When I asked Peter Beinart to tell me what he thought about the cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas, announced last week, his tone was resigned. Ive actually been in an Israeli shelter with my daughter when she was younger and I have a lot of friends and family in Israel, so I was grateful, Beinart said. But I also felt that nothing had been solved and that in all likelihood something like this would happen again, unfortunately.
Beinart is a writer and an editor, but above all else, he is an unusual figure for many American Jews. Hes Orthodox, has considered himself a Zionist. Hes also a human rights advocate. And his position on Israel has shifted over time. Having once been a staunch defender of the Jewish state, hes now something elsean interlocutor, challenging everyone to look closely at Israel, and tell him if what they see looks fair.
The people hed really like to talk this out with are in the Biden administration. From the beginning, Beinarts noticed Biden has seemed to want to ignore conflict in Israel. It makes a certain kind of realpolitik sense, except for the fact that America is deeply implicated in this deep oppression, Beinart said. The Biden administration is really stuck. I think the path of least resistance will be for them to try to put on enough of a Band-Aid and just cross their fingers that something like this doesnt erupt again while hes president.
The president might be stuck, but when it comes to Israel, there are signs that other Democrats are shifting their positions. On Mondays episode of What Next, I spoke with Beinart about how significant that shift really is and whether the left flank of the party will influence the White House.Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Mary Harris: Back during the Democratic primary, you wrote a deeply reported piece that seemed to anticipate this very moment. It was titled Joe Bidens Alarming Record on Israel.And it laid out Bidens hesitancy around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. You say that Bidens reluctance to act has been a political calculation. There wasnt much to be gained, Biden argued, from having public disagreements with Benjamin Netanyahu or his government. And to explain his reasoning, Biden used this phrase: Never crucify yourself on a small cross.
Peter Beinart: Its kind of an ironic metaphor to use for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a conflict between Jews and Palestinians, who are mostly Muslim. But look, I dont blame Biden. I blame us, which is to say, Biden is a politician. Most of the time, politicians respond to political incentives. Most of the time, politicians arent courageous. When Obama was running for president in 2008, maybe 2007, he was asked by a progressive American Jew whether he would be willing to pressure the Israeli government to change its behavior. And Obama told this story in which the African American labor leader A. Philip Randolph went to Franklin Roosevelt and asked Roosevelt to start desegregating the United States government. And Roosevelt said something along the lines of, You put 10,000 people on the White House lawn and make me do it. And the truth is that those of us who care about the freedom and dignity of Palestinians, who believe that it is a matter of Jewish honor that we are not oppressing other people, we have not done that yet. We have not created enough political force that changes the political calculations for Joe Biden. And although I wish that he would be more out front and more courageous, that ultimately will be the determining variable.
So I guess the question now is really are the politics changing? Because if you were paying attention over the last week or two, you could see various politicians putting themselves forward and making the moral case here, whether thats Sen. Bernie Sanders with his op-ed in the Times.Or Rashida Tlaib, who spoke directly to the president when he was on a visit to Detroit and also spoke on the floor of Congress very movingly about her Palestinian heritage.Are you seeing other things, too, that folks should be paying attention to that show some kind of movement?
In the quote-unquote mainstream media, theres definitely been a significant shift. I think that the Black Lives Matter movement and other things have made the media more conscious of questions of representation and more, frankly, embarrassed at the historic absence of Palestinian voices in these conversations. And so I think you have seen more Palestinian voices in the conversation during this conflict than in previous ones.
Theres been so much conversation about bias, just really transparent conversations.
Yes, and thats a big deal. And you are seeing some of that filter into the most progressive members of Congress. But Im not sold on the idea that were necessarily seeing a fundamental shift overall. First of all, the Democrats are only one of two parties in the United States. And so even though theres a little bit of progressive movement happening in the Democratic Party, the Republican Party has gone way backwards. Twenty years ago, you could find Republicans who were willing to talk about Palestinian rights and about American pressure. George H.W. Bush was the last U.S. president to ever condition aid to Israel to restrain settlement growth. Thats completely gone inside the Republican Party.
And why is that? My understanding is that thats because the Republican Party has become entwined with these religious interests that make it make sense to align yourself with the state of Israel. But is that your understanding too?
