Beinart’s anti-Zionist boycott in NYT

Fresno Zionism

Peter Beinart has a new piece in the New York Times. It will be called ‘important’ because part of his message and that of his supporters is that he is telling an important truth that is suppressed by the Jewish establishment. He insists that he is a Zionist and supports Israel. But there is little truth in his analysis and a huge amount of fantasy in his prescriptions.

Beinart calls for boycotting Jewish communities (‘settlements’) beyond the Green Line, because he wants to end what he calls “undemocratic Israel:”

    …both names mislead. “Judea and Samaria” implies that the most important thing about the land is its biblical lineage; “West Bank” implies that the most important thing about the land is its relationship to the Kingdom of Jordan next door. After all, it was only after Jordan conquered the territory in 1948 that it coined the term “West Bank” to distinguish it from the rest of the kingdom, which falls on the Jordan River’s east bank. Since Jordan no longer controls the land, “West Bank” is an anachronism. It says nothing meaningful about the territory today.

    Instead, we should call the West Bank “nondemocratic Israel.” The phrase suggests that there are today two Israels: a flawed but genuine democracy within the green line and an ethnically-based nondemocracy beyond it. It counters efforts by Israel’s leaders to use the legitimacy of democratic Israel to legitimize the occupation and by Israel’s adversaries to use the illegitimacy of the occupation to delegitimize democratic Israel.

Beinart mischaracterizes the area east of the Green Line; actually it is already two ‘states’: what is called Areas A and B which are under Palestinian Authority (PA) administration and contain at least 97% of the Arab population, and area C, where all of the ‘settlers’ live and which is under Israeli administration.

What Beinart finds “nondemocratic” is that Palestinian Arabs in the territories do not have the right to become citizens of Israel, which ‘controls their lives’. But they are citizens of the PA. Elder of Ziyon explains that

    [The PA] is recognized as a full state by 129 nations; its citizens vote (at least in theory) to elect their leaders, it has autonomy, a territory that all accept as controlled by its own security forces, a court system, an Olympic team, and its own passports. According to at least one distinguished legal scholar, it is considered a full state under international law. The World Bank is putting out reports about how ready the territories are for statehood.

What Beinart considers “systematic oppression” and “human rights violations” are Israeli security measures like checkpoints and the security barrier, which he sees as ethnically-based differential treatment. But it is also possible to see them as a reasonable response to an Arab insurgency which is aimed at repeating the ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the Jordanians in 1948, and indeed extending it to all of Israel.

This is not an ideal situation, but describing it as an Israeli province where apartheid — OK, “nondemocracy” — reigns is going a bit far.

The ultimate cause of the oppression, Beinart says, is ‘settlements’. Without them, Israel could simply cede the territories and everyone would be happy.

It’s not as though Jews never lived in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem until they became ‘settlers’. They were there before the Jordanian Army kicked them out. They were granted the right to live there by the League of Nations Mandate, which recognized their historical presence in the land of Israel long before that.

Beinart, his President and the Europeans want to improve things by implementing a plan for a state in all of Judea and Samaria, mitigated by some small border adjustments. If ‘settlers’ don’t like it, says Beinart, “they should move.”

The problem with this this plan is that;

    It is essentially racist, in that it calls for establishing a Jew-free state

    It violates international law (the Mandate) and the spirit of UN resolutions calling for defensible borders

    It sacrifices the well-being of Jews that live beyond the Green Line for the nationalist aspirations of Arabs

    It precludes Israel’s ability to defend itself, since it would make a Gaza-like terrorist entity of Judea and Samaria (only much worse strategically)

    It ignores the oft-expressed intention of the PA leaders to use such a state as a steppingstone to the elimination of Israel

Point 4 was underlined last week when Iranian-inspired terrorists fired hundreds of missiles into Israel from Gaza. Think about how much worse it could be if the high ground east of the Green Line could be used to launch short-range rockets directly into Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion Airport, etc.

