Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Peter Beinart

Showing posts with label Peter Beinart. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 14, 2021

Peter Beinart flunks basic logic in pretending to prove that Zionists are antisemitic

The evidence suggests not only that anti-Zionism doesn’t equal antisemitism but that while some anti-Zionists are indeed antisemites, Jew-hatred in the United States and Europe is more prevalent among supporters of the Jewish state.

Let's look at his evidence:

In the US, the data suggests that—contrary to what you hear from politicians and Jewish leaders—Zionists are probably more likely than anti-Zionists to hate Jews. Poll after poll shows that, in the US today, hostility to Israel is far greater on the left than the right. And while surveys generally ask for people’s views on Israel, not Zionism, it stands to reason that if leftists are more likely to condemn Israel, they’re more likely to oppose Zionism. Studies of antisemitism, however, suggest that it’s far stronger on the American right. Earlier this year, the political scientists Eitan Hersh and Laura Royden asked Americans a series of questions traditionally used to measure antisemitic attitudes—for instance, “Jews in the United States have too much power” and “Jews are more loyal to Israel than to America.” They found that, “While antisemitism in the U.S. is often written about through a “both sides” lens, our evidence — the first of its kind in testing hypotheses through experiments on a large representative sample — suggests the problem of antisemitism is much more serious on the right than the left.” Unless you define anti-Zionism as antisemitism, in which case you’ve created a tautology, the Americans most likely to dislike Jews and the Americans most likely dislike Zionism are different people.

Beinart's logic is:

A. The American Left is more likely to be anti-Israel.

B. The American Right, who are mostly Zionist, is more likely to be antisemitic.

Conclusion: Zionists are more likely to be antisemitic.

This is quite false.

Let's say that 70% of the Right - an overwhelming majority - are pro-Israel and 30% are anti-Israel. It makes sense that most of those 30% also have anti-Jewish attitudes. (Think Pat Buchanan or Ron Unz, both prominent conservative haters of Israel and purveyors of antisemitism.)

Now, what percentage of Americans altogether have antisemitic attitudes? A 2019 ADL survey says that 24% of Americans say that Jews are more loyal to Israel than America and 15% say Jews have too much influence in business. If most of the anti-Israel Right agree with those statements, that would mean that the majority of those with overtly antisemitic attitudes are right wing anti-Zionists - and not one right-wing Zionist!

The only conclusion you can draw is that members of the Right are more likely to be overtly antisemitic than the Left - but it even imply that Zionists are antisemitic! Very few Zionists would answer those survey questions in the affirmative. The relatively small number of Americans who harbor explicit antisemitic attitudes mean that a minority of the Right - the anti-Zionists - can easily be the majority of the proud Jew-haters.

Beinart flunks Logic 101.

To claim that Zionists are more likely to be antisemitic is purely Beinart's bias. It's part of the fantasy among socialist Jews that Christian Zionists are really antisemites, even though they cannot point to a poll that shows that.

Beinart chooses the surveys that support his thesis both in the US and Europe. But the American Left is going in the direction of the British Left, and the British Left is actually attracting overt antisemites. In a 2019 survey that Beinart would never quote, 58% of those who strongly liked Jeremy Corbyn held two or more overtly antisemitic views, and 35% held four or more such views - a huge amount that was not seen in other politicians. Will the American Left go in that direction? Do Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib attract overt antisemites? It is not a far fetched concern. And it is not one that concerns Peter Beinart.

Not to say that there are no antisemitic idiots who admire Israel. Of course there are. Israel haters love to point to white supremacist Richard Spencer as if he represents the Zionism of the Right (and often they make the even more egregious logical error that if a hater says he loves Israel, Zionists must support hate.)

I wouldn't call those antisemites Zionists. They are just bigots who look at Israel as an ally in their own xenophobia against Muslims. Saying that you want Jews you hate to leave your country and go to Israel is not Zionism. Saying that you want to treat minorities horribly and falsely using Israel as a model is not Zionism. But Beinart pretends that it is, redefining the meaning of the word "Zionist" itself to prove his points.

One more point: Beinart says that defining anti-Zionism as antisemitism is creating a tautology. Indeed it is. But what if it isn't a definition - but an observation? What if, in reality, saying that Jews do not deserve self-determination, and other peoples do, is prima facie proof of antisemitism? What if holding Jews to standards that are way beyond those that other peoples are expected to adhere to is actual antisemitism? What if obsessive criticism of only one state, the only one with a Jewish majority, indicates antisemitism? What if boycotting only the one Jewish state indicates that there is something going on beyond legitimate criticism? Beinart and his crowd brush aside these questions, coming up with elaborate excuses why Israel deserves to be singled out.

But there is only one thing in history that is remotely comparable to today's obsessive hate of Israel - and that is the age-old obsessive hate of Jews.

Peter Beinart just proved he is a bigot by his own definition

There seems to be a tendency among Israel haters to play a "can you top this?" game where they fall over themselves to find new ways to accuse Jews and Zionists of being horrific people with new accusations against them - even though nothing has changed on the ground.

Peter Beinart jumps on the bandwagon by not only repeating that Israel is guilty of apartheid - a position that he argued against not long ago - but he then goes on to say that all Zionists, and indeed anyone accusing haters of Israel of antisemitism, are in fact bigots - because they are "anti-Palestinian."

His argument is muddled, to put it mildly. He starts off by saying that the Republicans wanted to censure Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Presley, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for “inciting anti-Semitic attacks across the United States.” with their scurrilous accusations of Israeli "apartheid" are in fact the real bigots:

Such accusations have dogged Tlaib, Omar, Pressley, and Ocasio-Cortez since they entered Congress. Search for articles alleging that they are antisemitic and Google generates a seemingly endless supply. But if you search for articles suggesting that their critics are “anti-Palestinian,” you’ll find next to nothing.

Let's ignore for now that the entire spike in antisemitism in the US, Canada and UK during the last two months has been clearly tied to pro-Palestinian attackers, and that the link between slandering Israel and attacking Jews is crystal clear.

Since only Tlaib has Palestinian ancestry, Beinart's claim that the politicians who criticize the"squad" are anti-Palestinian bigots means that he is saying that anyone who supports the only Jewish state (or points out the link between anti-Zionism and antisemitic attacks) is a bigot.

What, exactly, is "anti-Palestinianism" according to Peter Beinart? He doesn't define it, so it is unclear whether he thinks it is bigotry against Palestinian Arabs or simply being against Palestinian Arab nationalism.He brings examples that would indicate both of those, saying that anyone who is against a Palestinian state that would be a danger to Israel is guilty of the brand new crime of "anti-Palestinianism."