Yes, you can say its because of white Christian evangelicals and their influence in the Republican Party and also those American Jews who are involved in the Republican Party, who are disproportionately Orthodox. And so its a powerful kind of alignment.
Benjamin Netanyahu has been so successful because he has convinced Israeli Jews that they can have their cake and eat it,too. Peter Beinart
But I think just focusing on the religious aspect is perhaps too generous. One of the things weve certainly learned in the Trump era is that when one talks about this category of Christian evangelicals, youre talking about a racial category, not just a religious category. And so part of whats going on is that Israel has hierarchies, ethno-religious hierarchies. You can see it most explicitly in immigration policy, where I as a Jew could go to Israel and become a citizen tomorrow. And virtually theres no way for a Palestinian or almost any other non-Jew to actually to go to Israel and gain citizenship.Thats very appealing to a lot of people in the Republican Party who are basically focused on defendingnot the same hierarchiesbut a set of hierarchies and an ethno-religious, racial definition of America. Tucker Carlson said just the other day, basically, Why cant we have an immigration policy like Israel? So there is a deep ideological association between the kind of America that many Republicans want and the kind of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu presides over today.
Youve said the reason the American debate over Israel and Palestine could shift dramatically and quickly is that behind closed doors there are plenty of politicians who are convinced already that what Israel is doing is wrong, but they just need to be convinced that they can say that out loud without hurting their careers. What is it that would convince those politicians of that?
Seeing other politicians be able to do so and survive politically. Its really important that Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar both won their reelection challenges, even though there were a lot of people who really put a lot of effort into trying to defeat them. Thats really important.
I think its possible that in the Democratic Party you will see more people realizing that this AIPAC, establishment infrastructure that theyre often so afraid of actually isnt as powerful as they might believe. But you have to go through that experience before you can believe it.
AIPAC is the lobbying group that advocates for a strong American-Israeli relationship. And a lot of people have cited them when they talk about the influence of Israel in Washington. Do you feel like theres been any change there? In terms of how much influence they have in the halls of Congress.
AIPACs problem is that its a bipartisan organization. It has to be a bipartisan organization. Its whole point is to basically ensure that U.S. policy toward this war remains largely the same.
No matter whos in power.
And its just hard to be a bipartisan organization on anything in Washington. AIPACs problem is that the momentum in AIPAC is toward it being a more Republican organization, and its struggling very, very hard to hold on to its Democratic flank, talking constantly about progressive values in Israel, LGBT this and blah blah. But the momentum is clearly for AIPAC to become less influential in the Democratic Party.
Rep. Jerry Nadler wrote this op-ed in the New York Times Friday, making an argument that Democrats have always seen the nuances in the Israeli-Palestinian relationship and that Democrats in Congress agree on this. I wondered if you agreed with that or whether you thought what youre seeing now is new.
Eh.I mean, Democrats have seen the nuances, but the vast majority of them have basically still wanted Israel to be able to act with impunity. The really significant shift is among a small number of Democratic members of CongressRashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Betty McCollum from Minnesotawho actually speak full-throated in the language of Palestinian rights and want the U.S. to use its leverage to change Israeli policy.Its still nowhere near a majority of even the Democratic Congress who are taking this position.
What will be significant is when someone like Jerry Nadler is willing to say U.S. money should not be used to imprison Palestinian children and demolish Palestinian homes. Thatll be important. But we are not there yet.
You say that the problem with U.S. support for Israel is that it has been so unconditional, right? You dont want the U.S. to remove itself from Israeli affairs entirely. Congress could attach some strings to Israels nearly $4 billion in U.S. military aid.
First of all, there are certain kinds of practices that are simply too inhumane for U.S. money to be used for. One would be the demolition of Palestinian homes. Its important to understand that the vast majority of Palestinian homes are not demolished because Palestinians have been accused of anything other than not having building permits. And you know what? They cant get building permits because when youre not a citizen, the government doesnt have any real interest in giving you a building permit. So you build illegally because thats the only way you can build. And then they show up one day and say, Sorry, were knocking down your home.
