I urge you to create accounts on Instagram and TikTok to share your important work to a wider audience. Or at least, can we have permission to make excerpts we share ourselves?
Also can I suggest you put all the housekeeping announcements at the end of the video (or in text below) rather than the beginning. Those announcements are for people already in the community, but they’re a barrier to growth. I’m about to share this entry to someone not familiar with you and will advise them to skip to 1:14 and hope they do so.
Peter, is it crossing a red line to machine gun to death young people attending a concert? Is it crossing a red line entering people’s homes and murdering children in front of their parents? Is it crossing a red line to cut off the heads of babies? Is it crossing a red line to kidnap 240 people?
Most importantly for you and Palestinian sympathizers to think about, is it crossing a line for Hamas to intentionally harm their own civilians by basing their operations and missile launches in schools, mosques, hospitals and apartment buildings and then telling citizens not to leave when Israel gives them warning to do so?
Where is your outrage over the true perpetrators of atrocities???
Oh, no, no, no, Richard. Peter doesn't have red lines for himself. His beloved Palestine can slaughter babies in their cradles and he'll be as pro-Palestine as ever. But he demands other people and groups have red lines. Morals are for other people, not him.
Maybe he condemns it, maybe he doesn't. Either way, it doesn't seem to be a red line for him, as he never says what he considers to be a red line nor has he renounced his support for Palestine.
"Because people are going to resist oppression. You can’t blame them. That’s just what human beings do."
Beinart said: "...we were saying, you know, we remember what happened during Gilad Shalit when it was one Israeli who was in, you know, captured in Gaza and, you know, how focused everyone was. And to think about 200 captive is like, it like overwhelms the senses, you know, to go from thinking about if it was one person, everybody would have that person’s name on their lips. But when it’s 200, it like overloads the senses. And there’s so much agony and grief and such a deep, deep desire for solidarity from Israeli Jews towards Jews and others around the world..."
He also said, re: someone who justifies the murder of civilians BY HAMAS: "... it seems to me one of the things that’s so frightening about not having a red line at saying that it’s wrong to take civilian life is if it’s okay to go door-to-door, as Hamas did, and take civilian lives in southern Israel, then why is it wrong to launch chemical weapons or some other weapon of mass destruction that would kill, could kill large numbers of civilians indiscriminately? It’s that refusal to set a moral red line in some parts of the pro-Palestinian left—not all by any means, but some—that really frightens me." Isn't that a clear condemnation?
He spends paragraph after paragraph justifying 10/7 and caps it off with "Because people are going to resist oppression. You can’t blame them. That’s just what human beings do."
At best, he's going back and forth between condemning 10/7 and justifying it. And spending way more time and energy doing the later.
What Israel is doing to Gaza is the very definition of collective punishment. It is a war crime: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks of every year, for 16 years. And yet no one in the so-called international community seems to have noticed or cares.
Israel left Gaza in 2005. Hamas was elected by the Palestinians. What has Hamas done with the $1.5 billion in aid they've received since 2005? Did they invest in infrastructure? education? desalinization plants? industry?
No, Hamas enriched themselves and used the money to build missiles and weapons and train terrorists. Rather than teaching their children how to live in peace, they taught them to kill Jews.
Had they acted like civilized people, Israel would have welcomed them as neighbors. Instead, both Israel and Egypt had to secure the borders knowing that this dangerous group of lunatics would use any opportunity to do what they finally accomplished last Saturday.
So here we are. Israel must destroy Hamas not only for its own security but to free the Palestinian civilians who voted these murderers into power.
“Oh how fond they are of the book of Esther, which is so beautifully attuned to their bloodthirsty, vengeful, murderous yearning and hope.” — Martin Luther . . .
“Oh how fond they are of the book of Esther, which is so beautifully attuned to their bloodthirsty, vengeful, murderous yearning and hope.” — Martin Luther
It would be nice if people could put aside their differences. Jordan did after the 1967 war. Egypt after the 1973 war. Hamas remains steadfast in their commitment to Israel's destruction and will never give an inch. Hamas is the elected government since 2006 and as such the people of Gaza fairly or unfairly bear responsibility for Hamas's actions. It is Hamas not Israel whom they should be appealing to ease their suffering. Starting with releasing the hostages and making their abundant fuel supply available for civilian purposes.
“Oh how fond they are of the book of Esther, which is so beautifully attuned to their bloodthirsty, vengeful, murderous yearning and hope.” — Martin Luther
No matter how unpalatable it is for some people, it has to be remembered that Israel IS a terrorist State and everything which had happened since the Zionist terrorists established their State is a consequence of that fact. Zionism is now so embedded in the USA and other countries such as the UK, that their leaders have literally sanctioned committing of war crimes by Israel and are therefore complicit in those crimes.
I think you're mixing up "US and UK leaders sanctioning Israeli war crimes" with "Peter Beinart and his comments sectioning sanctioning Palestinian war crimes." I don't know if you're aware of this, but Palestine committed hundreds of war crimes on 10/7.
What YOU are mixing up is actions and consequences. If you don't accept the root cause of a problem, you will NEVER find a solution. What's more you will forever have to accept the consequences.
So let me get this right. If Israel bombs Hamas targets in Gaza, it is recklessly endangering civilian life. But if it gives civilians fair warning to move away from certain areas, it is engaging in ethnic cleansing. If it drops bombs in built-up suburbs, it is committing a war crime. But if it advises civilians to leave those built-up suburbs before the bombs come, it is also committing a war crime. If it attacks northern Gaza, that’s genocide. Yet when it tells the civilians of northern Gaza to leave first, that’s ‘forced transfer’, which is to say: genocide.
Everything Israel does is a war crime. Everything. Killing civilians – war crime. Trying not to kill civilians – war crime. Bombing populated areas – war crime. Giving a population time to leave before dropping bombs – war crime. The surrealism of these screams of ‘genocide!’ every time an Israeli soldier so much as picks up his gun was brought home by two headlines in the Independent last week, published just 10 hours apart. Israel is engaged in ‘collective punishment in Gaza’, claimed the first. ‘Israel accused of “trying to ethnically cleanse Gaza Strip” as one million ordered to evacuate’, said the second.
Got that, Israel? ‘Punish’ Palestinians and you’re a criminal. Do everything in your power to avoid ‘punishing’ Palestinians and you’re still a criminal. I’m starting to wish the Israel-haters would just say what they mean with their entire chest: ‘Let yourselves be killed, Jews. Don’t fight back. Don’t do anything at all.’
That's pretty much it. The Christian world doesn't want to be called to account for having created this situation through antisemitism and colonialism, but does want to be comfortable in not having scenes of brutality and death splashed across its screens. To get there, they would like Israel to be a gentle, self-sacrificing lamb, virtuous in its self-sacrifice -- you know, like Mary, or powerless women everywhere -- and then they can tut at what a shame it is that there's a pogrom now and then. But then find that annoying enough that they decide the Jews must've done something to provoke it.
