If as you say, "the danger of the mainstream public discourse about Israel is that it loses sight of the humanity of Palestinians, which happens again and again and again" and "knowing that the release of hostages is among the most sacred principle in Judaism, and is meant to unite Jews across whatever divides we face", I am surprised that there is no mention of the 90 Palestinian hostages that were released on the same day. Shouldn't Jews and all people be celebrating equally the release of all hostages and not just the Jewish hostages?
I get the idea of celebrating any life that’s saved. My problem is that these three have become the only lives who are celebrated both in Israel, in mainstream American Jewry and in the mainstream media. It’s almost obscene to see their joy when most haven’t acknowledged the slaughter Zionism has perpetrated. To get to reconciliation, you have to speak truth first.
I was with you until you talked about Jews being more precious in the sight of God than anyone else. Any time you believe you are "more special" than others -- especially in the sight of the one universe we all share -- it's dangerously easy to dehumanize and brutalize others. I know that lots of groups do it. That doesn't make it right.
We are all humans. No one is "more equal" than anyone else.
You didn't listen carefully. He did not say that, and almost certainly doesn't think it. That doesn't fit his worldview. He was talking about the biblical prophets, and the fact that their fierce criticism of the injustices in Jewish society came from a place of love, emulating God's righteous anger, which also came from a place of love. If you have children, and you love them, and one of them does something horrible, do you not get particularly angry with them? Is it not because you love them, and because they're your children, that their misbehavior horrifies you? They are not superior to other children because they're your children. But your relationship with them is different because they're yours. According to Judaism, God does not love Jews "more" than God loves others. Jews are not superior to others. But the traditional theology is there is a special covenant and a special relationship. That doesn't preclude the realty of God having loving relationships or even covenants with other groups of people. For heaven's sake, Peter Beinart is no Jewish supremacist...
I know he's not. But there's always an "ick" factor when anyone flirts with being "chosen above others" in any way. Saying Jews are God's (special) children -- in your own comment you imply that -- means that basically, Jews are "more equal than others."
I know all religions claim to have a special place in God's heart. This, to me, is the heart of what can make religions dangerous.
It is possible to follow a religion and belong to a people and just say, "Yeah, this is my deal, it's not better than others, it's just what I resonate with or what I was born into."
It's relatively rare, but I guess I assumed it was how Peter thought about things. His words generally speak in this way. That's why I was surprised.
I'm glad I'm a secular Jew and won't have to feel any prophet's pressure, as a Leftist, to celebrate the release of three Israelis who, as far as any public record would show, were aligned with the Israeli State. It would just stick in my craw, especially when I see how little attention is paid to the 90 Palestinian hostages that were released the following morning. If you look at the Al Jazeera website, which listed each released Palestinian hostage by name and age, you will see how many are 18 and under, and how virtually all of them were never charged for any crime. There was a 12-yo who likely was arrested and jailed for throwing a rock. In fact, those who were charged in this group were political prisoners.
Did you notice how ravaged the released Palestinians looked? And how well-fed and healthy the three released Israelis looked? So healthy that the hospital examined them and released them immediately because they were in good physical shape. One of the three Israeli women released (or two, I can't remember) had been taken from the music festival taking place virtually on top of that open-air prison called Gaza. I'm sorry, but at their age, I had political ethics that would not have allowed me to attend that festival.
I agree with all you have written (I am myself an atheist of very mixed background), including the last sentence (which already came to my mind, but which I never dared saying out loud). However, I was taught to respect the faith of others, in particular when this faith leads to humanist values and actions. I think Peter Beinart's brave and public fight for justice in Palestine is well-documented, and we should be more tolerant and respectful of his faith, especially since he usually does not put it forward.
I have enormous respect for Peter Beinart. So much respect, that I know he is someone who would want people to honestly state their views. It is, after all, a genocide and ethnic cleansing that we're watching. So it's possibly not the best time to adhere to any form of politesse.
