Daniel Bral
@DanielBral
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I write on American Jewry, Israel, and peace. Antisemitism educator. Son of Iranian immigrants.
Los Angeles
Joined April 2009
Despite the media’s magnification of the extremes, a collective of people occupy the center of the Venn diagram, anchored by a simple realization: there will be no exodus of Israelis or Palestinians from the holy land. My new article for the @latimes. https://t.co/O1H8SE1sva
latimes.com
The Hamas attack and the war in Gaza have heightened a sense of hopeless polarization and extremism. But the fates of both peoples depend on finding the center.
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“Biggest existential threat to democracy” comment aside, AIPAC’s zero tolerance tactics are indeed both radicalizing and unstrategic because it demands unquestioning loyalty and makes an example out of anyone who steps out of line, which creates unnecessary enemies out of spite.
The Jewish strategist behind Mamdani's mayoral victory says AIPAC radicalized him and calls it the single biggest existential threat to democracy in America @Bsamuels0
https://t.co/Ol7tXPayof
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You don’t respect your people if you won’t speak to your people.
By speaking earlier this week at Tel Aviv University, I made a serious mistake. In the past, when formulating my views about Israel-Palestine, I’ve sought out Palestinian friends and interlocutors and listened carefully to their views. In this case, I did not. I really wanted
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Palestinian solidarity movement, if its goal is to end the occupation and build the State of Palestine, should indeed recognize that many liberal and left Zionists are indeed its best allies
1/ Since Peter is being accused of being a closeted liberal Zionist—and since there’s been a wave of sarcasm directed at liberal Zionism more broadly—it’s worth stepping back to clarify that some of the Palestinians' strongest, most steadfast allies have been liberal Zionists.
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5/ This isn’t an appeal for sympathy. It is to clarify the landscape. Our energy should stay fixed on helping the people on the ground who are suffering. But liberal Zionism isn’t the obstacle to peace. It’s one of the forces still fighting to keep the door open.
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4/ Without liberal Zionists, anti-normalization absolutists would fill the void. Left to their own devices, they'd eliminate the potential for hope because there'd be no political constituency for peacemaking.
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3/ While we deserve blame, today's reality is largely a direct consequence of the actions of the most committed anti-normalizers on both sides: Hamas and its allies who violently sabotaged the peace process, and the Israeli right who've done everything to foreclose coexistence.
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2/ Liberal Zionist Jews have long constituted the backbone of the peace lobby in the US. We (and others) are organizing, lobbying, and pushing both the process and our community. In return we get shit from all sides. Have we succeeded? Obviously not. Peace has not been achieved.
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1/ Since Peter is being accused of being a closeted liberal Zionist—and since there’s been a wave of sarcasm directed at liberal Zionism more broadly—it’s worth stepping back to clarify that some of the Palestinians' strongest, most steadfast allies have been liberal Zionists.
It’s unfortunate that throat-clearing is required to explain the necessity of dialogue, especially in this moment and amongst your own people. If you don’t engage with the dominant party in the power dynamic, how do you propose to change the power imbalance you protest?
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It’s unfortunate that throat-clearing is required to explain the necessity of dialogue, especially in this moment and amongst your own people. If you don’t engage with the dominant party in the power dynamic, how do you propose to change the power imbalance you protest?
Tonight, I’m going to speak at Tel Aviv University. I know many people who I respect will think this was the wrong decision given that Israel—as widely recognized by experts on international law—practices not only apartheid but genocide. I support full equality for Israel’s
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We’ve reached a point in American politics where the promotion of classic antisemitic conspiracy theories has moved from the fringes of society into the mainstream. What’s worse is knowing that some well-intentioned non-Jews can’t be bothered to care.
Theo Von wants you to know Israel didn’t kill JFK 😉 Joe Rogan doesnt seem happy about the comment and quickly changes the course of the conversation.
