Earlier this month, the new senate minority leader Charles Schumer declared his support for Minnesota’s Representative Keith Ellison as the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Alan Dershowitz argues that Ellison’s past associations with the Nation of Islam, and his current attitudes toward the Jewish state, should be disturbing to all friends of Israel:

Long after Jesse Jackson disavowed [Louis] Farrakhan in 1984 as “reprehensible and morally indefensible” for describing Judaism as a “gutter religion,” Ellison was defending Farrakhan . . . in 1995 as a role model for African-Americans. . . .

Ellison has struggled to explain his association with Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. He has acknowledged working with the Nation of Islam for about eighteen months to organize the Minnesota delegation to Farrakhan’s 1995 Million Man March in Washington. However, Ellison insists that he never joined the Nation of Islam and, more recently, he has held himself out as a friend of the Jewish people and of Israel. This late conversion coincided with Ellison’s decision to pursue elected office in Minnesota, and an apparent realization that his association with the Nation of Islam might hurt his political fortunes. . . .

[However], Ellison’s voting record does not support his claim that he has become a “friend” of Israel. He was one of only eight congressmen who voted against funding the Iron Dome program, developed jointly by the U.S. and Israel, which helps protect Israeli civilians from Hamas rockets. In 2009, Ellison was one of only two-dozen congressmen to vote “present” rather than vote for a non-binding resolution “recognizing Israel’s right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza, reaffirming the United States’ strong support for Israel, and supporting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.” And in 2010, Ellison co‐authored a letter to President Obama, calling on him to pressure Israel into opening the border with Gaza.

Tamir Hayman analyzes the latest reports about an offer by Hamas to release three female soldiers in exchange for 150 captured terrorists, of whom 90 have received life sentences; then, if that exchange happens successfully, a second stage of the deal will begin.

If this does happen, Israel will release all the serious prisoners who had been sentenced to life and who are associated with Hamas, which will leave Israel without any bargaining chips for the second stage. In practice, Israel will release everyone who is important to Hamas without getting back all the hostages. In this situation, it’s evident that Israel will approach the second stage of the negotiations in the most unfavorable way possible. Hamas will achieve all its demands in the first stage, except for a commitment from Israel to end the war completely.

How does this relate to the fighting in Rafah? Hayman explains:

In the absence of an agreement or compromise by Hamas, it is detrimental for Israel to continue the static situation we were in. It is positive that new energy has entered the campaign. . . . The [capture of the] border of the Gaza Strip and the Rafah crossing are extremely important achievements, while the ongoing dismantling of the battalions is of secondary importance.

That being said, Hayman is critical of the approach to negotiations taken so far:

Gradual hostage trades don’t work. We must adopt a different concept of a single deal in which Israel offers a complete cessation of the war in exchange for all the hostages.