The comments here are just so depressing. People twisting themselves into pretzels to justify an ongoing human rights crisis.
It ends up sounding like maga folks defending the human rights abuses in this country. I hope to G-d we don’t get as entrenched in our hatred for each other here as Jews and Palestinians are in Israel. What a tragic failure of humanity to see each other’s humanity.
Why do you think you’re morally superior? When is the last time any democracy but Israel and Ukraine fought to defend its own territory and civilians from invasion and massacre by Arabs and Russians respectively?
Israelis are fighting a war a scant few miles from where the Palestinians massacred more Jews in one day than anyone since the Nazis, against sociopathic religious fanatics. They’re fighting to destroy the terrorist army that invaded the sovereign territory of Israel specifically to massacre the biggest concentration of socialist peace activists who believed in coexistence and peace. Meanwhile, the progressive left parades some token Jews to make excuses for Islamist terrorism and act shocked that their message of “how dare Israel defend itself” isn’t viewed as heartwarming by extended Israeli family, but instead is seen exactly for the virtue signaling trolling that it is.
"this virulent strain of self-obsession has become endemic among anti-Zionist Jews.
The contagion presents with symptoms ranging from an inflated sense of self-importance and arrogant behavior to a constant need for admiration, a belief in one’s own exceptionalism, and a profound lack of empathy. Coincidentally, these are also hallmark traits of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)"
There's nothing "new" or previously supposedly "unnoticed" in Beinart's statements. It's incomprehensible how Herschlag or anyone else comes to a conclusion like this.
I recently read all of this, for example, in Sebag Montefiore's - who, just one example, is totally “critical“ towards Netanyahu`s reign, too, but no way shares the Herschlag „conclusions“/ „deductions“ - book on "Jerusalem," and much more than this.
If I was an Israeli, I could never vote for Netanyahu - just as I could have never voted for Trump, if I was a US citizen.
But Trump is the nearly unevitable result of the sum total of all „Leftist“ (non-)action and faults before in Harvard and other places; similarly with Netanyahu.
Not all that Trump does, is totally wrong - same with Netanyahu -, rather the ways he chooses are „questionable“ to say the least.
Netanyahu at least is well informed and knows what he is doing and why, he also is „politically rightist“, but no reactionary - which can´t be said of Trump.
Likewise, there's nothing (new) at Beinart or Herschlag to be read about how it could have been prevented from killing so-called "innocents" in the attacks against Hamas, when Hamas had set up everything to ENSURE that this was INEVITABLE ?
HOW MANY GOOD for the Arabian People could Hamas have done if they had spent all that money on prosperity for their inhabitants instead for tunnels, rockets, weapons, terrorism and school books full of „Hate Speech“ towards ALL jews ?
How many hundreds of thousands of rockets had "Gaza" fired at Israel - on loads of CITIZENS - since 2005? Do we find all THESE numbers at Beinart/ Herschlag ?
There are 51 (fifty-one) states in the world with "Islam" as the state/majority religion: not a single one of them has fundamental human rights enshrined in its constitution and laws, nor a separation of powers, nor a prohibition of discrimination "based" on gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc.: surely "Israel is to blame," also for this, isn't it? "The Jews" are to blame, as always and ever.
While „the Palestinians“ are „Freedom Fighters“, for sure, brutally „PROUDLY“ killing opposition, gays/lesbians, suppressing women : THAT´S „Freedom“, for sure.
And beneath these 51 states, there is now only ONE that is declared "Jewish,“ which is a constiutional state unlike EVERY „Islam“ state/nation - and WHO gets „criticized" …?!? A huge fuss is made about this Jewish State with the usual "accusations" against "the Jews.“
„Leftists“ adored Stalin, Mao Zedong, Polh Poth, Castro and all the other MASS MURDERERS : but STILL they keep their „gift of the gab“ instead of SILENCING in SHAME for CENTURIES ???
That´s maybe what lets them „like“ the Arabs and the Islam: self-criticism is the LAST THING arousing from these ideologies („Religions).
But THEY - THEY !!!!! - DARE to mock about supposedly „the Jews’ '' failure of self-criticism ?? Oh my God: UNBELIEVABLE.
While hardly a word is said about this on others—like the major Colonial States Russia - the greatest colonial state of the world - , China, and others—it is guaranteed and unconditionally imposed on "the Jews" in everything they do. Always. Ever.
In HOW MANY Arab/Muslim states are there still Jews?
900,000 – compared to 700,000 Arabs expelled/dispossessed in Israel (self-proclaimed „Palestinians“- were expelled from these states in 1948 and thereafter –
Do you hear THEM mourning, crying, demanding - or did they get a life ?
So, one of the most vicious statements here is "Jewish self-narrative of a people as victims always and oppressors never": OH WHAT A LIE !!! : everyone can know that in no religion does one's own transgressions and faultiness play such a large role as in Judaism.