The second thing is that we should condition U.S. aid on Israel actually stopping settlement growth and being open to the idea of a Palestinian state. I myself think that probably the ship has sailed on Palestinian statehood. But we should be using our leverage to say to Israel, If you want this $3.8 billion, then you have to change your policy. I think this would change Israeli politics. I think that one of the reasons Benjamin Netanyahu has been so successful is that he has convinced Israeli Jews that they can have their cake and eat it, too. They can continue this project of inexorably taking more and more Palestinian land and entrenching this oppression of Palestinians, and pay no international price because their big friend America is giving them international impunity. If that were not the case, if there really were a price internationally for Israels behavior, I think that would strengthen Netanyahus centrist and progressive critics.
You wrote a piece last year about how your views had changed. Originally youd been quite in favor of a two state solution, a Palestinian state and an Israeli state. But the more and more this conflict deepened, the less and less possible you thought that was. Why?
I just came to the conclusion that the Israeli settlement enterprise, not just the number of settlers, but the vast infrastructure that Israel has built in the West Bankand when you see it up close, nothing about it looks temporary. And so I began to fear that in continuing to use this paradigm of two states, I was actually blinding myself to the reality that existed on the ground and that the paradigm, instead of being a helpful way of understanding the conflict and a potential solution, was actually becoming a way of essentially justifying this immoral status quo.
So I spent a fair amount of time trying to think about alternatives and trying to think my way through to an idea of one equal state that I thought could work for both Jews and Palestinians.
And I think that that scares a lot of American Jews who think that they will lose power in that situation where its not a Jewish state, its a state thats shared.
Yeah, tell me about it. It scares me. Theres a lot of trauma in the Jewish experience and a lot of fear. But I ultimately came to the conclusion that our fears cannot be a moral license to crush other people. That is actually antithetical to the way I understand Judaism. Were not simply a tribe. Judaism has an ethical message. It makes a case about the infinite value of all human life. The Torah doesnt start with Jews. It starts with human beings who are not Jews. Noah, Adam and Evethese are not Jews. The point is to emphasize the infinite value of all human life. So thats one reason I took this position.
The second is I ultimately dont think that Israeli Jews will be more safe in a state where they are brutalizing and dominating another people and making their lives utter hell.
Because those people have nothing to lose.
Yes. The harsh reality is that in virtually every movement of national struggle by people who are oppressed, there is some faction that uses violence. Weve sanitized Nelson Mandela, but he was not an apostle of nonviolence. He supported armed resistance. The IRA planted bombs in and around England. In Myanmar now, there are many people moving to armed struggle. The point is that there will always be some group of Palestinians who are going to meet the violence that they experience, through state oppression, through violence, unless you show them that nonviolence can actually lift that oppression. And Israel has done the opposite.
Get more news from Mary Harris every weekday.
Slate is covering the stories that matter to you. Join Slate Plus to support our work. Youll get unlimited articles and a suite of great benefits.
Go here to see the original:
Progressive Critics Are Speaking Out About Israel. Will It Change Things? - Slate
- Government Oppression Of Climate Protesters Is Rampant. Are You Next? - CleanTechnica - February 5th, 2024 [February 5th, 2024]
- Invasion Day protests oppose oppression of indigenous Australians, genocide in Gaza - WSWS - February 5th, 2024 [February 5th, 2024]
- Florida's 'hostile' laws? Five laws NAACP listed in travel advisory. - St. Augustine Record - May 22nd, 2023 [May 22nd, 2023]
- Iran Faces A Huge Budget Deficit It Tries To Conceal - - May 22nd, 2023 [May 22nd, 2023]
- Satyendar Jain taken to Safdarjung Hospital after losing 35 kgs - The Statesman - May 22nd, 2023 [May 22nd, 2023]
- Opinion: Reassessing the approach to Israel | DW | 22.05.2023 - DW - May 22nd, 2023 [May 22nd, 2023]
- Durham Report Is Latest Choose-Your-Own-Reality Adventure - TIME - May 22nd, 2023 [May 22nd, 2023]