But if being against a Palestinian state is bigotry, that means that being against nationalism is bigotry.

And since Beinart has established himself in recent years as being the leading Jewish intellectual anti-Zionist, then by his own definition he is a bigot.

Beinart quotes one potential definition of "anti-Palestinianism" that is instructive:

In a tweet last fall, Mezna Qato, a historian of the Middle East at Cambridge University, defined “anti-Palestinianism” as “Prejudice, hostility or discrimination against Palestinians. Denial of the Nakba. Accusing a Palestinian of ‘latent’ racism(s) without cause. Allowing Palestinian exception to all other held liberal or left values/politics.”

If Beinart accepted that these are examples of bigotry, then Beinart and all anti-Zionists are bigots.

“Prejudice, hostility or discrimination against Zionists" - All of Beinart's writings at Jewish Currents are hostile to Zionists and Zionism.

"Denial of the Jewish history of the Land" - Beinart isn't guilty of this but there are countless examples of Palestinians denying the existence of the Temples in Jerusalem, taking over Jewish holy spots and claiming them as their own [there are literally no Jewish holy spots in Israel that Muslims do not claim themselves,) andclaiming

"Accusing a Zionist of ‘latent’ racism(s) without cause." That is the entire point of this essay!

"Allowing Zionist exception to all other held liberal or left values/politics." Palestinians do not hold liberal values by any definition. Zionists, generally, do, from equal rights for women and gays to sensitivity to animal rights to adherence to human rights standards. Israel's tolerance of Islam is far greater than what is found in Europe, where minarets, burkinis, hijabs and Muslim slaughter are all subject to restrictions that are unheard of in Israel.

The only exception to liberal/left politics is in fact their opposition to the most liberal state in the region.

Peter Beinart has defined himself and his allies as bigots, in black and white.

Beinart tries to thread the needle, by ridiculously claiming that what Palestinians (or, specifically, Tlaib) want is not a Palestinian state but a state where Palestinians are the vast majority (thanks to "return") and yet Jews will supposedly be granted equal rights. Anyone who follows even a little bit of the news, or the history of the Arab claim to want equal rights for Jews in an Arab majority state, knows that this is not at all what Palestinians want. Surveys, speeches, and history proves that Palestinians have always wanted to control the areas that Jews controlled, and nothing else.

The history of Palestinian nationalism is the history of Palestinian Arab antisemitism:

From the Mufti who considered Palestine to be southern Syria before the British Mandate,

to their insistence that Jews under the threat of annihilation be forbidden to immigrate to British Mandate Palestine while Arabs could enter freely,

to the 11th hour "binational state" that Arabs proposed in 1947 when it looked like they would lose the partition vote - a state where Jews would have full rights - a mere ten days before they started attacking Jews in Palestine and a mere year before Transjordan expelled all Jews from its portion of Palestine,

to the 1964 PLO Covenant that excluded the West Bank and Gaza from its desired "Palestine" because Jews didn't control those areas,

to Yasir Arafat's 1974 "phased" plan to destroy Israel (never renounced),

to the repeated Palestinian refusal to accept a state and permanent peace and their choice to kill Jews instead,

to surveys that show that Palestinians who say they want a two state solution see it as a stepping stone to taking over the entire area where Jews have no national rights - but Arabs do.

Just today, these enlightened, democratic Palestinian Arabs are denouncing Jews visiting the site of the Jewish Temples on the anniversary of their destruction. (They also demand that the Western Wall be considered Muslim so Jews would be limited from visiting there, just as they were before 1967 and 1948.)

Who is Peter Beinart trying to kid when he claims that an Arab majority state from the river to the sea would allow Jews to have equal rights?

When Beinart defends Palestinian nationalism, he is defending antisemitism.

I want to be clear: when Westerners talk about a Palestinian state, they do not mean a state that is antisemitic. But when Palestinians talk about a Palestinian state - whether it is side by side with or replacing Israel - they look at it as a means to end Jewish rights in the region. It is purely antisemitic. In fact, antisemitism is the very reason they have not accepted a state by now, because it would allow a viable Jewish state to still exist.

Beinart knows the truth. Zionists know the truth. Palestinians know the truth. But liberal Westerners are ignorant about the history, about the bigotry in daily Palestinian media, the antisemitism taught in Palestinian schools. Beinart wants to gaslight Western liberals into accepting his grand plan to destroy the Jewish state in the name of tolerance and human rights, fairness and justice.

They shouldn't believe him.

After all, he just proved he is a bigot.

Palestinian groups in US fundraising for their heroes who attack Jews

⚠️Thursday May 20th, approx. 6:44 PM, at 1604 Broadway, a male, 29, wearing a yarmulke, was assaulted by a group of males who, knocked him down, punched, kicked and pepper sprayed him and hit him with crutches, while making anti-Semitic statements. Know them? ☎️1-800-577-TIPS pic.twitter.com/NDgmJ79MHt
— NYPD Hate Crimes (@NYPDHateCrimes) May 22, 2021

The only person so far arrested for that horrific assault of Joseph Borgen is Waseem Awawdeh.

Here's the aftermath of the attack.

When Awawdeh posted bail, he was lauded as a hero by his fellow Jew-haters.

How did Awawdeh post bail?

Because a group of well-known pro-Palestinian organizations put together a fundraiser to support an antisemite.

A brand new organization called The Palestine Freedom Fund was created specifically for this fundraiser and it is managed by an alliance including Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition – NY; American Muslims for Palestine – NJ; Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network; and Within Our Lifetime – United for Palestine.

Their site says,

The Palestine Freedom Fund works to support bail and legal expenses for Palestinian organizers, activists for Palestine and community members targeted for persecution.

As a first initiative, we are fundraising for bail/legal support funds for Palestinian youth arrested at New York City demonstrations for Palestine on Thursday, May 20, 2021.

Awawdeh said after posting bail that he does not regret attacking a defenseless Jew and would happily do it again.

The Israel haters like Peter Beinart pretend that these sorts of incidents are not representative of the "pro-Palestinian" movement.

They know this is a lie. They are quite familiar with Samidoun and Al Awda and what their goals are.

And here we have proof positive that these Palestinian organizations directly support antisemitism and those who target Jews - and call their being arrested "persecution."

The Palestinians and their fans at these rallies aren't against antisemitism. They wholeheartedly support it. This is the story that the media refuses to touch.

(h/t kweansmom)

The Original Sin in the Middle East - Jew-Hatred

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.

