Louise Ross writes:
I went to hear Peter Beinart last night at American University. Very interesting audience. Quiet and respectful group - lots of people from the neighborhood where the wealthiest synagogue in D.C. happens to be located. (Quite different from the crowd at Fordham when Alan Dershowitz accused Richard Goldstone of blood libel.)
The AU students who asked questions were Birthrighters and disputed the notion that their generation was not connected to events in Israel. The older folks talked about their love of Israel but their disregard for the Netanyahu government. Peter Beinart had an older Jewish professor as a counterbalance to his remarks but the guy seemed much more respectful of Beinart than I would have expected. I think his name is Calvin Goldscheider.
I had no idea (and was grateful to learn) that the Birthright visits do not take young American Jews anywhere near the security wall or the West Bank - no wonder they come home so proud! Also, there was an interesting comment by Beinart about the ultra-Orthodox crowd who do not contribute much to the country and in fact get a stipend and have lots of kids!
Happily, the settlement issue came up and Beinart could not see a way of stopping their growth anytime soon. He did talk about the growth of the Palestinians versus the Israelis and how soon the Israeli sector would be overwhelmed just by the numbers. These university groups are very interesting - no bomb throwers here. The only daring soul of late is my friend Ray McGovern who stood up and turned his back on Hillary Clinton as she defended the Israeli stance in the State Department and the jailing of Bradley Manning - got dragged off and beaten up for just standing there!
The event doesn’t sound as if it were set up to elicit differing POV on major issues such as whether or not international law (of occupation) should be enforced — or even mentioned in polite company, or the ever interesting issue of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, or whether the earth is flat or not.
These people — perhaps including Beinart — are like churchy types who hate the sin but love the sinner, but who — upon hearing that the sinner in question is horrifically beating his wife — elect not to intervene — because they love him so much (ignoring the wife).
Calvin Goldscheider:
maybe trotting out beinart is the new vogue in demonstrating how open your mind is while supporting ethnic cleansing.
“maybe trotting out beinart is the new vogue in demonstrating how open your mind is while supporting ethnic cleansing.”
Possibly, though I can’t tell what position Goldscheider holds based on that remark. But it’s a good sign that people like Beinart are making the pro-Israel establishment uneasy (even if Beinart himself doesn’t go far enough).
There’s no way to stop the settlements – particularly when the US President vetos the anti-settlement resolution in the UN.
Was this brought up by Beinart or his audience?
J-Street and Beinart.
Don’t go far enough.
Make “nice” people think that it is possible to be Zionist and also to be “nice”. You know, the settlements (and home demolitions and checkpoints and everything about Gaza) must be OK because, gee, J-Street and Beinart are really nice, quite nice, gentle, non-scary, and they are not really, I mean, not actually criticizing these things, not, actually, like, calling for Israel to STOP IT.
And if they are not asking Israel to STOP IT, then either will I.
Whatever their intentions (and I know nothing of their intentions), the effect (of which I would expect they would be aware, and of which WE should be aware) is to DIS-ARM the possibly increasing ethical Jewish community, the community of Jews who are (if you like) knee-jerk about decency and democracy and international law and justice and ethics rather than (if you like) knee-jerk about Israel, my country right or wrong, and especially when so outrageously wrong.
I agree that progressives like Beinart are more problematic than the staunch “Israel right or wrong” types. See my blog on Beinart’s “groundbreaking” NYRB piece of a year ago: link to markbraverman.org