Thank you Peter You are absolutely Correct. However, the DNC Convention Clearly showed who they were by whom they let speak. They let a Republican Speak, an Israel couple speak but refused to let an American Palestinian delegate to the convention speak.This is called "Elite Entitlement". Some people are more equal than others. Some people paid off more than others
They are defending Bidens unqualified support of Genocide,The Documentary called the "Bibi Files" on Netanyahu's Corruption charges, he is now trying to block from being seen in Israel . What do you call that?
Yeah. I don't believe anything Israel says. I never have but now I REALLY don't believe anything they say. Although I do think they gave Hamas an idea. What they are doing in the West Bank is outrageous. I respect Beinart very much and really would like his sources. Until somebody RELIABLE (i.e. not Israeli, most likely) verifies this story, I am assuming the IDF killed these people. However, when I think about all the horrific murders they committed of frightened, many orphaned, children with their bullshit "hostage rescue" using our brilliant bridge to nowhere, or whatever that monstrosity was--clearly designed for Trojan Horse B.S., I think it is high time the israelis learn what most five-year-olds know: There are consequences for all our actions. I would say I pity the hostages but none of them came from areas they could reasonably be expected to be--the kibbutz are on stolen land serving as military outposts and the rave was held on Gazan land, also stolen, and so close to the concentration camp, I cannot imagine the Gazans couldn't hear it. Long way of saying my human sympathy is stretched very thin, sadly. Many of the hostages I have found to be likable people. I just don't understand how anyone could retain Israeli citizenship knowing what they all know about the lives of Palestinians. I would have renounced it as a teen. And how any American citizen could also be an Israeli citizen is beyond me. Which leads me to wonder why I still hold American citizenship. I regret not renouncing it decades ago.
Even if they weren't killed intentionally or directly by Israel, if I found a hostage dead in a tunnel, I would assume it was from the overall bombardment and siege. If Hamas killed hostages. they would brag about it.
I read somewhere they were killed by bullets in the head. I think Israel has killed quite a few of their own citizens by bombing. I'm amazed by how well the people--it's not only Hamas--who are holding the hostages are caring for them. Israel's treatment of hostages--and they have more than 10,000 now--is more than I really can bear thinking about for long. I just heard on Al Jazeerah that Netanyahu has to come up with a budget in March. If he doesn't, the government falls. The economic situation in Israel is dire. I could be wrong but I don't think he will last until March. An Israeli journalist at another site--maybe Democracy Now!--estimated 1 million people in the streets. I don't know how many people are still left in Israel but it's not more than 5 million, no matter what they say. Israel bombed Syria again last night. It's like they have a death wish. Thanatos. I would really like to know what the truth of this is. We are still being fed a diet of mass rape and beheaded babies. Oh, and apparently most israelis doubt even 40,000 Palestinians have been killed. They keep adding that some of those are Hamas. Denial is an ugly phenomenon. 200,000 Palestinians have died, more likely. Israel leaving ALL the occupied territories needs to be part of any deal. I have no hope for the American government to behave with integrity. None at all. But I do think Israel is in an impossible dilemma of their own making. The result is one state with a lot of Jewish Israelis leaving. I give them a year and that's generous.
I found this on The Grayzone from Max Blumenthal, whom I trust, and have written them asking for an actual source. He says that since that fiasco in Deir Al-Balah with the American "pier" and Israelis pretending to be humanitarian workers then dropping three 2000 lb. bombs on the streets when the Gazans realized who they were, etc. Al-Qassem has a new policy that if the Israelis get too close to a group of hostages they will kill them, the hostages. If The Grayzone sends me an actual source, I'll pass it on to you.
I see. So, to avoid the Israelis calling another massacre a victory of hostage release, Hamas is (according to this source) shooting hostages before that happens. Sort of an inverted Hannibal Directive. Is that the idea?
Once again Peter has come up with the correct word of "ethnonationalism" to describe Biden's "ironclad support"of one ethnic group i.e. Israelis over another i.e. Palestinians. What is rarely forthcoming is why Biden is so entangled with this one country. Let us not hear the answer that "our two countries share common values" which I have heard since the 1960s. The answer lies in the question: what motivates politicians?
