If you think the debate over Israel-Palestine is grim in the United States, wait until you hear what’s happening in Germany. I was there last week for a remarkable conference called “Hijacking Memory: The Holocaust and The New Right,” which—among other things—detailed the extraordinary censorship that supporters of Palestinian rights face in Germany. The stories were so alarming that I’ve asked two of the conference organizers, Emily Dische-Becker, a writer, researcher and curator based in Berlin, and Susan Neiman, director of the
As I said then, people like Beinart are trying to thread an impossible needle. They want to be part of a movement that harasses Jews, demonizes Jews, and seeks to deprive the Jews collectively of their rights. But they also want to do it without being perceived as anti-Semitic. This cannot be done. Germany isn't fooled. Neither is anybody else.
Oh and by the way, Beinart's claim that BDS was created by Palestinians because "they want full equality" is a total lie. BDS leaders have admitted many times that the goal of BDS is to destroy Israel as a Jewish state, and even if a Palestinian state was created BDS would continue. Again, nobody is fooled by these stale talking points. Germany recognizes BDS and anti-Zionism as anti-Semitic, which they are, and Beinart's increasingly pathetic denials are not working.
Well their platform on their website -- bdsmovement.net -- clearly uses the language of calling Israel a colonialist endeavor, and calls for UN resolution 194 (right of return to Israel proper), and DO NOT clearly advocate in their marches, banners, or forums for any semblance of what Oslo Accords suggested. Come on Peter. I am a college professor and see the way Jewish students are harassed, couched in the veil of BDS and anti-Israel policies, when the slippery slope is clearly there, evident, and ruthless. I'd like to see you get a BDS leader to go on record in support of a two-state solution.
Like I said in the previous post, "pro-Palestine" activists like Peter have no one but themselves to blame if the correct equation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism and the German court ruling of BDS is "disastrous".
From day one "Palestinian rights" has been weaponized by its alleged supporters to mean "death to Israel." The phrase "Pro-Palestinian" has long been conflated with the bigoted assertions that Jewish rights are racism, that Jews have no right to statehood or self-determination, that Jews are "imperialists" and "colonizers" in their own homeland, that Jewish history is a lie, and that any peace with Israel is "normalization" and a betrayal of the Palestinian people. Equating anti-Zionism and Palestinian rights was a huge mistake that Palestine advocates have been making for decades and show no sign of stopping.
Imagine if people who allegedly supported Palestinian rights united as a movement and said as a group "We want peace between the Jewish state of Israel and the Arab state of Palestine in the form of a two state solution. We respect the Jewish people's right of self-determination in their homeland and all we want is self-determination for Palestinians in their own state of Palestine. We reject anti-Zionism and all efforts to undermine the Jewish character of Israel as well as the Arab character of Palestine." This attitude would be embraced in Germany, in the US, and all over the world. What an absolute tragedy that beliefs like those would never ever be allowed in the modern day pro-Palestinian movement. What a waste. Your movement could easily be part of the solution, if it chooses to, but instead insists on being part of the problem.
It is a straight up lie that support for BDS is support for freedom, equality, human rights and all the rest of the list. No one believes it anymore outside of the Palestine cult.
Peace is readily achievable between Israel and Palestine when Palestinians 1) accept Israel’s right to exist; 2) agree to a state of their own next to Israel; and 3) agree to a “right of return” to a new state of Palestine and not to Israel. For over 70 years there have been numerous formal and informal efforts to achieve a two state peace, but all have ended with Palestinian rejection.
But times are changing. Arab countries refuse to be held hostage by Palestinian intransigence and are normalizing relations with Israel. The latest, and the BIG one, Saudi Arabia, is now in serious talks with Israel about normalization.
Your activism should be aimed at the corrupt and criminal Palestinian leaders who continue to teach children to ‘drive the Jews into the sea.’ Hopefully one day they will instead choose peace so that both peoples can thrive.
Here’s the conundrum: I cherish Palestinian rights, for equality and such, but when the BDS leaders talk about this ideal, they mean to limit or expel Israeli (and even Jewish) rights. So then their game just becomes, by default, “anti-“. They’re not interested in two flags, or even in understanding that Zionism takes many forms and is a fundamental part of Jewish life and history in some way. No! The BDS crowd simply say they’re about Palestinian rights, but at what cost? They want to destroy the other in the process. How can we allow that to be the pathway forward? That’s not an evolution towards anything better? That’s just a rinse-repeat of the same error in approach that the most right-wing, vociferous forms of Zionist nationalism has already brought upon them. The spillover to anti-Jewish is indeed there, in the BDS and Palestinian rights movements. Call a spade a spade Peter!
