Our call this week will be at a special time: Thursday at 11 AM EST (not 11:30 as I said on last Friday’s call). Our guest will be Barak Ravid, who covers Israel for Axios. Barak has established himself as the reporter most knowledgeable about the relationship between the Biden and Netanyahu governments. Last March, in a joint press-conference with Yair Lapid, Secretary of State Antony Blinken
Spot on, again and again. These politics of distraction go hand in hand with the occupation authorities' politics of overwhelming our society here in Palestine like never before: killings, arrests, house demolitions, uprooting trees, settler rampages, storming holy sights, and on and on and on. Israel knows very well that our capacity to withstand is limited, before it turns to violent resistance. Bibi and Co are begging for violence. I plea to Gaza to be as prepared as possible; they will pay the price of Israeli societal collapse.
Peter, you need to practice what you preach. I've been reading your Substack for about a year now and the vast majority of articles you write on the I/P conflict are NOT about the daily realities of Palestinians. In fact, I can't even recall one. They're about Zionism, Trump and Republicans, concern trolling about anti-Semitism, and other topics. If you actually believe that the conversation should be about the daily realities for Palestinians, you should write some articles about it.
You keep making the same arguments over and over again about Zionism, anti-Semitism and Israel's right to exist, so you're contributing to the very distractions you complain about in your article. But you're not the only one. Noam Chomsky commented that when BDS launched a divestment campaign at Harvard, the conversation swiftly devolved to anti-Semitism at Harvard and the rights of Jews to a state. The Palestinians were sidelined in favor for discussions about Zionism and anti-Zionism. Similarly, Norman Finkelstein agrees with Chomsky that BDS, which is the current north star of pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel activism, is a huge gift to Israeli hard liners because every conversation around BDS and Palestine quickly becomes 'here they are trying to destroy us' because that's what BDS wants to do, destroy Israel. Again, wherever pro-Palestinian activism goes, the conversation is always about Zionism and the rights of Jews to a state, and if Palestinians are ever mentioned it's only as a prop about why Zionism is bad. Your Substack is no exception to this rule.
So if you actually sincerely believe in doing the work and helping the Palestinians on the ground (which I don't believe you do), then maybe you should start acting like it and writing about the daily realities over there. Maybe even leave your comfortable office and do some actual work on the ground. I look forward to your endorsement of the two state solution, the internationally agreed upon consensus to the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the method by which Palestinian 'suffering' will be alleviated the quickest and most effectively.
Beinart, HRW is so incredibly biased against Israel that its own founder and chairman for twenty years took to the pages of the New York Times to tell the world how biased HRW has become.
Amazing how people like you can reconcile how if 70% of convicts if the American prison system were Black, that would be clear evidence of institutional racism, but HRW devoting 70% of its coverage to the world's only Jewish state doesn't mean anything.
But I do agree with you that the Ken Roth discussion is not important and not worth discussing. A rich white man didn't get a job he felt he was entitled to, and used his power and platform to whine about it publicly for weeks, and then he finally did get the job. Another example of white male privilege working. One wonders if Roth cares at all about the qualified BIPOC candidates that were left out of the position in favor of him.
Instead, Beinart, I'd like your thoughts about the NUS report that just came out, which describes in detail the bullying and harassment suffered by Jewish students who are just going about their education at British universities at the hands of your fellow pro-Palestinians. Unlike Ken Roth, they're not rich and do not have thousands of followers on Twitter to hear about their suffering, until this report came out they were suffering in relative silence. That's a daily reality I'd like you to discuss, if you have any thoughts about it, considering you're so interested in fighting anti-Semitism and have written so extensively about it.
Why Harvard should have stuck to its guns rejecting Ken Roth:
Robert Bernstein, the founder and chairman of Human Rights Watch from 1978 to 1998, said HRW had drifted from its mission of monitoring closed societies and authoritarian regimes and questioned why HRW disproportionately targeted Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, rather than regimes that repress, imprison, and kill their own citizens.
“Human Rights Watch has lost critical perspective on a conflict in which Israel has been repeatedly attacked by Hamas and Hezbollah, organizations that go after Israeli citizens and use their own people as human shields,” he wrote.
So, in reading your various articles and letters, you are consistently critical, and negative about what you think of the world’s treatment of the Palestinians. So here’s an exercise: pretend you are the man in charge of making peace between Israel and Palestine. Let’s hear how it would look in your mind?
