Thank you Peter for your eloquent response to the attempt by the ADL to silence educators who refer to, or teach Palestinian history. I am so profoundly grateful for your constant and powerful Jewish voice against anti- Palestinian bigotry. Thank God that you are such a prominent prophetic voice for a Judaism of justice, equality and freedom for all. Yishar kochecha! May God bless you and your sacred work. Brian Walt
If one, as a young Jew, has a problem with the way the state of Israel’s actions reflect on them as a Jew, I would suggest they take it up with the state of Israel, loudly, clearly, and publicly.
Thank you so much for this clear and spot on assessment. As an adult educator around issues of racism and more - I often talk about "safe" spaces but never again. I will talk about "brave" spaces. I am so tired of coddling people and enabling their fragility. I always try to emphasize that if we think it's hard to talk about and look at these issues - imagine how it is for people living through them.
Thank you, Peter, for once again representing the best values of Judaism. The notion of Jewish fragility in the context of a necessary discussion of Israel/Palestine demeans and patronizes the students, and contributes to the dangerous silencing of the Palestinian perspective.
Your voice and your interviews are a source of strength and light in the American Jewish community, so desperately needed in these desperate times
Agree 100 percent. However, the irony/hypocrisy work both ways. The practice of trying to categorize certain types of speech as "hate speech" that is the equivalent of a crime or an attack that threatens physical safety began on the left, and has now been taken up by the right. All sides need to learn to hear ideas that make them uncomfortable without resorting to this tactic.
There's another thing that only right-wingers used to say: that American Jews are essentially Israeli. It was a critical component the dual loyalty fallacy, also used against Catholics, that sais we have an allegiance to a foreign state and can't be trusted. Now Jews are promulgating it against ourselves.
Wholeheartedly agree. Fascism already came to many via their own inability to think through an issue. We didn't need Trump. He is just a bubbling up of people's own bigotry and idiocy. Prime example - a recent story in the SF Chronicle about a Filipino family who bought a vanity plate "LOLOCT7" and the ensuing uproar of accusations that this was an act of antisemitism. In fact, the reference is to "Lolo" meaning "Grandpa" and that they purchased a Cybertruck ("CT") and the 7 is in reference to the 7 grandkids the grandpa will be hauling around. But American Jews are out of control with their narcissism. The rest of us are not and should not be slaves to their singular narrative of suffering. Antisemitism is a battle amongst Europeans and Americans of European descent, aka White People. The worst manifestations of antisemitism have occurred in Europe. The rest of the world is not Europe. People need to learn more Non-European World History. This license plate incident was both comical and tragic.
Question for Peter Beinart: was the Vietnam War a genocide?
I know the Russel Tribunal found the U.S. guilty of genocide, but it was largely a far left kangaroo court. The very idea that what the U.S. did in Vietnam is comparable to the Armenian or the Tutsi genocide (I won’t mention the Holocaust, as I don’t want to be accused of "Jewish fragility") sounds now preposterous nowadays. Only the likes of Noam Chomsky or Norman Finkelstein would dare make such a silly comparison (btw, Chomsky doubts that a genocide really took place in Rwanda…).
In Vietnam, the proportion of civilians killed and the proportion of the overall population that died in the course of the war was slightly above what happened in Gaza. One can oppose this war without Nazifying Israel. Beinart failed the test.
The 20th and the 21st century have not experienced the rise of major religious cults in the West, but modernity has known no shortage of political frenzy. Far left anti-Zionism is one of them. Just like Trotskyism or Maoism, it won’t age well.
It's being called a genocide not only by "far left anti-Zionists" but also by Amnesty International and many genocide scholars. They are considering not only the number/proportion of people killed, but also Israel's intentional destruction of schools, universities, hospitals, mosques, museums, cultural institutions, and infrastructure with the goal of inflicting death and suffering on civilians, destroying Palestinian culture, and making the whole of Gaza uninhabitable.
US intervention in Viet-Nam was an ideological undertaking but not arguably an identitarian one whereas Zionist intervention in Palestine is both ideological and self-servingly identitarian. The US was less motivated by racism-an incidental feature-than ideological objection to socialism, decolonisation and ethno-nationalism of an anticapitalist sort. Not every instance of fascism(colonialism being by definition a form of fascism)involves genocide. Zionism of course is a politico-religious cult springing from the same racist supremacist Euro-Western pov and a direct heir to Nazism both in outlook and praxis. Germany's displaced or farmed-out Nazism, once having host-switched, leaves Germany without any other driving ideology as its incomplete and incoherent Europeanism fades and perversely as Zionism's main sponsor other than the US.