A good Jewish leftist absolutely has room to be happy for the release of hostages, even if they're "aligned with the Israeli state." Otherwise, you are basically saying that 7.2 million Jews basically would have deserved to also be taken hostage. Men, women, children, infants. Leftists, coexistence advocates, and dissenters along with the kool-aid drinkers. If you can't see the systemic realities of that highly militarized and ethnonationalist society, you are not a good leftist. If you're born there, you mostly end up serving in the army except for special circumstances. It doesn't matter what your beliefs are--you don't get to be fully "non-aligned." Everyone, by those pedantic standards of armchair activists, is "aligned." And yet, that elides too many realities to count. Many thousands of Israelis are against this war and collective punishment and occupation and apartheid and genocide, regardless of the vocabulary they prefer in Hebrew or English to describe it. Thousands out of many millions is not enough, but it is nevertheless thousands. Do you really think that they also deserve whatever Hamas might decide to do with them if they capture them at random? Because unless the answer is "yes," you should be able to feel at least mild sympathy or relief on behalf of released hostages, even those who were serving in the army at the time they were taken, let alone those who were not. We need to fight for a society that isn't so militarized--it's that military training and de-individualization and drilling in obedience that generates so much of the Israeli tendency to become uncritical when the conflict flares up. Even in fairly leftist circles.
And regarding the music festival, you have no idea what you're talking about. People at that festival included some harsh critics of Israeli state and society. It was near the border, but was not "virtually on top of" Gaza. In a vacuum, we could have a discussion about whether it's tasteful to dance and celebrate life so close to a place of blockade and misery, but young people do tone-deaf things all the time, even when their actual values are good. I'm certain you have in your life as well, without realizing it. Are you going to say that these young people being slightly tone-deaf or insufficiently reflective deserved to be slaughtered or captured? Who are you? What are you? You may be many things, but a good Jew and a good leftist are not among them.
Have you watched the film "Zone of Interest"? Holding a music festival and frolicking with friends anywhere near the "open air prison" that was gaza on October 7th is nauseatingly similar to what that film tries to represent. I absolutely condemn the taking of children, under any circumstances. However, the vast majority of Israelis have for many decades supported the brutalization of Palestinians. I know plenty of Israelis personally who over those years found countless ways of rationalizing that brutalization, and expressed nothing but pity for themselves during the slaughtering of Palestinians - children included - that Israel enacted before October 7th. Always under the rubric of "it's complicated."
And yet a tiny minority of Israelis have always made it their business to look beyond the ethnonationalist indoctrination and dehumanization of Palestinians. I guess all other Israelis (and their rationalizers in the Jewish diaspora) need to be treated with kid gloves. I'm absolutely sure that will result in a more humane treatment of Palestinians.
I think I appreciate all you say. Expressing our Joy and celebrating the safety and freedom of humans- especially those closest and most like us - seems natural and right!
And yet, and at the same time mustn’t we be troubled by the ‘segregated’ way we ritually categorize and acknowledge people’s joys and sorrows? Does it not reinforce the heresy -especially when more of “them” are dying and being released - that not all humans are equally precious to God?
Thank you once again Peter. Last night and this morning I was sending a few messages to a number of Jewish friends and I found myself having a slightly difficult time relating joy in the release of the 3 - even though I felt extremely happy for them and their families. I do, but I felt that I was buying into propaganda. Also in view of the fact that we have no idea who was released from Israeli prisons, mostly woman and children (some just 14 yrs old), held in administrative detention, hostages in a way. Again, they're anonymous, while the 3 Israeli woman are now know all over the world. I am for sure happy for them and pray for the release of more as well as for an end to all the factors that have brought all this on. Your comments helped me internalize my joy for their release from Gaza.
Can Peter discuss the humanity of Nazis, as in the 20th C gentile German variety? As the grandson of a convicted minor Nazi "war"criminal(more accurately crimes against humanity/ against Czechoslovak citizens, so not technically a "war" criminal but with a 10 year sentence nonetheless for his occupation police "duties"), I find such seeking of humanity with perpetrators alienating.
Armed occupation supporters and beneficiaries count as perpetrators imo, even without necessarily being armed. Gentile Germans collectively are the perpetrators of the Shoah and broader holocaust and Palestine's Jewish occupiers are the perpetrators of occupation, ethnic cleansing and genocide. More pointedly regarding hostages, my own mother and grandmother were held as hostages by the Czechoslovak government til 1948 along with other family members of imprisoned German "war"criminals. Czechs were rightly not seen as the wronging party in this situation and imprisoned Germans understood the guilt they carried, certainly my grandmother whose best friend was liberated after only three months from Theresienstadt never having received my grandmother's care packages...
