Juan Cole: The Decline of the Israeli Right and the Increasing Desperation of the 'Anti-Semitism' Charge

[Juan R. I. Cole is Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. For three decades, he has sought to put the relationship of the West and the Muslim world in historical context.]

The great divide between liberal Jewish Americans and the Israeli Right has lurked as an issue since the Likud Party first challenged Labor dominance in the late 1970s. It is now coming to a boiling point, even as Israel's reputation in the world is sinking. As rightwing policies more visibly fail, the Likudniks are flailing around making fools of themselves by smearing critics of those policies as racists. (Anyone who knows how Likud supporters talk among themselves about Arabs and other outsiders can only be amused at their impudent hypocrisy in playing the race card.)...

...[T]he harbingers of isolation are numerous. The Netanyahu government has largely defied President Obama's requests for a halt to the colonization of the West Bank (a freeze on building new settlements in part of the West Bank, while existing settlements are expanded and Palestinians are thrown in the street in Jerusalem does not count)....

The reactionary parties of Likud, Shas, and Yisrael Beitenu have nothing in common with the vast majority of Jewish Americans, who voted for Barack Obama and are generally more progressive than non-Jewish Americans... It is no accident that the Likud government has snubbed a delegation of US Congress members to Israel who support J Street. The Netanyahu government is all about colonizing more of the West Bank and preventing the rise of a Palestinian state.

Then you have Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein supporting the movement to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza civilians, including children.

The Israeli occupation and colonization of the West Bank provoked former president Jimmy Carter to warn of an Apartheid situation. Although he was viciously attacked by the likes of Alan Dershowitz and subjected to the typical dirty tricks deployed by fanatical nationalists of all stripes, he has been vindicated by remarks of Israeli politician Ehud Barak, who just said the same thing Carter had....