterm is in the Foreign Minister), these numbers tell an important story: The Swedish parliament is becoming much more friendly to Israel.
Wow!
It looked like Western European countries would be the last surefire supporters of the automatic Palestinian veto on anything Israel deserves, as even Arab countries have been resigning themselves to living with and possibly cooperating with Israel.
To see the most obvious example of a country antipathetic to Israel changing like this is pretty remarkable.
To be sure, this is going to be a slow process. At DigiTell, I'm listening to a speaker from Sweden who showed antisemitic synagogue graffiti that the police call anti-Zionist.
(h/t Yoel)
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This week I am attending a fantastic gathering of pro-Israel advocates in Israel known as #Digitell19. On Wednesday we went on a tour of the Sodastream factory in the Negev.
Sodastream is very impressive in how well it is managed and it has been growing exceptionally fast - a 30% increase in sales in the past year alone. But nothing is more impressive than how seriously it takes hiring people from all walks of life. It is a diverse and happy work environment.
I hope to make a fuller video in due time, but this one video shows how all kinds of people are working together. (Since we arrived at the time of second shift, chances are the 100 Palestinians who work at this factory - coming in a bus from Jerusalem that Sodastream set up for them - are not in this video.)
Anti-Israel activists love to pretend that they support "peace." But the Jewish Voice for Peace, for example, does not want you to buy Sodastream products and help actual peace between Jews (of all colors) and Arabs.
Who really wants peace? The people who work to ensure that Jews and Arabs can work and interact with each other, every day. The ones who want Arabs to boycott Jewish businesses, the ones who sabotage sports programs between Israelis and Palestinians, the ones who scream about the dangers of "normalization" - those are the ones who don't want peace.
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For the first time, the Trump administration referred to the Golan Heights on Wednesday as “Israeli-controlled” and ceased to refer to the West Bank as “occupied” in the State Department’s annual report on human rights around the world.
While last year’s report marked a departure from years of American foreign policy by no longer calling the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights “occupied” in the section title, this year’s report went two small steps further.
“Authorities subjected non-Israeli citizens in Jerusalem and the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights to the same laws as Israeli citizens,” this year’s text says. In previous iterations of the same report, the Golan Heights was described in the text as “Israeli-occupied.”
This year’s report also refrains from labeling any of the territories as “occupied.” In last year’s document, the US government took a position in referring to these areas. “Authorities prosecuted Palestinian non-citizens held in Israel under Israeli military law, a practice Israel has applied since the 1967 occupation,” read one passage. The new report, by contrast, uses the term “occupied” just twice — and only when quoting outside organizations, such as the Israeli nonprofit Breaking the Silence and the United Nations.
Despite the change in language vis-a-vis the Golan Heights, an administration official on Wednesday denied that it amounted to American recognition of Israeli sovereignty over that area.
“Our policy on Golan has not changed,” a spokesperson for the US embassy in Jerusalem told The Times of Israel. (h/t Elder of Lobby)
Lost in the mists of the last decade is Barack Obama’s mainstreaming of anti-Semitism into Democratic and American politics. To be clear, even after two terms as president, Obama remains such a cipher that saying he mainstreamed anti-Semitism is hardly the same thing as saying he’s personally anti-Semitic. It is fair, however, to say he has consorted with Israel critics with dubious motivations and people with anti-Israel terror connections to such a degree that the most charitable thing one can say is that there’s a possibility his embrace of these people was just a way to cynically advance his political career and foreign policy priorities, priorities that were just coincidentally threatening to Israel’s security.
In fact, when Obama ran for president in 2008, people spoke openly of his “Jewish problem.” It wasn’t strictly a partisan concern, either: Hillary Clinton raised the issue in the Democratic Party. Obama did a poor job of persuading people that this wasn’t a legitimate concern.
In 2008, Jimmy Carter met with the leader of terror group Hamas, a move condemned by Condoleezza Rice, who then was secretary of state. Obama declined to condemn the meeting because “he’s a private citizen. It’s not my place to discuss who he shouldn’t meet with.” This is a remarkably calm reaction to Carter’s blatant Logan Act violation, a crime the Obama administration would later deem so serious it was used to justify investigating and surveilling the Trump campaign.
Obama reversed course a few days later, after it became obvious that refusing to condemn the meeting was damaging his campaign. As the Los Angeles Times observed then, when the condemnation finally came it was “as he tried to reassure Jewish voters that his candidacy isn’t a threat to them or U.S. support for Israel.”
Of course, there were plenty more reasons to think Obama didn’t really think that the murderous and anti-Semitic Hamas was all that bad. When Hamas came out and officially endorsed his candidacy in 2008, Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, said the endorsement was “flattering.” This is not an exaggeration. “We all agree that John Kennedy was a great president, and it’s flattering when anybody says that Barack Obama would follow in his footsteps,” Axelrod said.
Much has been made of Obama’s friendship with scholar Rashid Khalidi, who has been accused of working as an advisor for the PLO terror group (Khalidi claims he was only helping the press understand the group). Obama sat on the board of a foundation that gave $40,000 to a local charity Khalidi’s wife headed.