Peter Beinart's China vs. his Israel

I cannot get over this section that Peter Beinart highlighted from an essay of his on Substack:

When ordinary Americans grow paranoid, some of them lash out at the targets of their fear. As the historian Russell Jeung recently told the Washington Post, “When America China-bashes, then Chinese get bashed, and so do those who look Chinese.”

There’s nothing wrong with American politicians worrying about China’s economic and military ambitions. There’s nothing wrong with American politicians noting that China sometimes bullies its neighbors. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with American politicians speaking up for people in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and other places who are suffering terribly under Beijing’s brutal rule. But if American politicians talk only about China’s power and belligerence without also reminding Americans that Beijing’s military budget is a fraction of America’s, that China has good relations with major democracies, and that China has waged far fewer wars in recent decades than has the United States, they will be contributing to the kind of hysterical fear that over the last century has victimized vulnerable Americans again and again.

Beinart says that the constant demonizing of China inevitably results in Americans attacking Asian people. Yet Beinart's entire career is to demonize Israel, the Jewish state - and he is not at all concerned that this could result in antisemitism.

Beinart says that demonizing China should be contextualized by cherry picking specific facts about China and comparing them favorably against the US. But he never puts context around Israel's actions, except in a condescending way ("sure, there is X, BUT...").

And he always puts context around Palestinian crimes, exactly the way he does with China.

Apparently, dictatorships must be coddled while democracies must be attacked. There is no moral universe where the US is remotely comparable to China just as there is none where Israel is remotely comparable to the Palestinians' two governments. Choosing to selectively highlight and amplify problems in the US and Israel while downplaying major human rights abuses by Palestinians and Chinese is the exact same methodology used by conspiracy theorists - grabbing one fact and parlaying it into a giant universal theory that has no relationship with reality.

But, unbelievably, Beinart wasn't finished on Monday. In response to a story in the Washington Post that showed how many people in Richmond's Jewish community - individuals as well as leaders - were upset that he was going to speak at Virginia Commonwealth University, Beinart wrote that "the American Jewish establishment is an oligarchy run largely by its (often right-wing) donors."

Beinart claims to be so sensitive about critics of China inciting against Asians - and hours later, he invokes a stereotype of rich Jews trying to shut down opinions they don't like with their financial clout.

The only bigot here is Beinart himself.

Peter Beinart yukking it up with Israel-hater Ben Rhodes (video)

Peter Beinart recently started a webcast at his position at the Foundation for Middle East Peace.

It doesn't seem to have gotten too many fans.

Last week, his guest was Ben Rhodes (40 YouTube views). Rhodes, of course, was a Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama and helped architect that administration's pro-Iran,. anti-Israel policies.

Here are three clips from the interview.

In this one, Rhodes claims that the US media is "pro-Likud." Really.

Here we see Rhodes say (to Beinart's delight) how sick he was to hear about Palestinian intransigence, because to his mind no one ever gave them a chance to accept a peace deal. Except maybe once.

Really.

He flatly says that the Obama administration never gave them an opportunity for peace either, when in fact the Palestinians ignored a framework that John Kerry gave them that would have given them far more than anyone else offered including a capital in Jerusalem.

Finally, here is Rhodes trying to get into Netanyahu's head, and the best he can guess is that since Jews have been persecuted throughout history, they justify being cruel as well. This is a watered down version of the antisemitic Jews as Nazis theme so popular amongst the Left.

Rhodes has literally no clue of what he is talking about - yet he is a contributor to NBC News.

(h/t Brad)

Is Peter Beinart trying to incite Christian antisemitism?

Peter Beinart writes in his Substack blog:

Christian hostility to Jews draws more attention than Jewish hostility to Christians. And for good reason. Christian hostility has produced millennia of persecution. Jewish hostility, for the most part, hasn’t produced much more than the occasional nasty line in a prayerbook (sometimes accompanied by spitting).

Still, Jewish misgivings about Christians go way back. When Christianity was still in its infancy, the rabbis of the Talmud taught that if Jews saw Christian religious texts burning on Shabbat, they should let them burn (Shabbat 116a). And as Christian anti-Semitism grew, Jewish animosity intensified. To grasp the intense anger toward Christianity carried by even highly enlightened Eastern European Jews, listen to this curious vignette by Professor Moshe Halbertal about the great Israeli intellectual and social critic Yeshayahu Leibowitz (It starts around minute nine and ends around minute twelve). Growing up, I encountered the residue of this hostility myself. I remember being reprimanded for calling Mary a pretty name and for proposing Christmas colors for a school costume. (Call me self-hating: I still like red and green).

This is only a preface to his main point, which we will get to. But what exactly is the purpose of Beinart bringing examples of supposed Jewish hate for Christians?

The "nasty line in the prayerbook" is in the original Aleinu prayer, composed according to most scholars by Rav in 3rd century CE Babylonia. It had some early Christians but it seems unlikely that he was referring to them when he composed " For they worship vanity and emptiness, and pray to a god who cannot save."

Similarly, when the Talmud says which texts should not be saved on the Sabbath, it is indeed referring to early Christians, but they are not the same as today's Christians. The word that the Talmud uses is "heretics" and it is their heresy that is offensive, not their Christian beliefs. They pretended that they were still Jews and tried to convert real Jews. This is referring to scrolls with the sacred name of God in Hebrew which can normally never be allowed to be erased (or burned) but the consensus is that it must be burned when written by a heretic.

It has nothing to do with modern Christianity.

Of course there is some antipathy towards Christianity among Jews -nearly 2000 years of persecution in the name of Jesus leaves a mark. But Beinart is going out of his way to cherry pick instances, real or imagined, of what he characterizes as irrational Jewish hate for Christians.

Why does he want to do this? To lead up to this crazy theory:

I mention all this because my friend Matt Duss, who currently serves as Bernie Sanders’ foreign policy advisor, is reportedly being considered for a job in Joe Biden’s State Department. As in the case of Rob Malley, hawks are calling Matt anti-Israel. As in the case of Rob Malley, they’re attacking Matt’s father. But Matt has a vulnerability that Rob didn’t: He’s a Christian, and his faith is central to his views on foreign policy, including Israel-Palestine. That’s a good thing—because Matt is a Christian in the tradition of Reverend William Sloane Coffin and Reverend William Barber. His Christianity makes him care about the powerless and the abused, whatever their race, religion or nationality. And yet, in Washington today, it’s more perilous for Matt to talk about how his Christian faith compels him to care about human rights in Israel-Palestine than it is for Mike Pompeo to talk about how his Christian faith compels him not to. The ancient Jewish anxiety about Christians has become morally warped. In the hands of the Israeli government and its American Jewish allies, it has become an anxiety directed solely toward those Christians who care about justice.