The Oslo paradigm of a two-state solution was discredited by the rejection of reasonable offers by the Palestinian leadership in 2000 — when Arafat chose war instead of statehood — and 2008. They continue to press their demands for 1949 lines, right of return for Arab refugees, no demilitarization, refusal to recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, etc. as preconditions to negotiation. There is no intersection between the maximalist demands of the PA and the continued existence of a Jewish state of Israel.

And if you think that the Palestinian leadership — the PA, not just Hamas — just wants to “end the [1967] occupation,” you simply have not been paying attention. Official Palestinian media (see here) are filled with statements to the contrary, as well as praise for the most murderous terrorists and vicious anti-Jewish lies.

Beinart says that “Boycotting other Jews is a painful, unnatural act, [but] the alternative is worse.” While he is very concerned about “oppression” of Arabs, he doesn’t seem to feel the pain of the tens of thousands of Jewish settlers — in the best possible case — who would be expelled from their homes if the two-state plan with swaps were actually implemented.

By insisting on a plan whose imposition would almost certainly mark the beginning of yet another war, by demonizing and punishing the Jewish ‘settlers’ who have every right to live where they do, by calling for a boycott because Israeli security measures constitute “oppression,” Beinart’s alternative is anything but ‘Zionist’!

March 19, 2012 | 20 Comments »

Leave a Reply

20 Comments / 20 Comments

  1. Concerning Turkey, Ezekiel 38 (JPS):

    38 Sheba, and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish [NATO, EU – pick your choose], with all the magnates thereof, shall say unto thee: Comest thou to take the spoil? hast thou assembled thy company to take the prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take great spoil? 14 Therefore, son of man, prophesy, and say unto Gog [Erdogan?]: Thus saith the L-rd GOD: In that day when My people Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it? 15 And thou shalt come from thy place out of the uttermost parts of the north [Turkey], thou, and many peoples with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company and a mighty army; 16 and thou shalt come up against My people Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the end of days, and I will bring thee against My land, that the nations may know Me, when I shall be sanctified through thee, O Gog, before their eyes.

    An important part of this prophecy, is that Israel will be attacked not because of the “Palestinian” cause, but because of its wealth. This seems to be falling into place.

  2. I retired three years ago. For several years provided and in some cases still do, technical services to the Israeli Oil Refineries laboratories, the Chemical Industry Labs, the Ashkelon Rotenberg Power Station, Nahal Sorek, Military laboratories, etc.
    Details were extremely confidential but the avalanche of information has released some of the secret information. To be honest, I was not totally informed either but could easily extrapolate by observing information circulating within the experts circles.
    Testing of Israeli very high quality shale origin oil was being conducted since several years ago. The off shore fields are of more recent discovery. And they are far larger that commonly known.
    The shale oil fields within Eretz Israel have estimated reserves equal to those of Saudi Arabia… The estimates must be corroborated but the information is credible.
    Jordan also has a very large shale oil basin there.
    The environmental concerns, while relevant, are not critical as the aquifers are shielded from the shale oil bearing layers. In Canada for example, the tar sands are likely to turn to be a vehicle for aquifer contamination and special precautions are needed.
    I believe that the smaller fields off shore from Tel Aviv and the very large natural gas fields could start shipments by the end of this year or early 2013.
    The implications are enormous in every respect. Economically Israel is in the threshold of a great jump.
    The RR system is being advanced as you have indicate and also tunnels are being dug as we speak to reach Jerusalem and also Karmiel surely to advance to the Golan later on.

    And I forgot the name of that fellow… Who cares.

  3. “‘Judea and Samaria’ implies that the most important thing about the land is its biblical lineage…”

    So its ‘biblical lineage’ died in 1950?

    — and then, what, was resurrected 19 years later?

  4. Why carry anything Times carry . Their hatred of Jewish faith and Christian faith is decades old. Every year it gets worse because they care little of lies they have printed.