What is the state of self-criticism in "Islam"? ZERO. It doesn't exist there.
That Israel supposedly has something "against Arabs" is absurd.
Rather in fact, Israel had just begun talks with Saudi Arabia, even Qatar, and other countries to resolve the so-called "Palestinian" "problem": THAT EXACTLY was PRECISELY the "reason" for the HOLOCAUST OF OCTOBER 07, 2023 : because Hamas – rightly – feared it would no longer play a role.
Herschlag seems to be oblivious to all this, or just not wanting to know.
Before the Second World War, everyone told "the Jews": "Go to Palestine: that's where you belong."
Now they ARE in "Palestine"... AND...? …
...the Arabs have appropriated this COLONIALIST (!!) term, which always meant ALL inhabitants of the Levant – not just Jews and Arabs, but also the numerous other peoples and religions oppressed, persecuted, and decimated there for centuries by the COLONIZING Ottomans and Arabs! –, as if Arabs (falsely named „Palestinians“) had ever lived there even remotely alone or predominantly.
Moreover, the "colonial powers" (Great Britain, France) had promised a state of their own there to some other people there than Jews and Arabs – and failed to keep those promises (too)… !
Before World War II, Great Britain, in particular, didn't want a Jewish state there – but in 1947/48, the Arabs COULD have had their own state, but they made it impossible THEMSELVES (just as Arafat a.o. did later on) – because they didn't / don´t want to tolerate "any others beside them," just as they do in the 51 Islamic „jew-free“ states.
But none of this can be found in Herschlag's essay, which is at best good as toilet paper and for the self-edification of „leftists", who, as we all know, are "always the good guys” - but instead of self-criticism, they rather use a projection of their own self on „The Jews“.
Look, I appreciate your write-up and as someone who hasn't actually read this book, I won't comment on that directly. But I am very familiar with Beinart and the grift he's running, so I'm going to respond to you through that lens:
Nothing that Beinart is doing is "career suicide" for him. Demonizing Israel IS his career, and he's made a very lucrative one out of it. His stance has evolved into the absurd over time, as his audience has demanded it. "The Crisis of Zionism," one of his earlier books, is excellent. His current stuff is just vile, but it's an effective career strategy for him.
We all can call out Bibi and say how much we oppose the current Israeli government and say how Hamas is really just an outgrowth of bad Israeli policy until the cows come home. Those platitudes don't address the very real issue that Beinart fails to address, and that is that after October 7th, the world's antisemites made it clear how much they love to see slaughtered Jews. They were HAPPY about what Hamas did in the worst attack on us since the Holocaust. And rather respond to that very real danger, Beinart instead sided with them, people who would be just as happy to see him (and all of us, really) dead.
"Israel doesn't have a Hamas problem"? Errr, I would say the events of October 7th and their aftermath, with large swaths of the activist class going out on the street to support them, suggest differently. How about this: THE WEST has a Hamas problem. Can we agree on that?
I agree that Beinart is not committing career suicide, that in some sense, he's changed gears from his former liberal Zionism and made this a new career. But I don't consider it a grift. I think he is utterly sincere, consumed by an honest passion, even though I cannot change gears with him, from liberal to non- or anti Zionist. I think he too often views Palestinians as something like sacred innocents, lacking agency, and is too ready to view the conflict through the fashionable frame of 'settler colonialism'. It's true Israel doesn't simply have a Hamas problem, but it's also true that Hamas-style Islamist irredentism, is not uncommon in the Middle East; Hamas is therefore not merely an artifact of Israeli misbehavior. To my mind Beinart's view is distorted, too black and white, and too simple.
However. I do give him credit for a certain amount of courage. He's an observant Jew, living, as I understand it, in an observant Jewish community. Publicly espousing the views he does is absolutely guaranteed to make himself a target for serious criticism within such a community. And he does seem to handle such criticism gracefully and respectfully.
As a non-Jew born into a family of supporters of Israel you may well tell me to step aside as someone with no familial victim of the holocaust, yet what puzzles me is not the defense of Netanyahu’s immorality and damage to a country whose citizens I love (Israel) but defenders of what can reasonably be seen as an indifference to human suffering in Gaza and the death of infants and children by saying ‘they hit me first’.
No one familiar with the history of the region denies the determination of the founders of Israel to the depopulation of a people called Palestinians, or the depraved attitude of the governments of surrounding countries and their repeated aggression and hatred of Jews. They do not deserve to be called civilized when they advocate harm to Jews in Israel based on religious precepts.
What is demoralizing is witnessing an entire depopulation of the only homeland that Palestinians were given.
Can you acknowledge the immorality of such deaths?
Are you asking if I acknowledge the immorality of the deaths of Gazans during the current war? Yes, I acknowledge that, and I acknowledge that's on Hamas, who started the war.