Who knew that Matt Duss was Christian? He barely mentions it on his Twitter feed. Not once have I seen criticism of Duss - and there is plenty of it, quite deserved - mention his religion.

Beinart creates an entire prologue of Jewish hate for Christians to lead up to a theory that Zionist Jews don't have any serious issues with Duss' opinions, and anything they say about him comes from irrational anti-Christian bigotry!

How can you read this as anything but incitement to get Christians to hate Jews?

Peter Beinart’s master class in anti-Israel propaganda–in one tweet

(Based on a Twitter thread.)

The socialist Left is attacking the mainstream Democrats who support Israel like Democratic Majority for Israel @DemMaj4Israel. It's interesting to watch, and it exposes the false themes and anti-fact methods of the Israel haters.

In November, some members of Congress wrote a letter to Mike Pompeo expressing concern over Israel demolishing a group of illegal structures in Khirbet Humsa which were deliberately built in an IDF practice firing zone over the past few years.

DMFI responded with its own letter explaining the facts.

This caught the attention of Alex Kane who wrote about it in +972, emphasizing that DMFI’s letter used information from the pro-Israel NGO Regavim. The article doesn’t bother to actually disprove anything that DMFI wrote – it just accuses it of parroting both Israeli and Regavim talking points, as it proud Zionist Jews couldn’t possibly be telling the truth.

This conversation was picked up on Twitter, where DMFI and its many Israeli-hating critics argued.

Notice how they cannot argue with DMFI's facts, most of which came from Israeli High Court rulings. As always, the facts don't favor the Israel haters, so instead they say that DMFI used information from which they tar as "far right" and "anti-Palestinian" sources as if the source invalidates facts.

I have spoken to Regavim and they do care about the Palestinians and Arab residents of Israel. But they also care about Jewish and Israeli rights. They properly try to balance both sets of rights within the framework of the law, just as Israel's High Court does. That is not extremist. That is noble.

Which brings up Peter Beinart’s tweet.

Beinart is brighter than most anti-Israel activists, and he knows that arguing facts is a losing battle. He wants to use more effective propaganda methods.

Beinart doesn't want to accurately frame the conflict as two groups with competing rights. He wants to frame it as only Palestinians having rights, and Israel having none.

And when Jewish nationalists want to assert their rights, Beinart wants to call that “denying basic rights to millions of people.”

Any time you have competing rights, one party’s assertion of rights will diminish the other party’s claims. That is what a conflict is. Solving the conflict means compromise and accepting at least part of the other party’s position, even if you don’t agree.

Beinart doesn’t want you to think of this as a conflict. He wants to frame Israel asserting its own legal rights as denial of Palestinian rights. Standing up for your rights is a good thing, and denying others’ rights is a bad thing, so Beinart wants to ensure you never even consider that Israel has any rights in Judea and Samaria in order for him to demonize Israel.

This is why framing an argument is so important. When you frame it you can cut off the other side’s arguments before they have a chance to say anything. For example, Israel haters like to start the history in the 1890s or 1917 – framing history as if Jews are invaders to the land of their forefathers. Admitting that Jews have been indigenous to the land for thousands of years undercuts their arguments so they don't that to be part of the framework. Setting the framework wins the argument before it starts.

Beinart sees that the arguments of the New Israel Fund and +972 and their allies were in danger of being lost because DMFI actually had facts on their side. So look at his tweet as a master class in propaganda:

“DemMaj4Israel can spin, rant and rave all it wants.”

First. delegitimize the careful and reasoned arguments of DMFI and try to ensure no one takes them seriously by insulting their points – backed up with facts - as “spin, rant and rave.”

“But, ultimately, it comes down to this.”

Second, reframe the argument in a way where the facts cannot even be admitted into the discussion.

“An organization that defends Israel's denial of basic rights to millions of people…”

This is framing DMFI as something it is not, but it is not a direct accusation. It is written as an assumption to set up the punch line. Assumptions are harder to argue against than direct accusations because they are interpreted by readers as being something that is accepted by all - including the readers themselves.

“… can't represent a party that claims to hate bigotry and love justice.”

Beinart and his anti-Israel cohorts are more threatened by pro-Israel Democrats than by the Right. They see themselves as fighting for the soul of the Democratic Party. Beinart wants to demolish any sympathy for Israel in that party, and DMFI is an effective roadblock. For Beinart, it is imperative to create a wedge between the two, and here he uses effective propaganda methods to claim that DMFI is bigoted and hates justice, against the supposed principles of the party.

Crucially, Beinart here is not only accusing DMFI but all Zionists of being bigoted and against justice. Again, this isn’t a direct accusation, but framed as something that everyone knows. Casual readers do not realize how he is manipulating them to think that they always accepted his premise as truth.

Because of how Beinart framed his tweet, it is difficult for DMFI to respond without looking defensive. Beinart just defined supporting Jewish rights as bigotry and the only way to respond is to attack the framework, not the message, which is something most people cannot do. An example might be, "Unlike Peter Beinart, we support both Palestinian rights and Jewish rights. Perhaps he can respond to our arguments instead of calling us bigots.....Or perhaps, he can't."

The propaganda in his tweet doesn’t end there. Beinart defines the Democratic Party as hating bigotry and loving justice to make members uncomfortable with Israel and DMFI because of the implication that they are against those things. The party platform’s use of both of those terms are centered on racial justice and being against racist bigotry. Beinart is trying not to only paint Zionists as bigoted against Palestinians but he is framing a political conflict as Jewish racism – against Muslims or against people of color, the victims don’t really matter as long as the reader views the Jews as racist oppressors.

Also, Beinart deliberately uses the word “justice” here, implying that “justice in Palestine” is a major Democratic tenet. It isn’t. That word has been hijacked by Palestinians and their supporters to mean that unless Palestinians are given all they want, there is no “justice.” Palestinians themselves are the judge and jury. While real peace requires compromise, insisting on “justice” in this context means that Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state.

Beinart is not using this word by accident.

And here’s the irony. Beinart’s entire purpose with this tweet is not to promote Palestinian rights but to deny that Israel or Jews have any national rights. Instead of accurately describing a conflict, Beinart is saying here that anything Jews do to assert their own national rights is racist, illegitimate and bigoted and therefore one should not even listen to a word they say.

He is guilty of exactly what he is accusing Zionists of.

