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Friends,

Feeling frustrated? You should. COVID would have been in the rearview mirror by now if every American had masked up and taken the free vaccines as soon as they became available. We are making little progress on climate change, which will destroy millions of lives. And our democracy is under constant attack from those who would suppress the vote rather than win the vote and who would cancel elections rather than count results.

What do these problems have in common? Only one party's leaders are actively

discouraging masking and casting doubt on the efficacy of vaccinations. Only one party is the only major political party in the world that denies climate science. Only one party's leadership incited an insurrection against our country and continues to lie about what happened while attempting to restrict voting in areas where they cannot win based on their ideas. And it ain't the Democratic Party.

In January, 120 Republicans joined a baseless lawsuit to invalidate millions of votes in four states, and 120 House GOP members shared incendiary social media content leading up to the Capitol attack on January 6. After Trump's January 6 insurrection, 147 Republicans voted to overturn the election and validate the rioters. All but ten House Republicans (out of 211) voted against impeaching Trump for his role in inciting the insurrection. All but seven Republican Senators voted against convicting him. Republicans voted against removing Confederate statues of traitors and white supremacists from the Capitol by a 2-1 margin.

These are political problems with political answers. It's up to us to help our friends see that--people are more likely to be influenced by those they know, like, and trust. If you think it's not worth risking a friendship to make a difference on COVID, climate change, and our democracy, you should ask yourself what kind of friendship you are risking.

For Republicans, settlements are the flavor of the day. Former AIPAC legislative director Douglas Bloomfield writes that "the same folks who were not perturbed by Donald Trump’s accusations of Jewish dual-loyalty and his penchant for antisemitic tropes have suddenly become ardent – and avaricious – defenders of the Jews and West Bank settlements."

According to Bloomfield, "vowing love for Israel in response to the ice cream controversy...isn’t serious legislation. It’s big-time fundraising. The righteous indignation is rapidly blasted in emails to prospective donors. Over and over again."

Bloomfield acknowledges that both parties pander, but GOP pandering on Israel is far more aggressive because the Republican domestic agenda is a barrier to drawing Jewish support (as demonstrated by recent polling). Thus, "when it comes to right-wing pandering, Ben & Jerry’s is out, and West Bank settlements are the flavor of the day."

That's might be good for GOP fundraising, but it's not smart pro-Israel advocacy. Defending Israel against allegations of apartheid depends on maintaining clarity between the West Bank and Israel. Some argue that Israel has de facto annexed the West Bank. Reacting to the Ben & Jerry's boycott as if it is a boycott of Israel lends credence to this argument.

Rabbi Eric Yoffie wrote that "Given that antisemitism is real, and that Palestinian rejectionism is real, and that double standards are real, and that Israel haters are real, does that mean that the occupation doesn’t pose a real problem for Israelis and for Jews everywhere? Of course it doesn’t."

Israel cannot end the occupation without a partner for peace, but unless Israel's government demonstrates that it is serious about wanting to end the occupation when it has a partner for peace (continued settlement expansion will eventually result in de facto annexation), Israels' standing in the U.S. will weaken--not because of misperceptions about Israel, although those play a role, but because of the realities of Israeli policy. That's why instead of misconstruing opposition to settlements as opposition to Israel, we should do all we can to distinguish the West Bank from Israel, not conflate the two.

Want some more scoops of Ben & Jerry's? I disagree with Ben & Jerry's decision for many of the reasons articulated by Michael Koplow and Partners for Progressive Israel. But two new articles articulate better than I did last week why Ben & Jerry's is guilty of neither anti-Israel behavior nor inappropriately applying double standards.

Jonathan Freedland explains that "far from being anti-Israel, Ben & Jerry’s have reasserted the distinction between Israel-proper and the occupied territories. They have signalled to progressive-minded customers that you can be opposed to settlements without being opposed to Israel itself." That's huge, especially on college campuses, where the existence of Israel itself is an issue.

Those who argue that Ben & Jerry's is anti-Israel because it is boycotting settlements are saying "that if you object to Ma’ale Adumim then you object to Tel Aviv, that if you loathe a 54-year military occupation then you must loathe Israel." Is that the message we want to send?

Peter Beinart wrote the best article I've yet read about the double standards fallacy. You don't have to agree with everything Beinart has ever written, or even everything in this article, to see how weak the double standards argument is in this case.