I'm so sorry you have to keep reminding us about this. I want more for Kamala, so I am hoping she will take a stance on Israeli accountability for the killings of Americans in the West Bank. Thank you for being this important voice of conscience.
I'd like to pitch Yascha Mounk as a guest on your program. I just finished reading his 2023 book The Identity Trap, where Mounk argues strongly against ethnonationalism. Yet the only mention of Israel in his 416-page book is in a footnote where he quotes Linda Sarsour as saying that you can't be a feminist and support Israel, an example of "intersectionality". The book criticizes Lebanon (but not Israel) for not recognizing marriages between members of different religious communities, and criticizes India (but not Israel) for having "made it easier for some religious groups to obtain citizenship". And lately he's been defending Israel whenever it comes up. These defenses can get absurd, as in a lengthy Israel-defending piece on October 23, 2023, in the Globe & Mail, where he has a major section on "The trouble with structural racism" but never acknowledges that by his own definition of "structural racism", the Israeli government is a perpetrator of it:
I'd like to hear him try to defend what I see as "Anti-ethnonationalism Except Israel" and can't think of a better interviewer than you to draw him out on it.
In the G&M piece I linked to, from October 23, Mounk writes: "the next days and weeks will show to what extent the Israeli army stays within the bounds governing the legitimate conduct of such a war. As political leaders including Joe Biden have rightly pointed out, it is imperative that it honour these long-established rules. If it doesn’t, full-throated criticisms of the Israeli government are fully justified."
It's about time for Mounk to be asked if full-throated criticisms of the Israeli government are fully justified.
I suppose more exposure of his racist double-standards would be... helpful... But it is still frustrating to platform such voices when the core of the matter is that people like him think he and his kind are better than everyone else. Expose the IDF? Why now? They've already been exposed. The battle over international law has been going on from Day One. Israel/US won't sign onto the ICJ/ICC. UNRWA was created as a special agency for Palestine precisely because there was not agreement about how to treat Palestinians. The Brits wanted the Jews out of their own country. Etc., etc., etc. While I understand the position and status people like Y Mounk have in this world, their own bubble, the DC decision-making ecosystem, it doesn't mean he is more of a human than the rest of us. Just as we have dismissed Biden, so we can also dismiss people like Mounk's. We have already seen the record of this issue for decades. Does someone like Peter Beinart need to waste his time/energy arguing with yet another Jewish Supremacist who has not come to terms with his own psychology? Even if that Jewish Supremacist would cloak himself in seemingly civilized and non-extremist clothing? I would argue, "No." Not for the take-down and not on behalf of "hearing out" someone who is prominent. What we need more of is to hear from Jewish voices who are SANE and COMPASSIONATE and not supremacists. We don't need another Ben Shapiro. Not even one who is legitimized by Hopkins' SAIS. And maybe especially not. Let them rot in their own hell that has already been called out by PB or Norman Finkelstein or Naomi Klein, or the like. Let us raise up the voices of JVP, Not in Our Name, and so many of the wonderful voices who are claiming Judaism back and away from violent, supremacist Zionism, and rejoining the rest of us in the Humane Human Species. But sure, he can have his free speech.
"But it is still frustrating to platform such voices when the core of the matter is that people like him think he and his kind are better than everyone else."
The only people who are able to hear what is said on this particular platform are paid subscribers.
I did think it was very helpful to have Bret Stephens here 2 years ago:
Peter asked Bret many of the questions that subscribers here would have liked to ask him but that he doesn't get asked in the friendly public forums where he is usually found (as a paid guest, Peter noted). I came in thinking that it's possible that despite appearances, Stephens really does have some underlying well-thought-through convictions that he would be happy to persuade skeptics about, but came away from the call convinced that he is just a hack who has found a way to get people to pay him to say things they want to hear, so that he can afford things like private-school tuition for his kids (which he mentioned specifically on that call).
Yascha Mounk is different in that he has such prodigious output that a lot of it can be quoted to be used against his own pro-Israel ideology.
