Beinart
There’s a long profile of Peter Beinart (author of The Crisis of Zionism) up at New York Magazine by Jason Zengerle. I’ve avoided it because the piece is very good for me personally, in that it quotes me and grants me a measure of mainstream approbation; but many friends have told me how disturbing the political values of the story are. a, The discussion of Beinart is entirely a Jewish conversation. No one else is licensed to speak about Israel in the U.S. b, Zengerle hands the microphone to a lot of rightwing Zionists to trash Beinart– the blood is in the water, one friend says.
And c, Zengerle assails Beinart for greasy ambition. If we are going to disqualify successful journalists on that basis, we would empty every editor’s desk in Manhattan by 2:30 this afternoon. “The real story is a gigantic NY mag piece ridiculing Beinart in every way possible,” MJ Rosenberg told me. “Even using antisemitic tropes like Sammy Glick, ambitious climber, parvenu. He sounds more like a Jewish caricature like Dershowitz or young Podhoretz than the classy Ivy guy he is. There are no limits. Beinart had no idea… And why? Because he dared….”
Lizzy Ratner wrote me: “As far as I can tell, the thesis of the piece seems to be that Beinart’s book got everyone’s panties in a bundle because he’s a shmendrick with a bad personality — unlike the jovial Jeffrey Goldberg. The possibility that the establishment might actually be scared of Beinart and his position, non-revolutionary though it is, never really enters the equation. Craven.”
I read the piece today and am reminded that Beinart has shown real bravery with respect to his community, which is almost exclusively Jewish. It takes a lot for anyone to break with his or her community, and Beinart has done so by publicly faulting Israel, which is the worship object of the American Jewish community.
Zengerle allows Beinart’s critics to trash him personally:
Even in a profession populated by striving careerists whose every relationship is transactional, he’s drawn unwanted notice for his ambition. Fellow journalists still remember the self-written biographical sketch he circulated early in his career that listed his various achievements, including this entry: “Beinart won a Marshall Scholarship (declined).” In a 2010 essay for Commentary, Andrew Ferguson recalled a voice mail Beinart once left him when Beinart was editing TNR and Ferguson was writing for Bloomberg News, which then hosted the White House Correspondents’ Dinner’s most exclusive after-party. “The message commenced with 90 seconds of flattery, densely packed, followed by an insistence that I had to write for his magazine, simply had to,” Ferguson wrote. “My faithful fan made noises as if to ring off. And then came the sudden turn, in a voice that had the texture of Vaseline: ‘Oh, one other thing. You know it’s so odd, but I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve never been to the Bloomberg party! You don’t suppose …’ ”
In talking to various Jewish journalists about Beinart over the past few months, I heard the words shmegegge and “Sammy Glick,” as well as this joke: “A yeshiva student goes to his rabbi and says, ‘Rabbi, I had a dream last night that I was the leader of a Hasidic court and I had 300 followers.’ The rabbi says, ‘When 300 Hasidim have a dream that you’re their leader, come back and we’ll talk.’ ” More than one called attention to the large picture of Beinart that greets viewers when they visit Open Zion.
And you know the tall poppy syndrome? That the tall poppies– those with ambition– must be cut down? Zengerle does the honors:
But the vitriolic tenor of much of the criticism from the center-left has less to do with substance than with Beinart’s tone—a moral self-righteousness and an accompanying self-certainty. There is a belief, shared by Beinart’s admirers and detractors, that he is not content to merely be a liberal Zionist writer but that he wants to be a liberal Zionist leader.
Folks, there is a historic crisis unfolding in Israel and Palestine. People should want to be leaders! Good for Beinart!
But this is an all-Jewish conversation and there are rules about how you are to conduct yourself. You have to make an oath first:
More than anything, it’s the spirit of Beinart’s criticism that many of his critics find off-putting. The American-Israeli rabbi David Hartman is fond of telling American Jews that when they criticize Israel, they should do so like a mother rather than a mother-in-law. In other words, they should do so out of love, not to belittle. To many of Beinart’s detractors, he sounds like a mother-in-law. “I came to the book as a friend of Peter’s and as someone wanting to see it succeed and see it have a major impact on people’s thinking,” says Peter Joseph, a prominent liberal Jewish philanthropist who gave Beinart money to help launch the Open Zion blog, “but unfortunately what I’ve seen is the book has led to greater polarization, and that doesn’t serve Israel’s best interests.” Beinart’s critics on the center-left don’t actually seem to disagree with him much; his biggest sin has been in not choosing to talk about Israel the way they expect Israel to be talked about.