"No one familiar with the history of the region denies the determination of the founders of Israel to the depopulation of a people called Palestinians..." This is patently false. First, when Israel was founded in 1948 the folks we refer to as 'Palestinians' today were known as 'Arabs.' When the Palestinian identity as we know it today was created after the 1967 war (to mean Arabs living in Gaza and the West Bank), the total Palestinian population was around 1 million. Fast forward 60 years later, that same population now totals to over 5 million. Those numbers do not suggest that Israel ever supported their "depopulation." Of course this doesn't even touch the fact that 2 million Arabs (not included in the 5 million Palestinians I'm speaking of here) live in Israel proper as full Israeli citizens.
Hamas is causing their deaths by using them as human shields, but they are not the ones killing them. We don’t kill children - no matter saying “they started it”, and get to keep our souls.
Read the reference you included (the 7 lies..) there are stark definitions used (..’dolus specialist’) and references to defend what we see happening every day these days. First, yes I do think Israel had to respond - violently - to October 7. But I cannot read those 7 lies and feel obliged to accept the deaths of small children.
Perhaps that is the crux of this exchange between us.
Those tunnels funded by Iran? I am no friend of their terrorist regime or their chief sponsor - Putin. But I no more want the annihilation of the population of Iran who are and have been attempting to establish a secular opposition to the maniacal theocracy governing them.
What Matters Now to Andrew Fox: Cynical use of inflated death figures from Gaza
Research fellow at the UK-based Henry Jackson Society assesses the IDF operations in the Strip and dissects a new report that questions media acceptance of Hamas casualty lists
The tunnels were subsidized heavily by aid money, most of which came from the US, EU, and Qatar - this is our US taxpayer dollars in action, just as demanding that Israel allow their construction (both pressure not to strike them and insistence Israel allow for enormous amounts of building materials through) were US policy. Iran funded the arms, training and development of the Hamas army. It’s one of those incomprehensible joint ventures progressives have with Iran, like helping them fight in Iraq.
Children get killed in wars, especially ones started by Islamist terrorists, as they intentionally use them as human shields and child soldiers. If you think Israel should be denied the ability to destroy Hamas because like in every single war there will be civilian casualties, you are taking not just a warmongering position (Hamas gets to retreat, rebuild, strike with another atrocity again and again), but also an amoral one. Inviting more war isn’t a moral position. Pacifists in WW2 did the work of the Nazis. Stop claiming Israel is trying to annihilate the population or the US wants to annihilate the Iranian one - neither of those is true. There are more people alive in Gaza today than on October 6. Israel attacks Hamas, spread across Gaza, the US would target the Iranian military, just as Israel had.
How many Arab Israelis live in Jerusalem, today? Are all their homes destroyed? Did they not see a massive population growth compared to 1967, 1947?
How many Jews lived in the old city of Jerusalem (majority Jewish since 1840) between 1948-1967, when the Jordanians didn’t create a Palestinian state in the West Bank? They all got ethnically cleansed, same as a million Jews from the Middle East and North Africa. At the same time Israeli Arabs prospered as Israeli citizens, more than Arabs in any country that isn’t a petrodollar pump.
There’s all the historical evidence to support what you say. Arab countries during WW2 supported Hitler. Joined in efforts to harm Jews.
Yet you deflect from the core issue here. The question I ask - how are Indiscriminate deaths and effective starvation of children - including infants acceptable?
Ethical question. If you ignore it, you know the answer.
No, not just “Arab countries”, the Palestinian elite supported the Nazis during WW2, actively recruited for the Nazis, instigated antisemitic pogroms in Iraq and elsewhere.
As for “effective starvation” do you mean the promised famine that never happened? The warnings never amounted to anything other than Hamas propaganda because Israel let in hundreds of thousands of tons of food aid into Gaza. The only people preventing aid from Palestinian civilians is… wait for it… the Palestinian government of Hamastan Gaza who steal that food, hoard it, and use it to profit in order to pay for their child soldiers.
But what “indiscriminate deaths” are you trying to sell here? The attacks on Jewish civilians by Palestinians were absolutely discriminating - they mostly bypassed the IDF to kill civilians intentionally, just as the bombing of European cities by the Nazis was discriminating and intentional. Israel is bombing Hamas, which is also discriminate. What you’re trying to do is absolve Hamas of responsibility for civilian deaths on both sides, and that’s a lie - the Nazis we’re similarly responsible for the millions of German civilians that died in the war they started.
Ethical question - were the democracies during WW2 supposed to ignore the belligerence and openly genocidal intent and actions of the Nazis because German children also got killed during that war? Is Israel supposed to ignore the torture, rape, murder of thousands of Israeli civilians and the abduction of 251 of them, especially when Hamas openly promised many more October 7 like attacks? If you ignore their actions and statements, you know the answer.