Sadistic cynicism like Bret Stephens' is what has fueled MAGA. Like Tucker Carlson, they get platformed to manipulate perceptions, rather than offer up actual ideas for solutions to problems. As you point out, they're tools - in it for the $$ and not to be good-faith actors. The "circus" part of "bread and circus," for sure. - I appreciate your point. I still say it would be great to do more winning of hearts and minds with inspiring Jewish voices who are pushing back against the violent enforced inequality. Sidelining those who cynically thrive by further inflaming the tragic conflict would be real change toward voices who have solutions, rather than - as you point out - continuing to expose the hypocrisy that already has been exposed by the Compassionate Side with them merely pointing out that barring a class of people from their justified freedom is just plain wrong. Eyeballs/attention is currency for all of them. Bret Stephens will only be supported insofar as he gets clicks. Same with Y Mounk, albeit he has a university post. Nonetheless, academic publications also count clicks and citations. This is the digital world we live in when ideas and eyeballs are currency. So let's cut them off. Bolster the pipeline of eyeballs/attention to the Truly Enlightened.
LC, you describe this program with the metaphor of providing its guests with a "platform", which literally means a stage for public speaking. That is not my own view of how this program treats guests. I view it more as an interrogation room, with Peter as chief interrogator being fed questions by the rest of us.
My lapidary answer: Yes, you are absolutely right! The very concept of "humanity" does not differentiate human beings in such ways; indeed, it forbids it categorically. Thank you, Peter!
Thanks for this extremely helpful framing. I've been thinking about how Americans killed by Israel become kind of "stateless" because there is no one seeking justice or accountability on their behalf. But I think the ethnonationalist component is really the key to why this feels so horrifying and anguishing.
It is the seeming hollowness of the Democratic Party's anti-fascism in light of support for Zionist fascism which will keep some voters home or in the Green Party column.
As to Biden, I am reminded of a Shoah survivor's remark that after being told not to touch Biden, he seemingly craved touching them. I suspect a quasi-necrophiliac accepting of the consecrated host in line with Catholic/Christian transubstantiation notions, i.e. he sees himself as a would-be "glorious bastard" defeating Nazis and there lies imo, the source of his misidentification with Zionism. Keep his bipartisan nostalgia in mind and see how sentimentally unsuited he is to our era.
Happy 9/11 everyone. HAMAS and a substantial number of Palestinians are celebrating this anniversary.
Check out Reliance of the Traveler. Or read the reviews on Amazon. 9/11 hijacker Mohammad Atta had a copy of this tome found in his belongings.
It’s accepted Islamic theology and approved by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic Al-Azhar University in Egypt. Imams all over the world refer to its totalitarian quasi-religious practices.
As Christopher Hitchens said of Islam in 2009: “Complain while you still can.” So I will. The Jews are but an appetizer for these deranged believers.
"HAMAS and a substantial number of Palestinians are celebrating this anniversary."
Where? And how? If you're going to announce this news to readers here, wouldn't you want us to check out what you consider to be a reliable source reporting on it?
"Check out Reliance of the Traveler. Or read the reviews on Amazon. 9/11 hijacker Mohammad Atta had a copy of this tome found in his belongings."
Why do you not say if you've read this book yourself? The edition sold on Amazon is 1232 pages long.
"Imams all over the world refer to its totalitarian quasi-religious practices."
But you fail to give any hint of what any of these practices are.
What happened on 10/7/2023 Peter? I’m not Jewish and I’m very liberal.
I have observed, with great interest and despair, how Islamic terrorism in the West has been normalized.
The behavior of the of the far-left has been obscenely wicked since 10/2023. Not just in the US, but Europe, Canada
and Australia.
Reliance of the Traveler is easy to read and understand. This makes some people a little nervous. Take a look at it. Islam is not difficult to understand. It is however, terrifying.
Ask the European women and children how they like it.
Any chance of an IDF coup against the Likud and Netanyahu regime? Can it be usefully advocated? Arguably a military dictatorship, let alone a replacement broad-ish government of national salvation could hardly be more extremist and likely less genocidal than Likud's arch-fascist coalition partners.
Thank you Peter You are absolutely Correct. However, the DNC Convention Clearly showed who they were by whom they let speak. They let a Republican Speak, an Israel couple speak but refused to let an American Palestinian delegate to the convention speak.This is called "Elite Entitlement". Some people are more equal than others. Some people paid off more than others
They are defending Bidens unqualified support of Genocide,The Documentary called the "Bibi Files" on Netanyahu's Corruption charges, he is now trying to block from being seen in Israel . What do you call that?