- In Conversation with Stan Grant - Honi Soit - May 22nd, 2023 [May 22nd, 2023]
- Rep. Bare: Assembly Republicans' local government funding plan is ... - WisPolitics.com - May 22nd, 2023 [May 22nd, 2023]
- Never Again Is Right Now in Palestine - Jacobin magazine - May 22nd, 2023 [May 22nd, 2023]
- UF community condemns bill defunding DEI initiatives - The Independent Florida Alligator - May 22nd, 2023 [May 22nd, 2023]
- Prices of basic commodities and foods have gone insane in Sierra ... - Sierra Leone Telegraph - May 22nd, 2023 [May 22nd, 2023]
- Don't cancel Gladstone. He was a true friend of freedom at home ... - The Telegraph - May 22nd, 2023 [May 22nd, 2023]
- If you want to do things like gender ideology, go to Berkeley: DeSantis bans diversity, equity and inclusion in Florida colleges - The Mercury News - May 22nd, 2023 [May 22nd, 2023]
- TikTok: The new frontier for political info-wars - DAWN.com - May 22nd, 2023 [May 22nd, 2023]
- Israeli Apartheid - The Legacy of the Ongoing Nakba at 75 [EN/AR ... - ReliefWeb - May 22nd, 2023 [May 22nd, 2023]
- PPP's CEC condemns attacks on army installations, calls for ... - Pakistan Today - May 22nd, 2023 [May 22nd, 2023]
- Tim Scott says Im running for president of the United States in announcement speech live - The Guardian US - May 22nd, 2023 [May 22nd, 2023]
- Opinion | America's Poverty Is Built by Design - POLITICO - May 22nd, 2023 [May 22nd, 2023]
- 'Pity these oppressed random attackers': Inside the thoughts of Canada's bail system - National Post - May 22nd, 2023 [May 22nd, 2023]
- How Can We Resist Book Bans? This Banned Author Has Ideas. - Truthout - May 22nd, 2023 [May 22nd, 2023]
- Owners of Nigeria and their multiple worlds - Guardian Nigeria - May 22nd, 2023 [May 22nd, 2023]
- When People Decide They Want Change, They Will Bring in Change - The Wire - May 22nd, 2023 [May 22nd, 2023]
- 5 Interesting Facts about Simon Bolivar - The Collector - May 22nd, 2023 [May 22nd, 2023]
- China Built Over A Million Uyghurs "Re-Education Camps" In 6 Years: Report - NDTV - May 22nd, 2023 [May 22nd, 2023]
- Queer folk, the hour to save ourselves has come - Daily Maverick - May 22nd, 2023 [May 22nd, 2023]
- Preposterous! Book ban adds bureaucracy and removes parents ... - IndyStar - May 22nd, 2023 [May 22nd, 2023]
- End Jew Hatred: Fight for social justice must be above political fray - The Jerusalem Post - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- Political strife, not protest anymore - The Korea JoongAng Daily - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- 'A Man Without a Gun Is Not a Citizen' - The Texas Observer - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- State Department Report Says China Oppressed Tibetan Buddhist ... - Central Tibetan Administration - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- Facing Reality on South Africa - Council on Foreign Relations - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- Federal Charges of Political Activists Show the Racist and ... - Left Voice - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- Age of Disorder || Pakistan on the Brink: Down with Capitalist PDM ... - International Socialist - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- Tim Stevenson | Living with the Long Emergency: Rising Fascism ... - Brattleboro Reformer - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- Members of new City Council weigh in on water bills - CBS Chicago - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- DIIR Statement on 28th Anniversary of Enforced Disappearance of ... - Central Tibetan Administration - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- KAN-WIN shares timeline of gender-based violence toward Asian ... - Daily Northwestern - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- Alleged leaker fixated on guns and envisioned 'race war' - The Washington Post - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- Employment and Labour pays tribute to Dr Dennis George - South African Government - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- Opinion | Trump Cannot Be Unseen - The New York Times - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- Toronto to rally against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia ... - NOW Toronto - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- Election 2023: Te Pti Mori accuses Prime Minister Chris Hipkins of 'oppression' for telling parties to 'be careful' with demands - Newshub - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- What's the current state of LGBTQ rights in Europe? - Euronews - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- Baptist Health Foundation