In 2008, the Los Angeles Times notoriously reported on a videotape of Obama speaking at an event in Khalidi’s honor, where one of the speakers compared Zionists to Osama bin Laden. While the still unreleased video of this event attracted the most attention, other aspects of the Los Angeles Times’s lengthy report on Obama’s close ties to Palestinian activists are noteworthy. For instance, in the same report Khalidi heavily implies that any pro-Israel sentiment Obama expresses while running for president was “a stance that Khalidi calls a requirement to win a national election in the U.S.” (h/t MtTB)
A critical element of the trans-Atlantic Corbynista project is to knock Jews down a few pegs in the progressive victim hierarchy. Democratic House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn’s perverse defense of Omar–that her experience as a refugee is “more personal” than that of the children of Holocaust survivors, and that this somehow legitimates her spreading anti-Semitic conspiracy theories–was a clumsy effort at privileging Muslims over Jews. Omar and her defenders seek, in the words of New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, “a left-of-center politics that remembers the Holocaust as one great historical tragedy among many.” To achieve this reordering, Corbynism exploits fringe Jewish activists and organizations to deflect charges of anti-Semitism. As the most high-profile Jewish politician in America, Sanders has disgracefully assumed this role, alleging that Omar is being slandered for “legitimate criticism” of Israel, when it is her imputation of dual loyalties that is at issue. In so doing, Sanders lends credence to the view, increasingly prevalent among progressives on both sides of the Atlantic, that left-wing anti-Semitism does not really exist and that accusations of it are really just cynical attempts to forestall socialism and smear people of color. No other form of bigotry–whether anti-black racism, homophobia, misogyny, ableism–is subject to such exacting standards of proof and semiotic scrutiny by left wingers.
Obsession with Israel—the decision to make this tiny country, and America’s relationship with it, the battlefield upon which they will try to wrest control of the Democratic Party away from its establishment leadership—is a window into the worldview of the American Corbynista left. Antagonism toward the only liberal democracy in the Middle East is like an acid test for wanting to reduce American global power and influence. Asked to describe Sanders’ worldview, his chief foreign policy advisor Matt Duss, a career anti-Israel polemicist, says that the United States should be “a kind of global facilitator.” Arsenal of democracy and leader of the free world are just so passé.
For these people, condemning the U.S.-Israel alliance is a way of condemning something much larger than a country 10,000 miles away. Attacking the Jewish state is the means by which they express their broader antipathy toward American exceptionalism. America and Israel are exceptional nations, the only two founded upon an idea. They are linked by shared values and, yes, religious affinity. When Americans look at the Middle East, they naturally see Israel as the polity with which they have the most in common. American support for Israel, then, is not explained by “Benjamins,” as Ilhan Omar conspiratorially tweets, but by a deep and widely held conviction that the two nations share a providential fate. This is something which the American Corbynistas, like their British cousins, deeply resent, and thus try to undermine with their sneers and tweets and purges.
Kasim Hafeez, a British Muslim and former Islamist who is now a proud Zionist who stands with Israel, will land in Israel this week for #DigiTell, a gathering of 100 pro-Israel bloggers and social network managers from all over the world.
“We are bringing together those who have fought this year against anti-Israel and antisemitic hate-writers and those promoting the boycott campaign against Israel,” said Ido Daniel, senior director for digital strategy for the Strategic Affairs Ministry, the ministry running the #DigiTell seminar. “We are opening our doors to the influencers and social media activists for Israel who are fighting our fight every day.”
Hafeez is among the most interesting and unlikely participants. He grew up being exposed to radical anti-Western, antisemitic and anti-Israel ideas on what he describes as a daily basis. During his teenage years, Hafeez embraced a radical Islamist ideology and became very active in the anti-Israel movement.
But in the early 2000s, he came across Alan Dershowitz’s book, The Case for Israel.
“I was so convinced that I was right, I bought the book and read it to essentially read the ‘Zionist lies' for myself,’” he told The Jerusalem Post. “I was presented with ideas and arguments I had never come across in all my years of being anti-Israel. While I did dismiss them all as lies, I did however want to reassure myself that I was right.”
So, he read a few more books.
“I began to see a lack of factual argument on the anti-Israel side, a lot of rhetoric and emotion but little fact,” he said.
Jewish stars are everywhere in
Pittsburgh. At first, you notice only one or two, a bit limp by now from the winter
weather. But soon you are seeing them everywhere. Crocheted or made of sparkly
paper they hang from every available surface.
A scrawny tree in the parking
lot of the Squirrel Hill Giant Eagle supermarket on Murray Avenue, for
instance, was decorated with the Jewish stars like a Christmas tree, giving me
a strange sense of cognitive dissonance. At the same time, I was moved to bits
to see this neighborhood-wide expression of support for its Jewish population.
The entire neighborhood was in mourning for the Squirrel Hill of once upon a time,
before a monster shot dead 11 Jews in a synagogue.
My impression is of a city
still reeling from the impact. Everyone has a story. My mother told me about
her recent hospitalization. How the patient in the room next to her had a heavy
police presence outside his door. She asked who was in there, no one would say.
She remains convinced it was Bowers.
My mother’s helper and friend
Linda told me what that day was like. She happened to be driving in Squirrel
Hill at the time. But suddenly there were road blocks everywhere. Drivers were
diverted from a several block radius around Tree of Life. Rumors were flying. People
were scared (which is what happens when something is going on and there is very
little or sketchy information). Linda was scared. Everyone was, that day.
Today, signs reading Stronger Than Hate are in every
storefront on Murray Avenue, and hanging in many windows on many homes. The
signs are thickest the closer one gets to the vicinity of Tree of Life. A
friend brought me a t-shirt with the slogan along with a photo of the victims.
