For what? For being an apologist for a crime against humanity? For justifying atrocities including cutting the heads off babies? What are you talking about???
Richard, where would the evil Palestinian cause be without AsaJews like Peter defending everything they do? Actually have to give up their genocidal goals and make peace? G-d forbid!
" Khaled Meshal, the political leader of Hamas, gave a defiant speech on Saturday, vowing to build an Islamic Palestinian state on all the land of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Speaking before tens of thousands of supporters to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the founding of Hamas, Mr. Meshal said the Jewish state would be wiped away through “resistance,” or military action. “The state will come from resistance, not negotiation,” he said. “Liberation first, then statehood.” His voice rising to a shout, Mr. Meshal said: “Palestine is ours from the river to the sea and from the south to the north. There will be no concession on any inch of the land.”"
It takes true humanity to see G-d in the Gentile and not just in the Jew. It takes objectivity and honesty to look at the reality of the Zionist takeover of Palestine over the last century and not just accept lies that help people sleep at night. If Israelis are told to think Palestinians are just 'human animals' and perpetrate a bloodbath in Gaza to crush them once and for all, doesn't that sound eerily like a 'final solution'?
Palestinians are told constantly by Peter and people like him that Israelis are evil apartheid loving settler colonialists racist Jewish supremacists. Where's the humanity in that?
I didn't say Beinart, I said Beinart and people like him. But for your information, Beinart has said:
" I think political Zionism was a both a movement that provided refuge to Jews in distress, an experience of national liberation AND a movement with clear settler-colonial features."
"And what’s striking to me about Abbas’ statements is the way in which they kind of rehearse the very same kind of dehumanizing things that Jews say about Palestinians"
"Let me say this clearly: Zionism is a settler colonial movement and Israel is a settler colonial state. This is not an insult; it is a statement of fact." - published by Jewish Currents, Beinarts magazine
Wait, I thought it was the Israeli government saying all those things.
I’m not being sarcastic here: seriously, have you looked at the public statements of Israeli officials at any point in the past fifteen years?
Or are you just saying this because you don’t actually believe in anything?
Anyway I recognize your username from a different comment thread here over a year ago, so either you really, really enjoy hate-following Peter, or, perhaps, you know, this is actually your day job, or something.
When did I say Zionism is fascism? It's not. But since you seem to think so, you must be overjoyed that Hamas put 900+ fascists in the ground over the weekend.
This was exactly what was needed to be said .it was truth be told .Thank you for your courage ,it’s so upsetting to see the suffering on both sides .It could be so different if the collective will was present .Sending love and light of God to
Israel and Palestine . Blessings to all for a better tomorrow .Communication is key to achieve peace and understanding with the collective will to achieve it .yes set all the captives free in both sides .🙏
Jesus Christ, Peter. My mouth hung open when I read this. What do you mean, you "have no patience for people who justify those things"? YOU ARE THAT PERSON.
Don't try to pretend you give a shit about keeping the Jews in Israel safe. This time next week, you'll be back to calling them apartheid racists and Jewish supremacists. The book has already been written.
The Jews in Israel are not safe because the policies of the increasingly right-wing government that has ruled for the past 20+ years have failed. So has US Middle East “policy” under Republican and Democratic administrations alike. Russia and Iran are also involved, as I’m sure you know, exploiting Palestinians’ misery to recruit extremists and funding Hamas’ reign of terror. There is plenty of blame to go around for this horrific debacle, but progressive Jews, who have held no power and virtually no say in Israel’s security policy for upwards of two decades, are not the ones.
"Khaled Meshal, the political leader of Hamas, gave a defiant speech on Saturday, vowing to build an Islamic Palestinian state on all the land of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Speaking before tens of thousands of supporters to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the founding of Hamas, Mr. Meshal said the Jewish state would be wiped away through “resistance,” or military action. “The state will come from resistance, not negotiation,” he said. “Liberation first, then statehood.” His voice rising to a shout, Mr. Meshal said: “Palestine is ours from the river to the sea and from the south to the north. There will be no concession on any inch of the land.” He vowed that all Palestinian refugees and their descendants would one day return to their original homes in what is now Israel."
Palestinians have been murdering Jews with the goal of destroying Israel for the past 70 years. It has nothing to do with the policies of any Israeli government, left, right and center.
And yes, progressive Jews like Peter are more than deserving of some of the blame. They have been legitimizing and justifying Palestine's anti-peace stance for decades. He tells Palestinians every day they're victims of Jewish supremacy and apartheid. Well, they believed him, and they put over 900 Jewish supremacists and apartheid racists in the ground this weekend. What's that phrase, again? Oh yes, "my heroes have always killed colonizers". Well, congratulations to Palestine and to Peter. There's 900 fewer colonizers on Earth today.
Mr. Winters - Are there not voices on Israel's side that genocidally call for Palestinian villages "to be wiped off the map?" Does that mean that all Jews are Smotrich or Ben Gvir? Unless you can see the Palestinian as a human being like you, and imagine what it is like to be pushed out of your homeland, or have settler pogroms showing up in the middle of the night to set fire to your house, your olive trees, and build settlements on your land, or have your whole life determined by military checkpoints- unless you can do that, you have dehumanised them. And that is what all genocides come from, whether Buchenwald or Rwanda.
The "we're victims, so everything we do is justified" isn't going to work this time, and possibly not ever again. And the time to "see my humanity" comes before murdering and raping and abducting children, not immediately after it.
Are you unaware of the settlers rampaging through Palestinian villages, lynching innocent people, burning their cars, breaking into their homes over the last year? And IDF abducting Palestinian children in the middle of the night and holding them in Israeli jails is no different, just because they're in uniform? Maybe that didn't bother you too much because they're not Jews?
Winters. You need to get off your high horse. Jewish terrorists are capable of similar atrocities. What was it you said? For the past 70 years? Remember Deir Yassin? Babies executed. Whole families executed. Arab girls raped and murdered. Prisoners paraded in trucks then taken back and executed. The Qibya massacre? Government sanctioned with an order for "maximum killing." Homes demolished with whole families inside. 3 men responsible for these massacres were later elected to the office of Prime Minister.
Even in recent attacks against Gaza, 30+ members of the same family killed in a single airstrike. What's the difference?
Who said it was justified? You're saying "Arabs have been killing Jews for 70 years." Implicit in that statement is that Jews have not been doing the same to Arabs, and certainly not with the same brutality. Is that what you are saying?
You say "terrible acts from over 70 years ago." Did you miss the example I gave from within the last decade (and similar things are happening as we speak) of wiping out 30+ members of one family with a single airstrike? Why is that different?
What I said was "Palestinians have been murdering Jews with the goal of destroying Israel for the past 70 years." I didn't say anything about Arabs, and anything you read into the statement beyond what was said is not my concern.
Once you agree with me that my statement is correct and that Hamas's unspeakable crimes over the weekend occurred because they want to destroy Israel, we can discuss what Jews did 70 years ago as much as you would like. Capiche?
Untold main and Injured Palestinians shot by snipers
because you use fighter Jets Apache helicopters does not absolve you of all these deaths. you are no different then Hamas actions. you are actually worse. all the violence would stop if you zionist would actually want peace more then you want the land. Shame on you for wanting revenge. you want to kill hamas kill them. It will make no difference. When you deny people there freedom they will fight for it. and when you are much weaker they will you terrorisms. you reap what you sow. Peter is right hamas or no hamas violence will be part of your racists life . Those numbers are only Gaza since hamas took over. what did you thinks was going to happen? they were going to cower to the fanatical zionist.
"Khaled Meshal, the political leader of Hamas, gave a defiant speech on Saturday, vowing to build an Islamic Palestinian state on all the land of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Speaking before tens of thousands of supporters to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the founding of Hamas, Mr. Meshal said the Jewish state would be wiped away through “resistance,” or military action. “The state will come from resistance, not negotiation,” he said. “Liberation first, then statehood.” His voice rising to a shout, Mr. Meshal said: “Palestine is ours from the river to the sea and from the south to the north. There will be no concession on any inch of the land.” He vowed that all Palestinian refugees and their descendants would one day return to their original homes in what is now Israel."
The racists fascist governments of the zionist entity. Are the ones no matter if its labor, likud or any other pollical party. They all believe in this theory, as much land as we can take with the fewest amount of Palestinians. Yes, Palestinians want to go back to there lands that they were thrown off by terroist group call the idf. the least moral arm forces in the world. Why don't they have a right to go back. if you blue eyes blonde hair Jews have a right to come back after 2000 years from Europe. Palestinians should also have a right to go back.
zionist are all for peace as long as the Palestinians except there terms. Its obvious your terms are not acceptable. it does not seek justice it is what I said in the first paragraph.
before the racists zionist came from europe Jews lived all over the middle east in peace.