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Institutions condemning Mamdani for ‘condemning Jews moving to Israel’ are acting in bad faith and signaling a stance shift that the West Bank is part of Israel. Criticize him—and the protest chants—without lying. Houses of worship don’t confer a shield to promote illegal acts.
The mayor-elect's comments characterizing an event designed to assist New York Jews explore the possibility of living in Israel as illegal are categorically false. (1/2)
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Rest assured, if a Democrat said this, the ADL and others would accuse the Party of being irredeemably antisemitic and of throwing Jews under the bus for paying no mind to their claim that Jews will not be safe in Mamdani’s NYC.
Trump on whether he’d feel comfortable living in NYC under a Mamdani administration: “Yeah, I would. I really would.”
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Is ADL’s Mamdani Monitor tracking this too?
טראמפ אחרי הפגישה עם ממדאני: ״אני חושב שהוא יהיה ראש עיר נהדר. אני רוצה לעזור לו אני לא רוצה לפגוע בו. אנחנו מסכימים על הרבה יותר דברים ממה שחשבתי״
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Yes. One shared mistake that too many pro- & anti-Zionism people make is to assume that figures like Bezalel Smotrich threaten Zionism less than anti-Israel advocacy. But many of the most potent risks to Jewish national self-determination in Israel come from within Israel.
At some point, every pro-Israel institution and activist will come to the realization that all the time, energy, and money spent on combatting anti-Israel activists is better spent combatting Israelis like Smotrich who do more to undermine Israel than any activist could dream of.
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Making opposition to the “Greater Israel plan” and Israel more broadly (using colonial vocabulary) a centerpiece of a fresh campaign shows there’s a new, younger crop of Twitter candidates who’ve formed their identity based on the truncated worldview that social media curates.
The horrific colonial violence we have witnessed will not end with the genocide in Gaza. I am running for Congress to block our financing of the extremist “Greater Israel” plan. Donate & Support: https://t.co/0WFcrsufs9
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At some point, every pro-Israel institution and activist will come to the realization that all the time, energy, and money spent on combatting anti-Israel activists is better spent combatting Israelis like Smotrich who do more to undermine Israel than any activist could dream of.
Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich: "“We are killing the idea of a Palestinian state — day by day, hour by hour — with more than a hundred farms that already span over 700,000 dunams. These are state lands that we hold so the enemy won’t seize them."
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If true, Mamdani’s approach is the wiser one because some of the left’s hyper-fixation on Zionism is futile, counterproductive, and often harmful (to Jews who identify as Zionists and to the Palestinian struggle). Tailoring criticism to the Israeli government is more pragmatic.
Vox host @AsteadWH claims Zohran Mamdani is quietly pushing back against the harder-line anti-Zionists in his movement. In a meeting with his Jewish endorsers, says Astead, Rep. Jerry Nadler questioned the progressive left’s fixation on anti-Zionism. When someone started to
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That no major opposition leader in Israel is seizing and speaking on the Saudi offering as the centerpiece of an alternative vision for Israel’s future speaks to how much of the opposition’s offering is by and large just an elegant repackaging of the same dystopia.
MBS: "We want to be part of the Abraham Accords." "But we want also to be sure that we secure a clear path to a two-state solution."
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Rahm Emanuel is pushing a failed strategy that rests on persuading the American public that the unpalatable actions of the Israeli gov. are somehow palatable. So long as the Jewish communal strategy remains sanitization and not struggle, it is bound to fail—and fail Israel, too.
@GSDeutch Emanuel, Obama’s former chief of staff and the former U.S. ambassador to Japan, beseeched the attendees to reckon with the shifting political winds on Israel and work to make a stronger case for the U.S.-Israel relationship. https://t.co/9dIcI58cpQ
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“I can’t return to Israel for 10 years — but I won’t turn my back on it.” The “pro-Israel” label has been tossed around so casually to the point of bastardization, but Leila’s determination and devotion in spite of this in-house betrayal epitomizes what “pro-Israel”-ism is.
Israel deported me for helping West Bank Palestinians. I won’t t give up on a peaceful future for the country I love
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