EXCEPT THAT YOU DO NEED TO CHOOSE:

This month, Israeli snipers shot hundreds of Palestinian protesters -- including one journalist wearing a vest marked "PRESS" -- who posed no life-threatening danger to them, or to the people they're meant to protect. Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman then justified these shootings on the grounds that "there are no innocent people in the Gaza Strip," suggesting that the area's 1.8 million Palestinian men, women, and children are all legitimate targets of state violence. Meanwhile, Israel reneged on an agreement with the United Nations to grant legal status to 40,000 African asylum-seekers (whom the Netanyahu government had previously intended to jail en masse or deport), leaving those long-suffering refugees in a state of limbo.

And then, Natalie Portman did something controversial. [...]

Portman's statement is a model of liberal Zionist dissent. It focuses its fire on Israel's elected leadership, while evincing love for its people; insists that one need not choose between the Jewish value of empathy for the marginalized, and support for the Jewish state; and frames her criticism of Israeli policy as a defense of Israel's own best interests -- all while explicitly disavowing the BDS movement.

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