It seems to me that any emotionally mature person should be able to maintain both a critical outlook on any person's behaviour, while at the same time maintaining compassionate love toward them.
In any case, I am SO glad that at least Romi, Emily and Doron are now free.
May the rest of the living hostages be released soon.
And may God rest the soul of those hostages who died in captivity.
While unfortunately in the last 15 years, most English-language use of the term "peoplehood" has tended to assume an ethno-nationalist definition of Jewish group-belonging, the concept of Jews being a "people" of some sort predates zionism by at least two and a half millennia. Remember that Peter is an orthodox Jew, religiously speaking--he believes in religious and covenantal ties between Jews that apply across ethnicity and even across religiosity, whether people want them or not. You are free not to share that belief at all, or, like me, as a Reform Jew, to share it in modified form. But to insist that the only way to conceive of Jews as a "people" is modern ethno-nationalism, in light of what everyone on earth knows are Peter's actual views on ethno-nationalism, is just obnoxious. He's taken so much heat and hate precisely for dissenting from predatory ethno-nationalism. You owe him an apology.
I don’t understand why you think that Jews should necessarily—or ever—identify with Israeli captives, *because* we are Jews. To me, this is a clear example of Zionism/ethno-nationalism. I do not believe you can’t celebrate the Israeli hostage release, but I absolutely refuse to accept the notion that any Jew should necessarily identify with any Jewish citizen of Israel simply because those Jewish Israelis call themselves Jews or are Jews.
Yes, sure, Peter Beinart, who has made himself almost public enemy number one in American Jewish society, just for insisting on Palestinian humanity and critiquing Jewish supremacy, is actually a closet zionist. An ethno-nationalist Jewish supremacist just like the rest of 'em. No daylight between him and David Wolpe, I'm sure of it! Just keep thinking that...it'll definitely save the Jewish future and free Palestine. You'll show the rest of us!
If as you say, "the danger of the mainstream public discourse about Israel is that it loses sight of the humanity of Palestinians, which happens again and again and again" and "knowing that the release of hostages is among the most sacred principle in Judaism, and is meant to unite Jews across whatever divides we face", I am surprised that there is no mention of the 90 Palestinian hostages that were released on the same day. Shouldn't Jews and all people be celebrating equally the release of all hostages and not just the Jewish hostages?
I get the idea of celebrating any life that’s saved. My problem is that these three have become the only lives who are celebrated both in Israel, in mainstream American Jewry and in the mainstream media. It’s almost obscene to see their joy when most haven’t acknowledged the slaughter Zionism has perpetrated. To get to reconciliation, you have to speak truth first.
I was with you until you talked about Jews being more precious in the sight of God than anyone else. Any time you believe you are "more special" than others -- especially in the sight of the one universe we all share -- it's dangerously easy to dehumanize and brutalize others. I know that lots of groups do it. That doesn't make it right.
We are all humans. No one is "more equal" than anyone else.
You didn't listen carefully. He did not say that, and almost certainly doesn't think it. That doesn't fit his worldview. He was talking about the biblical prophets, and the fact that their fierce criticism of the injustices in Jewish society came from a place of love, emulating God's righteous anger, which also came from a place of love. If you have children, and you love them, and one of them does something horrible, do you not get particularly angry with them? Is it not because you love them, and because they're your children, that their misbehavior horrifies you? They are not superior to other children because they're your children. But your relationship with them is different because they're yours. According to Judaism, God does not love Jews "more" than God loves others. Jews are not superior to others. But the traditional theology is there is a special covenant and a special relationship. That doesn't preclude the realty of God having loving relationships or even covenants with other groups of people. For heaven's sake, Peter Beinart is no Jewish supremacist...
I know he's not. But there's always an "ick" factor when anyone flirts with being "chosen above others" in any way. Saying Jews are God's (special) children -- in your own comment you imply that -- means that basically, Jews are "more equal than others."
I know all religions claim to have a special place in God's heart. This, to me, is the heart of what can make religions dangerous.
It is possible to follow a religion and belong to a people and just say, "Yeah, this is my deal, it's not better than others, it's just what I resonate with or what I was born into."
It's relatively rare, but I guess I assumed it was how Peter thought about things. His words generally speak in this way. That's why I was surprised.