Peter Beinart's dishonest defense of Rashida Tlaib's hate

On Sunday, Rashida Tlaib (and Linda Sarsour) retweeted the statement "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" used by Israel haters calling on the destruction of Israel.

When Jews got upset, she took down the retweet.

Peter Beinart, now a New York Times op-ed writer, defended Tlaib's original post - twice.

His arguments are so disingenuous and filled with so many falsehoods that they need to be seen to be believed.

Beinart started off with this tweet:

Beinart's first sentence that Tlaib wants a single state were Jews live in equality with Palestinians is based on her carefully vetted campaign conversation with The Detroit Jewish News where she claims that al lshe cares about is human rights and that it is Israeli racist policies that force her to this position; she visited Israel in 1995 and was impressed that Jews and Arabs lived together in peace but she says that is no longer true.

This is gaslighting.

Even before she was sworn in to Congress she posed with the map that had a Post-It note in her office that indicated she wants to replace Israel with Palestine. If she wants a state with equal rights, why can it not be called Israel? (updated, h/t Israellycool)

More importantly, Tlaib explicitly supports the "right to return," whose only purpose is to destroy the Jewish state and force Jews to live under Arab majority rule. Her talk about "equality" only applies to a situation where Arabs control what "equality" means, which can be seen in the Palestinian constitution:

Article 1
Palestine is part of the larger Arab world, and the Palestinian people are part of the Arab nation. Arab unity is an objective that the Palestinian people shall work to achieve.

Article 4
1. Islam is the official religion in Palestine. Respect for the sanctity of all other divine religions shall be maintained.
2. The principles of Islamic Shari’a shall be a principal source of legislation.
3. Arabic shall be the official language.

This doesn't leave much room for Jews except as a tolerated minority. That is the "equality" Tlaib wants to see.

Beinart's second sentence is one of his go-to themes, where he pretends that Palestinians who live in Area A and Gaza - with their own flag, Olympic team, prime minister, president, court system, police, citizenship laws, passports, trade, zoning laws, cities that Jews couldn't live in if they tried, UN membership - are really living in Israel where they are denied citizenship. By his logic, Canadians live in the same state as citizens of the US since their economy is dominated by another country. It is a laughable lie but one that Beinart loves to repeat.

Beinart then doubled down on his defense of Tlaib's bigotry with an equal display of knowing lies and breathtaking ignorance:

Beinart starts off as a wise man: "I get it! But they are all wrong!"

It isn't "some" that have used the statement "From the river to the sea" to espouse the replacement of a Jewish state with an Arab state - it is everyone! There are no counterexamples. The idea that the boundaries of an Arab/Islamic Palestinian state is the exact borders drawn by Westerners to create the British Mandate is in the founding charters of the PLO and Hamas. (Although the 1964 PLO Charter contradicted itself by specifically excluding the areas controlled by Jordan and Egypt, because only Jewish control is anathema to the freedom-loving Palestinians.)

Beinart then mentions that Hamas charter. It doesn't use that specific phrase once.

Beyond that, by using the phrase "1st Hamas charter" Beinart is pretending that it has been superseded. He's either lying or ignorant about a topic he pretends to know cold. Hamas never replaced the charter in 2017; it issued a new political document but was explicit - in Arabic - that the original genocidal Hamas charter is still in place.

Why would Beinart want to downplay Hamas' evil? Because it blunts his message of Israel as an unparalleled violator of all that is holy and good - a position he shares with Rashida Tlaib.

But to point out that Tlaib tacitly supports BDS and explicitly supports the completely nonexistent "right to return" - which are both intended to destroy Israel and replace it with a Palestinian, not binational, state - is a "smear."

Beinart has no intellectual honesty. These two tweets prove that.

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Peter Beinart goes off the deep end, with an analysis of the Middle East that is totally opposite of the truth

Peter Beinart writes in the socialist Jewish Currents site:

ON OCTOBER 23RD, Donald Trump announced that Sudan would begin the process of normalizing relations with Israel. The declaration, which was part of a deal to remove Sudan from the US list of state sponsors of terror, follows last month’s pledges by the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to recognize the Jewish state. Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have claimed that those peace deals—dubbed “The Abraham Accords”—will promote “human dignity and freedom” in the Middle East.

Twelve days after the Abraham Accords were signed, a poet named Dhabiya Khamis tried to exercise her freedom to leave the UAE. Her government barred her from boarding the plane. “The ban is probably because of my announced opinion against Zionism and normalization,” Khamis declared. “I fear for my freedom and life from being threatened and arrested.” Those fears were well-founded. According to a report in Middle East Monitor, “scores of Emiratis, Palestinians and Jordanians living in the UAE” had already been jailed “for opposing Abu-Dhabi’s peace deal with Israel.”

I'm not going to defend the human rights record of any Muslim country, but there is absolutely no evidence that Khamis was blocked from leaving because of her political positions. She made that claim; it was eagerly repeated by Iranian media and skeptically quoted by BBC Arabic.

What is the proof that the UAE arrested opponents of the deal? Tracing back the source, it came from a very sketchy NGO called the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, which mentioned that some people from the UAE, Bahrain and Mauritania were arrested during protests against the Abraham Accords. Not one person arrested was named - the NGO stated that it received "complaints."

Based on these tenuous reports, Beinart reaches some conclusions:

Khamis’s experience illustrates a harsh truth: Although Israel’s diplomatic breakthroughs in the Persian Gulf have elicited bipartisan praise in Washington, they rely on—and contribute to—brutal repression. In Sudan, which is undergoing a fragile transition after three decades of dictatorial rule, normalization imperils democracy too. The reason is simple. In a region where sympathy for the Palestinian cause still runs deep, recognizing Israel elicits fierce popular opposition. To implement normalization agreements, therefore, Netanyahu and Trump need their Arab partners to quash domestic dissent. For years, Israel’s boosters have bemoaned the lack of democracy in the Middle East. Ironically, it is that lack of democracy on which Israel’s peace diplomacy largely depends.

And he uses curious logic. He says that since the UAE has used software from Israel's private NSO Group to spy on citizens, that means Israel is culpable for that use. He says that since Bahrain has previously banned Shiite parties from its parliament, Israel is benefitting from the king's repression. As always, to the Left, Arabs aren't responsible for their own actions - Israel is pulling the strings.