I am not not racists at all I believe in justice with justice comes peace.
Yes zionist are racist. They believe in Jewish supremacy. that's racist. but based on your logic you should be ok with white supremacy and there anti Jewish actions. Same ideology. Supremacy.
One more thing Benny Morris said one intelligent thing he does not like seeing what will happen to the zionist entity in the future. that young Jews should leave now. When all the relgious zionist quacks take over the goverment. zionism will fail in a very big way, it will implode on itself. I just hope to be alive to dance on its grave. the world will be a better place.
Please stop using the term “JEWS” when what you should be saying is “ISRAELIS”. Or if you insist on saying JEW, then you also need to be calling Palestinians “Moslems” or “Christians”.. Does that make sense???
Winters doesn’t actually read Peter’s essays. Winters just skims them for things that sound vaguely offensive, for the purpose of bearing false witness against Peter.
Anyway Winters is a regular. So meet Peter’s resident reply-guy.
Peter is absolutely not that person.His suffering is clear for all to see. His logic that violence begets violence is clear. His goal is what will keep Bene Yisrael ( the Country and the Diaspora) safe..not just pointing out the extreme mistakes of the Bibi policies
Peter's suffering is only because the entire world has once again been reminded of Palestine's barbarity and psychosis, and his deluded grift of pushing a one-state solution is deader than ever.
Why are you surprised, Winters? Beinart has always been a bootlicker for Palestine, he's not going to give up his grift over a little thing like 1,000 raped and murdered Jews.
You can't be a bootlicker for the oppressed group. That's not what 'bootlicker' means. It means one who sucks up to the established and powerful entities, especially military ones. Empathy for oppressed people is never considered 'bootlicking', except by upside-down minds like yours.
When the loudest voice is all I (we) hear, it feels unjust. Thanx for keeping me (us) informed on BOTH viewpoints, so I can contemplate my own feelings in a rational way.
Beinart, how dare you preach and pretend to know or care about what will make Jews safe. This essay is absolutely disgusting. You must know that you are partially to blame for all of this, correct?
Every time you promote the Palestinian narrative of “Israel's apartheid regime,” and that the Palestinians are "the victims of Jewish supremacy", and Zionism should not exist, and that Jews don't have a right to a state, and the blatant lie that 750,000 Palestinians were expelled in 1948, and that Israel exists on stolen land, every time you dehumanize Israelis as occupiers and colonizers and settlers and apartheid racists, you legitimize and justify Hamas and their unspeakable atrocities.
After all, you have made it pretty clear that you agree with Hamas that a world without Israel would be a better place, you just slightly disagree about how to get there.
If you don't actually approve of what happened this weekend, if you actually cared about the victims, you would write a full throated apology for everything you’ve done and said, delete this substack, and spend the rest of your life serving the poor of Israel in a soup kitchen. But if you can't handle that, maybe post a picture of a large check from you to Magen David Adom? I think $5,000 is a reasonable amount to start with, considering all the damage you've done? You should be begging for forgiveness from your fellow Jews right now, and you don't deserve any.
Do we really need Peter Beinart to promote the Palestinian narrative on “Israel’s apartheid regime.”? Anyone who can read will be able to decide by reading the reports below.
Sean, you must be ever so pleased that 900+ Zionist apartheid racists were put in the ground over the weekend. Did you join the parties in the streets?
Well, yes we do. Along with Avi Chlaim, Gideon Levy, Ilan Pappé, and a long list of Israeli and Jewish Mensches.
Because his voice has more chance, albeit slight, to give pause within his community. And also because he is an observant Jew. And also because he is an American Jew because Israel won't change until America conditions its support on human rights/civil rights. The sad truth is that. And, almost especially, because he has come from a 'right wing' place - he has 'made a journey' that many more Americans need to make. Despite that the mainstream media reports, more American Jews no longer support the Israel project.
His outspoken opinion, Sean, a chara, outweighs yours or mine in reversing this ongoing catastrophe sometime in a distant future.
In a roundabout way I was trying to defend Peter, by pointing out that many more commentators out there, some like the people you mentioned, hold similar views.
Israel has no such strategy. In fact a Palestinian talking point is that Israelis don't rape Palestinians because they are racist. Incidentally, anyone else remember when the left was opposed to "bothsidesism?"
The difference between the IDF and Hamas is that the United States gives the IDF billions of dollars of military aid every year to murder innocent civilians, while I don’t think Iran or whoever even has that much money to give Hamas.
Honestly it’s perversely impressive how many innocent civilians Hamas manages murder on the budget they have at their disposal.
The IDF could really learn a thing or two about being more economical than they currently are when they murder innocent civilians.
I should ask my Congresswoman to get the CBO to look into whether the IDF is wasting money on things other than just murdering innocent civilians, given how much more money the IDF has charged the US government for murdering innocent civilians.
Is that enough dialectical materialism for you? Hmmm?
The US has not given Israel a single cent to "murder innocent civilians" you shameless liar. And yes, please share with your Congressperson how impressed you are with Hamas' latest rape and murder spree. She'll probably join AIPAC out of sheer disgust.
Your message is very sincere and not being Jewish it is hard to understand what you feel. But you are reaching out and giving insight you are not making excuses you are trying to cope. Thank you I appreciate your words. I visited my son in Israel 2 years ago he’d was working at the Embassy and Israel is a very different place then the world I have grown up in. I was not comfortable I saw the beauty but couldn’t;d not understand the attitude. Your are so correct in the insight this is not working. We do need patience, love, kindness. There is not enough in this world. I’m afraid Evil and selfishness are a dominate force. I wish you peace and keep reaching out, your father would be proud of you.
I share in the grief, horror, and agony of everyone suffering in this spasm of senseless violence--the Israeli people, the Palestinian people, those people from other countries who have been murdered and kidnapped. As someone who tries to follow the Jewish carpenter from Nazareth--a man who sought to liberate the Jewish people from the yoke of empire by nonviolence--I add my voice to Peter’s anguished prayer and wrenching cry for God.
I remember the rage I felt over 9/11--an unprovoked and evil attack on civilians --my desire for justice and vengeance through an overwhelming military response. Through war, not prudent, targeted, intelligent security and diplomatic responses. We Americans got our wars, and they proved ruinous to us and hundreds of thousands of others. If this is Israel’s 9/11, I beg of its leaders to learn from our failures and find a smarter path.
Those wars did not make us safe, did not bring justice, and in the end sowed the seeds for the erosion of our own freedoms and civil liberties. They led to occupations that destroyed whole nations and sapped America of immense blood and treasure. It led to the increased radicalization of our domestic politics and the deep divisions that are now threatening our society at a fundamental level. We let our pain and justified wrath cloud our judgment and overwhelm our reason. We got down to the level of terrorists and became torturers and terrorists in kind. We let them win by losing our humanity. We forgot the words of Scripture: “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. I will repay.” I was guilty of this.
As a person of Irish descent, I also bear in my blood the anguish of the Irish people under the heal of oppression. They suffered unfathomable atrocities for centuries, including genocide. Yet that did not justify the atrocities of the IRA against innocents and civilians--many of whom were their own people. Sadly, the response of the British state to that violence--including assassinations of their royal family--merely contributed to the unending cycle.
It was not until all parties sat down and found a way--against all pain and memory and justified anger--to bury the gun and share power and guarantee civil rights to all that peace and coexistence came about. This included treating with and accommodating Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, complicit in numerous horrific crimes and atrocities. And it required that Sinn Fein renounce violence in return and recognize the rights and cultural identity of the Ulster community, and the acceptance of ongoing British sovereignty over Northern Ireland.
I pray that the Israeli and Palestinian people and leadership--with the help of the global human family--can come to that shared mutuality again, as they have before. And recognize that, like the Republicans and Unionists in Ireland, their lives--their fates--are inextricably intertwined. Today, amidst the wails of mothers and children and elderly people, that path feels very far away indeed.
I’ve been curious how you would respond. Your kids are right -- you are hated. You are sick. Your first comment after 260 young people attending a concert were machine gunned to death, families butchered in their homes, IDF soldiers brutalized and killed while lying in their bunks, and women and children kidnapped and marched into Gaza to cheering crowds and likely tortured and killed -- is to tell Israel to stop behaving badly. Are you fucking kidding me???