  5. Beinart is a ROTTEN scumbag and worse than the late Arafat…oh well…
    Who is worse, a terrorist or a ***TRAITOR*** who supports terrorists ???
    Can anyone spell: Henry Kissinger ?

  6. Israel has struck oil again:

    Ho Hum, more gas and oil found. Why Israpundit wastes time with the likes of this Beinart, who up to last year I never heard of and doesn’t report news that make Beinart and those like him totally irrelevant. I really do mean irrelevant!!!

    Energy bonanza found offshore
    Giant oil and natural gas reserves discovered 24 kilometers from Tel Aviv beach 🙂

    Israel Capable of Producing 250 Billion Barrels of Oil
    “Our company has mapped over 250 billion barrels of recoverable oil in Israel,” says Dr. Harold Vinegar of Israel Energy Initiative Ltd.
    Read and Listen Here

    Mar 14, 2012: Globes
    Eugene Kandel: oil price could jump to $200 per bbl in 3 years. In the energy sector the government targets focus on reducing the dependency on foreign oil (Hebrew)

    Mar 11, 2012: TheMarker
    The Ministry of Energy published its five main objectives for 2012, one of the objectives is to start the drilling of the oil shale pilot during the 4th quarter of 2012 (Hebrew)

    Making the desert boom
    By NICHOLAS SAIDEL AND HARVEY RUBIN JP

    As Israel’s energy sector grows, so too will its resilience to anti-Israel efforts like BDS.

    While these discoveries – especially with respect to the shale oil – present profound environmental, health, security, feasibility and cost hurdles, large energy consuming states such as China and India have already begun to court Israel in an effort to diversify their energy portfolios and to meet the growing energy demands of their economies. Israel, for its part, has responded to Asian overtures with a bold plan, approved unanimously this week by the Israeli cabinet, to build the first railway between its Mediterranean and Red Sea coasts.

    This so-called “Med-Red” railway would create an alternative to Egypt’s Suez Canal, effectively creating a new land bridge between Europe and Asia. This concept is especially attractive given Egypt’s current instability and opaque future, as well as the possible closure of the Straits of Hormuz. For Israel, it’s not only about the billions of dollars in additional revenue – the strategic value of hosting such a vital commercial route is just as, if not more, significant. China has signaled a willingness to invest in the Med-Red project. With this intertwining of the Chinese and Israeli economies, we may see a shift of Chinese policy in the Middle East – a more balanced diplomacy that takes into account not only China’s Gulf and Iranian interests, but those of Israel as well. Such a policy shift could have repercussions on the UN Security Council – where critical Chinese votes against Israeli interests have become the norm rather than the exception.

  7. Is there a list of products either produced by settlements or Jewish companies located in Judea and Samaria? I’d like to have a pro-purchase campaign to support the Jewish enterprises in those areas. A counter-boyott campaign.

  8. This is a study in true idiocy. Why call it non-democratic Israel? Why not terrorist run Jordan? Why not homeland of Jewish children murderers. Oh my bad, too offensive to the Islamo-Facists. I got it Islamofacisitastan.that is a good name. The area is occupied because the general population is operating under a charter that contains a clause that calls for the total destruction of the Zionist entity. In case you don’t know what that is, it is Israel. I am still waiting (since Oslo) for the PLO PLA PFLP Black September, Hammas, Hezboallah and the rest to delete such clauses from their charters. I know I wait in vain. The only solution is a true 2 state solution. All Muslims must be deported to Jordan and a fortified border put up. On the occasion of the first terror attack, rocket, suicide bomber the re-action should be total destruction of Jordan. Any other option plays into Arab hands and another shoah.

