Nathan Thrall calls out J St and other liberal Zionists for enabling apartheid

A critique of the damage caused by the claim that the two “regimes” can be separated.

By Philip Weiss  | Mondoweiss |  Jan 19, 2021

Thrall’s thrust is that liberal Zionists have bolstered the persistence of apartheid by insisting that that’s not happening in Israel, it’s only the West Bank.

We all understand that this is a time of tremendous potential shift in the discourse of Palestine in the U.S. When Joe Biden comes in, liberal Zionists, who can take some credit for electing him, will make up the central branch of the Israel lobby inside the Democratic Party. Secretary of State Tony Blinken is their friend. So is his deputy Wendy Sherman. So liberal Zionists will own our Israel policy.

And Biden along with liberal Zionists will be coming under huge pressure from the Democratic left, the Sandersite progressives who have been fighting for Palestinian rights in the halls of Congress, to actually do something at last for Palestinian freedom.

The latest sign of this pressure are the official reports saying Israel is enforcing apartheid, notably Yesh Din last July and B’Tselem last week. These follow a similar declaration years ago by the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, among others. And when Israel is declared apartheid state, there’s one plain outcome: Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.

To this list of pressures I’d add a brilliant analysis by Nathan Thrall in the London Review of Books, titled “The Separate Regimes Delusion.” Thrall’s thrust is that liberal Zionists have bolstered the persistence of apartheid by insisting that that’s not happening in Israel, it’s only the West Bank. Israel is a democracy! There are two regimes here! Thrall’s piece is a careful and lacerating exposition of the damage caused by the claim that the two “regimes” can be separated. Apartheid has been the order of the day in Israel since 1948.

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