What are your sources regarding who killed Goldberg-Polin and the other five hostages Israel "found" already dead?
I was going to ask something similar. What has you think they were killed by Hamas and not by Israel?
Yeah. I don't believe anything Israel says. I never have but now I REALLY don't believe anything they say. Although I do think they gave Hamas an idea. What they are doing in the West Bank is outrageous. I respect Beinart very much and really would like his sources. Until somebody RELIABLE (i.e. not Israeli, most likely) verifies this story, I am assuming the IDF killed these people. However, when I think about all the horrific murders they committed of frightened, many orphaned, children with their bullshit "hostage rescue" using our brilliant bridge to nowhere, or whatever that monstrosity was--clearly designed for Trojan Horse B.S., I think it is high time the israelis learn what most five-year-olds know: There are consequences for all our actions. I would say I pity the hostages but none of them came from areas they could reasonably be expected to be--the kibbutz are on stolen land serving as military outposts and the rave was held on Gazan land, also stolen, and so close to the concentration camp, I cannot imagine the Gazans couldn't hear it. Long way of saying my human sympathy is stretched very thin, sadly. Many of the hostages I have found to be likable people. I just don't understand how anyone could retain Israeli citizenship knowing what they all know about the lives of Palestinians. I would have renounced it as a teen. And how any American citizen could also be an Israeli citizen is beyond me. Which leads me to wonder why I still hold American citizenship. I regret not renouncing it decades ago.
Even if they weren't killed intentionally or directly by Israel, if I found a hostage dead in a tunnel, I would assume it was from the overall bombardment and siege. If Hamas killed hostages. they would brag about it.
I read somewhere they were killed by bullets in the head. I think Israel has killed quite a few of their own citizens by bombing. I'm amazed by how well the people--it's not only Hamas--who are holding the hostages are caring for them. Israel's treatment of hostages--and they have more than 10,000 now--is more than I really can bear thinking about for long. I just heard on Al Jazeerah that Netanyahu has to come up with a budget in March. If he doesn't, the government falls. The economic situation in Israel is dire. I could be wrong but I don't think he will last until March. An Israeli journalist at another site--maybe Democracy Now!--estimated 1 million people in the streets. I don't know how many people are still left in Israel but it's not more than 5 million, no matter what they say. Israel bombed Syria again last night. It's like they have a death wish. Thanatos. I would really like to know what the truth of this is. We are still being fed a diet of mass rape and beheaded babies. Oh, and apparently most israelis doubt even 40,000 Palestinians have been killed. They keep adding that some of those are Hamas. Denial is an ugly phenomenon. 200,000 Palestinians have died, more likely. Israel leaving ALL the occupied territories needs to be part of any deal. I have no hope for the American government to behave with integrity. None at all. But I do think Israel is in an impossible dilemma of their own making. The result is one state with a lot of Jewish Israelis leaving. I give them a year and that's generous.
I found this on The Grayzone from Max Blumenthal, whom I trust, and have written them asking for an actual source. He says that since that fiasco in Deir Al-Balah with the American "pier" and Israelis pretending to be humanitarian workers then dropping three 2000 lb. bombs on the streets when the Gazans realized who they were, etc. Al-Qassem has a new policy that if the Israelis get too close to a group of hostages they will kill them, the hostages. If The Grayzone sends me an actual source, I'll pass it on to you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWpVgTruNWM
I see. So, to avoid the Israelis calling another massacre a victory of hostage release, Hamas is (according to this source) shooting hostages before that happens. Sort of an inverted Hannibal Directive. Is that the idea?
Once again Peter has come up with the correct word of "ethnonationalism" to describe Biden's "ironclad support"of one ethnic group i.e. Israelis over another i.e. Palestinians. What is rarely forthcoming is why Biden is so entangled with this one country. Let us not hear the answer that "our two countries share common values" which I have heard since the 1960s. The answer lies in the question: what motivates politicians?
Such incisive and humane integrity. I want to assign this video to the State Department and White House spokespeople.
They don't give a damn.
