By Ted Belman
Peter Beinhart, the author of Crises of Zionism held a townhall type meeting with about 50 bloggers, myself included. If you have been asleep for the last three months, Beinart has stirred up a lot of controversy with his support of the BDS movement and other anti-Israel activities, while at the same time purporting to be a strong Zionist.
He is in his thirties, very articulate, likeable and persuasive but I wasn’t buying what he was selling.
He started out by saying that anyone can criticise Israel, Jews included. Fair enough, but everyone, Jews included, should be limited to fair criticism of Israel.
His basic criticism is that Israel is becoming less and less democratic by its attempts to stifle the NGO’s on the Left and the Courts and so on. You know the drill but most important by her continuing in occupation of the poor Palestinians. He said young Jews are turning away from Israel because she is turning away from democracy which is the lingua franca of the west for acceptance. Totally aside from whether that is true it smacked of a dual standard and was unfair.
He did not factor in at all the fact that Israel has rights including historical, legal, victory and contractual. Essentially he is saying that Israel is not a democracy if she tries to enforce her democratic rights including the right of self defence.
The contractual rights I am referring to are those inherent in the Oslo Accords. These accords define the rights and obligation of the Arabs and Israel until such time as final status issues are agreed upon. Both sides are committed to negotiating these issues. The US and the EU support a negotiated settlement. Why not Beinart. Beinart is denying us these rights and simply wants us to give the Arabs what they want, or very close to it, so that we could end the occupation.
Finally, we have no obligation to make a deal we don’t like. So if the Arabs want a deal, it will have to be on our terms. That is our right. I talked to my daughter about this and she thought we were obligated to give them a state and she objected to me telling her otherwise.
I take solace in the fact that Beinart has two daughters who he sent to a Jewish school and who are are both on the right.
Israel is not obligated to give the “palestinians”, an invented people, a state.
From where I stand, Peter needs to read Daniel Greenfield’s post of June 19 (Sultanknish) on the demographics of Israeli politics to better edumicate himself. The left’s hypocrisy is growing in leaps and bounds as it laps up ‘democracy’ as practiced in the Arab ‘Spring’ while vomiting when democracy in Israel (and sometimes in N America) produces results not in agreement with their dIvine-given/BS sensibilities.
If anything Beinert regards Israel as a competitor for his brand of Judaism which to replace the LAnd of Israel with social works. If Beinert thinks Israel is too tough on the Arabs let him offer the Arabs his home, not mine.
@ artcohn:
I don’t understand the comment “Distribution of ealth”, did you mean wealth? or health? If you meant wealth, this comment is childish. What are you a latent communist? But if you want, I am more than willing for you to distribute 1/2 your earnings to tzaduka. Not like those jerks, Obama and Biden that give less than 2% of their hard earned money to charity. Remember the old saying (Animal Farm) “Everyone is equal, just some are more equal than others”.
The Paolestinian Arabs prime aim is the destruction of Israel as the Jewish State. While Israel has, and should have other aims,such as Democracy , increasing wealth, fairer dstribution of ealth, etc. The carrying out of these aims depend on Israel not being destroyed. Beinart doesn’t seem to recognize this priority. Somebody so short sighted as Beinart should be given far less attention than he is getting.
Thanks, Yamit. Excellent summary. It seems the debate was a lot more civilized than I expected. Unfortunately, perhaps. Beinart, paradoxically, deserves both neglect and hell.
Entire panel attacks Beinart #tomorrow12
“Israel Matzav”
Here’s a summary from session that took place while I was watching Caroline Glick, Naftali Bennett and David Makovsky.
Peter Beinart, the former editor of The New Republic, and Abe Foxman, Director of the Anti-Defamation League, headlined a panel at the 2012 Israeli Presidential Conference that discussed the evolving relationship between Israel and World Jewry. They were joined by Pierre Besnainou, Chair of the Israel Diaspora Paradigm Committee, Alana Newhouse, Editor-in-Chief of Tablet Magazine, and Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of The New Republic.
The panel was highlighted by a heated debate over the status of relationship between Israel and World Jewry, and its ability to maintain its previous levels of closeness.
Beinart stated that the relationship is at risk of crisis largely because of a lack of willingness by the leadership of U.S. Jewry to deal openly and honestly with Israel. “What alienates young American Jews is the fact that they see Israelis criticizing Israeli policy, but they don’t hear the same candor from American Jews.”
Several panelists challenged Beinart’s perception of a crisis, with Alana Newhouse warning of the consequences of “crying wolf,” and worrying that the talk of an emergency could become “a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“My love and support for Israel is unconditional, it does not depend on the Israeli acceptance of my ideas,” said Foxman, who was critical of Beinart’s attacks on Israeli policy. “My Zionism is not in crisis because my Zionism is not conditioned on an idealized view of what I’d like Israel to be.”
All panelists agreed that the Diaspora community needed to focus more on Jewish education and introducing young Jews to the importance of Israel, with Wieseltier lamenting U.S. Jewry’s reliance on Israel for its Jewish identity.
“Israel was not created to relieve U.S. Jewry of the burden of creating its own identity,” said Wieseltier. “In so far as the weakening affiliation is real, a moment of truth is arriving for American Jews and we can finally see what kind of Judaism U.S. Jewry is capable of.”
Even the mainstream Jewish leadership seems to be tiring of Beinart’s message.
Seems to me Beinhart’s claim to fame is the notoriety he has engendered by bashing Israel. So why feed the tiger? Just ignore him and he might die from popular neglect.