My meaning was depopulation of what is considered Israeli territory. I acknowledge Hamas as a terrorist organization. You’re talking semantics, I’m discussing human beings essentially as human as Jews are. For some reason you seem to believe they’ve killed themselves. Is that correct?
2 million Arabs currently living in Israeli territory (I assume you define that as within the Green Line as I do) does not constitute depopulation, nor does it suggest "they've killed themselves." I am not talking semantics, I'm stating facts.
You seem to think that Hamas and Palestinian are the same thing. There are many Hamas members that might call themselves Palestinians (and they are all Arabs) but many of them are from various parts of the Arab world and their intention is now and always has been to kill Jews. If you've read the charter you can deny that fact but you're a liar. If you haven't you have no business having this conversation.
There actually is no such thing as a Palestinian because there has never been a country called Palestine even though they've been offered one several times. They called themselves Arabs all the way up to the 1960's when Yasser Arafat created the title and suggested the Stateless Arabs of Palestine call themselves Palestinians for sympathy and PR.
Actually I don’t. It would be like saying all of Ireland was in the IRA. Sympathy because of fellowship in wanting an overlord to leave them in peace, but certainly not willing to take lives in that cause.
People want to live in peace, in a world that threatens the lives of their children.
Ben, first I’d like to thank you for platforming an “as a Jew” supporter of Beinart and his long career of being a token Jew shill for Islamist terrorists and other scum working toward the destruction of Israel, the biggest community of Jews in the world (one of the smallest minorities in existence that keeps being targeted for genocide by Europeans then and Arabs and Muslims now).
Mr Herschlag, your type is identifiable by your multiple “as a Jew” appeals. It’s the first thing out of the mouths of the few token Jews in the warmongering ‘Jewish’ Voices for ‘Peace’ who Beinart aligns with.
It’s interesting that you try to pass your daughter’s post as innocent, when we all know it was intended to troll the “evil Zionists” in your extended family. You’d think a Phi Beta Kappa genius would know how a “Will Somebody Please Think of the Children!” pearl clutching during a war started by her Hamas Pals would come across to Israeli Jews suffering through 18 months of war. Did she also post about the many Israeli children murdered, raped, tortured and forced to watch their family suffer in the genocidal pogrom inflicted on peace activist socialist villages by her Pals? This may have been missed by such an educated pair, but October 7 was the biggest single day massacre of Jews since the Nazi SS Einsatzgruppen. That has always been the goal of the Palestinians, not a state. I guess the problem with allegedly educated antizionist Jews is swallowing decades of Jew hating propaganda - your idol Beinart carefully selects his facts, but like you misses the point of Palestinianism completely.
Upon this duality and this underpinning rest his hopes that one day, perhaps even in the World to Come, Beinart will regain both his friend and his people.
Perhaps if the author and his own quasi-tribe didn’t spent 5 pages casually dismissing actual threat, loss of life and very explicitly genocidal plans not only by the Palestinian leadership but by their supporter club, from Moscow to Teheran, perhaps the basis for siege mentality that keeps Netanyahu in power wouldn’t be as acute.
The war against Israel isn’t new, and the commitment to wipe out its entire population hasn’t wavered.
I haven’t heard any coherent alternatives going forward beyond “from river to the sea”.
Well he did mention that his brilliant daughter thinks memes in support of the Palestinians during this war is helpful rather than gross trolling, and Beinart does think that Israel should be destroyed because it once again dared to defend itself against a genocidal war launched by the Palestinians. I guess that’s an alternative, just not one that anyone other than virtue signaling haters of the biggest Jewish community in the world believe is rational, just and realistic.
It’s would be ironic, except it’s of course by design, that both the cancer of trumpism that’s consumed GOP and the fake Gaza narrative that’s making Dems so farcically impotent share their source and their main beneficiary on Lubyanka 2…
As a baptized and raised Catholic who is learning about Judaism can I just say that many, if not most of the values I learned in Catholic School came from Judaism. It's spelled out pretty thoroughly in the Torah, from what I understand.
I agree that when a Catholic says that “Jesus was Palestinian” it must be ‘Clarity’ rather than stupidity, ignorance, or old school Judenhass. However Beinart is Jewish, and we know that his problems are narcissism and greed.
The comments here are just so depressing. People twisting themselves into pretzels to justify an ongoing human rights crisis.
It ends up sounding like maga folks defending the human rights abuses in this country. I hope to G-d we don’t get as entrenched in our hatred for each other here as Jews and Palestinians are in Israel. What a tragic failure of humanity to see each other’s humanity.
Why do you think you’re morally superior? When is the last time any democracy but Israel and Ukraine fought to defend its own territory and civilians from invasion and massacre by Arabs and Russians respectively?
