A bunch of Democrat and Republican Senators and members of the House are sponsoring a bill that would make supporting an economic boycott of Israel a felony with heavy fines and potentially many years of jail time. Both New York Senators, for example, are endorsing it.
theintercept.com/...
Needless to say this bill would be a violation of more or less anyone’s version of civil liberties in a democratic society. I expect Republicans, who are deeply anti-democratic, to be on board, but that Democrats support it just shows how disgraceful the party is as well in its support for Israeli colonialism and oppression. I guess AIPAC is the greatest institutional investors of all: an incredibly high annual return in its efforts to make our leaders collude with Israel in suppressing Palestinians. How can they object to Trump colluding with Russia?
I wrote on the complicated relationship between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism last year.
www.huffingtonpost.com/…
It should be said that the two can go together, but there have been many instances of collaboration between Zionists and anti-Semites ( leading Nazis, during the 1930s, because both wanted Jews to live elsewhere; right-wing Christians here who support Israel because of a Bible prophecy, but after the Second Coming Jews will have to convert or be damned). There are also garden variety anti-Semites, who support Zionism to give Jews a place to self-deport to. More importantly, one does not have to be anti-Semitic to oppose Israeli policies or even the idea of a religious state. Many Jews have and still do. Some are even ultra-Orthodox.
Israel has been extremely clever in its attempt to quiet critics by suggesting they are anti-Semites and, ironically, by also suggesting any Jews opposed to its policies are self-hating (are anti-al Qaeda or ISIS Muslims ever called self-hating Muslims?) they are more apt to promote the belief that all Jews are supportive of Israel and its actions. After all, few people believe any substantial members of a group hate themselves for belonging to it (unless they think Groucho Marx spoke for everyone).
Besides alerting people to learn if your Democrat Senator is one of the 14 so far who supports this unconstitutional legislation, or your member of the House one of 63 Dems in the fold, I would also strongly suggest reading the single best small volume on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, which provides in-depth analysis of both past and present: Nathan Thrall’s new book, The Only language They Understand. David Shulman’s on-site reports from the West Bank (google his name and New York Review of Books and many will be made available).