These are the barbaric people you think can live in peaceful harmony with Israel? Who does this to fellow human beings? Hamas is a terrorist organization that has taken $1 billion of aid and rather than helping its people, builds tunnels, weapons, and plans only for one thing: killing Jews. And you defend them???
Did you join the pro Palestinian rallies in Times Square and elsewhere celebrating this wonderful achievement? These sick bastards.
Iran orchestrated this to end the Saudi-Israel normalization. Part of the plan is to make the West Bank a better place for Palestinian citizens. The Saudis would provide financial assistance. In time, with a better life, the possibility of peaceful coexistence with Israel would show the better alternative than rejection and terrorism that the Palestinians have only known. And the Iranian backed Hamas and Hezbollah version would be the losers. Iran wants this stopped and helped coordinate this crime against humanity. And you dare to lecture Israel???
You are disgusting; drawing moral equivalency between colonialists and Israeli Jews; mentioning the ANC, which by the way now rule corruptly over a failed and truly declining South Africa, American blacks and trying to draw parallels and congruency by ignoring Palestinian rejectionism, Salafism, mass murder and praying for “Palestinian captives.” Why don’t you ask your Jewish friend,who you mentioned several weeks ago, spoke to Hamas what the solution is…you could not be more wrong…Palestinians don’t want your patronizing neo-third world morally bankrupt garbage…
Rather than speaking about what Hamas did with the help of Iran you suggest destroying/attacking Hamas and keeping Israel and the Palestinians suffering under them is not the answer…Hamas does not want to hear your revolutionary solutions they want you dead because you are a Jew…instead of praying and implicitly begging them to accept you maybe you should wake up and realize true peace for both people will only come when religious fanatics on both sides are quashed by their own people…you are the kind of “educated idiot” wracked by a ghetto mentality of guilt that helped cause this and should be ashamed of your pseudo intellectualism…you need a really good psychiatrist/or maybe a better one because you do not live in the real world…every week I listen to you to see how far the Jewish left has sunk and you never cease to amaze me with just how deluded your views really are…shame on you “ professor”
I do not believe that Peter has any problem with the prospect of destroying Hamas or in some way having Hamas cease to exist. But it is clear to anyone who can see beyond anger and revenge ( which drives Palestinian Fanatics to slaughter young innocent humans), that meeting that anger and revenge with more anger and revenge only serves to continuously escalate and escalate and escalate the situation and to create new martyrs.
Interesting idea, Su. How should Israel respond, then, in your view? Do nothing, and tell Hamas and the world that armed groups of terrorists can rape, murder, behead babies, and nothing bad will happen to them? And that's NOT going to escalate the situation?
No ..one possible solution would be to try and identify and hunt down as many of the murderers as possible ( as per the operation after the Munich massacre) via facial recognition software and using all the sophisticated means they have...this surgical approach would help to minimize Innocents being killed which is inexcusable whether it is Palestinians or Israelis.
Then to unmask Netanyahu as the evil idiot he truly was by sending away the troops from the Southern Border to the North to protect the fanatical Settlers.
Then get rid of the Toxic Bibi and his toxic gang of bible thumping fanatics.
Then start listening to the many many Israelis and Palestinians( such as the voices on Peters Podcasts who are driven to create some semblance of a shared power agreement. And to stop being pulled around by the nose by the extremists.
Su, have you any advice on who should hunt down the Israelis who have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Palestinians for over half a century. Israel is afraid to go to the International Criminal Court. I wonder why.
Has that ever worked to achieve peace?? No. So what is the answer?
Let’s look at the South African model. There is no going back. There is no justifying the Death by a Thousand Cuts of anything ever committed by Israeli Settlers or their cronies against innocent Palestinian shepherds and growers of olive trees. There is no justifying the kidnapping and torture of two adolescent Israeli boys who went for a fun hike one day…and one and on and on. If you or anyone else thinks for ONE split second that years of repression and occupation in Gaza justify a wholesale Helter Skelter mayhem of blood and slaughter, I call out your inhumanity….how can you or anyone except the Iranians and Hamas ad Hezbollah even begin to provide ANY excuse or justification for this type of barbarism.
Su, just what is Israel doing to Gaza right now? Taking revenge on mainly innocent men, women and children. Is a bomb dropping on a family in Gaza okay? No it is not and neither is what Hamas done at the weekend any less reprehensible. Gideon Levy’s article is worth reading.
Israel Can’t Imprison Two Million Gazans Without Paying a Cruel Price
Gideon Levy
Oct 9, 2023
Behind all this lies Israeli arrogance; the idea that we can do whatever we like, that we’ll never pay the price and be punished for it. We’ll carry on undisturbed.
We’ll arrest, kill, harass, dispossess and protect the settlers busy with their pogroms. We'll visit Joseph’s Tomb, Othniel’s Tomb and Joshua’s Altar in the Palestinian territories, and of course the Temple Mount – over 5,000 Jews on Sukkot alone.
We’ll fire at innocent people, take out people’s eyes and smash their faces, expel, confiscate, rob, grab people from their beds, carry out ethnic cleansing and of course continue with the unbelievable siege of the Gaza Strip, and everything will be all right.
We’ll build a terrifying obstacle around Gaza – the underground wall alone cost 3 billion shekels ($765 million) – and we’ll be safe. We’ll rely on the geniuses of the army's 8200 cyber-intelligence unit and on the Shin Bet security service agents who know everything. They’ll warn us in time.
We’ll transfer half an army from the Gaza border to the Hawara border in the West Bank, only to protect far-right lawmaker Zvi Sukkot and the settlers. And everything will be all right, both in Hawara and at the Erez crossing into Gaza.
It turns out that even the world's most sophisticated and expensive obstacle can be breached with a smoky old bulldozer when the motivation is great. This arrogant barrier can be crossed by bicycle and moped despite the billions poured into it and all the famous experts and fat-cat contractors.
We thought we’d continue to go down to Gaza, scatter a few crumbs in the form of tens of thousands of Israeli work permits – always contingent on good behavior – and still keep them in prison. We’ll make peace with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and the Palestinians will be forgotten until they’re erased, as quite a few Israelis would like.
We’ll keep holding thousands of Palestinian prisoners, sometimes without trial, most of them political prisoners. And we won’t agree to discuss their release even after they've been in prison for decades.
We’ll tell them that only by force will their prisoners see freedom. We thought we would arrogantly keep rejecting any attempt at a diplomatic solution, only because we don’t want to deal with all that, and everything would continue that way forever.
Once again it was proved that this isn’t how it is. A few hundred armed Palestinians breached the barrier and invaded Israel in a way no Israeli imagined was possible. A few hundred people proved that it’s impossible to imprison 2 million people forever without paying a cruel price.
Just as the smoky old Palestinian bulldozer tore through the world’s smartest barrier Saturday, it tore away at Israel’s arrogance and complacency. And that’s also how it tore away at the idea that it’s enough to occasionally attack Gaza with suicide drones – and sell them to half the world – to maintain security.
On Saturday, Israel saw pictures it has never seen before. Palestinian vehicles patrolling its cities, bike riders entering through the Gaza gates. These pictures tear away at that arrogance. The Gaza Palestinians have decided they’re willing to pay any price for a moment of freedom. Is there any hope in that? No. Will Israel learn its lesson? No.
On Saturday they were already talking about wiping out entire neighborhoods in Gaza, about occupying the Strip and punishing Gaza “as it has never been punished before.” But Israel hasn’t stopped punishing Gaza since 1948, not for a moment.
After 75 years of abuse, the worse possible scenario awaits it once again. The threats of “flattening Gaza” prove only one thing: We haven’t learned a thing. The arrogance is here to stay, even though Israel is paying a high price once again.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bears very great responsibility for what happened, and he must pay the price, but it didn’t start with him and it won’t end after he goes. We now have to cry bitterly for the Israeli victims, but we should also cry for Gaza.
Gaza, most of whose residents are refugees created by Israel. Gaza, which has never known a single day of freedom.
That's right. Every time Peter Beinart goes to bat for rapists and murderers, I'll be there to call him out. Did you join the street parties, Sean? Was that you I saw in the Australia video chanting "Gas the Jews"?
I don’t think you actually have pride in your soul. If you had pride in your soul, you wouldn’t be spilling so many anonymous pixels trying to prove it.
