Portside

Outrage? AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents can summon it on behalf of Israel's government, on BDS, on the Iran Deal - but not for the American minorities targeted by Trump. Not even its Jews. Add your name to the Joint Petition from American Jews and Muslims on Stephen Bannon (see below).

It certainly is not anti-Semitic to argue that whatever emancipatory elements that Zionism may have provided some Jews has been more than offset by the expulsion, occupation, repression and killings of the indigenous Palestinian inhabitants. While Zionism can be seen as a national liberation movement for Jews, it undeniably also has characteristics of a colonial settler state.

Once-fraught ideas and symbols are now a routine matter of partisan combat. This is scary.

Reader Comments: Paul Krugman Was Wrong About the 1990s; Clinton Might Not Be the Nominee; Why It's Nearly Impossible for Prisoners to Sue Prisons - kudos from defense lawyers and prisoners; Why did Portside run the New Yorker piece on Donald Trump; If Shostakovich Were Alive - Why did Portside run the hatchet piece; Nestle Control Over Town's Water; Trump, Racism, Anti-Semitism and Catholic Universities; New York Studio Workers Need Your Support; and more...

1938-five years after Hitler came to power, after the beginning of the "Final Solution", Jewish refugees were denied entry into the United States. Then it was anti-Semitism and fear of European radicals and communists; today it is anti-Muslim hysteria. Then the U.S. closed its' eyes to the Holocaust; today GOP governors and congressmen are closing the borders while over 250,000 have died in Syria, there are over 3 million refugees and 6.5 million are internally displaced

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Immediately following the posting June 20th of the article George Soros: Puppet Master Behind the Ukrainian Regime a number of moderators raised serious concerns about both its content and source. And it was unanimously decided that we would remove it from our website, which we did. Further inquiries and comments from our readers confirmed that decision. It should never have been posted.

BDS is neither motivated by anti-Semitism, nor is it, in effect, anti-Semitic. The "anti-Semitism" charge against BDS is false, intellectually lazy, and morally repugnant. The Israelis are fighting for their right to persist in settling, exploiting and stealing land; to continue breaking international law that prohibits settlement. For the sins of occupation, boycotts are a Light punishment. Commentary from an Israeli, American, and Orthodox Jewish perspective.

Today the U.S. government treats immigrants from Latin America the way liberated Jews were treated after World War II. Then a presidential aid reported: "we appear to be treating the Jews as the Nazis treated them except that we do not exterminate them. They are in concentration camps in large numbers under our military guard instead of S.S. troops." Our nation of immigrants treats modern immigrants with arrest and detention; and modern immigrant (concentration) camps.