He was sure I’d have a million of those t-shirts. But actually, it is the first
I’ve received.
Stronger Than Hate says something important about Pittsburgh, about
resilience. Pittsburgh isn’t ashamed of what happened. It repudiates what
happened. Squirrel Hill is saying loud and clear, “We won’t let this shooter
change our way of life or our neighborhood.”
And yet, other than this stated
resolve, I fail to see practical steps to prevent antisemitism from taking another
crack at Pittsburgh, or indeed take hold of America. I see a failure to prevent
a second Bowers, God forbid, from repeating the deeds of the first. People don’t
want guns in the synagogue. Understandably so. But what is the alternative?
What plan do they have going forward?
Meantime, my Facebook feed is
filled with allegations of Ilhan Omar’s antisemitism. There is article after
article on the Democratic Party’s failure to name and shame Omar in their
watered-down resolution that lumps antisemitism together with every other kind
of hate and bigotry. But I heard about none of this on any news stations during
my two-week stay in Pittsburgh. Not locally and not at the national level. The
Jews, moreover, except for the orthodox, remain staunch Democrats, who look the
other way at the institutionalized antisemitism in their own party.
Like Nancy Pelosi, and a
million other talking heads, they make excuses: Omar is inexperienced. She grew
up in Somalia, so what can we expect? Criticism of Israel is not antisemitism.
Lobbying needs a closer look. AIPAC needs a closer look. The tropes, they say,
are based on reality. Jews are powerful and wield too much influence.
This is shocking to me, well-versed
as I am in the history of the Jews, and what these excuses and allegations have
always meant in past times.
When I show evidence, in a Pittsburgh discussion group on Facebook, of an Imam
in Pittsburgh who spouts antisemitic rhetoric from the pulpit, they call me a
troublemaker and remind me that Muslims raised money for the victims of Tree of
Life. When I explain my intent is only to disseminate information, they say, “That’s
okay then. But be aware that others are attempting to cause trouble. We don’t
want any trouble.”
To be frank, the attempt to
stifle unpleasant truths frightens me. I fear for Pittsburgh in spite of its
strength and resilience. I am scared because Pittsburgh will not look at what I
see for fear of mirroring Bowers’ hatred and bigotry. They will not look at the
fact that antisemitism is rampant in America, distributed as it is in
coursework in universities, shouted from pulpits in mosques, and veiled as polite
dinner discussion at political fundraisers.
It is not just the crazy white
supremacists like Bowers. He is, rather, the trickle-down effect of the antisemitism
masquerading as anti-Israelism that pervades the entire country. Bowers is the
result of the propaganda that says that the Jews stole another people’s land, that
Judea and Samaria are really the West Bank of the Jordan River where Jews have
no right to build homes, and that American Jews have divided loyalties.
An acquaintance mourned the
fact that his daughter had been brainwashed on a college campus, poisoned
against Israel. “How do you get them back?” he asked.
“Birthright?”
But she’d already done a
Birthright trip. She’d been fine back then. But since that time, she’s been to
college. Everything she knew before she entered the ivory halls of academia was
gone, all of it replaced by anti-Israel propaganda and hatred.
On the right, in the orthodox world, they think Donald Trump is the savior of
the Jews. They think he will save Israel. But rumor has it that Jerusalem is to
be divided in the soon-to-be-aired peace plan. And in this disturbing
video, we learn that eight years after 9/11, the government body tasked with
monitoring sermons in mosques in the United States, still had not a single
employee who understands Arabic.
The Tree of Life massacre has left its mark
on Pittsburgh. The stars are everywhere. So are the signs with their message of
strength. This tells me that Pittsburghers understand that antisemitism is
real. I worry, on the other hand, about the communal sense of invincibility embodied by the message of Stronger Than Hate. A feeling of invincibility is never a good thing where the Jews are concerned.
Will such city-wide declarations
of strength take pride of place over identifying and eradicating hatred? Will Stronger Than Hate become just another
jingoistic saying along the lines of Never
Again? Or will Americans at large learn to shove aside group-think and grow
the courage to see and confront what is really out there: the very real threats
to the Jews who live in the heart of Squirrel Hill and in America?
h/t Ardie Geldman for bringing the video
to my attention.
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Tel Aviv, March 13 - A conceptual framework for the resolution of the century-old conflict between Jews and Arabs over sovereignty in the Holy Land once commanded majority support among Israelis, but developments of the last fifteen years have seen that support slip to such a degree that its slipperiness has led engineers to repurpose the framework as a substance that reduces harmful friction between two abutting objects.
In the mid-1990's the Two-State Solution concept gained serious traction among the Israeli public, with a consistent majority favoring it as a permanent settlement of the territorial, religious, and political conflict with the Palestinian Arabs. Significant support persisted even through the Second Intifada in the first half of the previous decade that claimed the lives of more than a thousand Israelis, albeit at a diminished level. Continued conflict, however, coupled with increasing Palestinian intransigence and refusal to conduct good-faith negotiations in the intervening years, drove Israeli acceptance of the two-state paradigm to a level so low that mainstream Israeli political parties and politicians who endorse it outright thereby doom themselves to electoral irrelevance. Scientists and engineers from the research and development divisions of several innovative chemical companies have now found a way to harness the Two-State Solution's repellent ability as a cost-effective lubricant for industrial, commercial, and household use.
