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November 17th, 2021 
Awake Goy In October the Israeli Defense Minister, Benny Gantz, shocked the American liberal Zionist community by designating six leading Palestinian human rights as “terrorist” groups. These organizations have been around for decades and receive funding from European governments, but they have drawn the Israeli government’s ire for assisting the ICC investigation of war crimes by Israel, including by Gantz himself, who bragged of bombing Gaza back to the “stone age.”
The response to Gantz’s ban has been emphatic. European governments have said that there is no evidence for the claim. The organizations themselves have said this is a mendacious, authoritarian action. An Israeli human rights attorney told Americans for Peace Now that the designation is an “act of tyranny,” and even J Street issued a statement calling the designation “deeply repressive” and wrong and urging the Biden administration to demand its reversal.
The State Department has expressed concern about the designation but then has had nothing to say. Even as Reps. Betty McCollum, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Jim McGovern and others have demanded that the U.S. denounce the action.
And in the middle of this hateful scandal what happens? A bunch of Congresspeople go out to Israel and meet with Benny Gantz. Gantz publishes a few photographs of his meetings, most of them with Democrats. Like a bipartisan delegation led by Delaware Senator Chris Coons, on November 10– Gantz said they “discussed global and regional security issues, defense cooperation and opportunities to advance peace.”
And these two photos, on November 9, one jolly, one serious, of a bipartisan group that included Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Senators Ben Cardin, Bob Casey and Rob Portman, and Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee. Gantz commented:
I was honored to meet with a bipartisan delegation of US Congress members led by @leaderhoyer & @senatorcardin. We discussed the region’s most pressing challenges, starting with Iran & its destabilizing influence. We also reiterated the unwavering bond between the US & Israel.
It ought to be obvious but: None of these congresspeople should be doing photo opps with a rightwing authoritarian leader who is targeting human rights groups, on a racialized basis.
Steve Cohen’s appearance is the most disturbing here. Cohen is a regular at J Street, and he should know better than to appear grinning with a man that J Street says has initiated a “deeply repressive” action targeting human rights groups, a man who bragged of bombing Gaza back to the stone age.
I reached out to both Cohen and J Street to ask whether they had any comment on the meeting; neither has responded.
It’s plain to me why these Democratic politicians are meeting a rightwing Israeli and showing up as props for his intolerant agenda. Because the Israel lobby likes US politicians to cater to Israeli leaders, and the Dems want to stay on the right side of the Democratic Majority for Israel, which can raise a lot of money to target critics of Israel. It really is that simple. That’s why Steny Hoyer is grinning in the photo. And it surely explains the Biden administration’s reluctance to do anything about Gantz’s designation. When Israel is concerned, all the U.S. pieties about human rights go out the window.
Interestingly, I could not find any social media from Cohen — or Coons, Hoyer, or Casey — publicizing their meeting with Gantz. This is surely because the rank-and-file Democrats don’t like rightwing Israeli leaders who go after human rights groups. Cohen has tweeted a photo of his meeting with Israeli president Isaac Herzog.
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