Which is why I think Israel should no more pay attention to the Christian West's morally bankrupt moralizing than women should cater to men's desire for them to shut up and make babies and sandwiches.
“Oh how fond they are of the book of Esther, which is so beautifully attuned to their bloodthirsty, vengeful, murderous yearning and hope.” — Martin Luther
Peter, once again your unbelievable hypocrisy and double standards come shining through. You spend this entire essay pointing fingers at "major American Jewish organizations" and asking them where their "red line" is, but what you should be talking about if you were intellectually honest is where YOUR "red line" is.
No one would know it from reading your Substack, but two weeks ago, the government of Gaza invaded Israel and indiscriminately butchered, raped, burned, slaughtered, and kidnapped over 1200 people, including Arabs, Americans, Brits, and many, many children, to the riotous cheers of its nation. Isn't that a bit of a moral failure? A bit larger of an issue than a Palestinian propagandist being kicked out of his home and an MK being suspended?
So after 10/7, Peter, have you stopped supporting Palestine? Do you no longer believe that Palestinians should have rights? Do you not longer stand with Palestinians? Of course not. Even after their government has committed unspeakable war crimes and the people cheered it, you still stand with them.
So what's YOUR red line, Peter? What is something YOU'RE not willing to accept? Answer that, and maybe then you can be in a position to judge others.
You are confused. Peter has expressed scathing rebukes of Hamas and their barbaric terrorist attack. His heart wrenching pain and empathy towards the Israeli people is clearly evident to those who understand Peter’s deep connection to his Jewish faith and to the state of Israel. But his red line applies to all of humanity, not just to the Jewish people. He does not accept the slaughter, oppression or expulsion of any innocent civilians by anyone. So, OBVIOUSLY, he is painfully aware that Hamas has crossed his red line!! He is simply expressing his belief that Hamas’s devastating war crimes should not be avenged with Israeli war crimes. You are the hypocrite if you think otherwise.
Peter's last article was 3,000 words justifying and defending 10/7. He compared Hamas to the ANC, oppressed African Americans in the US, and Ukrainians. He literally said "You can’t blame them." That's not a "scathing rebuke."
Where in the piece above does Peter say he has a red line and Hamas has crossed it? Quote the relevant section. You won't be able to find it, because he never says anything of the kind.
I can only assume that your long-held anger towards Peter Beinart’s concern about Israel’s human right’s violations interfered with your ability to comprehend his last article. Here are a few quotes from that article that are clearly a scathing rebuke of Hamas’s horrific acts:
“Historically, geographically and morally, the A.N.C. of 1988 is a universe away from the Hamas of 2023, so remote that its behavior may seem irrelevant to the horror that Hamas unleashed last weekend in southern Israel.”
“In Israel today, the dynamic is almost exactly the opposite. Hamas, whose authoritarian, theocratic ideology could not be farther from the A.N.C.’s, has committed an unspeakable horror that may damage the Palestinian cause for decades to come.”
“The savagery Hamas committed on Oct. 7 has made reversing this monstrous cycle much harder. It could take a generation. It will require a shared commitment to ending Palestinian oppression in ways that respect the infinite value of every human life. It will require Palestinians to forcefully oppose attacks on Jewish civilians, and Jews to support Palestinians when they resist oppression in humane ways — even though Palestinians and Jews who take such steps will risk making themselves pariahs among their own people.”
He even added a strong rebuke of those on the far left in this country who have the views that you are accusing Peter of having:
“The failure of Hamas and its American defenders to recognize that will make it much harder for Jews and Palestinians to resist together in ethical ways. Before last Saturday, it was possible, with some imagination, to envision a joint Palestinian-Jewish struggle for the mutual liberation of both peoples. There were glimmers in the protest movement against Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul, through which more and more Israeli Jews grasped a connection between the denial of rights to Palestinians and the assault on their own...
...That potential alliance has now been gravely damaged. There are many Jews willing to join Palestinians in a movement to end apartheid, even if doing so alienates us from our communities, and in some cases, our families. But we will not lock arms with people who cheer the kidnapping or murder of a Jewish child.”
Peter has consistently supported nonviolent resistance NOT violent retribution of any kind. Perhaps you should reread his last article without your preconceived notions of what Peter believes and what he doesn’t!
Joanne, although he uses strong language about Hamas actions he still makes it clear the ultimate victims of the 10/7 attack was the Palestinians. That isn’t good enough. Not this time.
Read the comment above. Is it your belief that the decades of oppression of the Palestinian people has absolutely nothing to do with what happened on October 7th?
He makes it clear that both the Israelis and the Palestinians are victims; he certainly doesn’t believe that the Israelis deserve what Hamas did to innocent Israelis. He just also doesn’t think the Palestinian people deserve to be indefinitely denied their freedom. I realize it can be difficult for people to hold both those feelings at once. After all, vengeance is a powerful emotion to control.
Here’s a question for you: Do you think that the vicious rage that exploded from Hamas has nothing to do with decades upon decades of oppression, or do you believe that the Palestinian people are simply animals by nature, and therefore deserve to be deprived of their freedom? You are mistaking an explanation for their horrific behavior with an excuse; it is not! Nothing excuses such terrorism. The history of oppression of the Jews and the Holocaust are also an explanation for their excessive and cruel oppression of the Palestinians. But it, too, is not an acceptable excuse.
Beinart literally says Hamas are blameless. So although he may not explicitly SAY that Israelis deserve it, that is the clear implication of his words.
As for your question: it’s neither. The Palestinian leadership, both parties, have indoctrinated their people into a death cult wherein dying in the service of killing Jewish people is the highest honor one could ask for. Palestine could end the so called “oppression” at any time, by negotiating a peace treaty with Israel or accepting any of the offers they’ve received in the past. They refuse to do so because they don’t want peace. It’s that simple. How do you find THAT explanation?
You suggest that American Jewish leaders have no red lines in their blind fury to exact retribution and join Israel on whatever path it takes. That is simply a bad and false thing to suggest. My Word! When a killer is covered in armor made of living babies and begins to kill everyone he sees you have a moral obligation to defend yourself even if a baby is killed. The intent is not to kill the baby but to protect your loved ones. Just war allows for the principle of double effect. Stop saying things you know to be false and honestly just downright mean. I am sorry you, unintentionally, supported Hamas. Be honest about it and now do the right thing. You too had higher hopes than you should have. The Hamas Charter does not mince words, not at all.
You have no idea what's happening, do you. You throw around phrases like "blind fury" and "retribution" because you imagine that you (not knowing anything of the history) would feel that way, like it's the freaking Crusades or something. Neither fury nor retribution are involved here. Security is.
You might want to read what I wrote. We are likely in agreement. Beinart is fundamentally self deceived by his dreams and unwillingness to simple trust that Hamas means exactly what it says. From river to the sea means kill 8 million Jews in Israel.
Yes, Israel isn't sharing the footage because of the propaganda value it has for Hamas. Here's a first hand account from a journalist who watched all the footage.