I'm so sorry you have to keep reminding us about this. I want more for Kamala, so I am hoping she will take a stance on Israeli accountability for the killings of Americans in the West Bank. Thank you for being this important voice of conscience.
I'd like to pitch Yascha Mounk as a guest on your program. I just finished reading his 2023 book The Identity Trap, where Mounk argues strongly against ethnonationalism. Yet the only mention of Israel in his 416-page book is in a footnote where he quotes Linda Sarsour as saying that you can't be a feminist and support Israel, an example of "intersectionality". The book criticizes Lebanon (but not Israel) for not recognizing marriages between members of different religious communities, and criticizes India (but not Israel) for having "made it easier for some religious groups to obtain citizenship". And lately he's been defending Israel whenever it comes up. These defenses can get absurd, as in a lengthy Israel-defending piece on October 23, 2023, in the Globe & Mail, where he has a major section on "The trouble with structural racism" but never acknowledges that by his own definition of "structural racism", the Israeli government is a perpetrator of it:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-attacks-in-israel-raise-a-troubling-question-why-are-so-many/
I'd like to hear him try to defend what I see as "Anti-ethnonationalism Except Israel" and can't think of a better interviewer than you to draw him out on it.
Yascha Mount is such a hypocrite. Jewish Supremacists are a clear danger to other Jewish people.
In the G&M piece I linked to, from October 23, Mounk writes: "the next days and weeks will show to what extent the Israeli army stays within the bounds governing the legitimate conduct of such a war. As political leaders including Joe Biden have rightly pointed out, it is imperative that it honour these long-established rules. If it doesn’t, full-throated criticisms of the Israeli government are fully justified."
It's about time for Mounk to be asked if full-throated criticisms of the Israeli government are fully justified.
I suppose more exposure of his racist double-standards would be... helpful... But it is still frustrating to platform such voices when the core of the matter is that people like him think he and his kind are better than everyone else. Expose the IDF? Why now? They've already been exposed. The battle over international law has been going on from Day One. Israel/US won't sign onto the ICJ/ICC. UNRWA was created as a special agency for Palestine precisely because there was not agreement about how to treat Palestinians. The Brits wanted the Jews out of their own country. Etc., etc., etc. While I understand the position and status people like Y Mounk have in this world, their own bubble, the DC decision-making ecosystem, it doesn't mean he is more of a human than the rest of us. Just as we have dismissed Biden, so we can also dismiss people like Mounk's. We have already seen the record of this issue for decades. Does someone like Peter Beinart need to waste his time/energy arguing with yet another Jewish Supremacist who has not come to terms with his own psychology? Even if that Jewish Supremacist would cloak himself in seemingly civilized and non-extremist clothing? I would argue, "No." Not for the take-down and not on behalf of "hearing out" someone who is prominent. What we need more of is to hear from Jewish voices who are SANE and COMPASSIONATE and not supremacists. We don't need another Ben Shapiro. Not even one who is legitimized by Hopkins' SAIS. And maybe especially not. Let them rot in their own hell that has already been called out by PB or Norman Finkelstein or Naomi Klein, or the like. Let us raise up the voices of JVP, Not in Our Name, and so many of the wonderful voices who are claiming Judaism back and away from violent, supremacist Zionism, and rejoining the rest of us in the Humane Human Species. But sure, he can have his free speech.
"But it is still frustrating to platform such voices when the core of the matter is that people like him think he and his kind are better than everyone else."
The only people who are able to hear what is said on this particular platform are paid subscribers.
I did think it was very helpful to have Bret Stephens here 2 years ago:
https://peterbeinart.substack.com/p/jeremy-ben-ami-on-the-new-electoral
Peter asked Bret many of the questions that subscribers here would have liked to ask him but that he doesn't get asked in the friendly public forums where he is usually found (as a paid guest, Peter noted). I came in thinking that it's possible that despite appearances, Stephens really does have some underlying well-thought-through convictions that he would be happy to persuade skeptics about, but came away from the call convinced that he is just a hack who has found a way to get people to pay him to say things they want to hear, so that he can afford things like private-school tuition for his kids (which he mentioned specifically on that call).
Yascha Mounk is different in that he has such prodigious output that a lot of it can be quoted to be used against his own pro-Israel ideology.
