Booker: U.S.-Israel bond remains strong
Iran deal working, but more efforts needed to ‘undermine terrorism’
By Debra Rubin
NJJN Bureau Chief/Middlesex
January 20, 2016
U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, left, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a recent mission to Israel and other American ally nations by Democratic senators. Credit: NJJN, with photo courtesy Sen. Cory Booker.
Despite the recent rockiness in American-Israeli relations, particularly over the Iran nuclear deal, Sen. Cory Booker [NJ], just back from a Senate Democratic mission to Israel and other countries, said he is convinced the bond remains strong. New Jersey’s junior senator was one of eight legislators on the Jan. 3-9 trip led by New York’s Kirsten Gillibrand.
“I left Israel with a sense of gratitude from Israelis for the work going on in the region between our two countries and respect for Israel’s own capabilities, and a deep commitment to use my capabilities every day to take aggressive responses to any threats Israel has, particularly from Iran,” Booker told NJJN in a Jan. 15 phone interview.
THE REAL ISRAEL 
Danger Ahead: Anti-Israel Movement Targets New Friends
Op-Ed: The anti-Israel trend you’ve never heard of
By David Bernstein (David Bernstein is president and CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the representative voice of the Jewish community relations movement.)
David Bernstein. President & CEO – the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. Credit: @DavidLBernstein
January 4, 2016
NEW YORK (JTA) — If you want to understand why the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, or BDS, has gained so much ground in the past two years, look no further than intersectionality, the study of related systems of oppression.
Intersectionality holds that various forms of oppression — racism, sexism, classism, ableism, and homophobia — constitute an intersecting system of oppression. In this worldview, a transcendent white, male, heterosexual power structure keeps down marginalized groups. Uniting oppressed groups, the theory goes, strengthens them against the dominant power structure.
As you might have guessed, the BDS movement has successfully injected the anti-Israel cause into these intersecting forms of oppression and itself into the interlocking communities of people who hold by them. So it’s increasingly likely that if a group sees itself as oppressed, it will see Israel as part of the dominant power structure doing the oppressing and Palestinians as fellow victims. That oppressed group will be susceptible to joining forces with the BDS movement.
Read complete Op-Ed.