These critics are on the right, actually. Though I must hand it to Zengerle on the Peter Joseph quote, excellent reporting. This shows how imprisoned my community is by rightwing funders’ attitudes.
Lastly, several friends have pointed out that Zengerle polishes up the handle on the big front door of Jeffrey Goldberg: he climbs over Beinart to burnish the reputation of the man Zengerle calls, accurately, the most important Jewish journalist in the U.S. Like printing this stupid joke:
When our conversation is interrupted by a fleet of Marine helicopters flying over the Potomac River, Goldberg deadpans, “AIPAC, by the way, owns those helicopters. They have their own fleet of Cobras and Blackhawks now.”
From a former Israeli prison guard, that is an insult to anyone who is trying to understand AIPAC’s power in U.S. politics.
Then there’s Zengerle’s good reporting on a meeting of national-security journalists with Obama. Among them were Beinart, Goldberg and David Remnick.
When another journalist asked Obama about what Netanyahu’s new coalition government might mean for the peace process, the president joked, “You should ask Jeff. He knows a lot more about this stuff than I do.” Goldberg won bigger laughs with his reply: “I’m not authorized to talk about that.”
A dual loyalty joke in the White House. Not funny.
just starting the article but this gave me a chuckle
“Writing in The New York Times Book Review, Jonathan Rosen—a mild-mannered Jewish public intellectual whose most recent book was a meditation on bird- watching—savaged Beinart “
i recall that review. his intent was to savage him but he ended up sounding the jilted lover, like a woman scorned. catty..that’s just from memory. maybe i’m wrong. he should stick to bird watching. no courage required there.
I agree with both this comment and Phil’s quote of
“There’s blood in the water throughout the piece”.
There is a lot of gloating going on. We got Beinart and now we are going to hang him and make him an example. There is definitely arrogance in the piece, because it reeks of insider status by nature of it’s insider jokes.
But this arrogance is precisely the point. Beinart wanted to do something, anything, and he did it with stellar credibility. They couldn’t attack his Jewish cred, because he is committed to Judaism than most of his critics. And the way he had to flaunt his Jewishness before he could talk is in of itself a story.
They couldn’t attack his intellect or his credibility.. because he is stellar in those areas. So now they attack his character. He is vain, they tell us.
And I think to some extent he is. He should have come at this much earlier but didn’t have the guts, so Mearsheimer/Walt paved the way for him to come from a Jewish context and frame the argument from a ‘What’s Really Good For Israel’ context. But Beinart trashed Mearsheimer/Walt when it mattered and gave them no credit.
He also waited until it was ‘safe’. So I don’t agree with the left’s misguided respect, but I certainly think he’s worth better treatment than this.
But the real story here isn’t about Beinart, but about the piece itself and what it represents. I think we can all agree that Beinart was really the last hope of an internal awakening and he got savaged from all sides. Even Ben-Ami threw him under the bus. Ben-Ami who now spends time agreeing with Kristol that ‘we won the battle’. But you didn’t, that’s the entire point.
And with Beinart down and out, that’s it. He’s now being hanged in the public square as a deterrent to anyone else. The same was true with Richard Goldstone. He was made to an example and a warning to others.
What does this mean? That the liberal critique will take on a decisely more Gentile (and in other words; universalist and principled, because they are not weighed down by tribal loyalties and can go straight to principle over blood loyalty) direction and form. And this mean that any ‘liberal Zionists’ will also take more and more conservative positions.
In other words; it’s a clash between those who believe in Apartheid and not. As the 2SS is firmly buried, liberal Zionists simply will not be taken seriously. At all.
And this is the end result of the desecration of Beinart. And they may now be gloating, but this is the road they’ve chosen. They may think they will win this fight, but aprés Beinart, le deluge.
(sigh)……
Beinart’s problem is the same all “liberal” zionist have…. which is he can’t/won’t tell the ”whole truth” to other Jews.