For privacy reasons and to prevent propoganda (how fucked up is it that people at pro-Hamas rallies cheer at the sight of atrocities?). But, just as there are Holocaust deniers, Israel showed this footage to journalists to document the genocide and counter the Palestinian propganda.
The atrocities that shock and stand out in my mind are the be-headings and rapes. Maybe they could show the footage to neutral experts in forensics that can attest to their numbers and veracity.
Or we can wait a year like with the death of Shireen Abu Akleh.
The American Jewish community, unlike Beinart, recognizes that if something goes wrong for Israel, it won't be them who are going to be raped and tortured to death by the democratically elected government of the Palestinian people. Like Beinart, they have no actual skin in the game. That's why, again unlike Beinart, their support for Israel is based on a desire to protect the Israeli people and their rights, and thus will not be lost if the Israeli government does one or two things that they disagree with. As his writing career has shown, Beinart doesn't have a firm grasp of morals anyway, so it's no surprise his own children recognize that his positions are very very fringe and not shared by the American Jewish community as a whole.
So you think that the inhumane authoritarian tactics used by the Netanyahu government have kept the Israelis safe? Have you not noticed that what comes along with authoritarianism is a level of incompetence, often hidden from the public until it is too late? Unlike you, I consider Peter the moral compass of the American Jewish community, of which I am a member. And unlike you, I am not ok when Jews accept the role of the oppressor. I had thought that after centuries of our own oppression, we would know that oppressing another group is unacceptable in any and all circumstances. But, alas, overwhelming fear not only makes humans do whatever will make them feel safe for the moment, regardless of the immorality of their acts—they also make decisions that make them very unsafe in the long run.
I didn't say anything about the tactics used by the Netanyahu government, so I'm not sure what the basis is for your question.
If you're an American Jew, then also like Beinart you're in no position to judge and criticize Israelis. Move to Israel, see what it's like there, and then in four or five years use your vote to move Israel in a direction you think is appropriate. Until then, maybe try waiting at least until all the bodies are buried from October 7th before you open your mouth to whine about what's "unacceptable" and what isn't.
You flippantly called Netanyahu’s authoritarian tactics simply “one or two things” that one might disagree with. That doesn’t sound like you have a problem with Netanyahu’s tactics. I visited Israel in February, and saw with my own eyes the inhumane, cruel treatment of innocent Palestinians in the West Bank. So I am quite certain it was far from “one or two things!” I learned about the governments efforts to expand settlement in land that does not belong to them. I heard about the bulldozing of Palestinian homes by the Israeli government, for no reason other than that they can. I saw settlers full of uncontrollable rage, actively terrorizing anyone who doesn’t agree that all the land between the river and the sea is theirs to grab in any way they so choose. I also saw that the mutual long-term trauma of both the Israelis and the Palestinians have made it virtually impossible for anyone to ever feel safe living in the region. I viscerally understand the fear Israelis feel and am deeply empathetic about it. My cousin has been living on a Kibbutz there for her entire adult life. I understand the long-term inherited trauma of the Holocaust (something I’ve been obsessed with my entire adult life). So my views are not a reflection of my ignorance. I just happen to believe that all people should have the right to self-determination.
Are you even aware of how hateful you sound? I happen to know Peter well and so I know that your idiotic comment: “better watch out…” is simply your own fabrication of who Peter is and what he believes.
If you know Beinart so well, you know he doesn't believe the Jewish people have the right of self-determination. The Palestinians? Yes. The Ukrainians? Absolutely. The Jews? No way, and if you think they do, you're a Jewish supremacist.
I agree, it's hateful, but that's Beinart for you.
You've been caught up in the propoganda bullshit. I'll make it easy for you: the Palestinians have rejected every opportunity to have their own country for 75 years. They refuse the 3 basics: 1) recognize Israel; 2) accept having their own demilitarized country next to Israel; 3) the only "right of return" is to a new state of Palestine, not to Israel. That's all it would take even today -- but they instead teach their children "from the river to the sea..." and "kill the Jews".
You fail to mention all of the previous attacks on Gaza, when thousands were murdered by Israeli bombs, men women and children decapitated, and Israel suffered no consequences. The hypocrisy and double standards of Israel and the International community is absolutely shameful.
I see too that you are still flogging the dead horse,
“Palestinians have rejected every opportunity to have their own country for 75 years.” I’ve debunked that myth so many times, but you still keep putting it up, you obviously believe in fiction.
As for teaching their children to kill Jews, well I already gave you a link to what Jews are teaching their children, to hate Arabs.
Richard, do you condemn Israeli atrocities and war crimes, committed against Palestinians before October 7?
Such bullshit. Hamas targets innocent civilians; Israel goes out of its way to try to not harm innocent civilians. Hamas murders people sleeping in their homes and going to a concert; Israel sends leaflets, text messages, and uses warning knock-knock bombs to give people a chance to get out of harms way before responding. There were no war crimes committed against Palestinians. And...I'd like to see the link that you are referring to showing that Jews teach their children to hate Arabs. 20% of the Israeli population is Arab and they are standing in solidarity today as Israelis against Hamas -- knowing that the citizens of Gaza are held hostage by this murderous organization. How pathetic of you that you support them and can't condemn their heinous act. Shame, shame, shame...
What Hamas did was reprehensible, what Israel is doing is equally reprehensible.
“Hannah Arendt wrote about the banality of evil; what we are witnessing now is the fever of orchestrated revenge. This revenge can only be carried out at the pitch we are witnessing when the context of subjugation, oppression, and dehumanisation already exists. The bombing of Gaza is not merely a reaction to Hamas’ abhorrent, disgusting, unforgivable violence, but a continuum of the dehumanisation of Palestinians. After Hamas’ attack, people asked “how” this could happen, given Israel’s level of surveillance. No one needed to ask “why”. Everyone knows the context.” Una Mullaly
You say Israel goes out of its way to try to not harm innocent civilians. That’s another lie. Israel is dropping bombs on innocent Palestinians as I write this, over four thousand and counting, including two thousand children. Israel is worse than Hamas ever was. Israel is holding 2.3 million Palestinians hostage in Gaza.
THIS is what you call teaching kids to hate??? "Maps in the schoolbooks only ever show “the Land of Israel” "...not a single one of the schoolbooks included “any positive cultural or social aspect of Palestinian life-world: neither literature nor poetry, neither history nor agriculture, neither art nor architecture, neither customs nor traditions are ever mentioned.”
The redline is what Hamas/IJ did to civilians in Israel is pure evil. Context doesn't change that. Your unchallenging trust in Palestinian voices is misplaced. You don't have to shill for Rashid. Funding Jewish magazines where the editor celebrates the liberatory awe of Gazans crossing the fence is unwise.
The lie that Palestinian land was largely unoccupied.
The lie that 750,000 Palestinians fled their homes and villages during their ethnic cleansing by Zionist militias in 1948 because they were told to do so by Arab leaders.
The lie that it was Arab armies that started the 1948 war that saw Israel seize 78 percent of historic Palestine.