Professor Beinart, I am extremely disappointed. If I were a Palestinian I would be even more disappointed. Everyone knows that Hamas charter is dedicated to killing and specifically killing Jews wherever they are. Any Palestinian who identifies with Hamas, oops let me correct myself, any person who identifies or supports Hamas is in fact a supporter of Nazism. A supporter of a racial war against Jews.
If Palestinians were to fully support Hamas, there is no way they will achieve a Palestine in the West Bank let alone a Palestine from the River to the Sea. I understand that in the West Bank many do support them, but I attribute that support to the inaction and failure of the Palestinian Authority.
The Hamas charter has much to say about Jews. Here is one quote “"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem). “
If this is the face of Palestinians with regards to Israel and Jews then Israel is justified in destroying Hamas and all who support it. Why wait till they gain enough strength to deliver on their threats?
My point here is simply to differentiate legitimate Palestinian interest in statehood from those people who advocate another genocide of the Jews.
Another point that needs to be stated is that Gaza is not the West Bank. Israel withdrew completely form Gaza. In fact, it left an agricultural industry intact for Gazans to pursue and the world banking community was ready to invest in Gaza including Israel. But that did not happen because Hamas took over and decided to continue its genocidal mission. We hear how Gaza is a prison managed by Israel and how goods and services are blocked from entering Gaza. The truth? The only goods that were blocked were dual use goods that could be turned into armaments or tunnels. So, for example, Israel stopped sending cement to Gaza because instead of building housing for the people there the lion’s share of it was used to build tunnels. (and by the way Egypt shares a border with Gaza too).
I am not thrilled at Israel bombing Gaza. But I do find it odd when I saw on TV a Gazan complain that Israel stopped warning Gazans when they bomb. In the past Israel has called occupants of buildings they were about to destroy and tell them to get out. I found it odd, somehow Hamas didn’t let the civilians it killed, raped, beheaded, or kidnapped know in advance that they were coming, and they should get out of the way. And that is because that is exactly what they wanted to do.
Professor Beinart on your website is a lead article that appears on the right on my screen that claims if Hamas were eliminated nothing would change. A cheap shot would be to say tell that to the communities bordering Gaza. The reality is when genocidal Palestinian groups are eliminated so too is the toxic atmosphere they bring with them, making it possible for Israel and Palestinians who want to live in a Palestinian state (not from the River to the Sea) to discuss a solution approach.
Untold main and Injured Palestinians shot by snipers
because you use fighter Jets Apache helicopters does not absolve you of all these deaths. you are no different then Hamas actions. you are actually worse. all the violence would stop if you zionist would actually want peace more then you want the land. Shame on you for wanting revenge. you want to kill hamas kill them. It will make no difference. When you deny people there freedom they will fight for it. and when you are much weaker they will you terrorisms. you reap what you sow. Peter is right hamas or no hamas violence will be part of your racists life . Those numbers are only Gaza since hamas took over. what did you thinks was going to happen? they were going to cower to the fanatical zionist.
Trying to equate Israel with colonialism and/or Apartheid after this horrific and brutal massacre is beyond the pale…we do not seek revenge we seek to kill those that have and will try to exterminate us and their own…you either don’t want to see it or have your head so far up the Professors ass that you can’t see it because your point reeks of cronyism and makes as much sense as his pathetic ramblings and ghetto begging
Peter, It takes true courage to speak this way in the midst of a frenzy of grief, rage and revenge. G-d is with you.
God bless you. Now is the time when humanity among Jews is hardest. Your remarks moved me to tears. Courage, Peter.
David Blumenfeld
You said it all, Peter, the way it needs to be said. You are a true Mensch.
Peter
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
For what? For being an apologist for a crime against humanity? For justifying atrocities including cutting the heads off babies? What are you talking about???
Richard, where would the evil Palestinian cause be without AsaJews like Peter defending everything they do? Actually have to give up their genocidal goals and make peace? G-d forbid!
inside your soul, do you really believe that Arabs have no interest in peace and justice?
is there really justice to be found by exiling Arabs from Jerusalem?
or is there some better way?
Here's what I believe Hamas is interested in.
" Khaled Meshal, the political leader of Hamas, gave a defiant speech on Saturday, vowing to build an Islamic Palestinian state on all the land of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Speaking before tens of thousands of supporters to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the founding of Hamas, Mr. Meshal said the Jewish state would be wiped away through “resistance,” or military action. “The state will come from resistance, not negotiation,” he said. “Liberation first, then statehood.” His voice rising to a shout, Mr. Meshal said: “Palestine is ours from the river to the sea and from the south to the north. There will be no concession on any inch of the land.”"
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/world/middleeast/khaled-meshal-hamas-leader-delivers-defiant-speech-on-anniversary-celebration.html
When they tell me what they want, I believe them.
Winters, please stop masturbating over your keyboard while talking to me. And also please sanitize your keyboard. It’s gross.
Go away, you creep.
Winters, please stop masturbating over your keyboard while talking to me. And also please sanitize your keyboard. It’s gross.
Elsie, you're fooling yourself if you think spamming this crass comment is doing anything other than embarrassing yourself and Peter Beinart.
I think your comment is called “not reading”. Go back to Twitter.
It takes true humanity to see G-d in the Gentile and not just in the Jew. It takes objectivity and honesty to look at the reality of the Zionist takeover of Palestine over the last century and not just accept lies that help people sleep at night. If Israelis are told to think Palestinians are just 'human animals' and perpetrate a bloodbath in Gaza to crush them once and for all, doesn't that sound eerily like a 'final solution'?
Palestinians are told constantly by Peter and people like him that Israelis are evil apartheid loving settler colonialists racist Jewish supremacists. Where's the humanity in that?
That's a lie. Peter has never said anything like that. Shame on you., Winters.
I didn't say Beinart, I said Beinart and people like him. But for your information, Beinart has said:
" I think political Zionism was a both a movement that provided refuge to Jews in distress, an experience of national liberation AND a movement with clear settler-colonial features."
https://peterbeinart.substack.com/p/divided-against-myself-in-israel/comment/20955875
"And what’s striking to me about Abbas’ statements is the way in which they kind of rehearse the very same kind of dehumanizing things that Jews say about Palestinians"
https://peterbeinart.substack.com/p/dana-el-kurd-on-mahmoud-abbas/comments
Apartheid:
https://peterbeinart.substack.com/p/why-american-liberals-now-call-israel
Jewish supremacy
https://peterbeinart.substack.com/p/can-the-movement-against-judicial
We also have:
"Let me say this clearly: Zionism is a settler colonial movement and Israel is a settler colonial state. This is not an insult; it is a statement of fact." - published by Jewish Currents, Beinarts magazine
https://jewishcurrents.org/a-logic-of-elimination
He's also hosted debates about whether or not Zionism is settler colonialism
https://thirdnarrative.org/debating-zionism-as-settler-colonialism/
So yes, Peter has said things like that many times in fact.
Winters, please stop masturbating over your keyboard while talking to me. And also please sanitize your keyboard. It’s gross.
Winters really loves bearing false witness, now, huh?
Wait, I thought it was the Israeli government saying all those things.
I’m not being sarcastic here: seriously, have you looked at the public statements of Israeli officials at any point in the past fifteen years?
Or are you just saying this because you don’t actually believe in anything?
Anyway I recognize your username from a different comment thread here over a year ago, so either you really, really enjoy hate-following Peter, or, perhaps, you know, this is actually your day job, or something.
Whataboutism. Every fascist's favorite tactic.
Winters, please stop masturbating over your keyboard while talking to me. And also please sanitize your keyboard. It’s gross.
Yes, I think we all agree when you say that Zionism is fascist.
The main difference is that you seem to think that this is good, actually,
Now who is bearing false witness?
Winters, please stop masturbating over your keyboard while talking to me. And also please sanitize your keyboard. It’s gross.
About what, Winters? You’re doing a really bad job carrying on a coherent conversation using this particular sockpuppet.
When did I say Zionism is fascism? It's not. But since you seem to think so, you must be overjoyed that Hamas put 900+ fascists in the ground over the weekend.
Winters, please stop masturbating over your keyboard while talking to me. And also please sanitize your keyboard. It’s gross.
Wow, what an intelligent comment. I give you an example of a Beinart supporter.
Winters, please stop masturbating over your keyboard while talking to me. And also please sanitize your keyboard. It’s gross.
Are you some sort of bot? I think you are making yourself look pretty stupid.
No, Winters, I’m not a bot. But please do stop masturbating over your keyboard.
Wtf. Talk English. Be clear. You lost.