And really he is of no interest to anyone discussing Israel but Jews and even there mostly to those who oppose his zionist liberalism.
In some ways Beinart is the epitome of Israeliness….the trying to have everything ‘both ways’.
The longer the Israeli thing goes on the more I believe YOU HAVE TO TAKE A SIDE.
To try and mince your way along being 6 of one and half a dozen of the other with half truths and half morality will only get you what Beinart has gotten, attacks from both sides.
RE: “A dual loyalty joke in the White House. Not funny.”
I’d rank this as the understatement of the year, to date.
What do I mean? Try out these old saws:
“Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.”
“Old wine in new bottles.”
And this more recent foaming dribble from pop culture:
“I am mad as hell, and I won’t take it anymore!”
beinart, a ‘mother-in-law’? that’s funny. setting aside the fact that people who are complaining, in essence, about anti-semitism and the pathology of self-hatred, are erecting defenses built upon misogyny and racism, i’ve lost count of how many times beinart has said ‘jewish and democratic’ when referring to the maximalist state in interviews. (i believe that he used that term 3 times in a single response to a question from ‘the best broadcast interviewer in the nation’.) if he is an exemplar of courage in the community, then it’s a pretty autocratic community.
so now you know, if you didn’t already, that a deal on IP will come about in spite of not because of the american jewish community. with all due respect to lynn gottlieb and other righteous jews, the only hope for a significant change of american policy is a non-jewish awakening.
an intellectual godfather…. sweet
—“My belief is we have to save Jews from Zionism,” Weiss says; “he (Beinart )thinks you can save Zionism”
In a nutshell.
How do we tell who those are? It doesn’t say that the coterie extends beyond that (me – middle aged, white ex-Catholic atheist, pseudo-intellectual) though I’ve often thought I shouldn’t be part of any club that woud have me as a member (h/t Groucho).
I thought the Goldberg joke was actually pretty funny. I also think the description of Beinart is pretty accurate; every time I see the guy on TV he takes 500 words to make one point, constantly interrupts others, and is totally unwilling to listen or talk to any non-jews on this topic. Thats the description of a hack, if you’re rootin’ for this guy to be a “leader,” WOW. Have fun with that.
That aside, MondoBeinart (open weiss, maybe?) is doing fine work cataloging the every exchange between the pillars of The American Jewish Elite. This just in, Petey Beinart had eggs over easy and turkey bacon (so he says) for breakfast. Abe Foxman is drafting a statement in response.
No matter the audience, it’s the editor’s job to make sure that whatever the publishers/owners don’t like, does not get printed and vice-versa.
So a mother in law meets an intellectual godfather. Both are slightly unpleasant images in all the circumstances. Saying that injustice is injustice is not an act of jealous scolding.
Accusing B of ‘greasy ambition’ – do these anti-anti-Semites really call him ‘Sammy Glick’? – seems to bring a tacit admission that there are rewards available from deep within the Jewish community for modifying the traditional pro-Zionist stand. In spite of all the signs that B is being trashed I do hope that this is true. All this idea of Jewish and non-Jewish people living in diffferent worlds, with different godfathers for their different minds, is wearisome and must in the end be false.
Goldberg won bigger laughs with his reply: “I’m not authorized to talk about that.”
If there is more like that one simply has to read it. ;)
I thought the most revealing part of the piece was Goldberg recalling how he responded when Beinart asked him why he dissed the ‘Crisis’ book but praised a G. Gorenberg book making essentially the same arguments. Goldberg scoffed that Beinart didn’t get it — since Gorenberg lives in Israel and has skin in the game his arguments have to be taken seriously. While Beinart’s can be dismissed as backseat driving. IOW Goldberg had no problem admitting he wasn’t prepared to evaluate Beinart’s arguments on their merits, merely on their adherence to an implicit diaspora loyalty oath. Of course, taking Goldberg’s statement at face value would mean that no one writing about a foreign locale could ever be taken seriously, including Goldberg himself.
Weiss mentions Goldberg stint as a prison guard. More details:
“And what can you say about Jeffry Goldberg? You won’t see it in his Bloomberg biography, but he was a prison guard at the notorious Ketziot prison camp in the Negev during the first intifada (1987-1993).