As far as Sudan goes, Beinart goes further out on a limb:

In a country where—according to an Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies poll—almost 80% of people oppose normalization, rapidly establishing diplomatic ties to Israel could destabilize the fragile transitional government. The announcement has already sparked public protests. And the leader of Sudan’s largest political party, which has close ties to the protest movement that overthrew Bashir, claims that the normalization agreement “contradicts the Sudanese national law” and could mean “the ignition of a new war.” Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), told me she fears Sudan’s generals may use the resulting instability as the pretext for a “full military takeover and end to the democratic transition.” In which case Sudan would be on its way to resembling the UAE and Bahrain.

So many bad things could happen - and people who are against normalization are saying it - so, to Beinart, we can assume they will, which makes normalization awful!

Unlike Beinart, I spend time reading primary sources. Bahrain, the UAE and Sudan are all different nations with different priorities and aspirations. But none of them - government or opposition - are going to risk a civil war over the Palestinian issue. Nobody cares that deeply about it. The doomsday scenarios on Sudan are ridiculous.

Not to say there isn't opposition to the deal. There is. But Sudan's main desire is to get off the terror list and to help its economy. The Palestinian issue is barely line noise. If the price to get what they so desperately need is peace with Israel, that is a relatively small price to pay. The opposition will complain, like oppositions everywhere. But no one is going to start a war or a coup because of their love of Palestinians.

No matter how much the Beinarts of the world hope that will happen.

Another major point that Beinart chooses to ignore: the entire reason for wall-to-wall historic opposition to Israel is a combination of antisemitism - which the socialist Left pretends does not exist in the Arab world - and decades of non-stop anti-Israel propaganda. In the UAE and in Bahrain this propaganda has ended. In Sudan, there are articles in the media that are pro-normalization, some antisemitic articles against it, and many that are pragmatic about the idea.

This is why the idea of normalization is gaining currency in so many Arab countries - for the first time, ordinary people are reading both sides of the story in their own local media.

To the Peter Beinarts of the world, this is a catastrophe. They need Arabs to be anti-Israel and antisemitic to justify their arguments that the Middle East will explode if Israel bypasses the intransigent Palestinians. But support for Palestinians was always ankle-deep at best, and the Western Left never understood that basic fact - mostly because every Arab diplomat, for honor reasons, would parrot the anti-Israel line whenever they spoke to their Western counterparts.

In the end, every Arab nation will act in their self-interest.

The UAE aspires to be a modern, high tech state whose economy is no longer dependent on vanishing oil supply and demand. Israel is a natural partner for this enterprise.

Bahrain wants to be known as the most tolerant Muslim country. Embracing Jews is the most visible and public means to reach that goal.

Sudan wants to end its long nightmare of the last decade and become a respectable nation. Peace with Israel helps them in that direction far more than continued slogans for Palestinians.

And one more thing Beinart chooses to ignore. As much as he wants to paint Israel as a brutal dictatorship, he knows that Israel has the most concern for human rights and free speech of any nation in the region, and is among the best in the world. Israel will influence Arab nations to be more open, not less. It is Israel's concern for equal rights, for education, for scientific research and development, for innovation and for the free market that gives it a competitive advantage - and these are all things that will bring Arab nations out of the backwardness they have been in for so long.

In literally every argument Beinart gives for his thesis, he shows not only that he is wrong, but that he has turned into a hater. Because in the end, his thesis rests on the assumption that Israel is evil, and therefore whatever it does will be evil. It is bigotry.

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Does anyone actually read Peter Beinart’s Jewish Currents?

Since Peter Beinart had kept himself in the news with his absurd one-state solution, it is instructive to see whether he has a following that is commensurate with all the media attention.

Beinart is the editor-at-large of Jewish Currents. Jewish Currents seems well funded, with dozens of writers. So how many people actually read it?

The answer it, not too many.

According to Similarweb, Jewish Currents received about 116,000 visits in June 2020 – significantly less than any other Jewish news or opinion site ranked by that site that I could think of.

According to Google Analytics, EoZ had 80,000 pageviews in June, so Jewish Currents – despite having far more reporters, articles and Beinart - is closer in readership to a blog than a professional news site. (In May EoZ and Jewish Currents differed by only 10,000 views.)

Peter Beinart might be great at self-promotion, but his actual influence is far less than he makes it appear. (I don’t know whether his Open Zion site which closed in 2017 did any better. )

Beinart can get on CNN and he can generate buzz, but he doesn’t seem to have any real following.

Today’s Peter Beinart lie: “Palestinians have been excluded from mainstream US media”

Peter Beinart continues with his push to destroy Israel with another whopper of a lie.

“For decades, Palestinians have been largely excluded from the mainstream US media conversation about Israel-Palestine. That exclusion continues today, and represents one more form of Palestinian dispossession,” he tweeted.

Really?

Judging from the New York Times op-ed page since Arafat rejected Oslo, I see articles by

Marwan Barghouti
Saeb Erekat
Diana Buttu
Ahmed Abu Artema
Mahmoud Abbas
Hanan Ashrawi
Ali Abunimah
Ayman Odeh
Raja Shehadeh
Zena Agha
Daoud Kuttab
Yasir Arafat
Ali Jarbawi
Yousef Munayyer
Rashid Khalidi
Khalil Shikaki
Linda Sarsour
Zahi Khoury

I’m probably missing some. Most of these were in the past decade. Many of these have written articles more than once. (If you include the years before 2000, there are even more, like Edward Said and Mamdouh Aker. )

Not to mention that Rashida Tlaib has been all over the media since her election. Hanan Ashrawi and Saeb Erekat have been staples on TV news shows for decades.

Now, how many countries can claim to have had more citizens writing in US media? Israel, probably the UK, maybe Canada. Are there more articles by Germans or the French or Mexicans or Japanese than Palestinians? I doubt it highly.

Even this doesn’t tell the whole story. For while the US newspapers are eager to publish Israelis who oppose Israel’s policies, one would be hard pressed to find Palestinians who are against the Palestinian leadership or who are pro-Israel in the media. Voices like Khaled Abu Tomaeh or Bassem Eid are rarely found in the New York Times nowadays (Bassem Eid was published in 2001 and 1996, not since.) Throughout the 2010s, the ratio of anti-Israel to pro-Israel op-eds in the NYT was about 4-1, meaning that the Palestinian perspectives were well represented even if not from Palestinians - which is not unusual, as there were more Americans who wrote op-eds and columns about the conflict than Israelis and Palestinians combined.

In short, Peter couldn’t name more than a handful of actual countries that have had more representation in US media than Palestinians. The truth is the exact opposite of his claim.

But when someone is seeking attention for his immoral ideas, making things up is not unexpected.

AP says Peter Beinart is influential. Evidence says he isn’t.