Great article, again. The conflation of anti-zionism with anti-semitism has always confused me, precisely because it is illogical, and therefore more like propaganda than a valid argument.
"dehumanizers control Israel’s government, which has a vested interest in being able to abuse Palestinians with impunity"
To a certain extent I do not agree entirely with this statement.
I myself would put it this way" dehumanizers in the current Israeli government have a vested interest in being able to defend at all costs those who abuse or even kill Palestinian civilians'
As a child of Holocaust survivors and as a German speaker I can almost understand the knee jerk reaction of the German body politick to anything that smacks of anti-Semitism. However, as a Jew I reserve the right to criticize Israel as much as I damn please when I see that country going off the rails. So very much in the spirit of the same dynamic as Black Folk. A Black man or woman is free to use the N word but there is a Taboo and a price to pay lest a non person of color chooses to use the same expression.
In my mind it MUST be ultimately be Jews who continue to confront the increasingly horrific excesses of Eretz Yisrael toward the Palestinian people who also want peace.
Thank you for drawing attention to this. As usual, so eloquently written weaving in many nuances. It's sad to see how "atonement gone haywire" has clouded the thinking of so many Germans. It's a significant piece in the lack of progress for Palestinian human rights. So ironic and sad: caught up in the history and need to rightfully remember one extraordinary horrible human rights disaster while contributing to perpetuating another.
“It’s morally wrong because the Holocaust wasn’t evil because the Nazis murdered Jews (among others). The Holocaust was evil because the Nazis murdered human beings, many of whom were Jews.”
This is an incredible statement. The Nazis murdered Jews because they were Jews, whom the Nazis considered subhuman. They admitted as much. There was a “Final Solution to the Jewish Problem,” not a “Final Solution to the human beings who happen to be Jewish…”
This statement turns universal rights on its head - its misinformation, pure and simple, and misinformation that indeed “hijacks” and distorts and denies Holocaust memory. Extremely dangerous.
Thank you so much, Peter! You nailed. Unfortunately I could not be at the conference, I would have been very happy to meet you in person. I'll spread this article widely in my network.
Do we still live in a world where anyone of truly moral conscience would argue against a universal and equal entitlement to human rights? No. We still live in a world where there is a scarcity of those who can rightfully claim to have a truly moral conscience and a willingness to fight for it. We owe our highest allegiance to truth, wisdom, and justice, not to family, culture, or nation.
Sadly, you are right about the rigid support for apartheid Israel among German officials. Similar to the US, the uncritical support for colonialism in Israel is a must for any official. Many people drink the koolaid because life is easier as a teacher, politician, business leader. The same lack of humanity, rigid obedience to government rules that made the Third Reich a hellhole for many groups is now employed to ignore the extreme abuses that Palestinians suffer in Gaza, the open air prison, and in the Westbank. Under Hitler, you marched behind that flag into war and genocide. Today, we Germans march behind the Israeli flag. No time to look at the violence metted out by Israeli soldiers. Don't look at the human suffering caused by German politics, then and now. Just close your mind, heart and ears to ignore the screams. Ignorance is bliss.
“ It’s analytically wrong because the Jews murdered in the Holocaust had diverse opinions about Jewish statehood. Many were anti-Zionists…”
First, Beinart offers zero proof that “many” Jews were anti-Zionist. That position, to the extent it was relevant at all, pertained to a small sliver of Communist Jews, or a tiny number of privileged Western Jews who were concerned about undermining their social position. The notion that these were “many” is wrong. That Beinart would cite this without acknowledging that the reasoning of these anti-Zionists Jews was fatally undermined by the Holocaust tells you what you need to know about Beinart.
Peter, on the debate about BDS, I liked this comment from another blog.
"Anti-Palestinians should be commended for their honesty.
Back in the day, say 5-10 years ago, anti-Palestinians disqualified BDS because of some bad actors who also backed BDS. No matter how many times Omar Barghouti denounced those claiming to speak in his name, BDS was in the wrong. (The same standard was never applied by the same people to their own Zionism: even though, Israeli Zionism is dominated by unabashedly racist settlers, the same American liberal Zionists who disqualified BDS on these grounds had no problem holding on to their own Zionism.)
But now, the anti-Palestinians have come out with their honest position: the Palestinians have no voice at all. It doesn’t matter what they say or what they mean. All that is irrelevant. The only relevant question is: “how do the Israelis hear what you say?”