Israelis are fighting a war a scant few miles from where the Palestinians massacred more Jews in one day than anyone since the Nazis, against sociopathic religious fanatics. They’re fighting to destroy the terrorist army that invaded the sovereign territory of Israel specifically to massacre the biggest concentration of socialist peace activists who believed in coexistence and peace. Meanwhile, the progressive left parades some token Jews to make excuses for Islamist terrorism and act shocked that their message of “how dare Israel defend itself” isn’t viewed as heartwarming by extended Israeli family, but instead is seen exactly for the virtue signaling trolling that it is.
"this virulent strain of self-obsession has become endemic among anti-Zionist Jews.
The contagion presents with symptoms ranging from an inflated sense of self-importance and arrogant behavior to a constant need for admiration, a belief in one’s own exceptionalism, and a profound lack of empathy. Coincidentally, these are also hallmark traits of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)"
https://open.substack.com/pub/ameliaadams/p/the-myth-of-the-self-hating-jew
There's nothing "new" or previously supposedly "unnoticed" in Beinart's statements. It's incomprehensible how Herschlag or anyone else comes to a conclusion like this.
I recently read all of this, for example, in Sebag Montefiore's - who, just one example, is totally “critical“ towards Netanyahu`s reign, too, but no way shares the Herschlag „conclusions“/ „deductions“ - book on "Jerusalem," and much more than this.
If I was an Israeli, I could never vote for Netanyahu - just as I could have never voted for Trump, if I was a US citizen.
But Trump is the nearly unevitable result of the sum total of all „Leftist“ (non-)action and faults before in Harvard and other places; similarly with Netanyahu.
Not all that Trump does, is totally wrong - same with Netanyahu -, rather the ways he chooses are „questionable“ to say the least.
Netanyahu at least is well informed and knows what he is doing and why, he also is „politically rightist“, but no reactionary - which can´t be said of Trump.
Likewise, there's nothing (new) at Beinart or Herschlag to be read about how it could have been prevented from killing so-called "innocents" in the attacks against Hamas, when Hamas had set up everything to ENSURE that this was INEVITABLE ?
HOW MANY GOOD for the Arabian People could Hamas have done if they had spent all that money on prosperity for their inhabitants instead for tunnels, rockets, weapons, terrorism and school books full of „Hate Speech“ towards ALL jews ?
How many hundreds of thousands of rockets had "Gaza" fired at Israel - on loads of CITIZENS - since 2005? Do we find all THESE numbers at Beinart/ Herschlag ?
There are 51 (fifty-one) states in the world with "Islam" as the state/majority religion: not a single one of them has fundamental human rights enshrined in its constitution and laws, nor a separation of powers, nor a prohibition of discrimination "based" on gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc.: surely "Israel is to blame," also for this, isn't it? "The Jews" are to blame, as always and ever.
While „the Palestinians“ are „Freedom Fighters“, for sure, brutally „PROUDLY“ killing opposition, gays/lesbians, suppressing women : THAT´S „Freedom“, for sure.
And beneath these 51 states, there is now only ONE that is declared "Jewish,“ which is a constiutional state unlike EVERY „Islam“ state/nation - and WHO gets „criticized" …?!? A huge fuss is made about this Jewish State with the usual "accusations" against "the Jews.“
„Leftists“ adored Stalin, Mao Zedong, Polh Poth, Castro and all the other MASS MURDERERS : but STILL they keep their „gift of the gab“ instead of SILENCING in SHAME for CENTURIES ???
That´s maybe what lets them „like“ the Arabs and the Islam: self-criticism is the LAST THING arousing from these ideologies („Religions).
But THEY - THEY !!!!! - DARE to mock about supposedly „the Jews’ '' failure of self-criticism ?? Oh my God: UNBELIEVABLE.
While hardly a word is said about this on others—like the major Colonial States Russia - the greatest colonial state of the world - , China, and others—it is guaranteed and unconditionally imposed on "the Jews" in everything they do. Always. Ever.
In HOW MANY Arab/Muslim states are there still Jews?
900,000 – compared to 700,000 Arabs expelled/dispossessed in Israel (self-proclaimed „Palestinians“- were expelled from these states in 1948 and thereafter –
Do you hear THEM mourning, crying, demanding - or did they get a life ?
So, one of the most vicious statements here is "Jewish self-narrative of a people as victims always and oppressors never": OH WHAT A LIE !!! : everyone can know that in no religion does one's own transgressions and faultiness play such a large role as in Judaism.
What is the state of self-criticism in "Islam"? ZERO. It doesn't exist there.
That Israel supposedly has something "against Arabs" is absurd.
Rather in fact, Israel had just begun talks with Saudi Arabia, even Qatar, and other countries to resolve the so-called "Palestinian" "problem": THAT EXACTLY was PRECISELY the "reason" for the HOLOCAUST OF OCTOBER 07, 2023 : because Hamas – rightly – feared it would no longer play a role.
Herschlag seems to be oblivious to all this, or just not wanting to know.