Receives $3 Million Gift from the Jos ... - South Florida Hospital News - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- The Politics and Moral Economics of Seun Kutis Police Assault - Tekedia - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- Is a temporary coalition of anger against the old regime a basis for ... - Sierra Leone Telegraph - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- Mexico: against 'neoliberalism' or capitalism? The final year of ... - In Defence of Marxism - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- White Christian Nationalism and the 2023 Montana Legislature ... - Daily Montanan - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- Left-wing lawmakers press for federal reparations for Black Americans: 'We're here to demand it' - Fox News - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- Underground cyphers are helping young Kashmiris reclaim their ... - Huck Magazine - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- Tory MP uses controversial term connected to antisemitic conspiracies - The Jerusalem Post - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- Fijis 1987 coup: Why did Prime Minister Rabuka apologise to the Indo-Fijian community? - The Indian Express - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- Declaration on the Migrant Crisis: Socialists From the U.S., Mexico ... - Left Voice - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- WNBA star Brittney Griner standing and listening to national anthem - Gainesville Sun - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- Imran Khan to unveil next plan of action at a rally on Thursday - ANI News - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- Delta Youths Threaten Showdown Over Exclusion In Multi-Billion ... - SaharaReporters.com - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- Remarks by Homeland Security Advisor Dr. Liz Sherwood-Randall ... - The White House - May 2nd, 2023 [May 2nd, 2023]
- Are some human rights more important than others? Religious ... - Jacksonville Journal-Courier - May 2nd, 2023 [May 2nd, 2023]
- Postcolonial Plague: The Legacy of Apartheid South Africa in ... - Brown Political Review - May 2nd, 2023 [May 2nd, 2023]
- UN expert urges Japan to step up pressure on Myanmar junta - OHCHR - May 2nd, 2023 [May 2nd, 2023]
- CSIS confirms to MP that he and family were targeted by China - The Globe and Mail - May 2nd, 2023 [May 2nd, 2023]
- Opposition leader says govt sent a bureaucrat to talk with calan - Duvar English - May 2nd, 2023 [May 2nd, 2023]
- The Badger Herald Editorial Board: The bounds of free speech The ... - The Badger Herald - May 2nd, 2023 [May 2nd, 2023]
- AIbom NLC to Set up Monitoring Team on Petroleum Products - THISDAY Newspapers - May 2nd, 2023 [May 2nd, 2023]
- Amplifying Iranian Voices: The Call for Freedom and Democracy ... - National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) - May 2nd, 2023 [May 2nd, 2023]
- As inequality deepens, who will rewrite the rules? - Al Jazeera English - May 2nd, 2023 [May 2nd, 2023]
- Discover the Brilliance of George Orwell: Books That Will Inspire You - Economic Times - May 2nd, 2023 [May 2nd, 2023]
- Nature has way of settling scores, says UP CM Yogi Adityanath on Atiq Ahmad's turf - Times of India - May 2nd, 2023 [May 2nd, 2023]
- Tens of thousands hold Labor Day rallies nationwide - The Korea Herald - May 2nd, 2023 [May 2nd, 2023]
- Incoming Nigerian Government Must Improve Poverty Wage ... - SaharaReporters.com - May 2nd, 2023 [May 2nd, 2023]
- Can the European Union Tackle Afghanistan's Crises? - The Diplomat - May 2nd, 2023 [May 2nd, 2023]
- Iran sees nationwide protests, night rallies marking Int'l Labor Day | - The Peoples Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) - May 2nd, 2023 [May 2nd, 2023]
- G20: Responsibilities of the people of PoK - ANI News - May 2nd, 2023 [May 2nd, 2023]
- From IWD to May Day: Connecting working women's struggles - Spring Magazine - May 2nd, 2023 [May 2nd, 2023]
- 1 May 2023 || The Working Class is Back! ISA - International Socialist - May 2nd, 2023 [May 2nd, 2023]
- Are the Marxists on to something? Catholic World Report - Catholic World Report - May 2nd, 2023 [May 2nd, 2023]
- Manoj Kumar Jha and Ghazala Jamil write: Why Pratap Bhanu Mehta is wrong about social justice politics and caste census - The Indian Express - May 2nd, 2023 [May 2nd, 2023]
- Generational crimes are being committed thick and fast. No wonder Australian kids dont vote conservative - The Guardian - May 2nd, 2023 [May 2nd, 2023]
- A Proclamation on Jewish American Heritage Month, 2023 - U.S. ... - US Embassy and Consulate in Poland - May 2nd, 2023 [May 2nd, 2023]