This was exactly what was needed to be said .it was truth be told .Thank you for your courage ,it’s so upsetting to see the suffering on both sides .It could be so different if the collective will was present .Sending love and light of God to
Israel and Palestine . Blessings to all for a better tomorrow .Communication is key to achieve peace and understanding with the collective will to achieve it .yes set all the captives free in both sides .🙏
Trust me, Peter. Your words are adequate. Thank you.
Jesus Christ, Peter. My mouth hung open when I read this. What do you mean, you "have no patience for people who justify those things"? YOU ARE THAT PERSON.
Don't try to pretend you give a shit about keeping the Jews in Israel safe. This time next week, you'll be back to calling them apartheid racists and Jewish supremacists. The book has already been written.
The Jews in Israel are not safe because the policies of the increasingly right-wing government that has ruled for the past 20+ years have failed. So has US Middle East “policy” under Republican and Democratic administrations alike. Russia and Iran are also involved, as I’m sure you know, exploiting Palestinians’ misery to recruit extremists and funding Hamas’ reign of terror. There is plenty of blame to go around for this horrific debacle, but progressive Jews, who have held no power and virtually no say in Israel’s security policy for upwards of two decades, are not the ones.
"Khaled Meshal, the political leader of Hamas, gave a defiant speech on Saturday, vowing to build an Islamic Palestinian state on all the land of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Speaking before tens of thousands of supporters to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the founding of Hamas, Mr. Meshal said the Jewish state would be wiped away through “resistance,” or military action. “The state will come from resistance, not negotiation,” he said. “Liberation first, then statehood.” His voice rising to a shout, Mr. Meshal said: “Palestine is ours from the river to the sea and from the south to the north. There will be no concession on any inch of the land.” He vowed that all Palestinian refugees and their descendants would one day return to their original homes in what is now Israel."
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/world/middleeast/khaled-meshal-hamas-leader-delivers-defiant-speech-on-anniversary-celebration.html
Palestinians have been murdering Jews with the goal of destroying Israel for the past 70 years. It has nothing to do with the policies of any Israeli government, left, right and center.
And yes, progressive Jews like Peter are more than deserving of some of the blame. They have been legitimizing and justifying Palestine's anti-peace stance for decades. He tells Palestinians every day they're victims of Jewish supremacy and apartheid. Well, they believed him, and they put over 900 Jewish supremacists and apartheid racists in the ground this weekend. What's that phrase, again? Oh yes, "my heroes have always killed colonizers". Well, congratulations to Palestine and to Peter. There's 900 fewer colonizers on Earth today.
Mr. Winters - Are there not voices on Israel's side that genocidally call for Palestinian villages "to be wiped off the map?" Does that mean that all Jews are Smotrich or Ben Gvir? Unless you can see the Palestinian as a human being like you, and imagine what it is like to be pushed out of your homeland, or have settler pogroms showing up in the middle of the night to set fire to your house, your olive trees, and build settlements on your land, or have your whole life determined by military checkpoints- unless you can do that, you have dehumanised them. And that is what all genocides come from, whether Buchenwald or Rwanda.
The "we're victims, so everything we do is justified" isn't going to work this time, and possibly not ever again. And the time to "see my humanity" comes before murdering and raping and abducting children, not immediately after it.
Are you unaware of the settlers rampaging through Palestinian villages, lynching innocent people, burning their cars, breaking into their homes over the last year? And IDF abducting Palestinian children in the middle of the night and holding them in Israeli jails is no different, just because they're in uniform? Maybe that didn't bother you too much because they're not Jews?
What about them? Their actions justify Hamas'? Are you under the impression I'm pro-settler violence?
Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Blessings to you.
Indeed. And I remember the past, no matter how much you and Peter want us to forget it.
And I remember the past, where by “the past” I mean every other one of Peter’s essays you’ve lied about actually reading.
Nasty, nasty. I'm clearly far more familiar with Peter's work than you are.
Winters. You need to get off your high horse. Jewish terrorists are capable of similar atrocities. What was it you said? For the past 70 years? Remember Deir Yassin? Babies executed. Whole families executed. Arab girls raped and murdered. Prisoners paraded in trucks then taken back and executed. The Qibya massacre? Government sanctioned with an order for "maximum killing." Homes demolished with whole families inside. 3 men responsible for these massacres were later elected to the office of Prime Minister.
Even in recent attacks against Gaza, 30+ members of the same family killed in a single airstrike. What's the difference?
So Hamas' war crimes are justified because of terrible acts from over 70 years ago. Got it. Peter, we got another one over here.
Who said it was justified? You're saying "Arabs have been killing Jews for 70 years." Implicit in that statement is that Jews have not been doing the same to Arabs, and certainly not with the same brutality. Is that what you are saying?
You say "terrible acts from over 70 years ago." Did you miss the example I gave from within the last decade (and similar things are happening as we speak) of wiping out 30+ members of one family with a single airstrike? Why is that different?
What I said was "Palestinians have been murdering Jews with the goal of destroying Israel for the past 70 years." I didn't say anything about Arabs, and anything you read into the statement beyond what was said is not my concern.
Once you agree with me that my statement is correct and that Hamas's unspeakable crimes over the weekend occurred because they want to destroy Israel, we can discuss what Jews did 70 years ago as much as you would like. Capiche?
Winters, please stop masturbating over your keyboard while talking to me. And also please sanitize your keyboard. It’s gross.
To All you racists zionist.
2008 1200 Palestinians 13 Jews
2012 150 Palestinians 6 Jews
2014 2200 Palestinians 67 Jews
2018 175 Palestinians 0 Jews
2021 200 Palestinians 10 Jews
Untold main and Injured Palestinians shot by snipers
because you use fighter Jets Apache helicopters does not absolve you of all these deaths. you are no different then Hamas actions. you are actually worse. all the violence would stop if you zionist would actually want peace more then you want the land. Shame on you for wanting revenge. you want to kill hamas kill them. It will make no difference. When you deny people there freedom they will fight for it. and when you are much weaker they will you terrorisms. you reap what you sow. Peter is right hamas or no hamas violence will be part of your racists life . Those numbers are only Gaza since hamas took over. what did you thinks was going to happen? they were going to cower to the fanatical zionist.
"Khaled Meshal, the political leader of Hamas, gave a defiant speech on Saturday, vowing to build an Islamic Palestinian state on all the land of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Speaking before tens of thousands of supporters to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the founding of Hamas, Mr. Meshal said the Jewish state would be wiped away through “resistance,” or military action. “The state will come from resistance, not negotiation,” he said. “Liberation first, then statehood.” His voice rising to a shout, Mr. Meshal said: “Palestine is ours from the river to the sea and from the south to the north. There will be no concession on any inch of the land.” He vowed that all Palestinian refugees and their descendants would one day return to their original homes in what is now Israel."
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/world/middleeast/khaled-meshal-hamas-leader-delivers-defiant-speech-on-anniversary-celebration.html
You want the land. Not us.
You're the one opposed to peace. Not us.
You're the one who wants to deny people their freedom. Not us.
You're the racist. Not us.
The racists fascist governments of the zionist entity. Are the ones no matter if its labor, likud or any other pollical party. They all believe in this theory, as much land as we can take with the fewest amount of Palestinians. Yes, Palestinians want to go back to there lands that they were thrown off by terroist group call the idf. the least moral arm forces in the world. Why don't they have a right to go back. if you blue eyes blonde hair Jews have a right to come back after 2000 years from Europe. Palestinians should also have a right to go back.
zionist are all for peace as long as the Palestinians except there terms. Its obvious your terms are not acceptable. it does not seek justice it is what I said in the first paragraph.
before the racists zionist came from europe Jews lived all over the middle east in peace.
I am not not racists at all I believe in justice with justice comes peace.
Yes zionist are racist. They believe in Jewish supremacy. that's racist. but based on your logic you should be ok with white supremacy and there anti Jewish actions. Same ideology. Supremacy.
One more thing Benny Morris said one intelligent thing he does not like seeing what will happen to the zionist entity in the future. that young Jews should leave now. When all the relgious zionist quacks take over the goverment. zionism will fail in a very big way, it will implode on itself. I just hope to be alive to dance on its grave. the world will be a better place.
Please stop using the term “JEWS” when what you should be saying is “ISRAELIS”. Or if you insist on saying JEW, then you also need to be calling Palestinians “Moslems” or “Christians”.. Does that make sense???