Democrats from President Biden on down have called on Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo to resign following multiple credible accusations of sexual assault. Yet Republicans calling for Cuomo's resignation remained mum in the face of even more credible allegations of sexual assault against Donald Trump. Republicans love to talk about antisemitism, real or imagined, in the Democratic Party, yet those same Republicans remained mum in the face of repeated antisemitism coming from the leader of their party, Donald Trump. If you feel compelled to talk about double standards, try these.

Trump's withdrawal from the Iran Deal exacerbated our problems with Iran. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Tuesday that "Under the last administration we were promised...that a strategy of so-called maximum pressure would cow Iran into submission on every front, that it would lead to a better...deal on the nuclear program, that it would keep Iran from providing funding and supplies and support to its proxies, that Iran would be deterred from undertaking attacks in the maritime realm against our partners in Iraq, even against American forces in Iraq. Quite the opposite has happened since 2018...the point that is undeniably true is that Iran has acted with a greater degree of impunity since the shackles on its nuclear program have been removed."

We don't know if a return to the Iran Deal is possible, but we do know that we have Trump to blame for Iran's currently unrestrained nuclear program.

The Biden administration backed Israel's right to defend itself from Hezbollah rocket attacks. Hezbollah fired rockets from Lebanon into Israel for the first time since 2006. The State Department said "We absolutely condemn the rocket attacks from armed groups based in Lebanon that were fired into Israel. As the President has said, as Secretary Blinken has said, that Israel has the right to defend itself against such attacks." 

President Biden named Chanan Weissman as the administration's liaison to the American Jewish community. Weissman is a great choice for an important position (the post dates to the Kennedy administration) that Trump left vacant throughout his presidency.

Corrections. Linda Frank noticed that last week, I incorrectly stated that there were 475,00 settlers in the West Bank. In fact, there are 475,000. I zero excuse for leaving out that zero.

Matt Wos noticed that although I correctly stated in the bold bulleted section that "the House narrowly passed full funding for aid to Israel with overwhelming Democratic support and not one Republican vote," I incorrectly stated in the body of the newsletter that "all of the no votes were Republicans." In fact, three of the 212 no votes were from Democrats and the remaining 209 no votes were from Republicans. No Republicans voted for the bill.

I am grateful for careful readers like Linda and Matt. If you see any errors, please let me know. You don't have to agree with my opinions, but I pride myself on basing my opinions on facts you can rely on.

Last week's newsletter.

ICYMI. This week saw a surge in bad faith attacks on members of Congress who are critical of Israel. Details are in Section 3 (On the Record) of FMEP's Weekly Round-Up.

Tweet of the Week. Gail Seaton Humbert.

Facebook Post of the Week. Martin Jay Raffel (some of the comments are worth reading).

Newsletter Sign-Up Form of the Week. Nancy Kohn and Art Friedson have a great political newsletter. Their sign-up form is the coolest sign-up form I've seen. So sign up!

Video Clip of the Week. Shontel Brown (D-OH), soon to be the newest Democratic member of Congress, thanked "my Jewish brothers and sisters" in her victory speech Tuesday night. The Jewish Democratic Council of America, the national voice of Jewish Democrats, endorsed Brown and mobilized Jewish voters in the district on her behalf--and it made a big difference.

I guess this is a good problem to have: This list is now so large that while many people are local, even more live outside the Chicago area and have no interest in local news. If you want to be on a list that will receive infrequent newsletters about local issues and events, reply to this email and I'll add you.

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The Fine Print: This newsletter usually runs on Sunday mornings. If you receive it as an ICYMI on Wednesday it's because you didn't open the one sent on Sunday. Unless stated otherwise, my views do not necessarily reflect the views of any candidates or organizations that I support or am associated with. I reserve the right to change my mind as I learn more. I am willing to sacrifice intellectual consistency for intellectual honesty. Smart, well-informed people may disagree with me; read opposing views and decide for yourself. A link to an article doesn't mean that I agree with everything its author has ever said or that I even agree with everything in the article; it means that the article supports or elaborates on the point I was making. I take pride in accurately reporting the facts on which I base my opinions. Tell me if you spot any inaccuracies, typos, or other mistakes so that I can correct them in the next newsletter (and give you credit if you want it). Advertisements reflect the views of the advertisers, not necessarily of me, and advertisers are solely responsible for the content of their advertisements. I read, value, and encourage replies to my newsletters, but I don't always have time to acknowledge replies or to engage in one-on-one discussion. Don't expect a reply if your message is uncivil or if it's clear from your message that you haven't read the newsletter or clicked on the relevant links. © 2021 Steve Sheffey. All rights reserved.