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RICHARD SILVERSTEIN, richards1052@gmail.com, @richards1052

    Silverstein writes at Tikun Olam and recently wrote the pieces “Judeo-Fascist Coalition Affirms ‘Inalienable Right’ of Jewish People to ‘All the Land of Israel’” and “Israeli ‘Arsonist,’ Ben Gvir, Stirs Outrage with Haram al Sharif ‘Visit.’”
 
    Silverstein quotes Jewish Voice for Peace: “The new Israeli government has been clear about its agenda from the beginning: ensure Jewish supremacy over all land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and expedite the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.”
 

    Silverstein has written about AIPAC and related groups playing a critical role in the Democratic Party over the last year, noting: “Its own PAC and those affiliated with it spent over $30 million to defeat progressive Democrats in primary elections, who voiced even the slightest disagreement with Israeli policies.” Silverstein wrote pieces such as “AIPAC Astroturf Groups Plow Millions into Defeating Progressive Democrats.”

 
    New House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is an outspoken advocate for Israel. According to Open Secrets, three of his top five contributors — Pro-Israel America PAC, NorPAC and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — are pro-Israeli government. See 2021 profile piece on Jeffries, which notes his extremely pro-Israeli government views, from The American Prospect. 

Rep. Rashida Tlaib has been attacked by colleagues for saying, “I want you all to know that among progressives, it becomes clear that you cannot claim to hold progressive values yet back Israel’s apartheid government.”

Katie Halper, who had been a contributor to The Hill TV, produced a segment defending Talib.

Then Halper herself was fired; the story was broken by The Intercept.

Halper posted the commentary that got her fired.

Among Halper’s points: “Look at the Law of Return of 1950 and tell me it’s not apartheid. The law allows any Jew, which means anyone with one Jewish grandparent, the right to move to Israel and automatically become citizens of Israel. It gives their spouses that right too, even if they’re not Jewish. Palestinians, of course, lack that right. …

“Israel’s own human rights organization B’Tselem has declared, ‘The Israeli regime enacts … an apartheid regime. B’Tselem reached the conclusion that the bar for defining the Israeli regime as an apartheid regime has been met after considering the accumulation of policies and laws that Israel devised to entrench its control over Palestinians.’ B’Tselem divides the way Israeli apartheid works into four areas.” The segment breaks down Israeli policies on land, citizenship, freedom of movement and political participation.

Halper quotes Israeli leaders: “In 2007, Israel’s former education minister Shulamit Aloni wrote, ‘the state of Israel practices its own, quite violent, form of apartheid with the native Palestinian population.'”

She also quotes South African leaders like Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Tutu, in his last published piece, called on Biden to acknowledge that Israel has a nuclear weapons arsenal, writing: “there are few truths more critical to face than a nuclear weapons arsenal in the hands of an apartheid government.”

CommonDreams reports: “Rights Groups Implored EU Leaders to Denounce Israeli Apartheid at Summit.”

Rev. GRAYLAN S. HAGLER, gshagler@verizon.net, @graylanhagler
Hagler is former chief pastor at the Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington, D.C. and director of Faith Strategies.

RONNIE KASRILS, [in South Africa] rkasrils@gmail.com
Kasrils was Minister for Intelligence Services in South Africa from 2004 to 2008 and was a leading member of the African National Congress during the apartheid era. He wrote the piece “How to Stop Apartheid Israel.”

PHYLLIS BENNIS, pbennis@ips-dc.org, @phyllisbennis
Bennis directs the New Internationalism Project at Institute for Policy Studies, focusing on the Middle East.

BILL FLETCHER, Jr., billfletcherjr@gmail.com, @BillFletcherJr
Fletcher is past president of TransAfrica Forum. He said today: “There is no provision that provides for a cease and desist on criticisms of the Israeli political system. There are no provisions for a cease and desist on criticisms of the domestic and/or foreign policies of any country on planet Earth. The criticism of Israeli apartheid has been raised across the globe and cannot receive a response in the form of purges or other forms of silencing. To attempt that is to attempt to hold a bubble under water.”