"It's uncanny," remarked William Delta, 40, of Haifa Chemicals Research Division. "When 2SS first came out, everyone expected a much greater degree of adherence. And at first, that's exactly what we all observed. Evidently the properties of the substance change over time, such that now, it has a repellent effect that has myriad uses. It's twice as effective as standard motor oil, for instance, and since it was produced in huge quantities back in the 1990's and stored away for whenever it might become relevant - which turned out to be never - supply is plentiful and costs should remain low."
Un Gyuen of Ho Chi Minh University noted that preliminary test indicate the Two-State Solution retains its tractionless properties in environments outside the Middle East. "Our lab experimentation looked at applying 2SS to India-Pakistan friction and found similar results to Israel-Palestine," he attested. "What we still have to figure out is whether the lack of traction is a permanent characteristic of the Two-State Solution or whether it might revert to its previous form. The answer to that question will determine under what circumstances 2SS can be used safely."
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With Israel and a good part of the Sunni Arab world today sharing both common threats and opportunities, the term “Israeli-Arab” conflict is no longer applicable, former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon said on Monday.
“Today – at the present moment, in the meantime – there is not an Israeli-Arab conflict: There is an Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” Ya’alon said at a conference at the Hebrew University’s Truman Institute marking the 40th anniversary later this month of the signing of the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement.
And none of that would have been possible, added Ya’alon – number three on the Blue and White Party list – had Egypt not removed itself from the circle of countries at war with Israel 40 years ago.
“When we look back at the agreement, there has not been a threat of conventional war against Israel since it was signed,” said the former IDF chief of staff. “No Arab leader or Arab army dared to challenge Israel as army-against-army, and the Yom Kippur War was the last war the Arab leaders initiated against us.”
He said that the signing of the peace agreement essentially put an end to the nationalist pan-Arabist threat to Israel, noting that a month before the agreement was signed on March 26, 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini came to power in Iran heralding the Islamic revolution in that country.
And that revolution, Ya’alon said, gave support and a strong back wind to all the variations of Islamic radicalism – be it Sunni or Shia – that the region has witnessed since: from an increase in the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, to the rise of Hamas and al-Qaeda. The vacuum created by the end of the nationalist pan-Arabist ideology was filled by a radical Islamist ideology, he said.
If any man, woman or child among these victims of ethnic cleansing returned to their home 19 years later, they'd be automatically likened to Nazis by @KenRoth & @saribashi who call every Jew in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem "war criminals." https://t.co/41m4KW94Dy
Two Israelis killed in the March 10 crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 have been identified as Avraham Matzliah of Ma’ale Adumim and Shimon Re’em of Zichron Ya’akov.
Matzliah, 49, was identified on Monday as a victim of the plane crash on Sunday near Addis Ababa. He was described as a loving father to his twin daughters, who both serve in the Israel Defense Forces, and a man with a good sense of humor. His high-tech work led him to travel often between Israel and Africa. He had apparently been on a trip to close a business deal for the Radwin telecom firm.
Shimon Re’em, 55, the father of five children, was a 23-year retired veteran of Israel’s Shin Bet security services who was working for Israel’s Shafran security consulting company at the time of his death.
Channel 13 news said Re’em once headed up security for two Israeli embassies in South America and then served as head of regional security for El Al Airlines.
According to reports, authorities are having a difficult time locating bodies of the victims, both because some have been scattered and others were burnt in the crash.
The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas has made no secret of its desire to see Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas stand trial for betraying the Palestinians for his alleged "collaboration" with Israel and sanctions against the Gaza Strip.
Last year, a senior Hamas official, Ahmed Bahr, called for bringing Abbas to trial for "great treason" -- a crime punishable by death. Abbas is not only refusing to make peace with Hamas, he wants it to hand over its weapons to his government, Bahr said. "For that, he should be brought before a popular and constitutional court on charges of great treason."
Earlier, another Hamas official, Marwan Abu Ras, called for Abbas to be executed by hanging in accordance with Islamic sharia law. Abu Ras, accusing Abbas of "collaboration" with Israel, claimed that the Palestinian president was depriving the Gaza Strip of international financial aid. "Abbas is the biggest traitor the Palestinian cause has known," he said. "He should be put on trial in the center of the Gaza Strip and sentenced to death by hanging in line with sharia law."
Hamas's leaders are angry with Abbas: they say that he recognizes Israel's right to exist and is even prepared to accept US President Donald Trump's upcoming plan for peace in the Middle East, known as the "Deal of the Century."
They also say they want to hang Abbas because his security forces conduct security coordination with Israel in the West Bank and because of the economic sanctions he imposed on the Gaza Strip. The sanctions include cutting salaries to thousands of Palestinian employees there.
Above all, Hamas's leaders say the organization does not -- and will not -- recognize Israel's right to exist.
The 2020 Presidential elections are still well over a year away, but the field of candidates on the Democratic side rivals the size of the field of Republican candidates running for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
And one of the leading candidates is Bernie Sanders.
He has the name recognition.
He has the war chest.
He has the experience that comes from campaigning in 2016.
For our purposes, the question is where does Sanders stand on the issue of Israel?
This question is all the more important in light of the growing strength of the progressive Democrats, especially in light of their support of the antisemitic statements made by Ilhan Omar and the way those statements were defended by the Democratic party -- including by Bernie Sanders himself. When it comes to his support of Israel, does Sanders face a conflict between his being Jewish and being a progressive?
