So far, the theme of AIPAC’s 2019 Policy Conference has been peril, not just to Israel, but to AIPAC itself. AIPAC’s CEO accused unnamed critics of “trying to silence each of us.” AIPAC President Mort Fridman declared that, “none of us are willing to be silenced.” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer warned of forces that seek “to silence others through exclusion, disenfranchisement, or fear.” …
Have we learned nothing? In 2016, very few political writers, myself emphatically included, thought Donald Trump would win the Republican nomination, let alone the presidency. Very few thought Bernie Sanders would win 23 states and 13 million votes in his Democratic-primary battle with Hillary Clinton. …
“If you find yourself using the tragedy in New Zealand to take backhanded swipes at conservatives in America,” tweeted Congressman, and rising GOP star, Dan Crenshaw on Friday, “then you really have no shame and you are part of the problem.” “Conservatives” is a broad category. So let’s narrow the focus to the Trump administration. And let’s be blunt — no “backhanded swipes.” Has this administration blessed and fueled ...
Were a Democrat from the Clinton, Bush, or Obama eras to watch the presidential-announcement video that Beto O’Rourke released on Thursday, they would likely be struck by how it ended. Or, more specifically, by how it didn’t end. O’Rourke did not close with any mention of God. …
In the Trump era, some on the anti-interventionist left have developed a tolerance for, even a grudging appreciation of, Tucker Carlson. The reason: He’s a caustic critic of hawkish foreign policy. The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald, the historian Stephen F. Cohen, and the author Max Blumenthal—all of whom agree with Carlson that the Trump-Russia scandal is fueling a new cold war—regularly appear on his show. After Carlson last month savaged ...
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 conventional wisdom is that Bernie Sanders is a victim of his own success. His “populist agenda has helped push the party to the left,” declared The New York Times in its story about his presidential announcement. But in 2020, he may lose “ground to newer faces who have adopted many of his ideas.” …
Donald Trump has again folded in his negotiations with congressional Democrats—accepting a second budget deal that includes nothing close to the $5.7 billion in funding for a border wall that he demanded. This outcome was entirely predictable. The sequence of events that led here has occurred again and again when Trump negotiates. Think of it as a play in four acts. …
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. …