Our Wednesday News Analysis | The US is right to show concern for the situation in Palestine-Israel but who's listening?

Palestinian stone throwers clash with Israeli border police in A-Ram town, north of Jerusalem, on January 27, as Palestinians all over the West Bank protested to condemn the killing of nine Palestinians in Jenin refugee camp during an Israeli raid on January 26. EPA

Source: The National
https://www.thenationalnews.com/opinion/comment/2023/02/01/the-us-is-right-to-show-concern-for-the-situation-in-palestine-israel-but-whos-listening/

By Hussein Ibish
Published February 1, 2023

Many Jewish and other Americans are increasingly unable to ignore the reality of growing schisms

Republicans, driven by apocalyptic evangelical Christians, may not care,
but as long as the US has a Democratic administration
and Israel has a fundamentalist, racist and annexationist government,
the traditionally inviolable “special relationship” will be imperilled.

In the occupied Palestinian territories – especially East Jerusalem and the West Bank – 2023 is shaping up to be a volatile year. As a consequence, the normally sacrosanct US-Israeli relationship is headed into unusually choppy waters. The current flare-up of deadly violence will be hard to contain and the real question is, how bad will things get?

Last year was the most violent one in the West Bank since 2005, when the UN began keeping records of Palestinians killed there by Israeli occupation forces. Among the victims was the noted American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who had been infuriating Israeli authorities for decades with her coverage of the occupation.

Despite a simmering insurgency among largely unaffiliated armed Palestinian youth gangs such as the “Lion's Den”, which emerged in response to routine Israeli attacks, especially night raids into supposedly autonomous Palestinian towns, relations between the US and Israel remained largely unaffected. Both US President Joe Biden and the Israeli coalition government led by former prime minister Naftali Bennett had every interest in supporting each other by not making waves in the bilateral relationship.

Lurking in the background was the mutually feared and loathed right-wing Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu. In December, Mr Netanyahu pieced together the most extreme right-wing government in Israel's history, bringing to power religious and nationalist extremists who have heretofore been considered anathema even by the Israeli far right...

Read more: The US is right to show concern for the situation in Palestine-Israel but who's listening?

OPINION | ISRAEL’S FRAUDULENT NOTION OF ‘JEWISH DEMOCRACY’ HAS BEEN EXPOSED. WHAT’S NEXT?

There is much that is shared between secular and religious who do not believe that occupation of territories and brutal rule over another people are a divine imperative.Credit: Alex Levac

Source: Haaretz
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-02-03/ty-article-opinion/.highlight/israels-fraudulent-notion-of-jewish-democracy-has-been-exposed-whats-next/00000186-15d2-d840-a78e-7fdaec3b0000

By Eva Illouz
Published February 3, 2023

We are in an era of disillusionment, which makes us see reality unvarnished. Zionist nationalism is no longer a unifying goal

"Zionist nationalism can no longer serve as a unifying idea …
it will be difficult to go on telling ourselves the lovely tall tale that kept the people united,
the one about Jewish democracy – a story that embodies
the conceptual contradiction that underlies the Jewish state.

"

The word “lessons” is ominous. It implies that something went wrong, yet at the same time harbors the hope that we may be able to correct the fault, if we can only understand it. Still, what are the lessons of last November’s election in Israel?

Before turning to the issue at hand, I will address one question, the response to which can help us understand what lessons are to be gleaned from the political earthquake that is rocking Israel: Were the election results an “accident” caused by the negligence, amateurishness and arrogance of the political leaders of the “camp of change” during their brief period in power, or do they reflect an intractable tendency that would, sooner or later, have overtaken Israeli politics?

My answer to this question is that, were it not for the inept leadership of what is now the opposition, in setting up its reelection bid this past fall, it might have been possible to delay the rise of the extreme right. At the same time, the election results stem from two causes: first, the long-term strategy of the extreme right, which has been acting vigorously for years to radically transform, and undermine the democratic character of, Israeli society; and, second, demographic trends that appear, for now at least, to be irreversible (though we must always be leery of demographic forecasts and projections, which are far more complex and volatile than they may appear). What, then, are the lessons that can be gleaned from the election?

Lesson 1: Like many other examples of settler nationalism, the history of Zionism is a chronicle of force that is required to overcome an indigenous population. The history of Zionism is also the history of the mythologizing of that force. Yet, in contrast to the settler colonialism of the United States or Australia, Israel’s establishment was a matter of survival for a people. Protestant sects fled to the American continent because of religious persecution, but this was not similar in scope and intensity to the methodical character of the abject persecutions of the Jewish people...

Read more: Opinion | Israel’s Fraudulent Notion of ‘Jewish Democracy’ Has Been Exposed. What’s Next?

AN OPEN LETTER TO ISRAEL’S FRIENDS IN NORTH AMERICA

Matti Friedman, Yossi Klein-Halevi, Daniel Gordis: 'This is a moment for alarm'

Source: The Times of Israel
https://www.timesofisrael.com/an-open-letter-to-israels-friends-in-north-america/?utm_source=The+Blogs+Weekly+Highlights&utm_campaign=blogs-weekly-highlights-2023-02-02&utm_medium=email

By MATTI FRIEDMAN, YOSSI KLEIN HALEVI and DANIEL GORDIS
Published February 2, 2023

Diaspora Jews have both the right and the responsibility to speak out against a government that is undermining our society’s cohesion and its democratic ethos

"A moment for Alarm.

Israeli leaders need to hear where you stand.

North American Jews and their leaders must make clear to this government
that if it continues on the path to transforming Israel into a country
of which Diaspora Jews can no longer be proud,
there will be no business as usual."

To Israel’s friends in North America,

We are taking the unusual step of directly addressing you at a moment of acute crisis in Israel. We write with a sense of anguish and anxiety for the future of our country. All of us moved to Israel from North America and raised our children here. Between us are many decades of work as reporters, literary chroniclers and translators of Israeli reality for audiences abroad. We have explained and defended Israel against the campaign of distortions that seeks to turn the Jewish state into a pariah and will proudly continue to do so.

Today, though, protecting Israel also means defending it from a political leadership that is undermining our society’s cohesion and its democratic ethos, the foundations of the Israeli success story. The changes afoot will have dire consequences for the solidarity of Israel’s society and for its economic miracle, as our leading economists are warning. It will also threaten Israeli-American relations, and it will do grave damage to our relations with you, our sisters and brothers in the Diaspora.

This crisis is unique, and uniquely heartbreaking, because it comes from within. None of us is an alarmist. But this is a moment for alarm, and one in which the voices of Israel’s friends must be heard.

Israel’s government is moving to eviscerate the independence of our judiciary and remake the country’s democratic identity. That initiative needs to be understood through three lenses: the substance of the proposed changes, the process by which they are being promoted and the identities of those pushing for the change.

In substance, the changes would remove the only effective brake on government power and profoundly weaken the only body capable of protecting citizens from the tyranny of a majority – protection that has never seemed more vital...

Read more: An open letter to Israel’s friends in North America