The lie that Israel faced annihilation in 1967, forcing it to invade and occupy the remaining 22 percent of Palestine, as well as land belonging to Egypt and Syria.
Israel is sustained by lies.
The lie that Israel wants a just and equitable peace and will support a Palestinian state.
The lie that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.
The lie that Israel is an “outpost of Western civilization in a sea of barbarism.”
The lie that Israel respects the rule of law and human rights.
Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinians are always greeted with lies.
Hey Peter, why do you allow this propaganda here? It's not like he's contributing to the conversation. He doesn't even understand half the stuff he reads, like Fintan O'Toole's piece.
I'm so grateful (once again) for the moral clarity of your perspective. It can feel very lonely as an American Jew when our institutions are silent (and even hypocritical) in response to the behavior of the Israeli government.
Your words: "there obviously are SOME red lines, but mere killing of civilians is not inherently one of them." "I, and people like me, do NOT believe in the sanctity of human life, and we are not moral absolutists."
Where's the moral red line of the pro-Palestinian movement? How low can Palestine go to lose the support of their apologists? Because apparently 10/7 wasn't low enough.
I don’t think the US has ever used moral principles to guide foreign policy prescriptions. That American interventionism and regional hegemony was a “force for good” in the world was always more self-justifying marketing and foundational mythology.
However, in the past, the US could at least maintain objectivity to recognize that the now 100 year old Israel/Palestine conflict was a tragedy for both sides in which their respective past historical traumas were a trap that doomed future generations to the same fate. The US could recognize that a rational political solution, brokered by the US and international community, was the only way out of the trap. That was a matter of bipartisan political consensus.
But domestic political expediency, issue fatigue, the misgivings about the natural decline of unipolar American power, and lack of commitment to brokering realistic paths for a political solution have largely led us to this point. The cycle continues, the US is now a full participant on one-side of a futile multigenerational ethnic war over tribe and homeland, and everyone caught in the middle seems to have given into despair and extremism.
Even outside observers will give into despair. My prediction is that this new phase of the Israel-Hamas war all but guarantees Donald Trump’s re-election in the US.
Paul, I’ve been thinking the same thing about your last sentence. I do think that (if he’s not in jail), this very well might lead to trump’s reelection. Terrifying to think about.. at the same time, my own moral red line won’t let me cast another vote for Biden.. certainly not trump (I’ll go Cornell West).. but I am scared for the future.
The Trump angle is completely tangential to the discussion and feels self-indulgent for us Americans to talk about in the current context, but it’s undeniably there.
I don’t think it’s mathematically possible for a US President to demonstrate himself to be more genuinely pro-Israel and pro-Zionist than Joe Biden has done in the last two weeks.
But it won’t be enough as this new phase unfolds in the next 6-9 months and Palestinian civilian deaths go to 10, 20, 30,000. That will split the Democratic Party.
Meanwhile Anti-Arab / anti-Muslim animus and bigotry has always been a far more primary driver of pro-Israel support on the American right than any sincere philo-Semitism. So whatever meager gestures of humanitarianism to the Palestinians suggested by the Biden Administration will be used as a cudgel to unite the right against him for being insufficiently “pro-Israel.” That should be enough for Trump to win.
The US doesn’t seem to have one.. at least not most of our leaders. They also move that line wherever The Israeli State’s moves.. but just for them. We’re real quick to point fingers at everyone else. I find it so revealing and disheartening. I will never forget Joe Biden’s comment a few years back, “If the State of Israel didn’t exist, we’d have to invent it.” It’s not just Joe, it’s every American president in living memory. That quote (to me) flags why America does just what Peter is describing about some of the mainstream Jewish political groups as well. America’s compass moral red lines move for two places: #1 America
#2 Israel.. and that quote shows me that it’s not actually 2 exceptions.. it’s 1… America. This has always been about asserting American Imperialism in the Middle East more than it has been actually been about creating a safe haven for Jewish people. If the latter were true, The US would have held Netanyahu’s gvt accountable long ago because unfortunately, we all saw this coming.. and even today Netanyahu with US support is making Hamas ideology stronger by slaughtering innocent Palestinians. This will not make our Israeli friends safe. It will not make Americans safer.. maybe SOME will get richer, but no one will be safer. It is beyond grief to see one’s country actively be complicit in ethnic cleansing in real time.. but of course nowhere near as much as the Palestinians living it.. picking what’s left of their children’s body parts out of the rubble. Lord have mercy. America’s moral narrative it likes to tell itself is a lie.
Blame Hamas, not Israel. Israel is responding to a genocide and trying to rid not only Israeli citizens but Palestinian citizens of the horror of Hamas. A war crime is committed every time Hamas puts its missile launchers on the tops of apartment buildings or its weapons caches under mosques and hospitals. A war crime is committed when Israel warns Palestinian citizens to get out of harms way and Hamas threatens its citizens to not leave. Here's the difference: Hamas is seeking to kill civilians; Israel is trying to avoid harming civilians. Get it???
I’ve noticed lately that you have taken to calling other commenters on this blog, vile names. That’s what apologist’s for Israel’s war crimes do when they have lost the argument.
It’s when confronted with facts and you ignore them and press on with your nonsense, and even in the face of the worst atrocities seen since the Holocaust, you don’t have the decency to condemn them, that you have revealed yourself. At least you’re transparent, unlike Beinart who is a useful idiot for the antisemites.
Thank you for this, Peter.
I urge you to create accounts on Instagram and TikTok to share your important work to a wider audience. Or at least, can we have permission to make excerpts we share ourselves?
Also can I suggest you put all the housekeeping announcements at the end of the video (or in text below) rather than the beginning. Those announcements are for people already in the community, but they’re a barrier to growth. I’m about to share this entry to someone not familiar with you and will advise them to skip to 1:14 and hope they do so.
Peter, is it crossing a red line to machine gun to death young people attending a concert? Is it crossing a red line entering people’s homes and murdering children in front of their parents? Is it crossing a red line to cut off the heads of babies? Is it crossing a red line to kidnap 240 people?
Most importantly for you and Palestinian sympathizers to think about, is it crossing a line for Hamas to intentionally harm their own civilians by basing their operations and missile launches in schools, mosques, hospitals and apartment buildings and then telling citizens not to leave when Israel gives them warning to do so?
Where is your outrage over the true perpetrators of atrocities???
Oh, no, no, no, Richard. Peter doesn't have red lines for himself. His beloved Palestine can slaughter babies in their cradles and he'll be as pro-Palestine as ever. But he demands other people and groups have red lines. Morals are for other people, not him.
He makes it very very clear that this is something he condemns.
Maybe he condemns it, maybe he doesn't. Either way, it doesn't seem to be a red line for him, as he never says what he considers to be a red line nor has he renounced his support for Palestine.
"Because people are going to resist oppression. You can’t blame them. That’s just what human beings do."
