Jewish journalist and academic Peter Beinart has spent his professional life siding with the Israel-haters, most notably with his recent much-lauded book Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza. It is, of course, all about that nasty old Jewish supremacy, which we’ve seen so much evidence of in recent history. If only Jews could be nicer!
Well, he recently went to speak at Tel Aviv University, to tell those Jews “why I believe Israel has committed genocide in Gaza and why I believe Jewish supremacy is fundamentally wrong”. But, alas, his Palestinian friends were displeased. Consorting with the Zionist enemy! So Beinart wrote an excruciating mea culpa.
…I let my desire for that conversation override my solidarity with Palestinians, who in the face of ethnic cleansing, apartheid and genocide have asked the world boycott Israeli institutions that are complicit in their oppression. As Noura Erakat and others have pointed out, there are ways for me to talk to Israelis without violating BDS guidelines and undermining a collective effort against oppression. I could have had the exchange I desired while respecting a non-violent movement based on human rights and international law. Had I listened more to Palestinians, I would have realized that earlier.
It’s embarrassing to admit such a serious mistake. I dearly wish I had not made this one, which has caused particular harm because international pressure is crucial to ensuring Palestinian freedom. This was a failure of judgment. I am sorry.
Oh dear.
Dave Rich: “The shame, humiliation and self-abasement of this statement, and all because Peter forgot one golden rule: in his world, Jews do not get to decide which other Jews they speak to, or what they say.”
Other comments:
“This is not the product of an independent mind. This reads like a show-trial. A coerced confession. A public recantation of sins and misdeeds — in the vain hope that all will be forgiven and he will be taken back into the fold. Peter Beinart fed the crocodile, hoping that it would eat him last. Well it looks like he just got eaten.”
“You go to an Israeli university to accuse Israelis of being Jewish supremacists who commit genocide– and what horrible mistake are you sorry for? Offending your Palestinian buddies! You had the nerve to visit an Israeli university they’re boycotting. Wow, Peter.”
“In over 30 years as a trauma psychologist, I’ve seen this exact posture in abused women and in people caught inside cultic systems. When they speak, they frame not checking in with the group’s gatekeepers as a kind of sin, as if having an independent thought requires repentance. They start treating ordinary acts of agency – talking to someone outside the circle or forming a judgment on their own – as betrayals that must be confessed. This isn’t moral clarity; it’s fear wearing the mask of conscience. What you hear isn’t a free person speaking. It’s someone who obeys because losing the group frightens them more than losing themselves.”
“Peter Beinart’s latest apology reads less like a reflection from a public intellectual and more like the confession of someone trapped in a sadistic relationship. He’s not apologizing for the things any reasonable person might question: his reckless, evidence-free accusations of genocide; his flattening of seven million Israelis into a single malignant category; his immunity to Israeli suffering. No, he’s sorry for speaking at Tel Aviv University without first securing permission from the ideological authority to which he’s now thoroughly captured. The language: “solidarity,” “collective struggle,” “international pressure,” is the vocabulary of a person who has outsourced his moral compass. Morality, in this context, is not something discerned but something contingent on obedience. And then there’s the career he has built atop this posture. Beinart has become a kind of idealized mascot for a certain segment of the anti-Israel world: Here’s a guy who wears a kippah and denounces Israel. Perfect. Book him on the podcast. Give him the op-ed slot. Invite him to panels, conferences, salons. Celebrate him precisely because he confirms their fantasies of the self-indicting Jew. The reward structure is obvious: condemn your own people loudly enough, and the invitations and checks will follow. When you feed a wolf, he soon learns exactly where to find his next meal. Pete’s got the meat.”
Mick Hartley 
Leave a comment