Is there growing realization within Israeli society that the social, political, moral, and military basis of the occupation is unsustainable? If so, perhaps 'The Gatekeepers' need not change people’s minds, so much as express them. A college professor once taught me that a decaying empire clenches onto power with a chokehold. Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian people may not be an empire, but after nearly forty-six years, it has become a sort of reigning paradigm of Israeli life. The Israeli Left has challenged, but never truly shifted, that paradigm. In 2009 a particularly right-wing government was established after a particularly…

NEW YORK -- After more than a week of controversy, including an editorial in the New York Times and a statement from Mayor Bloomberg, Brooklyn College hosted a discussion of BDS with Judith Butler and Omar Barghouti and nothing happened. That fact alone seems worthy of a story these days. In a post for +972, Mairav Zonszein wrote eloquently about the outrageous attempts to intimidate the college into canceling the event. Alan Dershowitz started the whole controversy, but New York City public officials were quick to follow, with several threatening to cut the college's funding. The New York Times published…

After Alan Dershowitz started a campaign against a BDS panel at Brooklyn College, the institution's funding was threatened by 'pro-Israel' officials. The college stuck to its guns, but the entire fiasco is an excellent example of the double standard ailing the debate on Israel in the U.S. Israel is once again at the center of a heated debate in the U.S., pitting the so-called "pro-Israel" types against the so-called "anti-Israel" types. This time it's not Obama, it's not Chuck Hagel – it's Brooklyn College. An event scheduled to take place at the institution tomorrow (Thursday) will feature UC Berkeley professor and Jewish Voice…