AP has a long, glowing article about Peter Beinart this weekend, as Beinart continues his publicity drive for teaching Americans that Israel is an evil, immoral state.

Is Peter Beinart influential among Jews in America?

It’s pretty easy to prove that the answer is no.

Earlier this year the American Zionist Movement held its elections for delegates to the World Zionist Organization. Before the voting started, Beinart was part of a major push for the “progressive” Hatikvah slate to gain as many seats as possible, and Beinart hmself was on that slate which included the leaders of J-Street, T’ruah, the New Israel fund and more. He received lots of publicity.

Beinart even made a video urging progressive Jews to vote for Hatikvah (which, interestingly, does not mention a two-state solution, meaning that Beinart was already moving away from the basic tenets of Hatikvah even as he was running to be part of its slate.)

How did Hatikvah do after this massive publicity push by Beinart, J-Street and others?

Hatikvah received a mere 6.4% of the American vote – seventh place – and Beinart did not make the cut to be a delegate.

Even among leftist Jews, Hatikvah did not gain much interest. The Reform slate received about four times the votes of Hatikvah.

These are the most motivated people concerning Israel, and Beinart did not ignite their interest or imagination. And it is telling that even though Beinart publicly campaigned for Hatikvah as was promoted as their rock star, he was placed in the 14th slot on their slate.

That does not scream “influential” even within Hatikvah.

This is not the first time that Beinart has been characterized as having more influence than he actually does. His “Crisis of Zionism” book was a flop, estimated to have only sold several thousand copies total.

Controversial? Sure, Beinart thrives on that. Influential? Not at all.

Beinart 2020, meet Beinart 2010

Daniel Paul Rubenstein found an interview that Jeffrey Goldberg had with Peter Beinart when he released his “Crisis of Zionism” book. (I’m sure that a new book is in the works.)

It is interesting to read what Beinart said then – already part of the progressive Zionist Left before he went full blown anti-Israel.

I disagreed with Tony Judt's essay in 2003 arguing for a binational state. That should be evident from my essay, which is all about saving liberal Zionism.

…In general, I think American Jewish leaders and commentators have become far too promiscuous about throwing around words like anti-Israel. In my mind, you're anti-Israel if you want Israel to disappear as a Jewish state. Being a harsh critic is something very different, and even if you believe someone is insufficiently attentive to Israeli security, that merely makes them wrong, not anti-Israel, unless you can prove that they are inattentive because they would not mind if Israel ceased to exist as a Jewish state.

There certainly are leftists (and for that matter) rightists who focus so disproportionately on Israel's failings as to raise questions about their true motives.

Sound familiar?

I'm not asking Israel to be Utopian. I'm not asking it to allow Palestinians who were forced out (or fled) in 1948 to return to their homes. I'm not even asking it to allow full, equal citizenship to Arab Israelis, since that would require Israel no longer being a Jewish state. I'm actually pretty willing to compromise my liberalism for Israel's security and for its status as a Jewish state. What I am asking is that Israel not do things that foreclose the possibility of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, because if it is does that it will become--and I'm quoting Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak here--an "apartheid state."

It is interesting that even then, Beinart believed that Arab Israelis were not equal citizens under the law –of course they are - but he was willing to throw them under the bus to keep Israel as a Jewish state!

And foreclosing the possibility of a Palestinian state is exactly what the current Israeli coalition wants to do. You ask what has changed. First, year after year of settlement growth at triple the rate of the Israeli population…The more the settlements expand, the more settlers--including fanatical settlers--take over parts of the Israeli bureaucracy and become integral to the Israeli army and rabbinate, all of which makes the prospect of removing them without outright civil war more remote.

This was Beinart in 2010. Since then, what has changed? Netanyahu is still prime minister, Abbas is still the PLO head, the amount of land for settlements is virtually identical and the percentage of Israelis living in the territories has gone up only marginally (4.1% to 4.8%.)

However, Hamas still controls Gaza and has more weapons, Hezbollah has more rockets than it did, the Palestinians rejected a peace framework from the most pro-Palestinian president ever, they initiated a new terror spree of cars and knives, and the current president is offering them billions of dollars to accept a contiguous state – admittedly smaller than the previous ones they rejected, but still a state = and they don’t want to talk to him.

And with all that new data, Beinart changed from Zionist to anti-Israel – by his own 2010 definition.

Nothing changed for Israel or for Palestinians. Only Beinart changed. Anything else he says about why suddenly Israel must cease to exist as a Jewish state is not in response to changed circumstances, but his own bizarre slide to the side of Israel’s enemies.

There is nothing moral about it. Just ask 2010 Beinart.

When I say Beinart’s “peace plan” resembles Hamas’ plan, I’m not joking

I tweeted last night:

I think I figured out what being a "progressive" Jew means.

Peter Beinart "progressed" from supporting Yasser Arafat's vision of a "solution" into adopting Hamas' vision.
— Elder of Ziyon (@elderofziyon) July 12, 2020

This was not entirely facetious.

In 2017, Hamas famously took out the blatantly antisemitic language in its manifesto that was supposed-to-but-not-really replace their original Hamas charter.

Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. …

Hamas rejects the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds. Hamas is of the view that the Jewish problem, anti-Semitism and the persecution of the Jews are phenomena fundamentally linked to European history and not to the history of the Arabs and the Muslims or to their heritage.

See? Hamas doesn’t say it wants to persecute Jews in its one state solution.

Other parts of the 2017 Hamas manifesto sounds very close to what Beinart would want:

Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance. It provides an umbrella for the followers of other creeds and religions who can practice their beliefs in security and safety. Hamas also believes that Palestine has always been and will always be a model of coexistence, tolerance and civilizational innovation.

Hamas believes that the message of Islam upholds the values of truth, justice, freedom and dignity and prohibits all forms of injustice and incriminates oppressors irrespective of their religion, race, gender or nationality. Islam is against all forms of religious, ethnic or sectarian extremism and bigotry.

Life in an Islamic state under Hamas rule sounds like a dream!

Senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar said this also in 2006:

"I dreams of hanging a huge map of the world on the wall at my Gaza home which does not show Israel on it," he said. "I hope that our dream to have our independent state on all historic Palestine (including Israel)."

"This dream will become real one day. I'm certain of this because there is no place for the state of Israel on this land," said al-Zahar.

However, he didn't rule out the possibility of having Jews, Muslims and Christians living under the sovereignty of an Islamic state, adding that the Palestinians never hated the Jews and that only the Israeli occupation was their enemy.