How bad and illegal was Ketziot? Goldberg himself wrote about it here “Suffice it to say that the very existence of the prison violated what was then settled international law. The prison’s location, in the unremitting desert, was a human rights violation: prisoners are supposed to be proected from the harsher elements. Ketziot’s location also fiolated the rule that prisoners hould not be transferred to another country, the prisoners, all of whom were residents of the “West Bank and Gaza should have been jailed in the territores, and not inside Israel. The treatmnet of children was even more troubling …” As you might expect other accounts are even more negative…”
from a piece on my blog favorably comparing Gunter Grass military deed to Goldberg’s
Click or scroll down to “Blogs”
Sammy Glick was motivated by pure materialism, by money; he judged and judged himself on those values. I notice so many reviews say this is purely secular values. In contrast, the later Duddy Krawitz, though just as ruthlessly ambitious, is reviewed as a young guy with Jewish family values, and this in the reviewers eyes, and presumably the audience eye, makes his ethics better, e.g., it has been said to justify how he treats his shiksa girlfriend, inter alia. Duddy uses the term “shicksa” and “goy” to signify a lower species of human beings. Some reviewers of both moves conflate gross material values as “secular” and “Gentile.” OK, now I better go read how the NY Magazine portrays Beinart as Sammy Glick–just because he’s ambitious and, to his critics, exemplifies the end justifies the means? What end? Beinart, unlike Glick, clearly has other ends beyond materialism–and those ends, concocting a reputable Zionism in the eyes of liberal American Jews (forget the World’s eyes) seems more like what makes Duddy Kravitz run, than what makes Sammy Glick run. Maybe it’s time for a new movie taking the audience to Beinart as the new ambitious Jew, circa 2012? The movie that includes Israel and AIPAC. Seems to me the stakes are much higher now for all Americans, not just the 2% that are Jewish. What do we get? Jews tossing fictional anti-semitic Jewish stereotypical characters (or darlings, eh?) at each other as in a food fight, the Goys outside the window ambling by, with one periodically stopping for a minute, pressing nose to the window pane out there. And the world heads for WW3, with US-Israel “special relationship” being a very key factor.
Re this article by one, zengerle:
Behold the battles of The Jews! have you ever seen anything nastier in print lately? even from the rightest of the “right wing”? note the under-the-belt blows, the smugness of it’s-all-in-the-family stupefaction, the abandonment of any pretense to substance in favor of shallow wit – the kind that presumes there’ll always be some dense goys who will stoop to revel in the mud fight. So lively, indeed! so fun! so reality-show-like! just like Survivor cue Hunger games – the Manhattan/DC version!
This kind of drivel, the crass mean-spiritedness of it, the petty incivility oozing from the poison pen of the tribal scribner-de-jour – it is all meant to wound, to tar reputations, to cut down to size and to dispirit. This is really a Jewish form of honor-killing. An entirely personal form of revenge against the wayward.
The appropriate reaction by those who have a modicum respect for civility is disgust. No wonder so many marry outside the tribe – a little breath of intellectual fresh air for some, some peace and quiet around the dinner table for others?
Some have said (Mooser here, almost often enough): Zionism is making Jews stupid. Unfortunately it also makes them pettier and smugier. That’s in the US. In israel all that has been par for the course for quite a while – there zionism is slowly turning the Jews into barbarians. And that, my friends, is what’s coming to America, to a town near you – if it hasn’t yet.
This is really a Jewish form of honor-killing. “…Danaa
Best way I’ve seen to describe it. Use it in your book.
And, to my own comment, I should add that I am no admirer of princelings, be they jewish intellectuals or Chinese post-revolutionaries. It’s enough for me to criticize Beinart on the merits – plenty there without going to town on ambition. As if zengerle has not seen it in himself – or any of the other illustrious figures he mentions (cf. the Goldberg rubrics, the mother lode of tribal sphinxters…*)..
PS Mooser. you gonna save me from where I am going with this or what?
Danaa,
“PS Mooser. you gonna save me from where I am going with this or what?”
You need to go there. MJ Rosenberg does.
Where ever you are going I want to go there too.
danaa danaa incredible danaa
powerful. I just found out about Rashi, a Torah scholar who lived in galut, in France, in the Middle Ages. He lived amongst Christians and understood that dogma is secondary to finding a way to live together. And that is the difference between Jews in Israel and the US.