Can Sanders Get The Jewish Vote?
When Joe Lieberman ran as Al Gore's running mate in the 2004 presidential election, it was big news -- and Jews were enthusiastic about Gore's choice for his vice-presidential running mate.
The Jewish Vermonters who know Sanders say his reluctance to make his Judaism central to his public persona is a function of his preference for the economic over the esoteric, as well as a libertarianism typical both of the state and its Jewish community – one that embraces expressions of faith and the lack of them.
That may go towards understanding that while Sanders' first wife was Jewish, his current spouse, Jane O'Meara, is not.
The article goes on to suggest some reasons for his failure to capture the Jewish vote:
o Sanders is not actively engaged in Jewish life. o He has also been critical of Israel o He appears more committed to liberal concepts of social justice than to any specific Jewish ideals of equality.
The Washington Post offers 2 other possible reasons for Sanders' problem with the Jewish vote:
o While Sanders has a strong following among young Jews, young Americans are not as reliable in coming to the polls. (That may have been true then; don't expect that to continue.) o This is a Clinton-specific problem because Hillary had a history of nurturing close ties with the Jewish community and actively showcasing her support for Israel, in contrast to Sanders
Part of the problem is that just as Sanders does not make his Judaism public, he does not go out of his way to make Israel part of his public persona either.
And he is not comfortable when he is pinned down on either his Judaism or his Zionism.
Ezra Klein: Do you view yourself as a Zionist? Bernie Sanders: A Zionist? What does that mean? Want to define what the word is? Do I think Israel has the right to exist, yeah, I do. Do I believe that the United States should be playing an even-handed role in terms of its dealings with the Palestinian community in Israel? Absolutely I do.
He sidestepped the issue and turned a question on his personal belief into a question on policy. Interestingly, AlterNet claimed in an October 2015 article that Sanders had never appeared at AIPAC, had never appeared at a pro-Israel rally and had not traveled to the Middle East in decades.
There is another occasion, one where Sanders sidestepped a personal question about his Jewishness, again diverting it to a question of Israel policy. At an event at the Apollo Theater in New York in April 2016, Sanders faced an antisemitic question:
“As you know,” opened the questioner, “the Zionist Jews–and I don’t mean to offend anybody–they run the Federal Reserve, they run Wall Street, they run every campaign.” As this unfolded, Sanders began wagging his finger in dissent, and interjected to deem “Zionist Jews” a “bad phrase.” His interlocutor, pressed to articulate a question, concluded by saying, “What is your affiliation to your Jewish community? That’s all I’m asking.”
“No, no, no, that’s not what you’re asking,” Sanders quickly replied, in a nod to the question’s underlying prejudice. “I am proud to be Jewish,” he declared, to cheers from the audience. But then Sanders did something odd. Rather than using the question as a teaching moment to address and rebuke its anti-Semitic underpinnings, Sanders instead immediately pivoted to his stump speech on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Talking about Zionism and Israel,” he said, “I am a strong defender of Israel, but I also believe that we have got to pay attention to the needs of the Palestinian people.” He never challenged the actual contents of the question, let alone labeled it anti-Semitic. [emphasis added]
There was, however, one particular time that Sanders' feelings about Israel were forced into the spotlight.
"Senator, you have dual citizenship with Israel," Rehm began, before Sanders interrupted.
"Well, no I do not have dual citizenship with Israel. I'm an American. I don't know where that question came from. I am an American citizen, and I have visited Israel on a couple of occasions. No, I'm an American citizen, period," Sanders said.
"I understand from a list we have gotten that you were on that list, forgive me if that is..." Rehm said.
As the site Jewish Journal noted, the list Rehm may be referring to seems to be one that has circulated on the Internet for several years concerning U.S. government officials and members of Congress who allegedly hold dual citizenship with Israel.
"That's some of the nonsense that goes on in the Internet. But that is absolutely not true," Sanders said.
Rehm then asked Sanders if there are other members of Congress who do have dual citizenship, or if it is "part of the fable."
Sanders said he did not know but that he was offended by her comment.
"I honestly don't know but I have read that on the Internet. You know, my dad came to this country from Poland at the age of 17 without a nickel in his pocket. He loved this country. I am, you know, I got offended a little bit by that comment, and I know it's been on the Internet. I am obviously an American citizen, and I do not have any dual citizenship," he said.
Here is a recording of that part of the interview.
How important was it to deny any impression that Bernie Sanders is a dual citizen?
The idea that someone might think Sanders has dual citizenship was enough of a concern to someone that this page, denying dual citizenship, was created. According to The Wayback Machine, their earliest copy of this page is from August 20, about 2 months after the interview with Rehm on June 10.
From the recording, it is clear that Sanders was upset by the implication of dual citizenship.
Now, fast forward to 2019 and see how Sanders has come out in defense of Ilhan Omar, who now makes the "dual loyalty" accusation against Jews and supporters of Israel. Sanders uses the same tactic as Omar's other defenders, sidestepping the issue of Omar's antisemitism by claiming opponents were trying to stop her from tweeting criticism of Israel: "We must not, however, equate anti-Semitism with legitimate criticism of the right-wing, Netanyahu government in Israel."
Does Sanders Have A Progressive Problem?
