Peter Beinart wrote a propaganda piece in the New York Times. No mention of Hamas rockets, no mention of terrorist attacks, no mention of anything at all negative about the people who want to ethnically cleanse Jews from the Middle East - he says that the original sin is that Israel doesn't recognize and offer to fix the "Nakba."
Among Palestinians, Nakba is a household word. But for Jews — even many liberal Jews in Israel, America and around the world — the Nakba is hard to discuss because it is inextricably bound up with Israel’s creation. Without the mass expulsion of Palestinians in 1948, Zionist leaders would have had neither the land nor the large Jewish majority necessary to create a viable Jewish state. As I discuss at greater length in an essay for Jewish Currents from which this guest essay is adapted, acknowledging and beginning to remedy that expulsion — by allowing Palestinian refugees to return — requires imagining a different kind of country, where Palestinians are considered equal citizens, not a demographic threat.
The Left wants to pretend that Sheikh Jarrah is the reason for Hamas rockets, or in Beinart's case the Nakba, is the original Jewish sin and the reason for all the terrorism since.
If you want to find the source, it's Palestinian Arab Jew-hatred.
Everything from attacks in the 1880s to Hamas today comes from that.
When the Mufti started his antisemitic campaign in the 1920s, he had an "excuse": The Jews were threatening Al Aqsa! People believed the excuse and excused Arab attacks.
It was a lie.
When the 1929 pogrom killing Jews throughout the land happened, the Arabs claimed it was because of Jewish immigration taking away jobs. Another excuse the British believed and punished the Jews as if it was the real reason.
It was a lie.
And now rocket attacks are using the excuse of Sheikh Jarrah, as if one has something to do with the other. Yet the media believes the excuse as it it is a valid reason.
It is a lie.
Beinart wants to flood Israel with millions of Palestinian Arabs who have been taught to hate Jews for the past hundred years. Because the resulting loss of Jewish safety and Jewish nationhood is no big deal for a person who lives in Westchester, NY. A quick read through the Palestine Post of the 1930s will show anyone how harmonious things were between Jews and Arabs then - before the Nakba, before "occupation," before Sheikh Jarrah.
As long as Jews assert any rights in the Middle East, there will be Jew-hatred disguised as "humanitarian" reasons for taking them away. Beinart pretends that he has a solution for antisemitism itself - Jews relinquishing their rights. Which is the same plan that the antisemites have always espoused.
The haters always have an excuse - but for Palestinian Arabs, the actual reason is always the same: they hate Jews and they are taught this hate from birth.
Jews have the right to live on their land.
Jews have the right to a state for their people.
Jews have the right to defend themselves.
The people who believe the Arab excuses for attacking Jews don't believe those self-evident truths. And that includes Peter Beinart.