Israeli Jews are building themselves a fundamentalist shtetl
that is ethnically pure at the expense of their moral values. And if US
Jews follow their Israeli coreligionists into the insanity of religion inspired hatred it is not going to end well. At all. Because we all have to get along
And Rashi got that
link to chabad.org
These lessons were learnt painfully over centuries. It is not advisable to cash them all in for a Third Temple fantasy.
Yes, honor killing may be an apt description but I think it goes beyond that. Its as if its all backwards. The tribal meme seems to be that Jewish institutions, most especially Israel, must be treated with kid gloves by all Jews, or even treated like tender children incapable of handling realistic criticism, even if couched in the mildest of terms. Individual Jews, however, can be subject to endless, scathing, mean-spirited and demeaning criticism and this is somehow considered “good for the Jews”. Institutions should be stronger and more capable of receiving criticism than individuals, and yet the opposite is assumed here. It really does sound rather cult-like.
…Goldberg deadpans, “AIPAC, by the way, owns those helicopters. They have their own fleet of Cobras and Blackhawks now.
PW: From a former Israeli prison guard, that is an insult to anyone who is trying to understand AIPAC’s power in U.S. politics.
It sounds like Phil took Goldberg’s comment personally. But I’d have thought if anyone was insulted it was the American people. Because Goldberg is smart enough to know there has to be an element of truth in such darkly droll comments. After all, who has been best served by the trail of Marine dead and wounded across South-West Asia?
Hey, This is nothing compared to what Walt and Mearsheimer got. They survived very nicely and I imagine Beinart will also, if you care.
I saw Beinart speak in Sept 2011, after he had written the NYRB piece. At that time, I thought PB was a waste. I think I even wrote something here about seeing Beinart’s lecture in Syracuse, NY. I pegged him for a smarter and very much more Jewish version of JStreet Jeremy.
I think today’s PB is significantly different than the PB of 8 months ago. In his book and I think even more so in his interviews and debates now, Beinart expresses a very heartfelt opposition to the occupation. He is bringing that critique to the mainstream. That is a good thing, even with all the limitations. (Note, both Phil Weiss and Norman Finkelstein are very happy Beinart hit it big.)
Beinart’s honest opposition to occupation and Netanyahu, I think, is what is drawing all the flack from the liberal Zionists who claim they oppose the occupation and Israeli policy, but with a wink that says, I will never actually do anything that will stop the Israelis from taking what they think is theirs and oppressing Palestinians, just let me assume this liberal guise, it will not hurt anyone that counts, and probably helps Israel in the end — we do not want anyone to think Avigdor Lieberman (or Joe Lieberman) is really Jewish, right.
Isn’t that what is meant when the critics “agree with the substance” of what PB says but object to the tone, spirit, lack of nuance, lack of feeling for Israel and all the vacuous criticisms that were given in the New York Magazine piece. Beinart makes Ben-Ami, Goldberg, and many of those quoted in the article look like the hypocrites that they are.
Another thing that I thought was very interesting in the article is that Beinart was invited to the White House even though in his book PB detailed at great length how Netanyahu and Big Jews humiliated (PB’s words) Obama. PB went on for pages about how ineffective Obama was and is. Beinart gave the book to Obama? If the Pres. reads it, I do not think he will he so quick to invite this high voiced wayward Jew back.
And finally, Phil and the non-Zionist Jewish position got the respect in this mainstream NY publication that they deserve. That’s a big plus!!
So one of the many smears they employ in their obnoxiously condescending tone is that Beinart has some kind of messianic delusion? This is coming from dyed-in-the-wool zionists? LOL. Oh the irony. But that was never a zionist strong point. Neither is honesty or the desire to accept diversity, whether of thought or of people. Cultists. They are like Scientologists when one breaks rank and spills the beans about the Thetans. I guess Beinart failed the e-meter test and is to be cast into the outer darkness. Lucky him.
like Scientologists when one breaks rank and spills the beans about the Thetans
funny
The only way people who consider themselves “Jewish”even though they are not religious can make any difference in the Palestine debate is by refusing to speak as “Jewish”, refuse to play inside the nest of vipers and loudly abjure Judaism, provocatively take Gentile names and refuse to discuss tribal nonsense.
