One answer comes from American supporters of the Israeli government’s expansionist policies. For them, a synagogue is a legitimate shell, a shield and an implicit shill for profit-making companies selling disputed land on the Occupied West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem. This, even though some of the land promoted may have been taken at gunpoint from its rightful Palestinian owners, through discriminatory legal legerdemain or with the Israeli Defense Force’s collusion. And now, these houses of worship are facilitating investments and sales to American, Canadian, British and Australian Jews. The issue has become a global flashpoint, with significant reaction. “Events promoting real estate investment in Israel and the occupied West Bank have been held across the New York area for years,” The New York Times reported in May. “But in recent months, an energized pro-Palestini…

Some is in Israel proper and areas of East Jerusalem, now or previously occupied by Arabs. Both Palestinian Americans and Jewish activists have protested such marketing events, dubbing them “the sale of stolen Palestinian land.” Sometimes shouting and shoving matches with pro-Israel counterprotesters ensue. In Britain on June 15, London police arrested 14 demonstrators — both pro- and anti-Israel — at such a protest outside Edgware United Synagogue. The common argument that “the Nakba is ongoing” certainly appears to fit. Labour Member of Parliament Andy McDonald, co-chair of the British-Palestine all-party parliamentary group, told the Guardian, “There is a prima facie case at the very least that people were advertising land in illegal settlements and that is contrary to law, and the government needs to act.” Some raucous demonstrations outside U.S. synagogues have t…