Before the Second World War, everyone told "the Jews": "Go to Palestine: that's where you belong."
Now they ARE in "Palestine"... AND...? …
...the Arabs have appropriated this COLONIALIST (!!) term, which always meant ALL inhabitants of the Levant – not just Jews and Arabs, but also the numerous other peoples and religions oppressed, persecuted, and decimated there for centuries by the COLONIZING Ottomans and Arabs! –, as if Arabs (falsely named „Palestinians“) had ever lived there even remotely alone or predominantly.
Moreover, the "colonial powers" (Great Britain, France) had promised a state of their own there to some other people there than Jews and Arabs – and failed to keep those promises (too)… !
Before World War II, Great Britain, in particular, didn't want a Jewish state there – but in 1947/48, the Arabs COULD have had their own state, but they made it impossible THEMSELVES (just as Arafat a.o. did later on) – because they didn't / don´t want to tolerate "any others beside them," just as they do in the 51 Islamic „jew-free“ states.
But none of this can be found in Herschlag's essay, which is at best good as toilet paper and for the self-edification of „leftists", who, as we all know, are "always the good guys” - but instead of self-criticism, they rather use a projection of their own self on „The Jews“.
Look, I appreciate your write-up and as someone who hasn't actually read this book, I won't comment on that directly. But I am very familiar with Beinart and the grift he's running, so I'm going to respond to you through that lens:
Nothing that Beinart is doing is "career suicide" for him. Demonizing Israel IS his career, and he's made a very lucrative one out of it. His stance has evolved into the absurd over time, as his audience has demanded it. "The Crisis of Zionism," one of his earlier books, is excellent. His current stuff is just vile, but it's an effective career strategy for him.
We all can call out Bibi and say how much we oppose the current Israeli government and say how Hamas is really just an outgrowth of bad Israeli policy until the cows come home. Those platitudes don't address the very real issue that Beinart fails to address, and that is that after October 7th, the world's antisemites made it clear how much they love to see slaughtered Jews. They were HAPPY about what Hamas did in the worst attack on us since the Holocaust. And rather respond to that very real danger, Beinart instead sided with them, people who would be just as happy to see him (and all of us, really) dead.
"Israel doesn't have a Hamas problem"? Errr, I would say the events of October 7th and their aftermath, with large swaths of the activist class going out on the street to support them, suggest differently. How about this: THE WEST has a Hamas problem. Can we agree on that?
I go into Beinart's grift more at length here: https://theliberaljew.substack.com/p/how-to-respond-to-lies-and-misinformation-114
I agree that Beinart is not committing career suicide, that in some sense, he's changed gears from his former liberal Zionism and made this a new career. But I don't consider it a grift. I think he is utterly sincere, consumed by an honest passion, even though I cannot change gears with him, from liberal to non- or anti Zionist. I think he too often views Palestinians as something like sacred innocents, lacking agency, and is too ready to view the conflict through the fashionable frame of 'settler colonialism'. It's true Israel doesn't simply have a Hamas problem, but it's also true that Hamas-style Islamist irredentism, is not uncommon in the Middle East; Hamas is therefore not merely an artifact of Israeli misbehavior. To my mind Beinart's view is distorted, too black and white, and too simple.
However. I do give him credit for a certain amount of courage. He's an observant Jew, living, as I understand it, in an observant Jewish community. Publicly espousing the views he does is absolutely guaranteed to make himself a target for serious criticism within such a community. And he does seem to handle such criticism gracefully and respectfully.
It's called being a narcissist, not being courageous.
https://open.substack.com/pub/ameliaadams/p/the-myth-of-the-self-hating-jew?
As a non-Jew born into a family of supporters of Israel you may well tell me to step aside as someone with no familial victim of the holocaust, yet what puzzles me is not the defense of Netanyahu’s immorality and damage to a country whose citizens I love (Israel) but defenders of what can reasonably be seen as an indifference to human suffering in Gaza and the death of infants and children by saying ‘they hit me first’.
No one familiar with the history of the region denies the determination of the founders of Israel to the depopulation of a people called Palestinians, or the depraved attitude of the governments of surrounding countries and their repeated aggression and hatred of Jews. They do not deserve to be called civilized when they advocate harm to Jews in Israel based on religious precepts.
What is demoralizing is witnessing an entire depopulation of the only homeland that Palestinians were given.
Can you acknowledge the immorality of such deaths?
Are you asking if I acknowledge the immorality of the deaths of Gazans during the current war? Yes, I acknowledge that, and I acknowledge that's on Hamas, who started the war.
