ALL HE DID WAS PROVE THE CASE:

As a consequence, pro-Israel activists in Washington say, the case for traditionally supportive postures on the Jewish state will henceforth be more difficult to make. In other words, Netanyahu just gave anti-Israel activists in America one of the biggest boosts they could possibly imagine.

"The political debate over Israel in this country is going to get more robust and more wide open," said Jeremy Ben-Ami, who heads the influential left-wing advocacy group J Street. "People who have serious criticism of what the [Israeli] government is doing are going to have the freedom to say what they want. There will be less fear of saying these things."

"The unintended consequences of Netanyahu's decision," he went on, "is that he has opened it up for critics to push for ideas in the policy space that they couldn't before."

Indeed, on Friday, one of the leading 2020 Democratic presidential candidates amplified an idea that has long been discussed in progressive circles but has generally been a taboo subject for elected political leaders.

"If Israel doesn't want members of the United States Congress to visit their country to get a firsthand look at what's going on," said Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, "maybe he can respectfully decline the billions of dollars that we give to Israel."

Tweeted Omar on Friday: "As many of my colleagues have stated in the last 24 hours, we give Israel more than $3 billion in aid every year. This is predicated on their being an important ally in the region, and the 'only democracy' in the Middle East.

"Denying visits to duly elected Members of Congress is not consistent with being either an ally or a democracy. We should be leveraging that aid to stop the settlements and ensure full rights for Palestinians." [...]

Amanda Berman, who heads the Zioness movement, argued that most progressive Americans won't totally give up on Israel, despite Netanyahu's premiership, the same way they won't totally give up on America, despite Trump's leadership.

"We support America, which has taken an authoritarian direction that is decidedly undemocratic right now," she said. "The problem with Israel is, criticism often becomes a referendum on Israel's right to exist. And that's not the direction the conversation takes with any other country when we criticize its policies.

"But one of the few upsides this week is that the entire community, with a couple of notable outliers, came down with the same message: We don't support this policy [of banning critical, would-be visiting legislators], but we still support the state of Israel."

That said, there will now be more oxygen for policy ideas to be advanced that rethink the nature of the US-Israel relationship, including by exerting more pressure on Israel to change its behavior if it wants to enjoy the same level of friendship from Washington.

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