The Intercept reports on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee: “AIPAC Defeats Andy Levin, Most Progressive Jewish Representative.” Last month, The American Prospect reported: “AIPAC Has Taken Over the Democratic Primary Process” and Richard Silverstein at Tikun Olam broke down the numbers: “AIPAC Astroturf Groups Plow $30-Million into Defeating Progressive Democrats” including Donna Edwards, Jessica Cisneros and Nina Turner.

GRANT F. SMITH, gsmith@irmep.org, @IRmep

Smith is director of the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy which has just released a podcast series: “How Israel Made AIPAC.”

Grant notes a key finding: “In 1962, AIPAC was the lobbying and foreign propaganda division of an umbrella group (the American Zionist Council) that triggered the Department of Justice order to AZC to register as an Israeli foreign agent. The Justice Department kept this fact secret until 2008. It has never since tried to enforce the order.”

While many have claimed that U.S. policy has been somehow unduly influenced by the Chinese or Russian governments, Smith, the author of Big Israel: How Israel’s Lobby moves America has highlighted that the biggest destination for Congressional junkets is Israel.

The new 13-part podcast beigins: “AIPAC has recently established its own political action committees. AIPAC is using tens of millions of dollars of PAC money to knock off candidates for office it believes won’t be sufficiently deferential to the government of Israel. There is a lot of current analysis about this in social and even legacy news media. Most of it has one thing in common: no history about how, when or why AIPAC came into existence. What exactly is AIPAC and where does it come from?”

Smith examines a series of questions including: “Why is AIPAC circumspect about its origin story? How has AIPAC largely written its founder, Isaiah L. Kenen, out of that history?

“What was the Israel Office of Information and AIPAC founder Isaiah L. Kenen’s role at IOI? How long did Kenen stay in the employ of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs? What propaganda information did IOI omit in its FARA [Foreign Agents Registration Act] filings? How did Kenen, chafing under FARA, maintain an active lobbying campaign in the U.S. Congress for foreign aid while still operating as an employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs? …

“How does AIPAC history inform us about foreign influence on U.S. political campaigns and American Middle East policy today?”

Grant concludes: “The Justice Department effort to regulate under FARA was serious, but fizzled out. AIPAC should still be seen as a creation of Israel, no matter what its current funding flows and framing.”

Grant’s research draws from Freedom of Information Act filings he pursued for years as well as end-of-life writings by the people involved in the creation and attempted regulation of AIPAC.

Smith is also author of America’s Defense Line: The Justice Department’s Battle to Register the Israel Lobby as Agents of a Foreign Government.

The American Prospect recently reported: “Will AIPAC Crush One of Congress’s Most Prominent Jewish Democrats?”

The targeted congressman, Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.), tells MSNBC: “I’m not just Jewish, I’m one of two former synagogue presidents in Congress. … AIPAC has completely gone off the rails and they are trying to end my career because I won’t fall in line with their view of what it means to be pro-Israel.”

RONALD ARONSON, ronald.aronson@wayne.edu
Aronson is distinguished professor emeritus of the history of ideas at Wayne State University in Detroit. He recently wrote the piece “‘Anti-Israel’ and ‘Pro-Israel’ in Michigan Election” in Tikkun magazine about AIPAC’s targeting of Levin, whose primary is on Aug. 2.

Aronson explains AIPAC’s targeting: “The main reason is Levin’s Two-State Solution Act, which he presented to Congress after the High Holidays in September, flanked by Peace Now’s Hadar Susskind and J-Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami. With no negotiations taking place since the ill-fated efforts of John Kerry, and with the Israeli colonization of the West Bank proceeding relentlessly, the two-state solution has been abandoned virtually everywhere except as a shibboleth to which lip service must be given to undercut accusations of ‘apartheid.’ In the face of these realities Levin, J-Street, and Americans for Peace Now, along with over 40 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives seek to reassert the two-state solution as active American policy.”

RICHARD SILVERSTEIN, richards1052@gmail.com, @richards1052   
Silverstein writes at Tikun Olam and recently wrote the in-depth overview piece “AIPAC Astroturf Groups Plow Millions into Defeating Progressive Democrats.” He was featured on IPA news releases on AIPAC’s successful targeting of Donna Edwards and another titled “AIPAC Has Taken Over the Democratic Primary Process.” He also contributes to Middle East Eye, Jacobin magazine and other outlets.