  9. Whether Beinart is an unread, ignorant and arrogant “useful idiot” Jew or whether he is a self serving appeasement minded opportunistic Jew, much like the kapo funder of Jstreet is of no import. what is important is to understand that he is a dangerous Jew who gives power to Jew killers. What has beinart said about every area(jordan, gaza, PA) occupying the former mandate territories now under the control of the arab muslims being JEW FREE? Jews are extremely uneducated about the modern history leading to and beyond the Balfour Declaration. If more Jews were educated to these swindles and the ethnic cleansing of Jews from arab lands it would change the discourse. They would have to ask the question as to why the international community allowed the fraud and establishment of a planned JEW FREE state in trans jordan and why it is acceptable that the jews were ethnically cleansed from arab lands after the advent of the genva conventions. It would then become absurd to follow either the geneva conventions or international law, unless of course one is a masochistic suicidal nutter with low self esteem. This would all involve reading which lazy people are adverse to doing, certainly every jewish child should be intimate with these facts.

  10. BEINART IS NOTHING SHORT OF AN IDIOT HE IS THE RASICIT HE IS THE OPRESSER HE IS NOTHING BUT TRACH HE NEEDS TO MIND HIS OWN BUSSNIS AND GO TO HELL WHERE HE BELONG

  11. The Ottoman Empire existed longer than any oter empire in history. The Suez chanal was buildt an the british and the french sent soldiers to protect it. This was the beginning. During WW1 the british and french troops destroid the Turkish. The Balfour-declaration was an appendix to te peace treaty. The British had the same problem as the Romans had in the year 135. After 200 years the Romans wanted to stop Jewish patriotism and gave the land Phalestina. The next time the name occured was in the British mandate. They tried to undermine the Balfour-declaration. In 1923 they changed the game. In modern times Egypt attaced Israel time an time again. When Israel had retaken Sinai 4 times and giving it back. In 1967 Came the Camp David. Egypt was humiliated. They refused to take back Gasa. Theyr honor was restored when they got a 5 star hotel in Eilat.
    I can not understand why everybody want to cultivate the desert of Juda.

  12. Beinart wrote a FANTASY ISLAND book during the Bush years about how the Democratic Party was best suited to win the war on terror. That marked him for good as far as I’m concerned. Another SCHMUCK for Ovomit, i.e., MJ Rosenberg, Dan Shapiro, Jakey Lew, Alan So-Low, Booby Wexler, and Debbi Wasserman Shultz.

    As the first commentator wrote – ignore garbage.

  13. Just to say thank you for your direct elaboration of reality, including the clarification of the unJewish value of those gone from our MINIANIM.
    They, the unJews, are home at the New York Times and the Jewish home is either physically or from the heart, Eretz Israel.

  14. Your Toronto lawyer friend’s examples of commonwealths being created, expanded, shrunk or split up are well taken, Ted. He could well have added Quebec as an example close to home for all Canadians, and Kurdistan as an example not very far away from Israel. Will there be a real Kurdistan one day, chipping of parts of Turkey, Syria and Iran, and breaking up Iraq in the process? I think so. Especially now that Turkey is a more or less open enemy of Israel. Kurds and Jews always have been on fairly good terms, irrespective of religious differences. As for Quebec in the long term, you as a Canadian would know more about that than I would. But that pot has been coming to a slow boil for a long time.

    About Gaza being outside Israel’s rule. You want rockets one day raining down on your apartment in Jerusalem? I say that Israel must undo Sharon’s so-called disengagement operation, retake the Gaza district by armed force, annex it, break up the UNRWA camps, expel the UNO staff and the permanent “refugees”, and rapidly rebuild the Gush Katif settlements with large Jewish communities. And when dealing with Arabs under any circumstances, the only punishment for trouble-making or outright terrorism should be permanent expulsion. Let them all be someone else’s permanent headache.

    Arnold Harris
    Mount Horeb WI

  15. EMAIL REC’D FROM LAWYER FRIEND OF MINE IN TORONTO. HE WROTE THIS LETTER TO THE EDITOR

    For Mr. Beinart’s article to have any validity it has to have a factually-correct foundation.
    It doesn’t.

    Rather, it is based not on facts, but on suppositions and presumptions and, as such, lacks the proper base for what he seeks.

    For example, the “green line,” which he treats as an international frontier, never was a border either in fact or in law. Mr. Beinart should know that a border is not a border until the sovereign States on both sides agree that it is.