Beinart said: "...we were saying, you know, we remember what happened during Gilad Shalit when it was one Israeli who was in, you know, captured in Gaza and, you know, how focused everyone was. And to think about 200 captive is like, it like overwhelms the senses, you know, to go from thinking about if it was one person, everybody would have that person’s name on their lips. But when it’s 200, it like overloads the senses. And there’s so much agony and grief and such a deep, deep desire for solidarity from Israeli Jews towards Jews and others around the world..."
He also said, re: someone who justifies the murder of civilians BY HAMAS: "... it seems to me one of the things that’s so frightening about not having a red line at saying that it’s wrong to take civilian life is if it’s okay to go door-to-door, as Hamas did, and take civilian lives in southern Israel, then why is it wrong to launch chemical weapons or some other weapon of mass destruction that would kill, could kill large numbers of civilians indiscriminately? It’s that refusal to set a moral red line in some parts of the pro-Palestinian left—not all by any means, but some—that really frightens me." Isn't that a clear condemnation?
Julie, you read the same article I did. Nowhere in it does Peter say what his red line is. He's the one refusing to set a moral red line.
Did you read his previous article? Because here's the link. https://peterbeinart.substack.com/p/what-i-still-believe-even-after-october
He spends paragraph after paragraph justifying 10/7 and caps it off with "Because people are going to resist oppression. You can’t blame them. That’s just what human beings do."
At best, he's going back and forth between condemning 10/7 and justifying it. And spending way more time and energy doing the later.
As I read it, the red line is the killing of civilians. I will look at the previious article.
What Israel is doing to Gaza is the very definition of collective punishment. It is a war crime: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks of every year, for 16 years. And yet no one in the so-called international community seems to have noticed or cares.
Israel left Gaza in 2005. Hamas was elected by the Palestinians. What has Hamas done with the $1.5 billion in aid they've received since 2005? Did they invest in infrastructure? education? desalinization plants? industry?
No, Hamas enriched themselves and used the money to build missiles and weapons and train terrorists. Rather than teaching their children how to live in peace, they taught them to kill Jews.
Had they acted like civilized people, Israel would have welcomed them as neighbors. Instead, both Israel and Egypt had to secure the borders knowing that this dangerous group of lunatics would use any opportunity to do what they finally accomplished last Saturday.
So here we are. Israel must destroy Hamas not only for its own security but to free the Palestinian civilians who voted these murderers into power.
“Oh how fond they are of the book of Esther, which is so beautifully attuned to their bloodthirsty, vengeful, murderous yearning and hope.” — Martin Luther . . .
https://cwspangle.substack.com/p/oh-how-fond-they-are-of-the-book
Whataboutery.
Says the safe non-Jew whose own culture is riven with antisemitism.
“Oh how fond they are of the book of Esther, which is so beautifully attuned to their bloodthirsty, vengeful, murderous yearning and hope.” — Martin Luther
. . . https://cwspangle.substack.com/p/oh-how-fond-they-are-of-the-book
It would be nice if people could put aside their differences. Jordan did after the 1967 war. Egypt after the 1973 war. Hamas remains steadfast in their commitment to Israel's destruction and will never give an inch. Hamas is the elected government since 2006 and as such the people of Gaza fairly or unfairly bear responsibility for Hamas's actions. It is Hamas not Israel whom they should be appealing to ease their suffering. Starting with releasing the hostages and making their abundant fuel supply available for civilian purposes.
I am with you 100%, Peter. Thank you for your heartfelt and intelligent plea for unity and humanity.
“Oh how fond they are of the book of Esther, which is so beautifully attuned to their bloodthirsty, vengeful, murderous yearning and hope.” — Martin Luther
. . . https://cwspangle.substack.com/p/oh-how-fond-they-are-of-the-book
No matter how unpalatable it is for some people, it has to be remembered that Israel IS a terrorist State and everything which had happened since the Zionist terrorists established their State is a consequence of that fact. Zionism is now so embedded in the USA and other countries such as the UK, that their leaders have literally sanctioned committing of war crimes by Israel and are therefore complicit in those crimes.
I think you're mixing up "US and UK leaders sanctioning Israeli war crimes" with "Peter Beinart and his comments sectioning sanctioning Palestinian war crimes." I don't know if you're aware of this, but Palestine committed hundreds of war crimes on 10/7.
What YOU are mixing up is actions and consequences. If you don't accept the root cause of a problem, you will NEVER find a solution. What's more you will forever have to accept the consequences.
Interesting defense of Palestinian war crimes, but I've heard better.
Israel is run by Zionist gangsters who have been committing war crimes for more than 75 years.
Whataboutery
Says the ostrich 🙂
And your solution is ... ?
You’re a cretin.
🙂🙂🙂
So let me get this right. If Israel bombs Hamas targets in Gaza, it is recklessly endangering civilian life. But if it gives civilians fair warning to move away from certain areas, it is engaging in ethnic cleansing. If it drops bombs in built-up suburbs, it is committing a war crime. But if it advises civilians to leave those built-up suburbs before the bombs come, it is also committing a war crime. If it attacks northern Gaza, that’s genocide. Yet when it tells the civilians of northern Gaza to leave first, that’s ‘forced transfer’, which is to say: genocide.
Everything Israel does is a war crime. Everything. Killing civilians – war crime. Trying not to kill civilians – war crime. Bombing populated areas – war crime. Giving a population time to leave before dropping bombs – war crime. The surrealism of these screams of ‘genocide!’ every time an Israeli soldier so much as picks up his gun was brought home by two headlines in the Independent last week, published just 10 hours apart. Israel is engaged in ‘collective punishment in Gaza’, claimed the first. ‘Israel accused of “trying to ethnically cleanse Gaza Strip” as one million ordered to evacuate’, said the second.
Got that, Israel? ‘Punish’ Palestinians and you’re a criminal. Do everything in your power to avoid ‘punishing’ Palestinians and you’re still a criminal. I’m starting to wish the Israel-haters would just say what they mean with their entire chest: ‘Let yourselves be killed, Jews. Don’t fight back. Don’t do anything at all.’
That's pretty much it. The Christian world doesn't want to be called to account for having created this situation through antisemitism and colonialism, but does want to be comfortable in not having scenes of brutality and death splashed across its screens. To get there, they would like Israel to be a gentle, self-sacrificing lamb, virtuous in its self-sacrifice -- you know, like Mary, or powerless women everywhere -- and then they can tut at what a shame it is that there's a pogrom now and then. But then find that annoying enough that they decide the Jews must've done something to provoke it.
Which is why I think Israel should no more pay attention to the Christian West's morally bankrupt moralizing than women should cater to men's desire for them to shut up and make babies and sandwiches.
“Oh how fond they are of the book of Esther, which is so beautifully attuned to their bloodthirsty, vengeful, murderous yearning and hope.” — Martin Luther
. . . https://cwspangle.substack.com/p/oh-how-fond-they-are-of-the-book
Peter, once again your unbelievable hypocrisy and double standards come shining through. You spend this entire essay pointing fingers at "major American Jewish organizations" and asking them where their "red line" is, but what you should be talking about if you were intellectually honest is where YOUR "red line" is.
