Date/Time
Date(s) - Saturday, September 16, 2023
10:00 am - 11:30 am
US Policy Toward Israel At a Turning Point with Mitchell Plitnick
President, ReThinking Foreign Policy
September 16, 10- 11:30 AM
US Policy Toward Israel At a Turning Point
with Mitchell Plitnick
The perception of Israel in the United States, in virtually every corner except the halls of Congress, has undergone a radical transformation in 2023. Ongoing and escalating violence by settlers, while not new, has reached unprecedented heights and the involvement of Israeli military and security forces in those attacks has gotten more exposure than ever before. Israel’s own radically right-wing government has escalated military attacks as well, with the attack on Jenin in June highlighting a growing understanding that Israel is, at best, disregarding Palestinian lives. Yet despite Israel’s escalating violence and its de facto annexation of much of the West Bank, mainstream congressional Democrats have doubled down on their support for Israel while the Biden administration has accelerated efforts to broker a normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. I will discuss the implications of all of these factors and how they are connected.
Mitchell Plitnick, a political analyst and writer, is the president of ReThinking Foreign Policy. He is the author, with Marc Lamont Hill, of Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics. Mitchell’s previous positions include vice president at the Foundation for Middle East Peace, Director of the US Office of B’Tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, and Co-Director of Jewish Voice for Peace. His writing has appeared in Ha’aretz, the New Republic, Mondoweiss, Responsible Statecraft, The New Arab, Middle East Report, LobeLog, the San Francisco Chronicle, +972 Magazine, and other outlets. He has spoken all over the country on Middle East politics and has regularly offered commentary in a wide range of radio and television outlets including PBS News Hour, the O’Reilly Factor, i24 (Israel), Pacifica Radio, CNBC Asia and others. Plitnick graduated with honors from UC Berkeley in Middle Eastern Studies and wrote his thesis on Israeli and Jewish historiography. He earned his Masters Degree from the University of Maryland, College Park’s School of Public Policy. You can find him on Twitter @MJPlitnick.
Thank you to our forum sponsors, Northfielders for Justice in Palestine/Israel, Women Against Military Madness
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