    Syria, Lebanon and the PLO have never agreed to what constitutes the border between them and Israel, so the “green line” is just that, a temporary line of demarcation pending final resolution.

    In peace treaties that Israel concluded with Egypt and Jordan the “green lines” did become borders, but only for their mutual frontiers.

    Furthermore, Egypt, Jordan and Israel agreed that, vis-a-vis East Jerusalem and the West Bank, those borders must be negotiated between the parties. In the meantime, the “green line” remains a demarcation, not a border.

    Secondly, Mr. Beinart is critical of Israel’s attempt to “forge one political entity between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.”

    Two points: firstly, that area was precisely what the League of Nations, the San Marino Conference and the Balfour Declaration said was to be part of the “Jewish Homeland”. In fact, that Homeland was also to include the land east of the Jordan River.

    Secondly, the forging of political entities is often a fluid and ever-changing process. Examples include the creation of the Kingdom of Trans-Jordan (now Jordan) from what was Palestine; the rise and fall and disintegration of Yugoslavia; the division and re-unification of Germany; the past and current travails of the UK with regards to Northern Ireland, Scotland and even Wales; the expansions of Canada and the US (and the subsequent efforts by parts of those countries to secede); China’s annexation of Tibet and India’s “absorbing” of Sikkim, Goa and Pondicherry, to name just a few instances.

    Today, this “forging” (and re-forging) of “political entities” is even more obvious in the context of Middle East countries which are mostly post-World War I creations and are now caught in the throes of re-drawing their own boundaries via civil war, precisely because of the Sykes / Picard deal-making. See: Iraq, Syria, Yemen and even Lebanon.

    Only slightly outside the ME, South Sudan and numerous parts of Africa are also involved in efforts to create and / or forge new or different political entities.

    The Palestinians want a State of their own. They are entitled to it. The UN said so almost 65 years ago.

    But what Mr. Beinart forgets is that the Palestinians and their brothers, sisters and cousins rejected the State that was offered to them and, instead, attacked the State of Israel – which the very same UN said the Jews were entitled to.

    That rejection is at the core of the on-going dispute – not the settlements. That rejection existed even prior to 1948.

    That rejection existed before the Six Day War. That rejection continued after the War, even in the years before there were settlements. That rejection continued after a peace agreement was signed with Egypt and the Sinai’s settlements were disbanded. That rejection continued after Gaza was emptied of all Jews, of all Israelis and of all settlements.

    Why should Israel therefore be criticised for its efforts to create a geographical, political and social entity that best protects itself and its interests from those who seek its ultimate destruction – a goal still set out in the Charters of the two main parties governing Gaza and the PA?

    Mr. Beinart’s third point seems to be that the “anachronistic” West Bank should be renamed “nondemocratic Israel” in order to reflect the reality of “a flawed but genuine democracy within the green line and an ethnically-based nondemocracy beyond it.”

    Interestingly, he does not include Gaza. By this deliberate omission I take it that he has concluded that Gaza really is independent of Israel and totally outside Israeli rule. I agree with him.

    Mr. Beinart seems to equate the current situation with being the equivalence of the right to citizenship in Israel. If Israel was ever to fully and officially annex the West Bank, he may have a point – but Israel hasn’t done so, and there is no need for them to do so as long as there is still a desire by (most) Palestinians to a State of their own – which there is – and, so long as they self-identify themselves as being, not Israelis, but Palestinians – which they do.

    Under international law, citizenship is never an automatic right – only an acquired privilege. Numerous nations control that right jealously. Some do not allow it even when a child is born on its territory. Others never allow citizenship, ever: as the Palestinians who live in Arab countries know quite well. Finally, residency by itself is not an open door to citizenship.

    Accordingly, every country (including my Canada) has rules that apply to citizens, rules that apply to non-citizens and rules that apply to all, regardless. Should we therefore start boycotting Canada et al? We might as well, if we’re to be consistent.