But just as Sanders has a problem in attracting the Jewish vote, he has an even bigger with his progressive base. They have some questions about his overall progressive creds -- but they have many more questions about Sanders progressive creds on Israel, especially after Operation Protective Edge in 2014.
o In 1999, Sanders voted for a resolution supporting the 1999 US air campaign in Yugoslavia. A Nation editorial asked him to reconsider and a member of his staff, Jeremy Brecher wrote a public resignation letter: "Is there a moral limit to the military violence you are willing to participate in or support? Where does that limit lie?"
o He voted for the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Force in Afghanistan, though he did oppose Obama's 2009 troop surge there.
o Though he opposed both the Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq and had "reservations" about the 2011 war in Libya, Sanders came out in support of drone strikes on suspected terrorists "in a very selective way."
Vox summed it up:
On this issue, then, Sanders isn't far off from your average liberal Democrat. He's generally skeptical of the use of force, but willing to endorse it in very narrow and limited cases where he thinks it could save lives or advance American interests. That doesn't make him a warmonger who is "to the right of many liberal Democrats," but it is a notable divergence in his reputation as a champion of the left and challenger of the Washington status quo.
Sanders' election to the Senate doesn't represent a radical departure from politics as usual. He may have a portrait of Eugene Debs hanging in his office, but his politics have little in common with that great American socialist.
And then we have the progressive pushback on Sanders' stand on Israel (emphases added):
Progressives have wanted Sanders to be more forceful in condemning Israel. Before Congress’ August recess, the Senate passed a resolution unanimously reaffirming its support for Israel. Sanders did not object, but he also did not sign on as a co-sponsor. As the Daily Beast writes, Israel puts left-wing politicians like Sanders in a tough spot because their base can be critical of Israel, but not taking a pro-Israel position is politically risky.
Sanders's criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu and his support for the two-state solution and Iran nuclear deal are all firmly in the liberal mainstream. On the left, the discussion has moved on to whether people and institutions should boycott and divest from Israel so long as it occupies Palestinian land.
Since that town hall [in 2014], questions about Palestine have dogged him...There is some evidence that these criticisms have started to make an impact on Sanders' approach. In the last month, his campaign finally started to roll out foreign policy platforms on his website. The platform repeats much of the same U.S. foreign policy mantras about the need for a two-state solution and Israel's right to defend itself, but also condemns “disproportionate” violence by Israel and killings of civilians by the Israeli army. Most notably, the platform calls for Israel to end its blockade of Gaza, a topic all but forgotten in U.S. discourse.
“As the main arm of the pro-Israel lobby in the United States, AIPAC has sworn to promote the racist, militaristic, and anti-democratic policies of the most right-wing government in Israel's history,” states a petition, which was created by AlterNet senior editor Max Blumenthal and has garnered 4,000 signatures in just four days. “Its conference this year will feature Islamophobes, anti-immigrant activists, and religious extremists.”
During last night’s heated Democratic debate in Brooklyn, Senator Bernie Sanders came out firing on Israel. A candidate who initially sought, seemingly at all costs, to avoid foreign policy altogether finally spoke out on the most politically charged issue of global affairs in Washington—the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—and he took it by the horns.
That’s why it was so disappointing that, only a few hours earlier, the Sanders campaign suspended one of its young staffers, Simone Zimmerman, who served only briefly as its Jewish outreach coordinator. Zimmerman’s sin was to call the right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an “a**hole,” adding “F**k you, Bibi,” using his nickname, for good measure, in a Facebook post last winter, when she was all of 24 years old.
Sanders supports a two-state solution, one for Israelis and another for Palestinians. While he can be critical of Israel, he does not refrain from criticizing Palestinians as well...That's a stark contrast to the socialist left, which generally sees Israel as a racist, colonial aggressor. Increasingly, leftists advocate a one-state solution to the conflict.
James Zogby, the head of the Arab American Institute and a longtime party activist, read aloud a proposed amendment in an unmistakably Midwest accent. Zogby wanted to add language that would explicitly mention Israel’s occupation and strip out the platform’s condemnation of the movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel (BDS)...Zogby mentioned several times that the proposed changes had come from Bernie Sanders himself. Sanders began his campaign avoiding foreign policy altogether, but eventually became more outspoken on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, taking Netanyahu to task not only for the Israeli settlement project and continued occupation but also for Israel’s conduct of the 2014 war against the besieged Gaza Strip.
“While we do not support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, we remain resolved to our constitutional oath to defend the right of every American to express their views peacefully without fear of or actual punishment by the government,” the senators continued.
In his memoir "Outsider in The House", Sanders writes about his years as mayor in Burlington, Vermont, “[H]ow many cities of 40,000 have a foreign policy? Well we did...I saw no magic line separating local, state, national and international issues.” But what was a novelty as mayor became expected when Sanders declared his intention to go to Washington. Caught between being pro-Israel and critical, he tries to walk a fine line, being critical of Israel while adopting a pro-Israel stance and standing up for Palestinian Arab rights. That position puts him to the right of his base, which accuses Israel of Apartheid, racism and occupation.
That position does not always go over well. Here is an excerpt from a town hall meeting in August 2014, when Sanders was heckled for supporting Israel.
Once he regains control of the discussion, Sanders sidesteps the issue by changing the topic of the discussion to ISIS, just as he avoids answering the question as to whether he is a Zionist.
In recent years, the argument has become even fiercer as discussion has moved from general questions of Israel's right to exist, to the pointed debate over BDS and the occupation. Again, Sanders takes the middle road -- not supporting the BDS movement outright, but still opposing anti-BDS legislation.
