We have seen how the Israel lobby dominates the US government. The lobby is aided in this by the way that it can also intimidate journalists. Philip Weiss writes about how reporters from the major western press admit that they self-censor reports from Israel so as not to be ‘savagely targeted’ by both the Israeli government and the Israel lobby that exists not just in the US but in other countries like the UK and Australia a well.
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That Israel is on the road to becoming a rightwing theocracy should be no surprise to anyone following developments in that country. As part of that effort, Israel keeps making the plight of Palestinians worse by denying them the basic necessities of life. This atrocious inhumane treatment of Palestinians and other minority groups in Israel, Gaza and the Occupied West Bank has led to increased support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
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On a recent visit to Israel, Philip Weiss decided to look at how the prolonged occupation of the West Bank and the cruel treatment by the Israeli government of Palestinians who live in the occupied territories and the West Bank has affected Jews living in Israel and what he finds is not encouraging. It is a long piece that features the things he saw and the conversations he had.
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Like every new president before him, Barack Obama hoped to make some headway in resolving the bitter dispute between Israel and the Palestinians. But he and his secretary of state John Kerry eventually realized that Israeli intransigence was too strong especially since, thanks to the Israel lobby in the US has a lock on the US congress, they could not use as a bargaining chip the only real leverage they have, the massive amount of aid that the US gives that country. So they essentially gave up.
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It was not that long ago that using the word ‘apartheid’ to describe the conditions of Palestinians in the Israeli occupied territories would arouse indignant responses and charges of anti-Semitism would be leveled against the speaker. But those days are long gone as the state of affairs has become more widely known and the realization has sunk in that the label accurately captures it. Even people like former president Jimmy Carter and South African archbishop Desmond Tutu and many others use the term.
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As has been obvious to any sentient being, Israeli has been on a steady path of annexing land in the Occupied Territories, using one flimsy excuse after another, even though those settlements and the walls that have been built that snake through Palestinian territory have been ruled illegal under international law. The US has been providing cover to Israel by vetoing all UN resolutions that seek to even mildly curtail these practices that have created an apartheid-like state in which Palestinians are subjected to degrading treatment and forced evacuations from their homes and other properties.
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Josh Marshall says that David Friedman is about as far right on the spectrum of Israeli politics as one can imagine, calling him the ‘worst of the worst’.
Friedman represents the extremes of the most vicious and destructive elements of rightist Zionism and the indeed the most radical elements of American Jewry.
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You would think that the recent debacle of the elections would persuade Democrats that they need new leadership that would be more attuned to the needs of ordinary voters than the neoliberal elites that they usually cater to. But it seems like they are determined to stick with their old path. The have re-elected Nancy Pelosi to be minority leader again and it seems like Charles Schumer is going to be the head of their senate minority.
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It has long been well-established that the New York Times, castigated as liberal by American conservatives, is actually a solidly pro-establishment institution and even at times conservative, neoconservative, and war mongering in its reporting and editorial stances. In particular, it has long had an anti-Palestinian slant.
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With much of the attention focused on the US presidential elections and the vote by the UK to leave the EU, not much attention has been paid to what has been going on in Israel where there has been yet another crackdown by the Israeli government on the Palestinians that show their willingness to use their power over the Occupied Territories in the West Bank and Gaza to make life miserable for the people living there.
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