It’s not totally clear that this video was Peter Beinart’s tipping point, but I thought this was interesting from Allison Hoffman’s profile of Beinart in Tablet:
The essence of his case is that American Jews like him are as horrified to discover YouTube videos depicting the brutish realities of the Israeli occupation as they were by the realization that Saddam Hussein really didn’t have weapons of mass destruction.
Beinart focuses on one video in particular, of a Palestinian child screaming as his father is arrested by Israeli police on suspicion of stealing water from a settlement near his village. The little boy, Beinart writes, keeps howling, “Baba”—coincidentally, the same name Beinart’s own son, once unable to pronounce the Hebrew word “Abba,” calls him. This, he says, is what forced him to speak up against the occupation: his desire to prevent a day when he feels he cannot in good faith teach his young children, who have an Israeli flag hanging in their nursery, to be proud Zionists as well as committed Jews.
I remember that video well, I can still barely bring myself to watch the whole thing.
I agree with Beinart on the internet’s role in getting out “the brutish realities of the Israeli occupation.” It’s a large part of what I think our job is here. I wonder how Beinart can watch the deluge of news from Israel/Palestine and still consider himself a proud Zionist? And, I wonder if that flag is still hanging in his children’s nursery.
I agree with Beinart on the internet’s role in getting out “the brutish realities of the Israeli occupation.” It’s a large part of what I think our job is here.
the trajectory of israel’s delegitimization is directly linked to the rise of the internet. it has only one direction to go until if and when it changes it’s policies. there’s just no rationalizing what’s going on there. they’ve chosen for decades to hide it and lie about it. that is impossible now. it is a simply the confluence and synchronicity of technology and politics. it’s the story of our time, our age. blame the internet.
i remember this video very very well. specifically Israeli Police Claim Video of Crying Palestinian Boy Was Staged https://mondoweiss.mystagingwebsite.com/2010/08/what-zionism-has-wrought.html/comment-page-1#comment-223117
this kind of denial was rampant before the internet, everything palestinians said was framed as a lie. but video has decimated that excuse. palestinians have no need to lie because the truth is right there every single day..for decades.
the truth will set us free.
it’s more than a large part of our job here, it’s the big enchilada. thanks adam.
“his young children, who have an Israeli flag hanging in their nursery…”
Imbuing children with dual loyalty begins early.
Watching that little man have no regard for the armed soldiers trying to hold him back says to me one thing: Palestine will be free.
I remember that video, it wasn’t that long ago.
I turned in 2001 when I saw the picture of the Palestine man and his young son crouching in building corner and a IDF sniper shot the father.
So Beinart is very- very late to the party.
And for someone so dedicated to Israel as Beinart to say he just noticed some act of cruelty a few years ago?
Naw….his angst and activism is he realizes Israel is going to go down eventually because of it’s murderous ways.
Utube has a rather large collection of disturbing videos that reveal the brutality of the Occupation. Those dealing with home evictions with its inhabitants thrown out of their homes along with their furniture are equally disturbing, along with those of settlers in Hebron taunting Palestinians.
A Jewish state can not be a light unto all nations when the moral fabric is stained by the dehumanization of Palestinians.