Good try, Su, but the mask is off and the hatred is on full display. No putting the genie back in the bottle.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/supreme-court-rejects-israeli-nationality-status/
Winters doesn’t actually read Peter’s essays. Winters just skims them for things that sound vaguely offensive, for the purpose of bearing false witness against Peter.
Anyway Winters is a regular. So meet Peter’s resident reply-guy.
Peter is absolutely not that person.His suffering is clear for all to see. His logic that violence begets violence is clear. His goal is what will keep Bene Yisrael ( the Country and the Diaspora) safe..not just pointing out the extreme mistakes of the Bibi policies
Peter's suffering is only because the entire world has once again been reminded of Palestine's barbarity and psychosis, and his deluded grift of pushing a one-state solution is deader than ever.
Winters, please stop masturbating over your keyboard while talking to me. And also please sanitize your keyboard. It’s gross.
Why are you surprised, Winters? Beinart has always been a bootlicker for Palestine, he's not going to give up his grift over a little thing like 1,000 raped and murdered Jews.
You can't be a bootlicker for the oppressed group. That's not what 'bootlicker' means. It means one who sucks up to the established and powerful entities, especially military ones. Empathy for oppressed people is never considered 'bootlicking', except by upside-down minds like yours.
"bootlicker, n: someone who seeks favor or goodwill in a servile, degraded way; toady:"
You were saying?
...wd appreciate it if you wd exit
Oh I'm not going anywhere, honey. The whirlwind is coming for Beinart and his crew hard and fast, and I'm going to be here for every second of it.
...i'm not ur honey
tuff guy
Winters, please stop masturbating over your keyboard while talking to me. And also please sanitize your keyboard. It’s gross.
...repeat ....Mother was wise....
when asked if she was afraid to die..."! no ! that's the 1 st time i will be judged fairly ! "
...Mother also said, like many others..." do you eat with that mouth ? "
....i am caught in a chat stream with a few teenagers
...will catch the ...last exit
When the loudest voice is all I (we) hear, it feels unjust. Thanx for keeping me (us) informed on BOTH viewpoints, so I can contemplate my own feelings in a rational way.
He is not communicating both viewpoints.
Beinart, how dare you preach and pretend to know or care about what will make Jews safe. This essay is absolutely disgusting. You must know that you are partially to blame for all of this, correct?
Every time you promote the Palestinian narrative of “Israel's apartheid regime,” and that the Palestinians are "the victims of Jewish supremacy", and Zionism should not exist, and that Jews don't have a right to a state, and the blatant lie that 750,000 Palestinians were expelled in 1948, and that Israel exists on stolen land, every time you dehumanize Israelis as occupiers and colonizers and settlers and apartheid racists, you legitimize and justify Hamas and their unspeakable atrocities.
After all, you have made it pretty clear that you agree with Hamas that a world without Israel would be a better place, you just slightly disagree about how to get there.
If you don't actually approve of what happened this weekend, if you actually cared about the victims, you would write a full throated apology for everything you’ve done and said, delete this substack, and spend the rest of your life serving the poor of Israel in a soup kitchen. But if you can't handle that, maybe post a picture of a large check from you to Magen David Adom? I think $5,000 is a reasonable amount to start with, considering all the damage you've done? You should be begging for forgiveness from your fellow Jews right now, and you don't deserve any.
Do we really need Peter Beinart to promote the Palestinian narrative on “Israel’s apartheid regime.”? Anyone who can read will be able to decide by reading the reports below.
ESCWA report on Apartheid 2017
https://oldwebsite.palestine-studies.org/sites/default/files/ESCWA%202017%20%28Richard%20Falk%29%2C%20Apartheid.pdf
B’Tselem report on Apartheid January 2021
http://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is_apartheid
HRW report on Apartheid April 2021.
A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes ...Human Rights Watch
https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/10/04/time-recognize-reality-israeli-apartheid-persecution
Amnesty report on Apartheid Feb 21st, 2022.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde15/5141/2022/en/
Michael Lynk Report on Apartheid March 2022.
Israel’s 55-year occupation of Palestinian Territory is apartheid
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/03/israels-55-year-occupation-palestinian-territory-apartheid-un-human-rights
In Israel and the U.S., 'Apartheid' is the elephant in the room.
https://s2.washingtonpost.com/camp-rw/?trackId=596b5bf49bbc0f403f8f77bd&s=64d5b573fe751d11aef6bf76&linknum=5&linktot=77&linknum=5&linktot=77
Apartheid, International Law, and the Occupied Palestinian Territory
John Dugard, John Reynolds
European Journal of International Law, Volume 24, Issue 3, August 2013, Pages 867–913, https://doi.org/10.1093/ejil/cht045
25 September 2013
https://academic.oup.com/ejil/article/24/3/867/481600?login=false
Zionism is apartheid, and worse
BY JONATHAN OFIR AUGUST 7, 2017 185
https://mondoweiss.net/2017/08/zionism-apartheid-worse/
Sean, you must be ever so pleased that 900+ Zionist apartheid racists were put in the ground over the weekend. Did you join the parties in the streets?
Well, yes we do. Along with Avi Chlaim, Gideon Levy, Ilan Pappé, and a long list of Israeli and Jewish Mensches.
Because his voice has more chance, albeit slight, to give pause within his community. And also because he is an observant Jew. And also because he is an American Jew because Israel won't change until America conditions its support on human rights/civil rights. The sad truth is that. And, almost especially, because he has come from a 'right wing' place - he has 'made a journey' that many more Americans need to make. Despite that the mainstream media reports, more American Jews no longer support the Israel project.
His outspoken opinion, Sean, a chara, outweighs yours or mine in reversing this ongoing catastrophe sometime in a distant future.
In a roundabout way I was trying to defend Peter, by pointing out that many more commentators out there, some like the people you mentioned, hold similar views.
Either way, I entirely agree with your comments.
I know and appreciate that.
For irony, I dredged this from 2009: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123275572295011847
How Israel Helped to Spawn
Hamas
By Andrew Higgins
Jan. 24, 2009 12:01 am ET
Moshav Tekuma, Israel
Surveying the wreckage of a neighbor's bungalow hit by a Palestinian rocket, retired
Israeli official Avner Cohen traces the missile's trajectory back to an "enormous,
stupid mistake" made 30 years ago.
"Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation," says Mr. Cohen, a Tunisian-born
Jew who worked in Gaza for more than two decades. Responsible for religious
affairs in the region until 1994, Mr. Cohen watched the Islamist movement take
shape, muscle aside secular Palestinian rivals and then morph into what is today
Hamas, a militant group that is sworn to Israel's destruction.
Instead of trying to curb Gaza's Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for
years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the
secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant
faction, Yasser Arafat's Fatah. Israel cooperated with a crippled, half-blind cleric
named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, even as he was laying the foundations for what would
become Hamas. Sheikh Yassin continues to inspire militants today; during the
recent war in Gaza, Hamas fighters confronted Israeli troops with "Yassins,"
primitive rocket-propelled grenades named in honor of the cleric.
Last Saturday, after 22 days of war, Israel
announced a halt to the offensive. The
assault was Instead of trying to curb Gaza's Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for
years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the
secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant
faction, Yasser Arafat's Fatah. Israel cooperated with a crippled, half-blind cleric
named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, even as he was laying the foundations for what would
become Hamas. Sheikh Yassin continues to inspire militants today; during the
recent war in Gaza, Hamas fighters confronted Israeli troops with "Yassins,"
primitive rocket-propelled grenades named in honor of the cleric.
Last Saturday, after 22 days of war, Israel
announced a halt to the offensive. The
assault was aimed at stopping Hamas rockets from falling on Israel. Prime Minister (....)
says Mr. Cohen, Israel for
years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the
secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant
faction, Yasser Arafat's Fatah. Israel cooperated with a crippled, half-blind cleric
named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, even as he was laying the foundations for what would
become Hamas. Sheikh Yassin continues to inspire militants today; during the
recent war in Gaza, Hamas fighters confronted Israeli troops with "Yassins,"
primitive rocket-propelled grenades named in honor of the cleric.
Last Saturday, after 22 days of war, Israel
announced a halt to the offensive. The
assault was aimed at stopping Hamas rockets from falling on Israel. Prime Minister (...)
You know, I for one am glad that history vindicated the Bolsheviks, and we are all living in a global Communist utopia.
By which I mean that if you’ve been doing something for a century or so, and it still isn’t working, then maybe it’s never going to work.
Yes Elsie, this Palestinian strategy of "murder and rape Jews until they are nicer to us" doesn't seem to be working. Good observation!
