Late last month, in between the firestorm over Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s comments about AIPAC’s influence being “all about the Benjamins” and the firestorm over her comments about “allegiance to a foreign country,” the United Nations issued a report into Israel’s killing of 189 Palestinians — some of whom were journalists and health workers, and 35 of whom were children — and injuring of more than 9,000 ...
It’s a bewildering and alarming time to be a Jew, both because anti-Semitism is rising and because so many politicians are responding to it not by protecting Jews but by victimizing Palestinians. …
The following two things are true. First, Representative Ilhan Omar was wrong to tweet that the American government’s support of Israel is “all about the Benjamins.” Secondly, she’s being judged by a grotesque double standard. Her fiercest critics in Congress are guiltier of bigotry than she is. …
There are plenty of reasons for Bernie Sanders not to run for president. He’s an old white guy who may have trouble generating enthusiasm from people of color and women, especially after the recent revelations of sexism in his 2016 campaign. Of all the potential Democratic nominees, he’s the one most likely to prompt a centrist third party bid that could split the anti-Trump vote. And in ...
On New Year’s Day, a young woman rushed the stage at the “MegaEvent” held in Jerusalem for participants in Birthright, the program that takes young American and other Diaspora Jews to Israel on a free ten-day trip. She unfurled a banner that declared “Birthright Sponsored by Adelson, Trump, Netanyahu” and directed viewers to CostofBirthright.Com, a website sponsored by the anti-occupation Jewish group, If Not Now. Then she was ...
Last week I received an email from a woman I have never met. She told me she had lived in Israel earlier in her life and that, while critical of some of its policies, loves the country in ways she can scarcely express. Then she outlined her problem: Her niece has declared herself an anti-Zionist. Not a critic of Benjamin Netanyahu or of Israeli settlements ...
If you want to understand the divide inside the congressional Democratic Party on Israel, consider two events from earlier this week. On Sunday night, Nancy Pelosi and Charles Schumer, the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, sat on stage at the Israeli-American Council, an organization funded, in part, by Sheldon Adelson. Alongside Schumer and Pelosi sat another IAC benefactor, Haim Saban. Saban’s name graces an AIPAC program for college ...
The Anti-Defamation League has a disease. It suffers from an acute — and potentially fatal — form of moral schizophrenia. The ADL was founded 105 years ago during the anti-Semitic conviction and later lynching of Atlanta business owner Leo Frank with a dual purpose. It was created “to stop…the defamation of the Jewish people” but also — crucially — “to secure justice and fair treatment ...
It turns out that Ilhan Omar, who this month became the first Somali American and the first Muslim refugee ever elected to Congress, modulates her views to fit her audience. In other words, she’s a politician. …
I logged onto Twitter on Saturday night to find a message from Alan Dershowitz. “The both sides argument is always proper,” he tweeted. “Blaming only one side— the “other” side— is too easy. The shoe on the other foot test requires that you condemn your side’s bigots along with their side’s.” “Shootings at places of worship, targeting of lawmakers playing baseball, & mailing pipe bombs ...