GRANT F. SMITH, gsmith@irmep.org, @IRmep
Biden on Israeli TV threatened to use force against Iran, allegedly to prevent it from getting a nuclear weapon, as a “last resort.” But Biden has not re-instated the Iran nuclear deal which Trump withdrew from. Smith is director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy. He has written extenstively on Israel’s nuclear weapons which Biden has refused to acknowledge. Smith’s work was cited in the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s last published piece: “Joe Biden should end the U.S. pretence over Israel’s ‘secret’ nuclear weapons.”

RULA JEBREAL, jebreal.rula@gmail.com, @rulajebreal

Jebreal is visiting professor at the University of Miami, an author and noted foreign policy analyst. She just arrived in New York City from the Mideast. 

She said today: “There are many layers of the Israel-Saudi alliance — and the U.S. government role in forging it. It’s mainly based around militarism and authoritarianism. It’s a bloody legacy of ‘shared values’ — Israel’s ‘unbreakable bond’ with the U.S. means that Biden will ignore international law and commits to unconditional support to Israel’s occupation. The leader of the free world is enabling militarism by working to forge a NATO-like entity for the authoritarian Gulf states, binding Americans to protect the world’s most corrupt despots and apartheid Israel.”

Background: See from last month in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: “Thanks to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan’s Recognition of Israel Is Now Inevitable.”

The New York Times reported in 2021: “Israel secretly authorized a group of cyber-surveillance firms to work for the government of Saudi Arabia despite international condemnation of the kingdom’s abuse of surveillance software to crush dissent, even after the Saudi killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, government officials and others familiar with the contracts said.”

IPA news release from 2020: “Protesting Trump’s Israeli-Gulf ‘Fake Peace’ Deals.”

See “Saudi Arabia’s Unholy Alliance with Israel” — video and transcript — of The Real News interview from 2018 with scholar As’ad AbuKhalil who gives a history of Israel-Saudi collusion going back at least to the first Yemen war of the 1960s.

See from 2015 by Robert Parry “Did Money Seal Israeli-Saudi Alliance?”

In 1955, the U.S. government tried to establish an effective southern flank of NATO called CENTO, also known as the Baghdad Pact. The organization became largely moribund in 1959 following the overthrow of the U.S.-backed monarch in Iraq and collapsed altogether in 1979 when the U.S.-backed Shah was ousted in Iran.

Al Jazeera reports: “Biden appears to have rejected a request by Shireen Abu Akleh’s family to meet with him during his visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank this week, as pressure mounts on the United States to ensure accountability for the journalist’s killing by Israeli forces.”

But Abu Akleh is hardly the first U.S. citizen that the Israeli military has killed. The Intercept just published the piece “No Path to Justice: Israeli Forces Keep Killing Americans While U.S. Officials Give Them a Pass” about peace activist Rachel Corrie who was crushed to death by an Israeli soldier driving a bulldozer in 2003.

DAVID SHEEN, realdavidsheen@gmail.com, @davidsheen

An independent journalist, Sheen just wrote a pair of pieces: “Alex Odeh Assassination: New Testimony Could Finally Bring Jewish Defense League to Justice” and “As U.S. Refuses to Act, Suspected Alex Odeh Assassins Enjoy Influential Role in Israeli Politics” for MintPress.

He writes: “Palestinian-American activist Alex Odeh was brutally murdered in public. Odeh, the regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), was killed when a bomb exploded as he entered the ADC’s Santa Ana, California offices on October 11, 1985.

“It is widely believed that the culprits were Robert Manning, Keith Israel Fuchs, and Baruch Ben Yosef (also known as Andy Green). The trio were members of the Jewish Defense League (JDL), a Jewish supremacist domestic terrorist group that had repeatedly harassed and threatened Odeh. From 1984 until his death in 2002, the group was led by the notorious militant Irv Rubin. Manning is currently serving life in prison for the murder of another individual. Fuchs and Ben Yosef, however, fled to Israel and live there freely to this day.