Yes, clearly the strategy is mutual. The fact that you seem to think mutual destruction is a good thing is the real problem here.
Israel has no such strategy. In fact a Palestinian talking point is that Israelis don't rape Palestinians because they are racist. Incidentally, anyone else remember when the left was opposed to "bothsidesism?"
The difference between the IDF and Hamas is that the United States gives the IDF billions of dollars of military aid every year to murder innocent civilians, while I don’t think Iran or whoever even has that much money to give Hamas.
Honestly it’s perversely impressive how many innocent civilians Hamas manages murder on the budget they have at their disposal.
The IDF could really learn a thing or two about being more economical than they currently are when they murder innocent civilians.
I should ask my Congresswoman to get the CBO to look into whether the IDF is wasting money on things other than just murdering innocent civilians, given how much more money the IDF has charged the US government for murdering innocent civilians.
Is that enough dialectical materialism for you? Hmmm?
The US has not given Israel a single cent to "murder innocent civilians" you shameless liar. And yes, please share with your Congressperson how impressed you are with Hamas' latest rape and murder spree. She'll probably join AIPAC out of sheer disgust.
Kind of making his point for him tbh.
Your message is very sincere and not being Jewish it is hard to understand what you feel. But you are reaching out and giving insight you are not making excuses you are trying to cope. Thank you I appreciate your words. I visited my son in Israel 2 years ago he’d was working at the Embassy and Israel is a very different place then the world I have grown up in. I was not comfortable I saw the beauty but couldn’t;d not understand the attitude. Your are so correct in the insight this is not working. We do need patience, love, kindness. There is not enough in this world. I’m afraid Evil and selfishness are a dominate force. I wish you peace and keep reaching out, your father would be proud of you.
I share in the grief, horror, and agony of everyone suffering in this spasm of senseless violence--the Israeli people, the Palestinian people, those people from other countries who have been murdered and kidnapped. As someone who tries to follow the Jewish carpenter from Nazareth--a man who sought to liberate the Jewish people from the yoke of empire by nonviolence--I add my voice to Peter’s anguished prayer and wrenching cry for God.
I remember the rage I felt over 9/11--an unprovoked and evil attack on civilians --my desire for justice and vengeance through an overwhelming military response. Through war, not prudent, targeted, intelligent security and diplomatic responses. We Americans got our wars, and they proved ruinous to us and hundreds of thousands of others. If this is Israel’s 9/11, I beg of its leaders to learn from our failures and find a smarter path.
Those wars did not make us safe, did not bring justice, and in the end sowed the seeds for the erosion of our own freedoms and civil liberties. They led to occupations that destroyed whole nations and sapped America of immense blood and treasure. It led to the increased radicalization of our domestic politics and the deep divisions that are now threatening our society at a fundamental level. We let our pain and justified wrath cloud our judgment and overwhelm our reason. We got down to the level of terrorists and became torturers and terrorists in kind. We let them win by losing our humanity. We forgot the words of Scripture: “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. I will repay.” I was guilty of this.
As a person of Irish descent, I also bear in my blood the anguish of the Irish people under the heal of oppression. They suffered unfathomable atrocities for centuries, including genocide. Yet that did not justify the atrocities of the IRA against innocents and civilians--many of whom were their own people. Sadly, the response of the British state to that violence--including assassinations of their royal family--merely contributed to the unending cycle.
It was not until all parties sat down and found a way--against all pain and memory and justified anger--to bury the gun and share power and guarantee civil rights to all that peace and coexistence came about. This included treating with and accommodating Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, complicit in numerous horrific crimes and atrocities. And it required that Sinn Fein renounce violence in return and recognize the rights and cultural identity of the Ulster community, and the acceptance of ongoing British sovereignty over Northern Ireland.
I pray that the Israeli and Palestinian people and leadership--with the help of the global human family--can come to that shared mutuality again, as they have before. And recognize that, like the Republicans and Unionists in Ireland, their lives--their fates--are inextricably intertwined. Today, amidst the wails of mothers and children and elderly people, that path feels very far away indeed.
I’ve been curious how you would respond. Your kids are right -- you are hated. You are sick. Your first comment after 260 young people attending a concert were machine gunned to death, families butchered in their homes, IDF soldiers brutalized and killed while lying in their bunks, and women and children kidnapped and marched into Gaza to cheering crowds and likely tortured and killed -- is to tell Israel to stop behaving badly. Are you fucking kidding me???
These are the barbaric people you think can live in peaceful harmony with Israel? Who does this to fellow human beings? Hamas is a terrorist organization that has taken $1 billion of aid and rather than helping its people, builds tunnels, weapons, and plans only for one thing: killing Jews. And you defend them???
Did you join the pro Palestinian rallies in Times Square and elsewhere celebrating this wonderful achievement? These sick bastards.
Iran orchestrated this to end the Saudi-Israel normalization. Part of the plan is to make the West Bank a better place for Palestinian citizens. The Saudis would provide financial assistance. In time, with a better life, the possibility of peaceful coexistence with Israel would show the better alternative than rejection and terrorism that the Palestinians have only known. And the Iranian backed Hamas and Hezbollah version would be the losers. Iran wants this stopped and helped coordinate this crime against humanity. And you dare to lecture Israel???
Shame, shame, shame on you Peter Beinart.
You are disgusting; drawing moral equivalency between colonialists and Israeli Jews; mentioning the ANC, which by the way now rule corruptly over a failed and truly declining South Africa, American blacks and trying to draw parallels and congruency by ignoring Palestinian rejectionism, Salafism, mass murder and praying for “Palestinian captives.” Why don’t you ask your Jewish friend,who you mentioned several weeks ago, spoke to Hamas what the solution is…you could not be more wrong…Palestinians don’t want your patronizing neo-third world morally bankrupt garbage…
Rather than speaking about what Hamas did with the help of Iran you suggest destroying/attacking Hamas and keeping Israel and the Palestinians suffering under them is not the answer…Hamas does not want to hear your revolutionary solutions they want you dead because you are a Jew…instead of praying and implicitly begging them to accept you maybe you should wake up and realize true peace for both people will only come when religious fanatics on both sides are quashed by their own people…you are the kind of “educated idiot” wracked by a ghetto mentality of guilt that helped cause this and should be ashamed of your pseudo intellectualism…you need a really good psychiatrist/or maybe a better one because you do not live in the real world…every week I listen to you to see how far the Jewish left has sunk and you never cease to amaze me with just how deluded your views really are…shame on you “ professor”
I do not believe that Peter has any problem with the prospect of destroying Hamas or in some way having Hamas cease to exist. But it is clear to anyone who can see beyond anger and revenge ( which drives Palestinian Fanatics to slaughter young innocent humans), that meeting that anger and revenge with more anger and revenge only serves to continuously escalate and escalate and escalate the situation and to create new martyrs.
Interesting idea, Su. How should Israel respond, then, in your view? Do nothing, and tell Hamas and the world that armed groups of terrorists can rape, murder, behead babies, and nothing bad will happen to them? And that's NOT going to escalate the situation?
No ..one possible solution would be to try and identify and hunt down as many of the murderers as possible ( as per the operation after the Munich massacre) via facial recognition software and using all the sophisticated means they have...this surgical approach would help to minimize Innocents being killed which is inexcusable whether it is Palestinians or Israelis.
Then to unmask Netanyahu as the evil idiot he truly was by sending away the troops from the Southern Border to the North to protect the fanatical Settlers.
Then get rid of the Toxic Bibi and his toxic gang of bible thumping fanatics.
Then start listening to the many many Israelis and Palestinians( such as the voices on Peters Podcasts who are driven to create some semblance of a shared power agreement. And to stop being pulled around by the nose by the extremists.
Hunt down? So go into Gaza?
Su, have you any advice on who should hunt down the Israelis who have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Palestinians for over half a century. Israel is afraid to go to the International Criminal Court. I wonder why.
TIT FOR TAT
TIT FOR TAT
Has that ever worked to achieve peace?? No. So what is the answer?
Let’s look at the South African model. There is no going back. There is no justifying the Death by a Thousand Cuts of anything ever committed by Israeli Settlers or their cronies against innocent Palestinian shepherds and growers of olive trees. There is no justifying the kidnapping and torture of two adolescent Israeli boys who went for a fun hike one day…and one and on and on. If you or anyone else thinks for ONE split second that years of repression and occupation in Gaza justify a wholesale Helter Skelter mayhem of blood and slaughter, I call out your inhumanity….how can you or anyone except the Iranians and Hamas ad Hezbollah even begin to provide ANY excuse or justification for this type of barbarism.