I'm glad I'm a secular Jew and won't have to feel any prophet's pressure, as a Leftist, to celebrate the release of three Israelis who, as far as any public record would show, were aligned with the Israeli State. It would just stick in my craw, especially when I see how little attention is paid to the 90 Palestinian hostages that were released the following morning. If you look at the Al Jazeera website, which listed each released Palestinian hostage by name and age, you will see how many are 18 and under, and how virtually all of them were never charged for any crime. There was a 12-yo who likely was arrested and jailed for throwing a rock. In fact, those who were charged in this group were political prisoners.
Did you notice how ravaged the released Palestinians looked? And how well-fed and healthy the three released Israelis looked? So healthy that the hospital examined them and released them immediately because they were in good physical shape. One of the three Israeli women released (or two, I can't remember) had been taken from the music festival taking place virtually on top of that open-air prison called Gaza. I'm sorry, but at their age, I had political ethics that would not have allowed me to attend that festival.
I agree with all you have written (I am myself an atheist of very mixed background), including the last sentence (which already came to my mind, but which I never dared saying out loud). However, I was taught to respect the faith of others, in particular when this faith leads to humanist values and actions. I think Peter Beinart's brave and public fight for justice in Palestine is well-documented, and we should be more tolerant and respectful of his faith, especially since he usually does not put it forward.
I have enormous respect for Peter Beinart. So much respect, that I know he is someone who would want people to honestly state their views. It is, after all, a genocide and ethnic cleansing that we're watching. So it's possibly not the best time to adhere to any form of politesse.
A good Jewish leftist absolutely has room to be happy for the release of hostages, even if they're "aligned with the Israeli state." Otherwise, you are basically saying that 7.2 million Jews basically would have deserved to also be taken hostage. Men, women, children, infants. Leftists, coexistence advocates, and dissenters along with the kool-aid drinkers. If you can't see the systemic realities of that highly militarized and ethnonationalist society, you are not a good leftist. If you're born there, you mostly end up serving in the army except for special circumstances. It doesn't matter what your beliefs are--you don't get to be fully "non-aligned." Everyone, by those pedantic standards of armchair activists, is "aligned." And yet, that elides too many realities to count. Many thousands of Israelis are against this war and collective punishment and occupation and apartheid and genocide, regardless of the vocabulary they prefer in Hebrew or English to describe it. Thousands out of many millions is not enough, but it is nevertheless thousands. Do you really think that they also deserve whatever Hamas might decide to do with them if they capture them at random? Because unless the answer is "yes," you should be able to feel at least mild sympathy or relief on behalf of released hostages, even those who were serving in the army at the time they were taken, let alone those who were not. We need to fight for a society that isn't so militarized--it's that military training and de-individualization and drilling in obedience that generates so much of the Israeli tendency to become uncritical when the conflict flares up. Even in fairly leftist circles.
And regarding the music festival, you have no idea what you're talking about. People at that festival included some harsh critics of Israeli state and society. It was near the border, but was not "virtually on top of" Gaza. In a vacuum, we could have a discussion about whether it's tasteful to dance and celebrate life so close to a place of blockade and misery, but young people do tone-deaf things all the time, even when their actual values are good. I'm certain you have in your life as well, without realizing it. Are you going to say that these young people being slightly tone-deaf or insufficiently reflective deserved to be slaughtered or captured? Who are you? What are you? You may be many things, but a good Jew and a good leftist are not among them.
Have you watched the film "Zone of Interest"? Holding a music festival and frolicking with friends anywhere near the "open air prison" that was gaza on October 7th is nauseatingly similar to what that film tries to represent. I absolutely condemn the taking of children, under any circumstances. However, the vast majority of Israelis have for many decades supported the brutalization of Palestinians. I know plenty of Israelis personally who over those years found countless ways of rationalizing that brutalization, and expressed nothing but pity for themselves during the slaughtering of Palestinians - children included - that Israel enacted before October 7th. Always under the rubric of "it's complicated."
And yet a tiny minority of Israelis have always made it their business to look beyond the ethnonationalist indoctrination and dehumanization of Palestinians. I guess all other Israelis (and their rationalizers in the Jewish diaspora) need to be treated with kid gloves. I'm absolutely sure that will result in a more humane treatment of Palestinians.
I think I appreciate all you say. Expressing our Joy and celebrating the safety and freedom of humans- especially those closest and most like us - seems natural and right!