Later today I’m off today to a talk by Abigail Abarbanel, an Israeli-born psychotherapist who lived in Australia for some years and is now in Scotland. She’s the editor of a new book titled Beyond Tribal Loyalties: Personal Stories of Jewish Peace Activists. Sounds great, I hope they’re selling copies today.
Anyway last night I listened again to an interview she did with Hazel Kahan in 2010 where she analysed Israel as if it were one of there patients. Very interesting:
link to web.me.com
Phil mentions Beinart being the victim of tall poppy syndrome but I think it’s something else. Tall poppies are cut down just for being successful – the problem is the sort of success Beinart is having.
In her interview Abarbanel and Kahan talk about Murray Bowen’s concept of Differentiation of Self. Abarbanel says Israelis society is one that is very poorly differentiated and I guess this would also apply to zionists in general; among poorly differentiated people there is much more ‘group think’. More on Bowen’s concept here:
Differentiation of Self
Families and other social groups tremendously affect how people think, feel, and act, but individuals vary in their susceptibility to a “group think” and groups vary in the amount of pressure they exert for conformity. These differences between individuals and between groups reflect differences in people’s levels of differentiation of self. The less developed a person’s “self,” the more impact others have on his functioning and the more he tries to control, actively or passively, the functioning of others. The basic building blocks of a “self” are inborn, but an individual’s family relationships during childhood and adolescence primarily determine how much “self” he develops. Once established, the level of “self” rarely changes unless a person makes a structured and long-term effort to change it.
People with a poorly differentiated “self” depend so heavily on the acceptance and approval of others that either they quickly adjust what they think, say, and do to please others or they dogmatically proclaim what others should be like and pressure them to conform. Bullies depend on approval and acceptance as much as chameleons, but bullies push others to agree with them rather than their agreeing with others. Disagreement threatens a bully as much as it threatens a chameleon. An extreme rebel is a poorly differentiated person too, but he pretends to be a “self” by routinely opposing the positions of others.
For anyone in Melbourne here are this afternoons talk details:
link to australiansforpalestine.net
And she is doing an Australian book tour to most capital cities, more details at AFP, “Events in your state” section on page right, scroll down.
Sumud, did you check out Philip Mendes’s attack on this book? link to abc.net.au
Yet another reason to buy Aberbanel’s book. She sounds like an amazing and brave person.
Someone here mentioned and linked to her writing a while ago….I think she is dead on in her analysis. Jackie Rose in her ‘Question of Zion’ alluded to this also.
I also think this ” poorly differentiated self” has a lot to do with the zionist obsession with inventing and ‘fancifying’ a ‘peoplehood’ history for themselves.
About the only I remember ever hearing in reference to the Jews was the biblical quotations about Jews being ”the wandering tribe”. It seems to me the zios are trying to establish themselves as a “people” by revising history and positioning themselves on the same order as the Romans or the Egyptian ” people-nations” instead of their heritage as a wandering tribe among other tribes in the ME.
It also appears to me that while most people “have roots” they can identify with ‘national origins’ the Jews really never had national origin or identification or record of “heritage” for themselves other than religion which was their actual heritage till zionism came along. As we see by records of Jews in Germany, some or maybe most Jews always identified ‘peoplewise’ with the country they were living in although the tribalism still existed in some other aspects of Jewish society. Zionism ruined that…has made them into some alien group that can ‘t really even define itself. But Jews have to be ‘alien’ to their own country of residence for zionism to succeed…that’s the whole point of Israel.
When I look at zionism I see the largest ‘cult-like’ movement beginning with Herzl that has ever existed…it morphed a religion and what was a tribe tied together mostly by religion in ancient days into a ‘modern day’ tribal group…took them exactly backwards in today’s world.
Very, very messed up and doomed to fail.
might have been me regarding Jacquelyn Rose – question of zion was a tremendous book, one of my favorite early reads on zionism.
I think it was you Dan on Rose…can’t remember who it was on Abigail Abarbanel..might have been laysis, Taxi or Danaa.
American: “It seems to me the zios are trying to establish themselves as a “people’ by revising history and positioning themselves on the same order as the Romans or the Egyptian “people-nations” instead of their heritage as a wandering tribe amoung other tribes in the ME.” Spot on, it’s like their are trying to imitate the Roman Empire, their former oppressors.