Su, just what is Israel doing to Gaza right now? Taking revenge on mainly innocent men, women and children. Is a bomb dropping on a family in Gaza okay? No it is not and neither is what Hamas done at the weekend any less reprehensible. Gideon Levy’s article is worth reading.
Israel Can’t Imprison Two Million Gazans Without Paying a Cruel Price
Gideon Levy
Oct 9, 2023
Behind all this lies Israeli arrogance; the idea that we can do whatever we like, that we’ll never pay the price and be punished for it. We’ll carry on undisturbed.
We’ll arrest, kill, harass, dispossess and protect the settlers busy with their pogroms. We'll visit Joseph’s Tomb, Othniel’s Tomb and Joshua’s Altar in the Palestinian territories, and of course the Temple Mount – over 5,000 Jews on Sukkot alone.
We’ll fire at innocent people, take out people’s eyes and smash their faces, expel, confiscate, rob, grab people from their beds, carry out ethnic cleansing and of course continue with the unbelievable siege of the Gaza Strip, and everything will be all right.
We’ll build a terrifying obstacle around Gaza – the underground wall alone cost 3 billion shekels ($765 million) – and we’ll be safe. We’ll rely on the geniuses of the army's 8200 cyber-intelligence unit and on the Shin Bet security service agents who know everything. They’ll warn us in time.
We’ll transfer half an army from the Gaza border to the Hawara border in the West Bank, only to protect far-right lawmaker Zvi Sukkot and the settlers. And everything will be all right, both in Hawara and at the Erez crossing into Gaza.
It turns out that even the world's most sophisticated and expensive obstacle can be breached with a smoky old bulldozer when the motivation is great. This arrogant barrier can be crossed by bicycle and moped despite the billions poured into it and all the famous experts and fat-cat contractors.
We thought we’d continue to go down to Gaza, scatter a few crumbs in the form of tens of thousands of Israeli work permits – always contingent on good behavior – and still keep them in prison. We’ll make peace with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and the Palestinians will be forgotten until they’re erased, as quite a few Israelis would like.
We’ll keep holding thousands of Palestinian prisoners, sometimes without trial, most of them political prisoners. And we won’t agree to discuss their release even after they've been in prison for decades.
We’ll tell them that only by force will their prisoners see freedom. We thought we would arrogantly keep rejecting any attempt at a diplomatic solution, only because we don’t want to deal with all that, and everything would continue that way forever.
Once again it was proved that this isn’t how it is. A few hundred armed Palestinians breached the barrier and invaded Israel in a way no Israeli imagined was possible. A few hundred people proved that it’s impossible to imprison 2 million people forever without paying a cruel price.
Just as the smoky old Palestinian bulldozer tore through the world’s smartest barrier Saturday, it tore away at Israel’s arrogance and complacency. And that’s also how it tore away at the idea that it’s enough to occasionally attack Gaza with suicide drones – and sell them to half the world – to maintain security.
On Saturday, Israel saw pictures it has never seen before. Palestinian vehicles patrolling its cities, bike riders entering through the Gaza gates. These pictures tear away at that arrogance. The Gaza Palestinians have decided they’re willing to pay any price for a moment of freedom. Is there any hope in that? No. Will Israel learn its lesson? No.
On Saturday they were already talking about wiping out entire neighborhoods in Gaza, about occupying the Strip and punishing Gaza “as it has never been punished before.” But Israel hasn’t stopped punishing Gaza since 1948, not for a moment.
After 75 years of abuse, the worse possible scenario awaits it once again. The threats of “flattening Gaza” prove only one thing: We haven’t learned a thing. The arrogance is here to stay, even though Israel is paying a high price once again.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bears very great responsibility for what happened, and he must pay the price, but it didn’t start with him and it won’t end after he goes. We now have to cry bitterly for the Israeli victims, but we should also cry for Gaza.
Gaza, most of whose residents are refugees created by Israel. Gaza, which has never known a single day of freedom.
You and the rest of the Palestinian haters on this site, may be proud Zionists, but ye are not proud human beings.
Yes, yes, all of you pro-Palestinians are really in a good place right now to preach about being a good human being. /s
My old sparing mate, Winters. I thought I would find you here.
That's right. Every time Peter Beinart goes to bat for rapists and murderers, I'll be there to call him out. Did you join the street parties, Sean? Was that you I saw in the Australia video chanting "Gas the Jews"?
Winners, you’ve already used that line a few times today.
There were a lot of people there. Statistically speaking, one of them is likely to be a Peter Beinart fan. I notice that wasn't a "no."
I don’t think you actually have pride in your soul. If you had pride in your soul, you wouldn’t be spilling so many anonymous pixels trying to prove it.
....dead young pregnant woman with belly sliced open...fetus on ground by her side...still attached to umbilical cord...
...🙉...stop ranting...react & act.
leave the man to his grief....
Professor Beinart, I am extremely disappointed. If I were a Palestinian I would be even more disappointed. Everyone knows that Hamas charter is dedicated to killing and specifically killing Jews wherever they are. Any Palestinian who identifies with Hamas, oops let me correct myself, any person who identifies or supports Hamas is in fact a supporter of Nazism. A supporter of a racial war against Jews.
If Palestinians were to fully support Hamas, there is no way they will achieve a Palestine in the West Bank let alone a Palestine from the River to the Sea. I understand that in the West Bank many do support them, but I attribute that support to the inaction and failure of the Palestinian Authority.
The Hamas charter has much to say about Jews. Here is one quote “"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem). “
If this is the face of Palestinians with regards to Israel and Jews then Israel is justified in destroying Hamas and all who support it. Why wait till they gain enough strength to deliver on their threats?
My point here is simply to differentiate legitimate Palestinian interest in statehood from those people who advocate another genocide of the Jews.
Another point that needs to be stated is that Gaza is not the West Bank. Israel withdrew completely form Gaza. In fact, it left an agricultural industry intact for Gazans to pursue and the world banking community was ready to invest in Gaza including Israel. But that did not happen because Hamas took over and decided to continue its genocidal mission. We hear how Gaza is a prison managed by Israel and how goods and services are blocked from entering Gaza. The truth? The only goods that were blocked were dual use goods that could be turned into armaments or tunnels. So, for example, Israel stopped sending cement to Gaza because instead of building housing for the people there the lion’s share of it was used to build tunnels. (and by the way Egypt shares a border with Gaza too).
I am not thrilled at Israel bombing Gaza. But I do find it odd when I saw on TV a Gazan complain that Israel stopped warning Gazans when they bomb. In the past Israel has called occupants of buildings they were about to destroy and tell them to get out. I found it odd, somehow Hamas didn’t let the civilians it killed, raped, beheaded, or kidnapped know in advance that they were coming, and they should get out of the way. And that is because that is exactly what they wanted to do.
Professor Beinart on your website is a lead article that appears on the right on my screen that claims if Hamas were eliminated nothing would change. A cheap shot would be to say tell that to the communities bordering Gaza. The reality is when genocidal Palestinian groups are eliminated so too is the toxic atmosphere they bring with them, making it possible for Israel and Palestinians who want to live in a Palestinian state (not from the River to the Sea) to discuss a solution approach.
o All you racists zionist.
2008 1200 Palestinians 13 Jews
2012 150 Palestinians 6 Jews
2014 2200 Palestinians 67 Jews
2018 175 Palestinians 0 Jews
2021 200 Palestinians 10 Jews
Untold main and Injured Palestinians shot by snipers
because you use fighter Jets Apache helicopters does not absolve you of all these deaths. you are no different then Hamas actions. you are actually worse. all the violence would stop if you zionist would actually want peace more then you want the land. Shame on you for wanting revenge. you want to kill hamas kill them. It will make no difference. When you deny people there freedom they will fight for it. and when you are much weaker they will you terrorisms. you reap what you sow. Peter is right hamas or no hamas violence will be part of your racists life . Those numbers are only Gaza since hamas took over. what did you thinks was going to happen? they were going to cower to the fanatical zionist.
Trying to equate Israel with colonialism and/or Apartheid after this horrific and brutal massacre is beyond the pale…we do not seek revenge we seek to kill those that have and will try to exterminate us and their own…you either don’t want to see it or have your head so far up the Professors ass that you can’t see it because your point reeks of cronyism and makes as much sense as his pathetic ramblings and ghetto begging