But not surprisingly, his criticism of Israel does become sharper, as AlterNet claimed above in the quote from October 2015.
The most recent violence in Gaza represented a particularly ugly and violent time in the dispute. Senator Sanders strongly condemned indiscriminate rocket fire by Hamas into Israeli territory, and Hamas’ use of civilian neighborhoods to launch those attacks. However, while recognizing that Israel has the right to defend itself, he also strongly condemned Israeli attacks on Gaza as disproportionate and the widespread killing of civilians as completely unacceptable.
Peace will also mean ending the economic blockade of Gaza. And it will mean a sustainable and equitable distribution of precious water resources so that Israel and Palestine can both thrive as neighbors.
Sanders: I think it is fair to say that the level of [Israeli] attacks against civilian areas…and I do know that the Palestinians, some of them, were using civilian areas to launch missiles. Makes it very difficult. But I think most international observers would say that the attacks against Gaza were indiscriminate and that a lot of innocent people were killed who should not have been killed. Look, we are living, for better or worse, in a world of high technology, whether it’s drones out there that could, you know, take your nose off, and Israel has that technology. And I think there is a general belief that, with that technology, they could have been more discriminate in terms of taking out weapons that were threatening them.
I’m just telling you that I happen to believe … anybody help me out here, because I don’t remember the figures, but my recollection is over 10,000 innocent people were killed in Gaza. Does that sound right?
Daily News: I think it’s probably high, but we can look at that.
Sanders: I don’t have it in my number…but I think it’s over 10,000. My understanding is that a whole lot of apartment houses were leveled. Hospitals, I think, were bombed. So yeah, I do believe and I don’t think I’m alone in believing that Israel’s force was more indiscriminate than it should have been.
10,000 killed is a massive exaggeration, far more than even Hamas terrorists claimed.
Of course, I strongly object to Hamas’ long held position that Israel does not have the right to exist – that is unacceptable. Of course, I strongly condemn indiscriminate rocket fire by Hamas into Israeli territory, and Hamas’ use of civilian neighborhoods to launch those attacks. I condemn the fact that Hamas diverted funds and materials for much-needed construction projects designed to improve the quality of life of the Palestinian people, and instead used those funds to construct a network of tunnels for military purposes.
However, let me also be very clear: I – along with many supporters of Israel – spoke out strongly against the Israeli counter attacks that killed nearly 1,500 civilians and wounded thousands more. I condemned the bombing of hospitals, schools and refugee camps.
The United Nations has estimated that 2,104 were killed, including 1,462 civilians. Understanding that his recollection was about the total number of casualties, not the death toll, the senator immediately accepted that correction and the discussion moved on to other topics.
Bernie Sanders is consistent in trying to walk a middle line:
o He contrasts his pro-Israel position with his criticisms of Israel -- and his support for the Palestinian Arabs o He supports a 2 state solution o He balances criticism of Israeli attacks on Gaza with mention of Hamas use of populated areas for launching rockets o He says up front that he has no "magic" solutions
But by the same token, he accepts the claims of the number killed at face value, despite the fact that it is based on the numbers provided by the Hamas terrorists themselves. He also makes no mention of the measures Israel takes to avoid casualties. And we saw in the quote of his condemnation of the Gaza blockade that Sanders accepts the claim of water inequality.
"Innocent people are being killed,” said Sanders, after roughly 60 rioters were shot dead on Monday during clashes next to Israel’s security fence on the Gaza border.
"Those are terrible actions," Sanders said. "Instead of applauding Israel for its actions, Israel should be condemned. Israel has a right to security, but shooting unarmed protesters is not what it is about."
Again, there is no mention of Israel taking measures to avoid casualties, nor any mention of rioters being anything but peaceful, of their having weapons or of their attempts -- sometimes successful -- of breaking through the barrier into Israel.
Nor is there mention of Hamas terrorists being among the "unarmed protesters."
“In the last rounds of confrontations, if 62 people were martyred, Fifty of the martyrs were Hamas and 12 from the people. How can Hamas reap the fruits if it pays such an expensive price?” said Hamas official Salah Bardawil in an interview with the Palestinian Baladna news outlet.
Years earlier, Sanders suggested applying pressure not only on the Arab countries in the Middle East to make peace with Israel, but to apply that pressure on Israel as well. This was in 1988, when while mayor of Burlington he came out in support of Jesse Jackson's bid for the Democratic nomination for the president. Sanders suggested withholding arms from Israel as well as the Arabs:
We are pouring billions of dollars in arms into Arab countries. We have the clout to demand they and Israel, who we’re also heavily financing, to begin to sit down and work out a sensible solution to the problem which would guarantee the existence of the State of Israel and which would also protect Palestinian rights...“Or else you begin to cut off arms. If I am supplying someone with a significant amount of money, I can then begin to call the tune.”
Here is the video:
According to The Vermont Cynic, the University of Vermont's newspaper, Sanders came out even stronger against US arms support for Israel, saying "It is wrong that the United States provides arms to Israel. We are not going to be the arms merchant for Middle Eastern nations."
According to the same article in the Cynic, the Sanders campaign said the paper misquoted Sanders:
"The quote does not support [the assertion that] Sanders wanted to end all military aid to Israel, and doing so is a misinterpretation of old quotes,” Sanders campaign spokesman Michael Briggs said in a Sept. 3 email to the Cynic.