Does anyone believe Hamas? Beinart was skeptical in his 2012 “Crisis of Zionism” book, but he felt that their conciliatory statements should be considered by Israel and Zionists as reflecting an evolution of Hamas’ thought. Now? Outside the Islamic part, Hamas’ manifesto sounds remarkably like Beinart’s plan for peace and happiness in the Middle East.

Now, Beinart will claim that his solution is different, because Isratine would not be defined as an Islamic or even an Arab state. But how can that be stopped? Every Arab-majority state defines itself as an Arab state; every one except for Lebanon refers to its Muslim identity in their constitutions, and Lebanon is a perfect example of how a nation that is constitutionally committed to equal rights is not the same as one actually committed to equal rights.

Many Arab states claim equal rights for non-Muslims in their constitutions, but that isn’t stopping Christians from fleeing as fast as they can.

Officially calling the state “Islamic” or not is a distinction without a difference. And that is the only difference between Peter Beinart and Hamas’ stated vision of the future of the borders of British Mandate Palestine.

Of course, Beinart studiously ignores the thousands of statements from Hamas every year that contradict the language of tolerance in its manifesto.

To Beinart, Arabs must be judged favorably; only Jews must be judged harshly; Palestinians must have sovereignty, Jews should be happy with the crumbs of dhimmitude that may come their way under a benevolent Muslim-majority rule.

Which is exactly what Hamas believes.

UPDATE: Only last week, a Hamas MP described the evil of Jews.

Beinart's Complaint (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

A recent news item indicates that among the candidates for seats in the World Zionist Congress – founded by Theodor Herzl in 1897 – are Peter Beinart and Jeremy Ben Ami.

To tell the truth, when I see the petulant babyface of Peter Beinart, I experience a feeling of nausea. A misozionist and tikkunist*, Beinart was one of the more successful figures at monetizing his brand with his 2010 article “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment.” It was followed by a book which expanded on his thesis that established American Jewish organizations were “failing” young liberal Jews because they were not sufficiently sensitive to the “fact” that Israel was viciously oppressing Palestinian Arabs.

Beinart continued to write and speak on this theme, and as often happens, as time passed he became more and more extreme in his anti-Israel expression. Nevertheless, he continues to insist that he is a Zionist. For someone like myself, who believes that the survival of the Jewish people everywhere depends on a strong Jewish state, the hypocrisy of a comfortable American Jew telling Israelis to commit suicide is infuriating.

The mention of hypocrisy immediately brings to mind the organization J Street, which was midwifed in 2007 by a large infusion of cash from groups connected to George Soros (an infusion that J Street lied about until it was exposed). J Street, which also took money from individuals connected to Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia to lobby the US Congress, claims to be “pro-Israel and pro-peace,” but its consistently anti-Israel actions have proven it to be neither. Like Beinart, J Street appeals to American Jewish progressives and liberals, who either don’t see or don’t care that the objects of their support are enemies of the Jewish state.

J Street is led by Jeremy Ben Ami, who is himself a study in hypocrisy (or psychopathology of another sort). His father, Yitzhak Ben Ami, was a member of the etzel, the underground army organization led by Menachem Begin that fought the British and the Arabs to create the state of Israel. He came to America during the Holocaust as part of the “Bergson Group,” in an attempt – scuttled by the liberal Jewish establishment of the time – to mobilize support to rescue the doomed Jews of Europe. Thus, Jeremy is on the opposite side of his father’s struggle.

Beinart and Ben Ami are two of a type that has begun to flourish in recent decades: Jews that make a career for themselves – either for money, academic advancement, fame, or all of the above – by exploiting the fact that they have Jewish parents to give them an aura of authority with which to attack the state of Israel. Although they have no personal stake in the consequences of their advice, they give it with a pretense of great moral weight.

Beinart’s complaint (unfortunately) no longer makes sense. In recent years, many “establishment” Jewish organizations in the US – the ADL, Hillel International, the Federation system, the Union for Reform Judaism, and others have moved farther and farther away from supporting Israel. In some cases the reason is simply practical fund-raising: they would like to be acceptable to a new group of donors who are less pro-Israel than their parents, a consequence of the concentrated anti-Israel indoctrination they have received in American universities. In other cases, like the ADL, the dominant personalities in the organizations have been replaced by political operatives with a leftist (and anti-Israel) orientation.

I think that the Obama Administration also had much to do with this, providing support for J Street as their go-to Jewish group, as well as generating a continuous flow of propaganda against the Netanyahu government. The theme was “we love and support Israel, but Netanyahu is making it a racist theocracy.” Liberal American Jews seem to have been very susceptible to this approach.

The change stood out for me when I reread Beinart’s seminal 2010 article. I don’t think that today he would be able to say that the “American Jewish establishment” univocally supports Israel. Indeed, the truth is closer to the opposite. And the “establishment” has been joined by groups like J Street and If Not Now; even Jewish Voice for Peace is being treated as a legitimate representative of a segment of the Jewish population. None of this is an accident: a great deal of money has been expended by anti-Israel foundations like the Ford Foundation and Soros-connected foundations in order to accomplish this. And Beinart himself has been a tireless soldier in this campaign.

***

The World Zionist Congress consists of delegates from all over the world, in proportion to the Jewish populations of various countries. An election will be held to select them this January, and American Jews can vote for one of several slates of candidates. One is ironically called “Hatikvah”; its platform is a politically-correct compendium of left-wing causes, and its slate contains Beinart and Ben Ami, as well as the full panoply of American Jewish virtue-signalers and opportunists. For those Liberals/Progressives who can’t quite stomach Beinart or Ben Ami, there is a very slightly less aggressively left-wing platform and slate provided by the Union for Reform Judaism.

With due respect for Herzl, I think that the World Zionist Organization and its Congress have outlived their usefulness now that the Jewish state has been reestablished and is thriving. Israel does not need financial contributions from the diaspora, and it needs advice and political pressure even less. The WZO should dissolve itself and turn over whatever resources it has to the true Zionist entity in the world (just ask the Iranian regime), the State of Israel.

For now, I recommend that American Zionists vote for the Herut Zionists, which – unlike “Hatikvah” and the Reform slate, does espouse true Zionist goals like the ingathering of exiles and the development of all of Eretz Yisrael.
_______________________
* Misoziony (pronounced mis-OZ-yoni) is the extreme and irrational hatred of the Jewish state. It is antisemitism raised up one level of abstraction, although almost all misozionists are antisemites as well. Tikkunism is the ideology that replaces the traditional mitzvot of Judaism with an imperative to engage in left-wing social action

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