Netanyahu and his far-right allies are celebrating Trump's victory because they expect him to be as 'pro-Israel' (or, more accurately, pro-Netanyahu) as he was in his first term in office. Is this expectation likely to be right? A 🧵 Regarding the war in Gaza, Trump is unlikely to be concerned about the humanitarian catastrophe there. He will probably accept Israel’s restrictions on the flow of aid into Gaza, and he will not push Israel into allowing the PA back into Gaza.

Israel and Hezbollah are now on the brink of a full-scale war. Here’s my explainer of why they got to this point and what could happen in the coming weeks. A thread: 1. On Oct 8—one day after the Hamas-led surprise attack in southern Israel—Hezbollah initiated a low-intensity war of attrition against Israel. It did so with Iran’s blessing, because Hezbollah and Iran wanted to help their ally, Hamas. The hope was that by opening a second front with Israel, the IDF would have to divert some of its limited manpower to Israel’s northern border. Tying down Israeli forces in the north was seen as a way of preventing Hamas’s military defeat.

A🧵 on the need for a #CeasefireNOW in #Gaza and on what to do about the very real problem of #Hamas: 1) If there was a way to eliminate Hamas without killing so many innocent people and inflicting unimaginable suffering on more than 2 million civilians, I'd fully support it. I'd welcome the defeat of Hamas. It's a cruel, callous, violent extremist group that sadistically murders Israelis and brutally oppresses Palestinians.

To follow-up on my recent post rejecting the simplistic equation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism, I'll elaborate a bit more on what I see as the relationship, in theory and practice, between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. Hopefully, this will clarify my thinking. A long thread: 1. There are antisemitic motives for supporting anti-Zionism and non-antisemitic motives for supporting anti-Zionism (just as there are antisemitic motives for supporting Zionism and non-antisemitic motives for supporting Zionism).

The UN’s special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, @FranceskAlbs, has been assailed as an antisemite because of past comments she's made. In 2014, she referred to the US being "subjugated by the Jewish lobby." 1/8 timesofisrael.com/un-palestinian… This language evokes the antisemitic trope of a cabal of Jews secretly controlling governments. She should have used the term "Israel lobby" not "Jewish lobby," and she should have used language that didn't suggest illicit Jewish power and control over the US government. 2/8

A post-election survey of American Jewish voters (commissioned by @jstreetdotorg) has some interesting findings about Jewish opinions concerning Israel and antisemitism. Here's a quick summary: Only 4% of Jewish voters said that Israel was one of the their top two issues in deciding who they vote for Congress.

If nothing else, President Biden's brief visit to Israel and Palestine confirms the fact that the US' has given up any serious effort to reach a two-state solution. A thread: Obama tried at first, but then abandoned the effort when faced with Netanyahu's intransigence. In his second term, the Iranian nuclear issue pushed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict further down the agenda.

#AmnestyInternational’s accusation that Israel is guilty of #apartheid is not antisemitic. Here’s why (a thread): Are the report's authors motivated by antisemitism? There’s no reason to assume this. They’re not the only people to accuse Israel of apartheid. Palestinians have made this claim for many years, and recently some Israeli groups have as well. HRW also accused Israel of apartheid.

A group of Rabbis have accused Rep. Ilhan Omar of making an antisemitic blood libel (foxnews.com/politics/rabbi… #FoxNews). This accusation is both false and harmful. Here’s why (a long thread): Omar tweeted "We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity. We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban. I asked Blinken where people are supposed to go for justice"