“As we see by records of Jews in Germany, some or maybe most Jews always identified “peoplewise” with the country they were living in although tribalism still existed in some other aspects of Jewish society.”
I think the tribal aspects you are refering to would be the communities of Jews in Eastern Europe, Poland, the Russian sphere. Here Jews developed Klezmer music derived from Romanian folk music as well as developed Yiddish theater as well as uniquely Jewish political parties (non-Zionist) that appealed to working-class Jews. The Jewish sense of humor that migrated to America came out of this era. Of course zios had to ruin the whole concept of eydlkayt and replace it with Uzi-toting militarism, foreign to Jewish culture.
Mr. Beinart does seem to be in crisis. Idealogically, he’s troubled by the inconvenient truths about Israel. On a more personal level, however, his troubles are mounting as his community is determined to destroy his career, his chararcter, and his place in America’s Jewish bourgeois community. This gauntlet will test his character and his identity. If he racants, as Goldstone did, in the hopes of keeping his status, he’ll lose his integrity. He’ll look at himself in the mirror every day knowing he’s telling the biggest lies to himself. He’ll be surrounded by all the familiar trappings of Israel uber alles: the fund raisers for Israeli cuases, frequent references to Israel in his worship services, the Israeli flag in his synagogue… He’ll see Israel continuing on it’s self destructive path and he’ll have permission to say…nothing.
On the other hand, if he stays the course he can keep his integrity. He can look at himself in the mirror and know that he’s not looking at a whipped dog. He may have to change his friends, his address, his career goals, his congregation, change anything and everything about his life, but he’ll keep his integrity and his important voice as a serious critic of Israel. I don’t agree with Mr. Beinart’s belief that Zionism is viable or just but I do admire his willingness to thwack the hornet’s nest.
To Mr Beinart: Trust your instincts. If covering your eyes and lying to yourself about the disaster that’s unfolding in Isreal is something that makes you queasy, then don’t give up the important role you’re playing. Don’t stop speaking out. Keep pushing and see where it leads you. You may ultimately discover that in order to save Judaic religion, culture, values, etc. for yourself means jettisoning Zionism altogether. It may come down to that.
Sumud, though I too find Abarbanel’s analysis of Israel, and by extention Jewish culture compelling, I find her analysis too simplistic and cliche. I believe, like many contributors here, that Israel is run by Zionist sociopaths in the U.S. and that is the monster we’re dealing with. Yeah, maybe 50 even 30 years years ago you can use the trauma argument and that would be a sufficient explanation of Israeli behavior. But also as a student of psychology, though not as advanced a level as Abarbanel but it doesn’t matter here, I see Zionist behavior as that of a sociopath plain and simple. We literally have a situation where an entire religious/ethnic community is being run by a handful of rich sociopaths who normal Jews, sadly,have entrusted with our well being. And as supposedly educated as American and Israeli Jews are, you would think we would have known better than to have gone down this disastrous path. And LanceTruster, I won’t say yet that I’ve reached the stage of intellectual, but certainly young (22) and anti-Zionist. We are out there, though sadly hard to find even for me.
“We literally have a situation where an entire religious/ethnic community is being run by a handful of rich sociopaths who normal Jews, sadly,have entrusted with our well being.”
Not “sadly” but criminally and punishably. And it’s not their own well-being but exclusively that of others.
@ youngmass
“I believe, like many contributors here, that Israel is run by Zionist sociopaths in the U.S. and that is the monster we’re dealing with.”
BINGO! A+
“Yeah, maybe 50 even 30 years years ago you can use the trauma argument and that would be a sufficient explanation of Israeli behavior. But also as a student of psychology, though not as advanced a level as Abarbanel but it doesn’t matter here, I see Zionist behavior as that of a sociopath plain and simple”
Another A+
I think you have it figured out pretty well. The battlefield for defeating the zionist and zionist Israel is in the US.
>> ” … I’m hardly radical at all. I’m a liberal Zionist who doesn’t want a Palestinian right of return and wants a Jewish state,” Beinart says.
Say. No. More.
You gotta love a guy who makes a very clear point of professing his immorality and supremacism…but in a polite way. You gotta wonder about an establishment that vilifies him for not being immoral and supremacist enough.