Flippancy, satire, repudiation, ignoring are the only possible responses to such hypocritical attempts at silencing."
I think my comment on Beinart's latest column would also apply here:
https://peterbeinart.substack.com/p/antisemitism-and-anti-palestinianism/comment/6992525
As I said then, people like Beinart are trying to thread an impossible needle. They want to be part of a movement that harasses Jews, demonizes Jews, and seeks to deprive the Jews collectively of their rights. But they also want to do it without being perceived as anti-Semitic. This cannot be done. Germany isn't fooled. Neither is anybody else.
Oh and by the way, Beinart's claim that BDS was created by Palestinians because "they want full equality" is a total lie. BDS leaders have admitted many times that the goal of BDS is to destroy Israel as a Jewish state, and even if a Palestinian state was created BDS would continue. Again, nobody is fooled by these stale talking points. Germany recognizes BDS and anti-Zionism as anti-Semitic, which they are, and Beinart's increasingly pathetic denials are not working.
Well their platform on their website -- bdsmovement.net -- clearly uses the language of calling Israel a colonialist endeavor, and calls for UN resolution 194 (right of return to Israel proper), and DO NOT clearly advocate in their marches, banners, or forums for any semblance of what Oslo Accords suggested. Come on Peter. I am a college professor and see the way Jewish students are harassed, couched in the veil of BDS and anti-Israel policies, when the slippery slope is clearly there, evident, and ruthless. I'd like to see you get a BDS leader to go on record in support of a two-state solution.
Professor Beinart you need to stop promoting BDS. BDS is first and foremost not for a peaceful resolution of the Israel/Palestine issues. Full stop.
Like I said in the previous post, "pro-Palestine" activists like Peter have no one but themselves to blame if the correct equation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism and the German court ruling of BDS is "disastrous".
From day one "Palestinian rights" has been weaponized by its alleged supporters to mean "death to Israel." The phrase "Pro-Palestinian" has long been conflated with the bigoted assertions that Jewish rights are racism, that Jews have no right to statehood or self-determination, that Jews are "imperialists" and "colonizers" in their own homeland, that Jewish history is a lie, and that any peace with Israel is "normalization" and a betrayal of the Palestinian people. Equating anti-Zionism and Palestinian rights was a huge mistake that Palestine advocates have been making for decades and show no sign of stopping.
Imagine if people who allegedly supported Palestinian rights united as a movement and said as a group "We want peace between the Jewish state of Israel and the Arab state of Palestine in the form of a two state solution. We respect the Jewish people's right of self-determination in their homeland and all we want is self-determination for Palestinians in their own state of Palestine. We reject anti-Zionism and all efforts to undermine the Jewish character of Israel as well as the Arab character of Palestine." This attitude would be embraced in Germany, in the US, and all over the world. What an absolute tragedy that beliefs like those would never ever be allowed in the modern day pro-Palestinian movement. What a waste. Your movement could easily be part of the solution, if it chooses to, but instead insists on being part of the problem.
It is a straight up lie that support for BDS is support for freedom, equality, human rights and all the rest of the list. No one believes it anymore outside of the Palestine cult.
Peace is readily achievable between Israel and Palestine when Palestinians 1) accept Israel’s right to exist; 2) agree to a state of their own next to Israel; and 3) agree to a “right of return” to a new state of Palestine and not to Israel. For over 70 years there have been numerous formal and informal efforts to achieve a two state peace, but all have ended with Palestinian rejection.
But times are changing. Arab countries refuse to be held hostage by Palestinian intransigence and are normalizing relations with Israel. The latest, and the BIG one, Saudi Arabia, is now in serious talks with Israel about normalization.
Your activism should be aimed at the corrupt and criminal Palestinian leaders who continue to teach children to ‘drive the Jews into the sea.’ Hopefully one day they will instead choose peace so that both peoples can thrive.
Here’s the conundrum: I cherish Palestinian rights, for equality and such, but when the BDS leaders talk about this ideal, they mean to limit or expel Israeli (and even Jewish) rights. So then their game just becomes, by default, “anti-“. They’re not interested in two flags, or even in understanding that Zionism takes many forms and is a fundamental part of Jewish life and history in some way. No! The BDS crowd simply say they’re about Palestinian rights, but at what cost? They want to destroy the other in the process. How can we allow that to be the pathway forward? That’s not an evolution towards anything better? That’s just a rinse-repeat of the same error in approach that the most right-wing, vociferous forms of Zionist nationalism has already brought upon them. The spillover to anti-Jewish is indeed there, in the BDS and Palestinian rights movements. Call a spade a spade Peter!