"No one familiar with the history of the region denies the determination of the founders of Israel to the depopulation of a people called Palestinians..." This is patently false. First, when Israel was founded in 1948 the folks we refer to as 'Palestinians' today were known as 'Arabs.' When the Palestinian identity as we know it today was created after the 1967 war (to mean Arabs living in Gaza and the West Bank), the total Palestinian population was around 1 million. Fast forward 60 years later, that same population now totals to over 5 million. Those numbers do not suggest that Israel ever supported their "depopulation." Of course this doesn't even touch the fact that 2 million Arabs (not included in the 5 million Palestinians I'm speaking of here) live in Israel proper as full Israeli citizens.
Hamas is causing their deaths by using them as human shields, but they are not the ones killing them. We don’t kill children - no matter saying “they started it”, and get to keep our souls.
Who is the “we” here? You’ll have to tell me which war was fought in urban centers without killing children.
You expect Israel to not fight this war? Excuse me, but that’s dumb.
Read the reference you included (the 7 lies..) there are stark definitions used (..’dolus specialist’) and references to defend what we see happening every day these days. First, yes I do think Israel had to respond - violently - to October 7. But I cannot read those 7 lies and feel obliged to accept the deaths of small children.
Perhaps that is the crux of this exchange between us.
Those tunnels funded by Iran? I am no friend of their terrorist regime or their chief sponsor - Putin. But I no more want the annihilation of the population of Iran who are and have been attempting to establish a secular opposition to the maniacal theocracy governing them.
In case you missed it:
Hamas ‘quietly drops’ thousands of deaths from casualty figures
Claims that 70 per cent of the fatalities are women and children are complete nonsense, says report
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/04/01/hamas-drops-thousands-of-deaths-from-casualty-figurures/
What Matters Now to Andrew Fox: Cynical use of inflated death figures from Gaza
Research fellow at the UK-based Henry Jackson Society assesses the IDF operations in the Strip and dissects a new report that questions media acceptance of Hamas casualty lists
https://www.timesofisrael.com/what-matters-now-to-andrew-fox-cynical-use-of-inflated-death-figures-from-gaza/amp/
The tunnels were subsidized heavily by aid money, most of which came from the US, EU, and Qatar - this is our US taxpayer dollars in action, just as demanding that Israel allow their construction (both pressure not to strike them and insistence Israel allow for enormous amounts of building materials through) were US policy. Iran funded the arms, training and development of the Hamas army. It’s one of those incomprehensible joint ventures progressives have with Iran, like helping them fight in Iraq.
Children get killed in wars, especially ones started by Islamist terrorists, as they intentionally use them as human shields and child soldiers. If you think Israel should be denied the ability to destroy Hamas because like in every single war there will be civilian casualties, you are taking not just a warmongering position (Hamas gets to retreat, rebuild, strike with another atrocity again and again), but also an amoral one. Inviting more war isn’t a moral position. Pacifists in WW2 did the work of the Nazis. Stop claiming Israel is trying to annihilate the population or the US wants to annihilate the Iranian one - neither of those is true. There are more people alive in Gaza today than on October 6. Israel attacks Hamas, spread across Gaza, the US would target the Iranian military, just as Israel had.
What of the destruction of their villages? Their homes in Jerusalem.
How many Arab Israelis live in Jerusalem, today? Are all their homes destroyed? Did they not see a massive population growth compared to 1967, 1947?
How many Jews lived in the old city of Jerusalem (majority Jewish since 1840) between 1948-1967, when the Jordanians didn’t create a Palestinian state in the West Bank? They all got ethnically cleansed, same as a million Jews from the Middle East and North Africa. At the same time Israeli Arabs prospered as Israeli citizens, more than Arabs in any country that isn’t a petrodollar pump.
There’s all the historical evidence to support what you say. Arab countries during WW2 supported Hitler. Joined in efforts to harm Jews.
Yet you deflect from the core issue here. The question I ask - how are Indiscriminate deaths and effective starvation of children - including infants acceptable?
Ethical question. If you ignore it, you know the answer.
No, not just “Arab countries”, the Palestinian elite supported the Nazis during WW2, actively recruited for the Nazis, instigated antisemitic pogroms in Iraq and elsewhere.
As for “effective starvation” do you mean the promised famine that never happened? The warnings never amounted to anything other than Hamas propaganda because Israel let in hundreds of thousands of tons of food aid into Gaza. The only people preventing aid from Palestinian civilians is… wait for it… the Palestinian government of Hamastan Gaza who steal that food, hoard it, and use it to profit in order to pay for their child soldiers.
But what “indiscriminate deaths” are you trying to sell here? The attacks on Jewish civilians by Palestinians were absolutely discriminating - they mostly bypassed the IDF to kill civilians intentionally, just as the bombing of European cities by the Nazis was discriminating and intentional. Israel is bombing Hamas, which is also discriminate. What you’re trying to do is absolve Hamas of responsibility for civilian deaths on both sides, and that’s a lie - the Nazis we’re similarly responsible for the millions of German civilians that died in the war they started.