Thank you Peter. This is analogous, to calling any mention of the lack of Palestinian rights, against the brutality in Gaza and the W. Bank as being anti-semitic. We have internalized such a victim perspective that it prevents seeing the truth. And both here and in Israel, that sense of victimization is being heavily promoted. Thanks
As a nonbeliever, I have always found this very belief of “fearing for your safety as a Jew” overextended beyond the actual behavior being brought into the light of truth….
(here calling out Israel). This over exaggeration is a tool to silence the occupation snd the education of society. Ppl of color were criticized and humiliated when Black Lives Matter surfaced by the “blue lives or all lives matter” replacement erupted and it continued to this day This country is thinned skinned when it comes to educating the Self and while apologies are being demanded lives are being lost on Gaza, and elsewhere by the false narratives being shouted over the truth. Jews and Zionist Christian’s as well as lazy Christian’s need to hear the reality and truth. Just as the holocaust was unbearable and sickening to face, so is the genocide in Gaza and the previous Palestinian people.
Regarding the lack of a word for anti-Palestinian racism, it is a form of Islamophobia, which is perhaps not the most precise term, but it has become standard in progressive circles, like the term antisemitism became standard in general long ago. The Israeli state played a role decades ago in encouraging the growth of Islamic leadership at the expense of secular leadership of Palestinians, and then demonized this same Islamic Palestinian leadership for its fundamentalist extremism. So I think that Islamophobic is an apt term today to describe many forms of anti-Palestinian racism that are prevalent in Israel, in the United States, in Germany, in Britain, and elsewhere in the West.
Regarding genocide: It can have many forms. The Assad regime was committing genocide against Sunni Muslims in Syria, carrying out ethnic cleansing of Sunni Muslims in certain areas and replacing the population with Iranian Shia Muslims. When Putin denies the existence of a Ukrainian national identity, and takes measures to erase Ukrainian identity, that is also a form of committing genocide.
Thank you Peter for your eloquent response to the attempt by the ADL to silence educators who refer to, or teach Palestinian history. I am so profoundly grateful for your constant and powerful Jewish voice against anti- Palestinian bigotry. Thank God that you are such a prominent prophetic voice for a Judaism of justice, equality and freedom for all. Yishar kochecha! May God bless you and your sacred work. Brian Walt
If one, as a young Jew, has a problem with the way the state of Israel’s actions reflect on them as a Jew, I would suggest they take it up with the state of Israel, loudly, clearly, and publicly.
Thank you so much for this clear and spot on assessment. As an adult educator around issues of racism and more - I often talk about "safe" spaces but never again. I will talk about "brave" spaces. I am so tired of coddling people and enabling their fragility. I always try to emphasize that if we think it's hard to talk about and look at these issues - imagine how it is for people living through them.
Thank you, Peter, for once again representing the best values of Judaism. The notion of Jewish fragility in the context of a necessary discussion of Israel/Palestine demeans and patronizes the students, and contributes to the dangerous silencing of the Palestinian perspective.
Your voice and your interviews are a source of strength and light in the American Jewish community, so desperately needed in these desperate times
I heard identical stories during hearings on campus safety at the General Assembly here in Virginia. Not similar, identical. Hasbara strikes again?
Thank you for this post, for articulating so much of what we struggle with, with such great nuance.
Agree 100 percent. However, the irony/hypocrisy work both ways. The practice of trying to categorize certain types of speech as "hate speech" that is the equivalent of a crime or an attack that threatens physical safety began on the left, and has now been taken up by the right. All sides need to learn to hear ideas that make them uncomfortable without resorting to this tactic.
There's another thing that only right-wingers used to say: that American Jews are essentially Israeli. It was a critical component the dual loyalty fallacy, also used against Catholics, that sais we have an allegiance to a foreign state and can't be trusted. Now Jews are promulgating it against ourselves.
Wholeheartedly agree. Fascism already came to many via their own inability to think through an issue. We didn't need Trump. He is just a bubbling up of people's own bigotry and idiocy. Prime example - a recent story in the SF Chronicle about a Filipino family who bought a vanity plate "LOLOCT7" and the ensuing uproar of accusations that this was an act of antisemitism. In fact, the reference is to "Lolo" meaning "Grandpa" and that they purchased a Cybertruck ("CT") and the 7 is in reference to the 7 grandkids the grandpa will be hauling around. But American Jews are out of control with their narcissism. The rest of us are not and should not be slaves to their singular narrative of suffering. Antisemitism is a battle amongst Europeans and Americans of European descent, aka White People. The worst manifestations of antisemitism have occurred in Europe. The rest of the world is not Europe. People need to learn more Non-European World History. This license plate incident was both comical and tragic.