“Law enforcement officials told me that the FBI has always considered the three men its top suspects. But despite significant evidence of the trio’s guilt, the bureau has never pressed for charges. Many have alleged high government interference. According to active agents still assigned to the case, pressing charges against Manning, Fuchs, and Ben Yosef would require testimony from a witness who heard at least one of those very men discussing their own involvement in Alex Odeh’s murder.

“We now have it.”

Sheen reports that he has interviewed a former assocate of Ben Yosef and Fuchs who is willing to testify as to their guilt of the murder of Odeh. But the FBI has yet to question this individual.

Sheen traces the lack of prosecution to decisions taken initially by Rudy Giuliani (who was District Attorney of the Southern District of New York following Odeh’s murder when Fuchs and Ben Yosef were in New York) — and, in the years since, to the State Department.

He also notes that Ben Yosef and Fuchs have groomed two far right successors who entered the Israeli Knesset in March 2021 — Itamar Ben Gvir and Simcha Rothman.

Sheen also states that “since the Jerusalem Post’s February 1994 profile … titled “Apocalypse Now” — no Israeli news outlets have noted that terrorist-turned-attorney Baruch Ben Yosef and two of his Kahanist comrades are suspected of murder in the United States.”

MAZIN QUMSIYEH, mazin@qumsiyeh.org
Biden’s trip includes a stop in Bethlehem. Qumsiyeh is a professor at Bethlehem University. His books include Sharing the Land of Canaan. He is founding director of the Palestine Institute of Biodiversity and Sustainability. He highlights how U.S. policy is “hypocrisy on display” with Biden’s trip: While it professes stability, its militarism and weapons have destabilized the region. While it professes freedom and peace, it has backed Israel in its oppression of Palesitnians, killings and violations of international law.

RAJI SOURANI, pchr@pchrgaza.org, @pchrgaza

Sourani is executive director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza, which Israel bombed extensively last year. He is a recipient of the Right Livelihood Award. The group’s recent statements include: “U.S. Investigation into Killing of Journalist Shireen Abu ‘Akleh Attempts to Mislead Justice and Its findings not Binding,” “Israeli Occupation Forces Kill Palestinian Child in Ramallah,” “Medical Neglect Kills Palestinian Woman Detained in Israeli Prisons” and “Cancer Patient Dies After Israeli Authorities Deny His Travel for Treatment Abroad.”

SAREE MAKDISI, makdisi@humnet.ucla.edu, @sareemakdisi
Makdisi’s books include Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation and the just-released Tolerance Is a Wasteland: Palestine and the Culture of Denial. He is professor of English and comparative literature at UCLA. His pieces include “Apartheid” for Critical Inquiry. Last year he wrote the piece “The Nakba Is Now” for The Nation. He notes the disparity between the U.S. media and establishment glorifying Ukrainians fighting against Russians while Palestinians struggling against a U.S.-backed Israeli military occupation for decades have been demonized, or — at best — tolerated.

MOUIN RABBANI, mail@mouinrabbani.net, @mouinrabbani
Rabbani is co-editor of Jadaliyya. He recently appeared on “Democracy Now!” and stated: “It seems to me fairly self-evident that what Antony Blinken and other U.S. officials told the Palestinian leadership is that unless you hand over the bullet that killed Shireen Abu Akleh and allow us to put this matter to rest by essentially saying that no conclusion can be reached, we’re not going to throw you the bone of a presidential visit to the Palestinian Authority leadership. And that’s essentially what happened.”

Background: See recent IPA news release: “Biden’s Saudi Trip: For Cheaper Gas — or for Israel?”

See video from the Quincy Institute: “President Biden walks in Trump’s footsteps in Saudi Arabia & Israel this week.”

See from Forbes: “Biden’s Mideast Agenda Could Increase the Risks of War.”

MOUIN RABBANI, mail@mouinrabbani.net, @mouinrabbani

Rabbani is co-editor of Jadaliyya. 

He said today: “It was never in doubt that the U.S. government would put the political interests of Israel ahead of justice for a U.S. citizen killed by the Israeli military. And that is exactly what transpired as a result of the U.S. ‘investigation‘ of the killing of veteran journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, which attempted to throw sufficient doubt on the facts of the case to — once again — give Israel a get-out-of-jail-free pass. It is the equivalent of a U.S. veto at the UN Security Council to shield Israel from accountability for its war crimes in the occupied territories.”