No one would know it from reading your Substack, but two weeks ago, the government of Gaza invaded Israel and indiscriminately butchered, raped, burned, slaughtered, and kidnapped over 1200 people, including Arabs, Americans, Brits, and many, many children, to the riotous cheers of its nation. Isn't that a bit of a moral failure? A bit larger of an issue than a Palestinian propagandist being kicked out of his home and an MK being suspended?
So after 10/7, Peter, have you stopped supporting Palestine? Do you no longer believe that Palestinians should have rights? Do you not longer stand with Palestinians? Of course not. Even after their government has committed unspeakable war crimes and the people cheered it, you still stand with them.
So what's YOUR red line, Peter? What is something YOU'RE not willing to accept? Answer that, and maybe then you can be in a position to judge others.
You are confused. Peter has expressed scathing rebukes of Hamas and their barbaric terrorist attack. His heart wrenching pain and empathy towards the Israeli people is clearly evident to those who understand Peter’s deep connection to his Jewish faith and to the state of Israel. But his red line applies to all of humanity, not just to the Jewish people. He does not accept the slaughter, oppression or expulsion of any innocent civilians by anyone. So, OBVIOUSLY, he is painfully aware that Hamas has crossed his red line!! He is simply expressing his belief that Hamas’s devastating war crimes should not be avenged with Israeli war crimes. You are the hypocrite if you think otherwise.
Peter's last article was 3,000 words justifying and defending 10/7. He compared Hamas to the ANC, oppressed African Americans in the US, and Ukrainians. He literally said "You can’t blame them." That's not a "scathing rebuke."
Where in the piece above does Peter say he has a red line and Hamas has crossed it? Quote the relevant section. You won't be able to find it, because he never says anything of the kind.
I can only assume that your long-held anger towards Peter Beinart’s concern about Israel’s human right’s violations interfered with your ability to comprehend his last article. Here are a few quotes from that article that are clearly a scathing rebuke of Hamas’s horrific acts:
“Historically, geographically and morally, the A.N.C. of 1988 is a universe away from the Hamas of 2023, so remote that its behavior may seem irrelevant to the horror that Hamas unleashed last weekend in southern Israel.”
“In Israel today, the dynamic is almost exactly the opposite. Hamas, whose authoritarian, theocratic ideology could not be farther from the A.N.C.’s, has committed an unspeakable horror that may damage the Palestinian cause for decades to come.”
“The savagery Hamas committed on Oct. 7 has made reversing this monstrous cycle much harder. It could take a generation. It will require a shared commitment to ending Palestinian oppression in ways that respect the infinite value of every human life. It will require Palestinians to forcefully oppose attacks on Jewish civilians, and Jews to support Palestinians when they resist oppression in humane ways — even though Palestinians and Jews who take such steps will risk making themselves pariahs among their own people.”
He even added a strong rebuke of those on the far left in this country who have the views that you are accusing Peter of having:
“The failure of Hamas and its American defenders to recognize that will make it much harder for Jews and Palestinians to resist together in ethical ways. Before last Saturday, it was possible, with some imagination, to envision a joint Palestinian-Jewish struggle for the mutual liberation of both peoples. There were glimmers in the protest movement against Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul, through which more and more Israeli Jews grasped a connection between the denial of rights to Palestinians and the assault on their own...
...That potential alliance has now been gravely damaged. There are many Jews willing to join Palestinians in a movement to end apartheid, even if doing so alienates us from our communities, and in some cases, our families. But we will not lock arms with people who cheer the kidnapping or murder of a Jewish child.”
Peter has consistently supported nonviolent resistance NOT violent retribution of any kind. Perhaps you should reread his last article without your preconceived notions of what Peter believes and what he doesn’t!
Where in the piece above does Peter say he has a red line and Hamas has crossed it? Quote the relevant section
Joanne, although he uses strong language about Hamas actions he still makes it clear the ultimate victims of the 10/7 attack was the Palestinians. That isn’t good enough. Not this time.
He uses strong language, but even within the NY Times piece, he makes it clear that Hamas' war crimes are Israel's fault and Israel's creation.
Read the comment above. Is it your belief that the decades of oppression of the Palestinian people has absolutely nothing to do with what happened on October 7th?
He makes it clear that both the Israelis and the Palestinians are victims; he certainly doesn’t believe that the Israelis deserve what Hamas did to innocent Israelis. He just also doesn’t think the Palestinian people deserve to be indefinitely denied their freedom. I realize it can be difficult for people to hold both those feelings at once. After all, vengeance is a powerful emotion to control.
Here’s a question for you: Do you think that the vicious rage that exploded from Hamas has nothing to do with decades upon decades of oppression, or do you believe that the Palestinian people are simply animals by nature, and therefore deserve to be deprived of their freedom? You are mistaking an explanation for their horrific behavior with an excuse; it is not! Nothing excuses such terrorism. The history of oppression of the Jews and the Holocaust are also an explanation for their excessive and cruel oppression of the Palestinians. But it, too, is not an acceptable excuse.
Beinart literally says Hamas are blameless. So although he may not explicitly SAY that Israelis deserve it, that is the clear implication of his words.
As for your question: it’s neither. The Palestinian leadership, both parties, have indoctrinated their people into a death cult wherein dying in the service of killing Jewish people is the highest honor one could ask for. Palestine could end the so called “oppression” at any time, by negotiating a peace treaty with Israel or accepting any of the offers they’ve received in the past. They refuse to do so because they don’t want peace. It’s that simple. How do you find THAT explanation?
100% correct! 😡
You suggest that American Jewish leaders have no red lines in their blind fury to exact retribution and join Israel on whatever path it takes. That is simply a bad and false thing to suggest. My Word! When a killer is covered in armor made of living babies and begins to kill everyone he sees you have a moral obligation to defend yourself even if a baby is killed. The intent is not to kill the baby but to protect your loved ones. Just war allows for the principle of double effect. Stop saying things you know to be false and honestly just downright mean. I am sorry you, unintentionally, supported Hamas. Be honest about it and now do the right thing. You too had higher hopes than you should have. The Hamas Charter does not mince words, not at all.
You have no idea what's happening, do you. You throw around phrases like "blind fury" and "retribution" because you imagine that you (not knowing anything of the history) would feel that way, like it's the freaking Crusades or something. Neither fury nor retribution are involved here. Security is.
You might want to read what I wrote. We are likely in agreement. Beinart is fundamentally self deceived by his dreams and unwillingness to simple trust that Hamas means exactly what it says. From river to the sea means kill 8 million Jews in Israel.
IDF shows foreign press raw Hamas bodycam videos of murder, torture, decapitation:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-shows-foreign-press-raw-hamas-bodycam-videos-of-murder-torture-decapitation/
The only footage shown here is of the killing of a civilian driver. There is no footage shown of any torture or decapitation.