    It’s sheer nonsense to award citizenship to those who have declared their disdain of and, more ominously, their intention to destroy, the very country that would offer them citizenship. What sane nation would allow itself to self-destruct this way?

    To answer Mr. Beinart’s question: “Is there systematic oppression that a boycott might help relieve?” the answer is: “No, there is no systematic oppression, and therefore there is no need for a boycott.”

    There is no systematic oppression because democratic Israel has seen to it that much of the Rule of Law and many of the democratic rights are available to and do already flow to the people of the West Bank.

    Certainly, politically, the inhabitants are free to vote for whichever party they choose to have rule them – and they have done so. Yes, in certain matters (primarily dealing with national security) Israel holds sway. On the other hand, it can hardly be said that the PA (or Gaza) are forced to align themselves with Israel’s foreign policies, education system, family law or many other issues. Internally, for all practical purposes, they have self-government.

    With regards to the Rule of Law, the Palestinians have the best of both worlds: their own self-administered criminal and judicial system, as well as access to the Israeli Supreme Court, which has countless times backed their claims against Israel – and, of course, Israeli Governments which, being adherents of a democratic system, have complied with such court rulings.

    Economically, Gaza and the West Bank are prospering – ask Egyptians, Syrians, Palestinians and others. So why would anyone who publicly wishes to advance their economic (and therefore political) growth want, in the next breath, to stifle it all by calling for boycotts?

    There is one final major quarrel that I have with Mr. Beinart, and that is his playing his card that “I am an Orthodox committed Jew who sends his kids to Jewish schools and it is therefore painful to boycott other Jews.”

    He points to other Jews, in and out of Israel, who have called for boycotts. He’s right, they have – but they, like him, are, in my opinion, still wrong. Being Jewish means that we will continue to argue over this and many other issues. But using the fact of being Jewish, or Orthodox or sending kids to Jewish schools to try and give a veneer of correctness to his argument, is wrong. Very wrong.

    It is an insult to all Jews who, whatever their observance, are made to feel second-class. If there is to be a boycott, the boycott should be of those who, like Mr. Beinart, use their Jewishness to somehow cover their argument with a respect it may not be worthy of.

    Arguments should be able to support themselves. In this case, Mr. Beinart’s discussions fail to persuade, regardless.

  16. All of you reading this comment know — or ought to know — that the only effective ways to answer the Beinarts are twofold:

    First: Ignore them completely. That means do not engage in discourse with them. Do not feel pained about Jews boycotting other Jews. Because people such as Beinart are not Jews. They are leftists of the “Tikun ha-Olam” school who prefer socialism to Judaism. These people are not Jewish nationalists. These people never will be Jewish nationalist. They are as lost to authentic Zionism as the modern American Indians mostly are to their ancient cultures. Forget these people. You in Israel are in the process of creating an entirely new replacement Jewish nation.

    Second: Get on with the long-term task of repopulating Shomron, Yehuda, Golan and Yerushalayim ha-Shalem with Jewish cities and villages, Jewish industrial parks, Jewish military bases, Jewish farms, Jewish parklands. The Jewish population in all these places is getting onto 650,000, and could double about every 15 years. The faster and more steadily you do this, the easier it will become to ignore the quasi-Jewish leftist socialist harpies. More significantly, “facts” on the ground, as Ben-Gurion and Jabotinsky could easily have assured you, are the only thing that counts in a protracted war of one civilization driving out another, taking the land of their enemies, and repopulating it with their own. And that precisely is what is going on here.

    You know what I am saying here? Stop wasting Jewish time, Jewish energy and Jewish money on useless hasbara. When I learned that word in Israel in 1973, the Hebrew-English dictionary told me it meant “explanation”. But the Israelis, in their direct and abrupt manner that I found so refreshing told me it plainly meant “propaganda”, if you wanted to be polite, and “bullshit”, if you wanted to tell it like it really is.

    Arnold Harris
    Mount Horeb WI