Peter, I do agree that the plight of Palestinians right now is an urgent matter. But as a non-Jew I also find the issue of being cancelled in my own country (Canada), by an enormously successful Israel lobby, to be an urgent matter. I resent the gaslighting by this lobby. It is dishonest. The lobby is too effective and the effects of this lobby on non-Jews is Orwellian.
Israel is just another rogue and rotten agent by now. Like Saudi and Russia, they know that their only chance of survival is to defang and sabotage Western democracies before those take them to justice. MBS knows that. Putin knows that. Jonathan Greenblatt knows that.
Abbas has a point about the West Bank Settlements. Allowing settlers to build there was a suicidal move by the Israelis -- it made a two state solution impossible. So, having done it they now have to live with the consequence -- one state.
Thank you for your incisive teasing out of the issues, Peter. You bring clarity to the areas where we stumble. You take the distractions away and clear the waters of mud. It was greatly appreciated.
Correction Peter. One of the main problems is the support Israel gets from the American government and the influence the American Jewish community has on that government and on the media. And Canada is not that different. Having lived in France for many years I have always known about the abuses in Israel-Palestine. The media covered it, at least some media. It is profoundly shocking that coverage is given to the demonstrations in Israel just now while nothing is said about what is happening in the settlements.
I was happy to see you are bringing Barak Ravid this coming Thursday. I never miss an article by him, and his book on the Abraham Accords (don’t know if it is available in English) was outstanding. I really am looking forward to hear him again in English to an American audience. Once in a while, rarely though, I find him missing the point, but to err is human…Question: why can’t we talk both about the grave situation in the West Bank AND the impact of Jewish donors? The latter had a good outcome following the NSO fiasco discovered by The Citizens Lab at the University of Toronto, not getting into details here. Most importantly, right now there is an explosion of anger in Israel against the American Jewish Forum Kohelet, working for years surreptitiously in Israel and now openly to destroy the judiciary, media, social supports and government structures and supplant them with a radical racist and religious state. It is going to be fascinating to see what the great awareness awakening and the popular pushback to these will bring about. I am speaking on Feb. 2 on the new government so following extensively in Hebrew.
I don’t support two states. I support legal equality in one binational state. My Yavne essay in Jewish Currents makes that case
thanks Doris
Thanks Richard. I tried to do something that here https://jewishcurrents.org/yavne-a-jewish-case-for-equality-in-israel-palestine and here https://jewishcurrents.org/teshuvah-a-jewish-case-for-palestinian-refugee-return
Spot on, again and again. These politics of distraction go hand in hand with the occupation authorities' politics of overwhelming our society here in Palestine like never before: killings, arrests, house demolitions, uprooting trees, settler rampages, storming holy sights, and on and on and on. Israel knows very well that our capacity to withstand is limited, before it turns to violent resistance. Bibi and Co are begging for violence. I plea to Gaza to be as prepared as possible; they will pay the price of Israeli societal collapse.
Peter, you need to practice what you preach. I've been reading your Substack for about a year now and the vast majority of articles you write on the I/P conflict are NOT about the daily realities of Palestinians. In fact, I can't even recall one. They're about Zionism, Trump and Republicans, concern trolling about anti-Semitism, and other topics. If you actually believe that the conversation should be about the daily realities for Palestinians, you should write some articles about it.
You keep making the same arguments over and over again about Zionism, anti-Semitism and Israel's right to exist, so you're contributing to the very distractions you complain about in your article. But you're not the only one. Noam Chomsky commented that when BDS launched a divestment campaign at Harvard, the conversation swiftly devolved to anti-Semitism at Harvard and the rights of Jews to a state. The Palestinians were sidelined in favor for discussions about Zionism and anti-Zionism. Similarly, Norman Finkelstein agrees with Chomsky that BDS, which is the current north star of pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel activism, is a huge gift to Israeli hard liners because every conversation around BDS and Palestine quickly becomes 'here they are trying to destroy us' because that's what BDS wants to do, destroy Israel. Again, wherever pro-Palestinian activism goes, the conversation is always about Zionism and the rights of Jews to a state, and if Palestinians are ever mentioned it's only as a prop about why Zionism is bad. Your Substack is no exception to this rule.