Ethical question - were the democracies during WW2 supposed to ignore the belligerence and openly genocidal intent and actions of the Nazis because German children also got killed during that war? Is Israel supposed to ignore the torture, rape, murder of thousands of Israeli civilians and the abduction of 251 of them, especially when Hamas openly promised many more October 7 like attacks? If you ignore their actions and statements, you know the answer.
My meaning was depopulation of what is considered Israeli territory. I acknowledge Hamas as a terrorist organization. You’re talking semantics, I’m discussing human beings essentially as human as Jews are. For some reason you seem to believe they’ve killed themselves. Is that correct?
Hamas killed them
2 million Arabs currently living in Israeli territory (I assume you define that as within the Green Line as I do) does not constitute depopulation, nor does it suggest "they've killed themselves." I am not talking semantics, I'm stating facts.
You seem to think that Hamas and Palestinian are the same thing. There are many Hamas members that might call themselves Palestinians (and they are all Arabs) but many of them are from various parts of the Arab world and their intention is now and always has been to kill Jews. If you've read the charter you can deny that fact but you're a liar. If you haven't you have no business having this conversation.
There actually is no such thing as a Palestinian because there has never been a country called Palestine even though they've been offered one several times. They called themselves Arabs all the way up to the 1960's when Yasser Arafat created the title and suggested the Stateless Arabs of Palestine call themselves Palestinians for sympathy and PR.
Actually I don’t. It would be like saying all of Ireland was in the IRA. Sympathy because of fellowship in wanting an overlord to leave them in peace, but certainly not willing to take lives in that cause.
People want to live in peace, in a world that threatens the lives of their children.
Duh
Ben, first I’d like to thank you for platforming an “as a Jew” supporter of Beinart and his long career of being a token Jew shill for Islamist terrorists and other scum working toward the destruction of Israel, the biggest community of Jews in the world (one of the smallest minorities in existence that keeps being targeted for genocide by Europeans then and Arabs and Muslims now).
Mr Herschlag, your type is identifiable by your multiple “as a Jew” appeals. It’s the first thing out of the mouths of the few token Jews in the warmongering ‘Jewish’ Voices for ‘Peace’ who Beinart aligns with.
It’s interesting that you try to pass your daughter’s post as innocent, when we all know it was intended to troll the “evil Zionists” in your extended family. You’d think a Phi Beta Kappa genius would know how a “Will Somebody Please Think of the Children!” pearl clutching during a war started by her Hamas Pals would come across to Israeli Jews suffering through 18 months of war. Did she also post about the many Israeli children murdered, raped, tortured and forced to watch their family suffer in the genocidal pogrom inflicted on peace activist socialist villages by her Pals? This may have been missed by such an educated pair, but October 7 was the biggest single day massacre of Jews since the Nazi SS Einsatzgruppen. That has always been the goal of the Palestinians, not a state. I guess the problem with allegedly educated antizionist Jews is swallowing decades of Jew hating propaganda - your idol Beinart carefully selects his facts, but like you misses the point of Palestinianism completely.
https://open.substack.com/pub/spencerguard/p/the-top-7-lies-about-israel-and-idf
Upon this duality and this underpinning rest his hopes that one day, perhaps even in the World to Come, Beinart will regain both his friend and his people.
He will have no portion in Olam HaBa.
Perhaps if the author and his own quasi-tribe didn’t spent 5 pages casually dismissing actual threat, loss of life and very explicitly genocidal plans not only by the Palestinian leadership but by their supporter club, from Moscow to Teheran, perhaps the basis for siege mentality that keeps Netanyahu in power wouldn’t be as acute.
The war against Israel isn’t new, and the commitment to wipe out its entire population hasn’t wavered.
I haven’t heard any coherent alternatives going forward beyond “from river to the sea”.
What would _you propose they do ?
Well he did mention that his brilliant daughter thinks memes in support of the Palestinians during this war is helpful rather than gross trolling, and Beinart does think that Israel should be destroyed because it once again dared to defend itself against a genocidal war launched by the Palestinians. I guess that’s an alternative, just not one that anyone other than virtue signaling haters of the biggest Jewish community in the world believe is rational, just and realistic.
It’s would be ironic, except it’s of course by design, that both the cancer of trumpism that’s consumed GOP and the fake Gaza narrative that’s making Dems so farcically impotent share their source and their main beneficiary on Lubyanka 2…
Or very narcissistic. https://open.substack.com/pub/ameliaadams/p/the-myth-of-the-self-hating-jew
As a baptized and raised Catholic who is learning about Judaism can I just say that many, if not most of the values I learned in Catholic School came from Judaism. It's spelled out pretty thoroughly in the Torah, from what I understand.
I agree that when a Catholic says that “Jesus was Palestinian” it must be ‘Clarity’ rather than stupidity, ignorance, or old school Judenhass. However Beinart is Jewish, and we know that his problems are narcissism and greed.