Yes, Israel isn't sharing the footage because of the propaganda value it has for Hamas. Here's a first hand account from a journalist who watched all the footage.
https://twitter.com/mrconfino/status/1716426427455655964
For privacy reasons and to prevent propoganda (how fucked up is it that people at pro-Hamas rallies cheer at the sight of atrocities?). But, just as there are Holocaust deniers, Israel showed this footage to journalists to document the genocide and counter the Palestinian propganda.
The atrocities that shock and stand out in my mind are the be-headings and rapes. Maybe they could show the footage to neutral experts in forensics that can attest to their numbers and veracity.
Or we can wait a year like with the death of Shireen Abu Akleh.
The American Jewish community, unlike Beinart, recognizes that if something goes wrong for Israel, it won't be them who are going to be raped and tortured to death by the democratically elected government of the Palestinian people. Like Beinart, they have no actual skin in the game. That's why, again unlike Beinart, their support for Israel is based on a desire to protect the Israeli people and their rights, and thus will not be lost if the Israeli government does one or two things that they disagree with. As his writing career has shown, Beinart doesn't have a firm grasp of morals anyway, so it's no surprise his own children recognize that his positions are very very fringe and not shared by the American Jewish community as a whole.
So you think that the inhumane authoritarian tactics used by the Netanyahu government have kept the Israelis safe? Have you not noticed that what comes along with authoritarianism is a level of incompetence, often hidden from the public until it is too late? Unlike you, I consider Peter the moral compass of the American Jewish community, of which I am a member. And unlike you, I am not ok when Jews accept the role of the oppressor. I had thought that after centuries of our own oppression, we would know that oppressing another group is unacceptable in any and all circumstances. But, alas, overwhelming fear not only makes humans do whatever will make them feel safe for the moment, regardless of the immorality of their acts—they also make decisions that make them very unsafe in the long run.
I didn't say anything about the tactics used by the Netanyahu government, so I'm not sure what the basis is for your question.
If you're an American Jew, then also like Beinart you're in no position to judge and criticize Israelis. Move to Israel, see what it's like there, and then in four or five years use your vote to move Israel in a direction you think is appropriate. Until then, maybe try waiting at least until all the bodies are buried from October 7th before you open your mouth to whine about what's "unacceptable" and what isn't.
You flippantly called Netanyahu’s authoritarian tactics simply “one or two things” that one might disagree with. That doesn’t sound like you have a problem with Netanyahu’s tactics. I visited Israel in February, and saw with my own eyes the inhumane, cruel treatment of innocent Palestinians in the West Bank. So I am quite certain it was far from “one or two things!” I learned about the governments efforts to expand settlement in land that does not belong to them. I heard about the bulldozing of Palestinian homes by the Israeli government, for no reason other than that they can. I saw settlers full of uncontrollable rage, actively terrorizing anyone who doesn’t agree that all the land between the river and the sea is theirs to grab in any way they so choose. I also saw that the mutual long-term trauma of both the Israelis and the Palestinians have made it virtually impossible for anyone to ever feel safe living in the region. I viscerally understand the fear Israelis feel and am deeply empathetic about it. My cousin has been living on a Kibbutz there for her entire adult life. I understand the long-term inherited trauma of the Holocaust (something I’ve been obsessed with my entire adult life). So my views are not a reflection of my ignorance. I just happen to believe that all people should have the right to self-determination.
No, I called the incidents Beinart whined about in his article 'one or two things'.
"I just happen to believe that all people should have the right to self-determination."
All people? Even the Jewish people? Better watch out then, Beinart and his ilk are going to call you a colonizer and a Jewish supremacist.
Are you even aware of how hateful you sound? I happen to know Peter well and so I know that your idiotic comment: “better watch out…” is simply your own fabrication of who Peter is and what he believes.
Joanne, if you know Peter well, can you ask him what his moral red line is? He doesn't say in the article.
If you know Beinart so well, you know he doesn't believe the Jewish people have the right of self-determination. The Palestinians? Yes. The Ukrainians? Absolutely. The Jews? No way, and if you think they do, you're a Jewish supremacist.
I agree, it's hateful, but that's Beinart for you.
You've been caught up in the propoganda bullshit. I'll make it easy for you: the Palestinians have rejected every opportunity to have their own country for 75 years. They refuse the 3 basics: 1) recognize Israel; 2) accept having their own demilitarized country next to Israel; 3) the only "right of return" is to a new state of Palestine, not to Israel. That's all it would take even today -- but they instead teach their children "from the river to the sea..." and "kill the Jews".
You fail to mention all of the previous attacks on Gaza, when thousands were murdered by Israeli bombs, men women and children decapitated, and Israel suffered no consequences. The hypocrisy and double standards of Israel and the International community is absolutely shameful.
I see too that you are still flogging the dead horse,
“Palestinians have rejected every opportunity to have their own country for 75 years.” I’ve debunked that myth so many times, but you still keep putting it up, you obviously believe in fiction.
As for teaching their children to kill Jews, well I already gave you a link to what Jews are teaching their children, to hate Arabs.
Richard, do you condemn Israeli atrocities and war crimes, committed against Palestinians before October 7?
Such bullshit. Hamas targets innocent civilians; Israel goes out of its way to try to not harm innocent civilians. Hamas murders people sleeping in their homes and going to a concert; Israel sends leaflets, text messages, and uses warning knock-knock bombs to give people a chance to get out of harms way before responding. There were no war crimes committed against Palestinians. And...I'd like to see the link that you are referring to showing that Jews teach their children to hate Arabs. 20% of the Israeli population is Arab and they are standing in solidarity today as Israelis against Hamas -- knowing that the citizens of Gaza are held hostage by this murderous organization. How pathetic of you that you support them and can't condemn their heinous act. Shame, shame, shame...
From last weeks Article by Peter.
What Hamas did was reprehensible, what Israel is doing is equally reprehensible.
“Hannah Arendt wrote about the banality of evil; what we are witnessing now is the fever of orchestrated revenge. This revenge can only be carried out at the pitch we are witnessing when the context of subjugation, oppression, and dehumanisation already exists. The bombing of Gaza is not merely a reaction to Hamas’ abhorrent, disgusting, unforgivable violence, but a continuum of the dehumanisation of Palestinians. After Hamas’ attack, people asked “how” this could happen, given Israel’s level of surveillance. No one needed to ask “why”. Everyone knows the context.” Una Mullaly
You say Israel goes out of its way to try to not harm innocent civilians. That’s another lie. Israel is dropping bombs on innocent Palestinians as I write this, over four thousand and counting, including two thousand children. Israel is worse than Hamas ever was. Israel is holding 2.3 million Palestinians hostage in Gaza.
That’s your proof statement? Quoting Peter Beinart and one of his selected biased writers? How about addressing the points I raised. Able to do that?
THIS is what you call teaching kids to hate??? "Maps in the schoolbooks only ever show “the Land of Israel” "...not a single one of the schoolbooks included “any positive cultural or social aspect of Palestinian life-world: neither literature nor poetry, neither history nor agriculture, neither art nor architecture, neither customs nor traditions are ever mentioned.”