Rabbani wrote an in-depth piece on Abu Akleh which originally appeared in the London Review of Books. 

He continued: “Anyone who believed the State Department would conduct a serious investigation of the case, or concur with the consensus among media and human rights organisations that this was a summary execution by an Israeli military sniper, needs to have their head examined. That’s not how the U.S. government works, and certainly not when it comes to ensuring Israeli impunity in its dealings with Palestinians, including those who hold U.S. citizenship.

“It seems fairly certain, and is likely be confirmed when U.S. government documents are released in several decades, that shielding Israel from accountability for the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh was the price U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken insisted the Palestinian Authority pay for a visit by Joe Biden to Mahmoud Abbas next week. And the PA was unfortunately willing to pay this price by providing the bullet that killed Abu Akleh to U.S. officials, allowing them to claim they had conducted a serious investigation. That also tells you everything you need to know about the context and outcome of this upcoming visit.”

Photo credit: Stern Matty, Flickr

The New York Times reports: “Israel Confirms Regional Military Project, Showing Its Growing Role.” Antiwar.com reports: “Israel Reveals It’s Building a U.S.-Backed Regional Military Alliance Against Iran.”

TRITA PARSI, tparsi@gmail.com, @tparsi
Parsi is the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute and just wrote the piece “The real reason for Biden’s capitulation to the Saudi Crown Prince.”

He writes: “All the latest headlines about President Joe Biden’s July trip to Saudi Arabia focus on a deal to push down gas prices. In reality, he is making a much more sinister and dangerous calculation than most realize: He is reportedly planning to offer the dictators in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — where all but two of the 9/11 terrorists came from — a military pact that commits American lives to defend their regimes. What could go right?

“When Biden ran for the White House, he pledged to break with then-President Donald Trump’s Middle East policy: bring U.S. troops home from the Middle East, renew the Iran nuclear deal, end the war in Yemen, and ‘make the Saudis the pariah that they are.’ But after refusing to take necessary steps to return to the Iran deal, and with rumors abounding that he is about to offer the UAE and Saudi Arabia a military pact, Biden’s policy is increasingly looking like a continuation of Trump’s Middle East strategy.

“Biden isn’t just forgiving Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for his direct role in the beheading of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in return for a Saudi promise to pump more oil. As Biden admitted last week, this Middle East trip is about regional security — and that of Israel in particular. ‘The commitments from the Saudis don’t relate to anything having to do with energy,’ Biden told reporters June 12. ‘It happens to be a larger meeting taking place in Saudi Arabia. That’s the reason I’m going. And it has to do with national security for them — for Israelis.’

“Rumors have been circulating in Washington for months that Biden is seeking to expand Trump’s signature foreign policy initiative — the Abraham Accords — which normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and Bahrain and the UAE; Biden wants to bring Saudi Arabia into a similar kind of arrangement with Israel. Details are beginning to leak of how he will try to get Saudi Arabia to take critical steps toward recognizing Israel. And the most alarming one is that the United States is offering a major security pact to the autocratic regimes in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.”

MOUIN RABBANI, [currently in Oman] mail@mouinrabbani.net, @mouinrabbani
Rabbani is co-editor of Jadaliyya.

He said today: “The only appropriate response to the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, which is not only a crime but a calculated act of savagery, is justice. Justice is only achievable through proper accountability. The Israeli occupier has repeatedly demonstrated that its priority is impunity, and it cannot be entrusted with either investigation, accountability, or justice for either Shireen or those whom it has deprived of their fundamental rights for more than half a century. But there will be no justice, only an impunity which set the stage for this murder and will set the stage for the next one.”

Rabbani has published and commented widely on Palestinian affairs, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the contemporary Middle East. He was previously senior analyst and special advisor on Israel-Palestine with the International Crisis Group, and head of political affairs with the Office of the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria.

Background: “Al Jazeera’s iconic ‘Voice of Palestine’ killed during Israeli raid” from the Electronic Intifada.