“He didn’t call military aid to Israel wrong,” Briggs said.
“Bernie does not and has not ever supported cutting off arms to Israel and that has never been his position,” he said.
The fact remains that the video above does show Sanders suggesting withholding arms, even from Israel, as an option.
Unsurprisingly, some Sanders staffers have also worked with the American Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC)--including David Sirota, now a Democratic Party strategist, and Sanders' former communications director Joel Barkin.
Putting aside their error in claiming that AIPAC is a "Political Action Committee" when it is, in fact, a "Political Affairs Committee" and does not directly fund politicians as J Street does -- it's not clear what the fuss was all about. David Sirota was with AIPAC for all of 4 months (from about the end of 1998 to 1999), when he joined Sanders, according to his tweet in December. As for Barkin, according to his LinkedIn profile, he was with Sanders for 3 years, ending in 2005, a year before that post.
But now, Sanders' choice of advisors seems to be going in the other direction, with 2 of his advisors holding distinctly anti-Israel views.
Sanders' current foreign policy adviser is Matt Duss and his campaign manager is Faiz Shakir. The Beacon story involves ThinkProgress, an American news website and project of the Center for American Progress [CAP] Action Fund, a progressive public policy research and advocacy organization. In 2012, Matt Duss was CAP's Middle East director and Faiz Shakir served as the editor-in-chief of the group's Think Progress blog:
During their tenure at CAP, Duss and Shakir emerged at the forefront of a scandal involving several Think Progress bloggers who accused pro-Israel Jews and members of Congress of being "Israel firsters," a term implying that those who support the Jewish state have dual loyalties.
The scandal rocked CAP for several months and drew condemnation across the board, including from the Obama administration, which distanced itself from Duss, Shakir, and the rest of Think Progress's former staff.
Shakir—who initially remained silent as controversy swirled around Think Progress's use of anti-Semitic language—later said in a leaked internal email that his employees used "terrible, anti-Semitic language" when invoking the "Israel firster" term.
Duss also stood on the sidelines at the time, declining to condemn the anti-Semitic language. Numerous articles penned by Duss and other CAP Action Fund bloggers were said "to be infected with Jew-hatred and discriminatory policy positions toward Israel," according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which combats anti-Semitism.
...Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, was a vocal critic of both Duss and Shakir during their time at CAP. He told the Free Beacon during a Tuesday interview that Sanders's decision to elevate the two staffers to the top of his political organization is "troubling."
These 2 advisors are no improvement over Simone Zimmerman, Sanders' Jewish outreach coordinator, who was let go after a profanity-filled attack on Netanyahu.
But again this calls into question Sanders' support of Ilhan Omar who, like Duss and Shakir during their time with CAP and Think Progress, accused Israel supporters of having dual loyalty.
A spokeswoman for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign apologized Tuesday after questioning whether the “American-Jewish community has a dual allegiance to the state of Israel” — a comment condemned by Jewish leaders across the political spectrum as having anti-Semitic overtones.
What's in store for Bernie Sanders?
It is tempting to look at Sanders' record on Israel and say it is more ambivalent than balanced, and will weaken his draw of the Jewish vote, even without Clinton in the picture. But the Jewish vote is not a matter of logic. Predicting that Sanders will fail to attract the Jewish vote is like predicting that Jews will run from the Democrats and turn to the Republicans because they show more support for Israel and did not join the Democrats in whitewashing antisemitism in the recent House vote.
But Jewish political support is not based on hard facts and political math, and long-term political habits can be hard to break. Of course, just because Jews are likely to continue to vote Democratic, doesn't mean they will vote for Sanders. Jews were enthusiastic for Lieberman, not because he was a religious Jew, but because he was a public Jew and proud Jew.
Sanders, on the other hand, does not seem to come across as a proud Jew in the same way when he deals with public situations that come up. Of course, the onus is still on his opponents to draw the Jewish vote away from him and it does not seem as if any of them have the history and connection that Clinton had with the Jewish community to will enable them to do that.
When it comes to the progressive vote, Sanders may have stronger ties by virtue of a longer history of being very public in his progressive persona. Some may have questioned his overall progressive creds, but the main flashpoint in questioning his progressivism could be Sanders' stand on Israel.
The Democratic left is getting increasingly loud on the issue and is successfully undermining support for Israel in the Democratic party. For decades he has said that he has no magic solution for the conflict, that supports Israel though he supports it and that he supports a Palestinian state though he condemns Hamas terrorist attacks. Till recently, that has been enough. But over the past few years, Sanders himself seems to have moved further to the left, adding accusations of Israel of using "disproportionate" force, that Israel should stop blockading Gaza, and opposing measures to fight BDS, (though he has come out publicly that he does not support it) to his repertoire.
But despite his overall stronger progressive creds, Sanders' opposition consists of younger candidates who arguably are more in tune with the left. The Democrats running for president could mimic Sanders on Israel or choose to move to the left of him to make him appear more establishment. He could be especially vulnerable in this regard if Sarsour, Omar and Tlaib can continue to push the goalposts of what is acceptable discourse when it comes to socialism as well as Israel.
Just wait till the Democratic platform at the convention.
With over a year and a half till the election things are wide open, especially when it comes to increasing visibility of antisemitism --
It is a Jewish issue.
It is also a progressive issue.
And it may play a part in the upcoming election.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
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