So if you actually sincerely believe in doing the work and helping the Palestinians on the ground (which I don't believe you do), then maybe you should start acting like it and writing about the daily realities over there. Maybe even leave your comfortable office and do some actual work on the ground. I look forward to your endorsement of the two state solution, the internationally agreed upon consensus to the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the method by which Palestinian 'suffering' will be alleviated the quickest and most effectively.
Beinart, HRW is so incredibly biased against Israel that its own founder and chairman for twenty years took to the pages of the New York Times to tell the world how biased HRW has become.
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/opinion/20bernstein.html
Amazing how people like you can reconcile how if 70% of convicts if the American prison system were Black, that would be clear evidence of institutional racism, but HRW devoting 70% of its coverage to the world's only Jewish state doesn't mean anything.
But I do agree with you that the Ken Roth discussion is not important and not worth discussing. A rich white man didn't get a job he felt he was entitled to, and used his power and platform to whine about it publicly for weeks, and then he finally did get the job. Another example of white male privilege working. One wonders if Roth cares at all about the qualified BIPOC candidates that were left out of the position in favor of him.
Instead, Beinart, I'd like your thoughts about the NUS report that just came out, which describes in detail the bullying and harassment suffered by Jewish students who are just going about their education at British universities at the hands of your fellow pro-Palestinians. Unlike Ken Roth, they're not rich and do not have thousands of followers on Twitter to hear about their suffering, until this report came out they were suffering in relative silence. That's a daily reality I'd like you to discuss, if you have any thoughts about it, considering you're so interested in fighting anti-Semitism and have written so extensively about it.
Why Harvard should have stuck to its guns rejecting Ken Roth:
Robert Bernstein, the founder and chairman of Human Rights Watch from 1978 to 1998, said HRW had drifted from its mission of monitoring closed societies and authoritarian regimes and questioned why HRW disproportionately targeted Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, rather than regimes that repress, imprison, and kill their own citizens.
“Human Rights Watch has lost critical perspective on a conflict in which Israel has been repeatedly attacked by Hamas and Hezbollah, organizations that go after Israeli citizens and use their own people as human shields,” he wrote.
So, in reading your various articles and letters, you are consistently critical, and negative about what you think of the world’s treatment of the Palestinians. So here’s an exercise: pretend you are the man in charge of making peace between Israel and Palestine. Let’s hear how it would look in your mind?
Thanks for your incisive commentary
Peter, I do agree that the plight of Palestinians right now is an urgent matter. But as a non-Jew I also find the issue of being cancelled in my own country (Canada), by an enormously successful Israel lobby, to be an urgent matter. I resent the gaslighting by this lobby. It is dishonest. The lobby is too effective and the effects of this lobby on non-Jews is Orwellian.
Israel is just another rogue and rotten agent by now. Like Saudi and Russia, they know that their only chance of survival is to defang and sabotage Western democracies before those take them to justice. MBS knows that. Putin knows that. Jonathan Greenblatt knows that.
Abbas has a point about the West Bank Settlements. Allowing settlers to build there was a suicidal move by the Israelis -- it made a two state solution impossible. So, having done it they now have to live with the consequence -- one state.
Thank you for your incisive teasing out of the issues, Peter. You bring clarity to the areas where we stumble. You take the distractions away and clear the waters of mud. It was greatly appreciated.
Correction Peter. One of the main problems is the support Israel gets from the American government and the influence the American Jewish community has on that government and on the media. And Canada is not that different. Having lived in France for many years I have always known about the abuses in Israel-Palestine. The media covered it, at least some media. It is profoundly shocking that coverage is given to the demonstrations in Israel just now while nothing is said about what is happening in the settlements.
I was happy to see you are bringing Barak Ravid this coming Thursday. I never miss an article by him, and his book on the Abraham Accords (don’t know if it is available in English) was outstanding. I really am looking forward to hear him again in English to an American audience. Once in a while, rarely though, I find him missing the point, but to err is human…Question: why can’t we talk both about the grave situation in the West Bank AND the impact of Jewish donors? The latter had a good outcome following the NSO fiasco discovered by The Citizens Lab at the University of Toronto, not getting into details here. Most importantly, right now there is an explosion of anger in Israel against the American Jewish Forum Kohelet, working for years surreptitiously in Israel and now openly to destroy the judiciary, media, social supports and government structures and supplant them with a radical racist and religious state. It is going to be fascinating to see what the great awareness awakening and the popular pushback to these will bring about. I am speaking on Feb. 2 on the new government so following extensively in Hebrew.