And yet, and at the same time mustn’t we be troubled by the ‘segregated’ way we ritually categorize and acknowledge people’s joys and sorrows? Does it not reinforce the heresy -especially when more of “them” are dying and being released - that not all humans are equally precious to God?
Thank you once again Peter. Last night and this morning I was sending a few messages to a number of Jewish friends and I found myself having a slightly difficult time relating joy in the release of the 3 - even though I felt extremely happy for them and their families. I do, but I felt that I was buying into propaganda. Also in view of the fact that we have no idea who was released from Israeli prisons, mostly woman and children (some just 14 yrs old), held in administrative detention, hostages in a way. Again, they're anonymous, while the 3 Israeli woman are now know all over the world. I am for sure happy for them and pray for the release of more as well as for an end to all the factors that have brought all this on. Your comments helped me internalize my joy for their release from Gaza.
Can Peter discuss the humanity of Nazis, as in the 20th C gentile German variety? As the grandson of a convicted minor Nazi "war"criminal(more accurately crimes against humanity/ against Czechoslovak citizens, so not technically a "war" criminal but with a 10 year sentence nonetheless for his occupation police "duties"), I find such seeking of humanity with perpetrators alienating.
What would be your criteria for deciding who does and doesn't count as a "perpetrator" for the purpose of this comparison with Israeli hostages?
Armed occupation supporters and beneficiaries count as perpetrators imo, even without necessarily being armed. Gentile Germans collectively are the perpetrators of the Shoah and broader holocaust and Palestine's Jewish occupiers are the perpetrators of occupation, ethnic cleansing and genocide. More pointedly regarding hostages, my own mother and grandmother were held as hostages by the Czechoslovak government til 1948 along with other family members of imprisoned German "war"criminals. Czechs were rightly not seen as the wronging party in this situation and imprisoned Germans understood the guilt they carried, certainly my grandmother whose best friend was liberated after only three months from Theresienstadt never having received my grandmother's care packages...
What a beautiful reflection, Peter.
It seems to me that any emotionally mature person should be able to maintain both a critical outlook on any person's behaviour, while at the same time maintaining compassionate love toward them.
In any case, I am SO glad that at least Romi, Emily and Doron are now free.
May the rest of the living hostages be released soon.
And may God rest the soul of those hostages who died in captivity.
🤲
Sarah
I also don’t understand your insistence upon reinforcing the absolutely Zionist notion of Jewish Peoplehood.
Jews are not a people. Period.
While unfortunately in the last 15 years, most English-language use of the term "peoplehood" has tended to assume an ethno-nationalist definition of Jewish group-belonging, the concept of Jews being a "people" of some sort predates zionism by at least two and a half millennia. Remember that Peter is an orthodox Jew, religiously speaking--he believes in religious and covenantal ties between Jews that apply across ethnicity and even across religiosity, whether people want them or not. You are free not to share that belief at all, or, like me, as a Reform Jew, to share it in modified form. But to insist that the only way to conceive of Jews as a "people" is modern ethno-nationalism, in light of what everyone on earth knows are Peter's actual views on ethno-nationalism, is just obnoxious. He's taken so much heat and hate precisely for dissenting from predatory ethno-nationalism. You owe him an apology.
I don’t understand why you think that Jews should necessarily—or ever—identify with Israeli captives, *because* we are Jews. To me, this is a clear example of Zionism/ethno-nationalism. I do not believe you can’t celebrate the Israeli hostage release, but I absolutely refuse to accept the notion that any Jew should necessarily identify with any Jewish citizen of Israel simply because those Jewish Israelis call themselves Jews or are Jews.
Yes, sure, Peter Beinart, who has made himself almost public enemy number one in American Jewish society, just for insisting on Palestinian humanity and critiquing Jewish supremacy, is actually a closet zionist. An ethno-nationalist Jewish supremacist just like the rest of 'em. No daylight between him and David Wolpe, I'm sure of it! Just keep thinking that...it'll definitely save the Jewish future and free Palestine. You'll show the rest of us!
Solidarity is a principled act. It must NEVER be seen as an expression of racist notions of kinship, because *that* would be ethno-nationalism.
יעשר כוחך Come to Saint Louis, a city named for a man who did to Jews what the Israelis are doing to Gazans.