Great article, again. The conflation of anti-zionism with anti-semitism has always confused me, precisely because it is illogical, and therefore more like propaganda than a valid argument.
"dehumanizers control Israel’s government, which has a vested interest in being able to abuse Palestinians with impunity"
To a certain extent I do not agree entirely with this statement.
I myself would put it this way" dehumanizers in the current Israeli government have a vested interest in being able to defend at all costs those who abuse or even kill Palestinian civilians'
As a child of Holocaust survivors and as a German speaker I can almost understand the knee jerk reaction of the German body politick to anything that smacks of anti-Semitism. However, as a Jew I reserve the right to criticize Israel as much as I damn please when I see that country going off the rails. So very much in the spirit of the same dynamic as Black Folk. A Black man or woman is free to use the N word but there is a Taboo and a price to pay lest a non person of color chooses to use the same expression.
In my mind it MUST be ultimately be Jews who continue to confront the increasingly horrific excesses of Eretz Yisrael toward the Palestinian people who also want peace.
Thank you for drawing attention to this. As usual, so eloquently written weaving in many nuances. It's sad to see how "atonement gone haywire" has clouded the thinking of so many Germans. It's a significant piece in the lack of progress for Palestinian human rights. So ironic and sad: caught up in the history and need to rightfully remember one extraordinary horrible human rights disaster while contributing to perpetuating another.
“It’s morally wrong because the Holocaust wasn’t evil because the Nazis murdered Jews (among others). The Holocaust was evil because the Nazis murdered human beings, many of whom were Jews.”
This is an incredible statement. The Nazis murdered Jews because they were Jews, whom the Nazis considered subhuman. They admitted as much. There was a “Final Solution to the Jewish Problem,” not a “Final Solution to the human beings who happen to be Jewish…”
This statement turns universal rights on its head - its misinformation, pure and simple, and misinformation that indeed “hijacks” and distorts and denies Holocaust memory. Extremely dangerous.
Thank you so much, Peter! You nailed. Unfortunately I could not be at the conference, I would have been very happy to meet you in person. I'll spread this article widely in my network.
Do we still live in a world where anyone of truly moral conscience would argue against a universal and equal entitlement to human rights? No. We still live in a world where there is a scarcity of those who can rightfully claim to have a truly moral conscience and a willingness to fight for it. We owe our highest allegiance to truth, wisdom, and justice, not to family, culture, or nation.
Sadly, you are right about the rigid support for apartheid Israel among German officials. Similar to the US, the uncritical support for colonialism in Israel is a must for any official. Many people drink the koolaid because life is easier as a teacher, politician, business leader. The same lack of humanity, rigid obedience to government rules that made the Third Reich a hellhole for many groups is now employed to ignore the extreme abuses that Palestinians suffer in Gaza, the open air prison, and in the Westbank. Under Hitler, you marched behind that flag into war and genocide. Today, we Germans march behind the Israeli flag. No time to look at the violence metted out by Israeli soldiers. Don't look at the human suffering caused by German politics, then and now. Just close your mind, heart and ears to ignore the screams. Ignorance is bliss.
“ It’s analytically wrong because the Jews murdered in the Holocaust had diverse opinions about Jewish statehood. Many were anti-Zionists…”
First, Beinart offers zero proof that “many” Jews were anti-Zionist. That position, to the extent it was relevant at all, pertained to a small sliver of Communist Jews, or a tiny number of privileged Western Jews who were concerned about undermining their social position. The notion that these were “many” is wrong. That Beinart would cite this without acknowledging that the reasoning of these anti-Zionists Jews was fatally undermined by the Holocaust tells you what you need to know about Beinart.
Peter, on the debate about BDS, I liked this comment from another blog.
"Anti-Palestinians should be commended for their honesty.
Back in the day, say 5-10 years ago, anti-Palestinians disqualified BDS because of some bad actors who also backed BDS. No matter how many times Omar Barghouti denounced those claiming to speak in his name, BDS was in the wrong. (The same standard was never applied by the same people to their own Zionism: even though, Israeli Zionism is dominated by unabashedly racist settlers, the same American liberal Zionists who disqualified BDS on these grounds had no problem holding on to their own Zionism.)
But now, the anti-Palestinians have come out with their honest position: the Palestinians have no voice at all. It doesn’t matter what they say or what they mean. All that is irrelevant. The only relevant question is: “how do the Israelis hear what you say?”
Flippancy, satire, repudiation, ignoring are the only possible responses to such hypocritical attempts at silencing."