Question for Peter Beinart: was the Vietnam War a genocide?
I know the Russel Tribunal found the U.S. guilty of genocide, but it was largely a far left kangaroo court. The very idea that what the U.S. did in Vietnam is comparable to the Armenian or the Tutsi genocide (I won’t mention the Holocaust, as I don’t want to be accused of "Jewish fragility") sounds now preposterous nowadays. Only the likes of Noam Chomsky or Norman Finkelstein would dare make such a silly comparison (btw, Chomsky doubts that a genocide really took place in Rwanda…).
In Vietnam, the proportion of civilians killed and the proportion of the overall population that died in the course of the war was slightly above what happened in Gaza. One can oppose this war without Nazifying Israel. Beinart failed the test.
The 20th and the 21st century have not experienced the rise of major religious cults in the West, but modernity has known no shortage of political frenzy. Far left anti-Zionism is one of them. Just like Trotskyism or Maoism, it won’t age well.
It's being called a genocide not only by "far left anti-Zionists" but also by Amnesty International and many genocide scholars. They are considering not only the number/proportion of people killed, but also Israel's intentional destruction of schools, universities, hospitals, mosques, museums, cultural institutions, and infrastructure with the goal of inflicting death and suffering on civilians, destroying Palestinian culture, and making the whole of Gaza uninhabitable.
US intervention in Viet-Nam was an ideological undertaking but not arguably an identitarian one whereas Zionist intervention in Palestine is both ideological and self-servingly identitarian. The US was less motivated by racism-an incidental feature-than ideological objection to socialism, decolonisation and ethno-nationalism of an anticapitalist sort. Not every instance of fascism(colonialism being by definition a form of fascism)involves genocide. Zionism of course is a politico-religious cult springing from the same racist supremacist Euro-Western pov and a direct heir to Nazism both in outlook and praxis. Germany's displaced or farmed-out Nazism, once having host-switched, leaves Germany without any other driving ideology as its incomplete and incoherent Europeanism fades and perversely as Zionism's main sponsor other than the US.
Well, I hope Peter Beinart reads your rant. This is what his new political family looks like…
So clearly stated. Thank you, Peter Beinart, for speaking these truths.
Thank you Peter. This is analogous, to calling any mention of the lack of Palestinian rights, against the brutality in Gaza and the W. Bank as being anti-semitic. We have internalized such a victim perspective that it prevents seeing the truth. And both here and in Israel, that sense of victimization is being heavily promoted. Thanks
As a nonbeliever, I have always found this very belief of “fearing for your safety as a Jew” overextended beyond the actual behavior being brought into the light of truth….
(here calling out Israel). This over exaggeration is a tool to silence the occupation snd the education of society. Ppl of color were criticized and humiliated when Black Lives Matter surfaced by the “blue lives or all lives matter” replacement erupted and it continued to this day This country is thinned skinned when it comes to educating the Self and while apologies are being demanded lives are being lost on Gaza, and elsewhere by the false narratives being shouted over the truth. Jews and Zionist Christian’s as well as lazy Christian’s need to hear the reality and truth. Just as the holocaust was unbearable and sickening to face, so is the genocide in Gaza and the previous Palestinian people.
As the kids say, American Jews are cooked.
Excellent commentary as usual Peter. Thank you.
Regarding the lack of a word for anti-Palestinian racism, it is a form of Islamophobia, which is perhaps not the most precise term, but it has become standard in progressive circles, like the term antisemitism became standard in general long ago. The Israeli state played a role decades ago in encouraging the growth of Islamic leadership at the expense of secular leadership of Palestinians, and then demonized this same Islamic Palestinian leadership for its fundamentalist extremism. So I think that Islamophobic is an apt term today to describe many forms of anti-Palestinian racism that are prevalent in Israel, in the United States, in Germany, in Britain, and elsewhere in the West.
Regarding genocide: It can have many forms. The Assad regime was committing genocide against Sunni Muslims in Syria, carrying out ethnic cleansing of Sunni Muslims in certain areas and replacing the population with Iranian Shia Muslims. When Putin denies the existence of a Ukrainian national identity, and takes measures to erase Ukrainian identity, that is also a form of committing genocide.
Not all Palestinians are Muslim, though.