Meanwhile, https://www.timesofisrael.com/eu-parliament-slams-hateful-palestinian-textbooks-threatens-funding-freeze/
The redline is what Hamas/IJ did to civilians in Israel is pure evil. Context doesn't change that. Your unchallenging trust in Palestinian voices is misplaced. You don't have to shill for Rashid. Funding Jewish magazines where the editor celebrates the liberatory awe of Gazans crossing the fence is unwise.
Israel was founded on lies.
The lie that Palestinian land was largely unoccupied.
The lie that 750,000 Palestinians fled their homes and villages during their ethnic cleansing by Zionist militias in 1948 because they were told to do so by Arab leaders.
The lie that it was Arab armies that started the 1948 war that saw Israel seize 78 percent of historic Palestine.
The lie that Israel faced annihilation in 1967, forcing it to invade and occupy the remaining 22 percent of Palestine, as well as land belonging to Egypt and Syria.
Israel is sustained by lies.
The lie that Israel wants a just and equitable peace and will support a Palestinian state.
The lie that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.
The lie that Israel is an “outpost of Western civilization in a sea of barbarism.”
The lie that Israel respects the rule of law and human rights.
Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinians are always greeted with lies.
Anti-Israel quote spam. Anything on topic to say, Sean? What's your red line that if Palestine crosses, you'll stop shilling for it?
You haven’t debunked any of the lies, I’ll wait till you do.
I'll debunk anything you'd like, just answer my question first. What's your red line that if Palestine crosses, you'll stop shilling for it?
lololololol.
Hey Peter, why do you allow this propaganda here? It's not like he's contributing to the conversation. He doesn't even understand half the stuff he reads, like Fintan O'Toole's piece.
Get lost, you've passed your sell by date.
Listen in peace to The forgotten history of Arab Jews | Avi Shlaim |
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfDhaWlqXf8
Avi Shlaim one of my favourite persons. Thanks
Where is your demand getting an echo from the other side ?
I'm so grateful (once again) for the moral clarity of your perspective. It can feel very lonely as an American Jew when our institutions are silent (and even hypocritical) in response to the behavior of the Israeli government.
Your words: "there obviously are SOME red lines, but mere killing of civilians is not inherently one of them." "I, and people like me, do NOT believe in the sanctity of human life, and we are not moral absolutists."
What about the moral red line of the US government? Where is that?
Where's the moral red line of the pro-Palestinian movement? How low can Palestine go to lose the support of their apologists? Because apparently 10/7 wasn't low enough.
I don’t think the US has ever used moral principles to guide foreign policy prescriptions. That American interventionism and regional hegemony was a “force for good” in the world was always more self-justifying marketing and foundational mythology.
However, in the past, the US could at least maintain objectivity to recognize that the now 100 year old Israel/Palestine conflict was a tragedy for both sides in which their respective past historical traumas were a trap that doomed future generations to the same fate. The US could recognize that a rational political solution, brokered by the US and international community, was the only way out of the trap. That was a matter of bipartisan political consensus.
But domestic political expediency, issue fatigue, the misgivings about the natural decline of unipolar American power, and lack of commitment to brokering realistic paths for a political solution have largely led us to this point. The cycle continues, the US is now a full participant on one-side of a futile multigenerational ethnic war over tribe and homeland, and everyone caught in the middle seems to have given into despair and extremism.
Even outside observers will give into despair. My prediction is that this new phase of the Israel-Hamas war all but guarantees Donald Trump’s re-election in the US.
Paul, I’ve been thinking the same thing about your last sentence. I do think that (if he’s not in jail), this very well might lead to trump’s reelection. Terrifying to think about.. at the same time, my own moral red line won’t let me cast another vote for Biden.. certainly not trump (I’ll go Cornell West).. but I am scared for the future.
The Trump angle is completely tangential to the discussion and feels self-indulgent for us Americans to talk about in the current context, but it’s undeniably there.
I don’t think it’s mathematically possible for a US President to demonstrate himself to be more genuinely pro-Israel and pro-Zionist than Joe Biden has done in the last two weeks.
But it won’t be enough as this new phase unfolds in the next 6-9 months and Palestinian civilian deaths go to 10, 20, 30,000. That will split the Democratic Party.
Meanwhile Anti-Arab / anti-Muslim animus and bigotry has always been a far more primary driver of pro-Israel support on the American right than any sincere philo-Semitism. So whatever meager gestures of humanitarianism to the Palestinians suggested by the Biden Administration will be used as a cudgel to unite the right against him for being insufficiently “pro-Israel.” That should be enough for Trump to win.
The US doesn’t seem to have one.. at least not most of our leaders. They also move that line wherever The Israeli State’s moves.. but just for them. We’re real quick to point fingers at everyone else. I find it so revealing and disheartening. I will never forget Joe Biden’s comment a few years back, “If the State of Israel didn’t exist, we’d have to invent it.” It’s not just Joe, it’s every American president in living memory. That quote (to me) flags why America does just what Peter is describing about some of the mainstream Jewish political groups as well. America’s compass moral red lines move for two places: #1 America
#2 Israel.. and that quote shows me that it’s not actually 2 exceptions.. it’s 1… America. This has always been about asserting American Imperialism in the Middle East more than it has been actually been about creating a safe haven for Jewish people. If the latter were true, The US would have held Netanyahu’s gvt accountable long ago because unfortunately, we all saw this coming.. and even today Netanyahu with US support is making Hamas ideology stronger by slaughtering innocent Palestinians. This will not make our Israeli friends safe. It will not make Americans safer.. maybe SOME will get richer, but no one will be safer. It is beyond grief to see one’s country actively be complicit in ethnic cleansing in real time.. but of course nowhere near as much as the Palestinians living it.. picking what’s left of their children’s body parts out of the rubble. Lord have mercy. America’s moral narrative it likes to tell itself is a lie.
Blame Hamas, not Israel. Israel is responding to a genocide and trying to rid not only Israeli citizens but Palestinian citizens of the horror of Hamas. A war crime is committed every time Hamas puts its missile launchers on the tops of apartment buildings or its weapons caches under mosques and hospitals. A war crime is committed when Israel warns Palestinian citizens to get out of harms way and Hamas threatens its citizens to not leave. Here's the difference: Hamas is seeking to kill civilians; Israel is trying to avoid harming civilians. Get it???
You should know about war crimes, Israel has been committing them since 1948. Saying Israel doesn’t kill civilians is just another lie.
Sean, go away. I’ve read your comments now for months and you are nothing more than an antisemite using anti-Zionism as a proxy. Disgusting person.
I’ve noticed lately that you have taken to calling other commenters on this blog, vile names. That’s what apologist’s for Israel’s war crimes do when they have lost the argument.
Slan leat.
It’s when confronted with facts and you ignore them and press on with your nonsense, and even in the face of the worst atrocities seen since the Holocaust, you don’t have the decency to condemn them, that you have revealed yourself. At least you’re transparent, unlike Beinart who is a useful idiot for the antisemites.