Sadistic cynicism like Bret Stephens' is what has fueled MAGA. Like Tucker Carlson, they get platformed to manipulate perceptions, rather than offer up actual ideas for solutions to problems. As you point out, they're tools - in it for the $$ and not to be good-faith actors. The "circus" part of "bread and circus," for sure. - I appreciate your point. I still say it would be great to do more winning of hearts and minds with inspiring Jewish voices who are pushing back against the violent enforced inequality. Sidelining those who cynically thrive by further inflaming the tragic conflict would be real change toward voices who have solutions, rather than - as you point out - continuing to expose the hypocrisy that already has been exposed by the Compassionate Side with them merely pointing out that barring a class of people from their justified freedom is just plain wrong. Eyeballs/attention is currency for all of them. Bret Stephens will only be supported insofar as he gets clicks. Same with Y Mounk, albeit he has a university post. Nonetheless, academic publications also count clicks and citations. This is the digital world we live in when ideas and eyeballs are currency. So let's cut them off. Bolster the pipeline of eyeballs/attention to the Truly Enlightened.
LC, you describe this program with the metaphor of providing its guests with a "platform", which literally means a stage for public speaking. That is not my own view of how this program treats guests. I view it more as an interrogation room, with Peter as chief interrogator being fed questions by the rest of us.
No to mention the American killed in the multi-drone attack on World Central Kitchen workers.
My lapidary answer: Yes, you are absolutely right! The very concept of "humanity" does not differentiate human beings in such ways; indeed, it forbids it categorically. Thank you, Peter!
Thanks for this extremely helpful framing. I've been thinking about how Americans killed by Israel become kind of "stateless" because there is no one seeking justice or accountability on their behalf. But I think the ethnonationalist component is really the key to why this feels so horrifying and anguishing.
It is the seeming hollowness of the Democratic Party's anti-fascism in light of support for Zionist fascism which will keep some voters home or in the Green Party column.
As to Biden, I am reminded of a Shoah survivor's remark that after being told not to touch Biden, he seemingly craved touching them. I suspect a quasi-necrophiliac accepting of the consecrated host in line with Catholic/Christian transubstantiation notions, i.e. he sees himself as a would-be "glorious bastard" defeating Nazis and there lies imo, the source of his misidentification with Zionism. Keep his bipartisan nostalgia in mind and see how sentimentally unsuited he is to our era.
Thanks!
Thank you Peter! You always speak TRUTH to power.
Thank you
Happy 9/11 everyone. HAMAS and a substantial number of Palestinians are celebrating this anniversary.
Check out Reliance of the Traveler. Or read the reviews on Amazon. 9/11 hijacker Mohammad Atta had a copy of this tome found in his belongings.
It’s accepted Islamic theology and approved by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic Al-Azhar University in Egypt. Imams all over the world refer to its totalitarian quasi-religious practices.
As Christopher Hitchens said of Islam in 2009: “Complain while you still can.” So I will. The Jews are but an appetizer for these deranged believers.
"HAMAS and a substantial number of Palestinians are celebrating this anniversary."
Where? And how? If you're going to announce this news to readers here, wouldn't you want us to check out what you consider to be a reliable source reporting on it?
"Check out Reliance of the Traveler. Or read the reviews on Amazon. 9/11 hijacker Mohammad Atta had a copy of this tome found in his belongings."
Why do you not say if you've read this book yourself? The edition sold on Amazon is 1232 pages long.
"Imams all over the world refer to its totalitarian quasi-religious practices."
But you fail to give any hint of what any of these practices are.
What happened on 10/7/2023 Peter? I’m not Jewish and I’m very liberal.
I have observed, with great interest and despair, how Islamic terrorism in the West has been normalized.
The behavior of the of the far-left has been obscenely wicked since 10/2023. Not just in the US, but Europe, Canada
and Australia.
Reliance of the Traveler is easy to read and understand. This makes some people a little nervous. Take a look at it. Islam is not difficult to understand. It is however, terrifying.
Ask the European women and children how they like it.
Any chance of an IDF coup against the Likud and Netanyahu regime? Can it be usefully advocated? Arguably a military dictatorship, let alone a replacement broad-ish government of national salvation could hardly be more extremist and likely less genocidal than Likud's arch-fascist coalition partners.