For what it’s worth, I just read the NYT profile of Peter Beinart and found it unbiased and remarkably dispassionate. The guy is writing a fairly superficial profile concentrating mainly on the furor created by Beinart’s book among spokespersons of the Jewish intellectual community, and a few others. For the wider world, it is a fairly parochial subject in itself, goldfish squabbling in a bowl, but becomes interesting in illuminating the increasingly familiar position and techniques adopted and employed by supporters of Israel’s current policies. To many this simply confirms what is already known, but having it so finely focused will likely awaken dormant perceptions in countless others. Overall I would say it contributes to the fissure insensibly developing between the US and Israel. We live in a world of plans within plans within plans and the profile ends with particularly interesting snippet.
By the bye, not long ago I watched a recorded discussion between Peter Beinart and an older man, a supporter of the status quo, who appeared to host a regular program but whose name I do not recall. Although irreconcilably opposed they were scrupulously polite to each other. Neither of their positions was intellectually tenable but the older man was at least consistent whereas Beinart appeared to be juggling incompatible principles while trying not to compromise any of them. Although many genuflect to his intellect, I find it slick; one may not catch exactly how it’s done but one knows rabbits do not reside in hats. To me he conveys a putative evangelical quality that I feel could be dangerous if too many take him too seriously. I mention this only because some of his critics may sense it to.
Meanwhile, Beinart is making the rounds at some Jewish American organizations, butting heads w/ right-wingers. Here are a couple of videos from the past couple of months.
Interviewed by Shalom TV: link to youtube.com
Debate at the Jewish Journal: link to youtube.com
“Not “sadly” but criminally and punishably. And it’s not their own well-being but exclusively that of others.” It is a sad situation that many Jews just don’t know better than to put their future in the hands of people like Adelson, Moscowitz, Saban, etc. Of course the well-being of others is at stake, chiefly the Palestinians. That’s not what I was referring to in this instance. I mean that these sociopaths are creating the conditions for a backlash against ALL Jews because once the 98% figure it out they will go after EVERY Jew, not just sociopath Zionists.
YoungMassJew, You are absolutely right. Very few ordinary folk are aware of any distinction between Israelis and Zionists or between Israelis/Zionists and Jews. This is because the first is pushed under the rug, while the second has been deliberately obscured in order to play the holocaust etc. card. It is likely too late to reverse these unfortunate misconceptions because any major effort to do so would strike most folk as mere evasion. Almost none of the comments following the NYT profile are on topic, the main push one way is the cost of Israel to the US taxpayer while the counter-voice is the same old blinkered nonsense.
Furthermore, I do not believe Islamophobia is the same beast as anti-Semitism since the first has been deliberately fostered for practical reasons while the second has always been with us.
YoungMassJew, your POV is mirrored as fact in European history, including Russian history. Those Jews who subscribe to the negative vanity that anti-semitism has always sprung as a mental and/or religious DNA disease worthy of the DSM IV are lethally deluded if one looks beyond the moment in terms of “What’s best for the Jews?” Just one example, if one looks at old European “peasant uprisings” one can’t help but notice, if one is familiar with Jewish History (pogroms: “They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat!) as recorded and taught, that they coincide way too often. Hence, I guess, the term (the goy elite’s) “scapegoat.” Makes one wonder who’s doing the scapegoating when one gets their full meal of both versions of world history. Which brings me to the question: What if a born and bred Israeli in the IDF sold secret documents giving away a full map of Israeli attack and defense sites (that would fill in boxes a 12′ X 12′ room) to American agents so America could trade that map to Iran to trade for some Americans held in Iran captivity, would the Israeli PM release that Israeli traitor-spy (to go to America as an American hero) because it might help the PM retain office?
Citizen, can you elaborate what you mean by “both versions of world history”?
YoungMassJew, your concerns don’t worry the moneybag American Jews because your premise is wrong since they see anti-semitism as never deriving from anything but DNA-derived Gentile mental illness, sometimes enhanced by Gentile religion and/or culture. What they do, you see, has nothing to do at all with what Gentiles end up doing.
Damn…I am so on the same wave lenght as Arbanel. I said it earlier you… You Have To Take A Side….you have to be “Against Israel” in this fight. You can’t be ‘reasonable’, you can’t consider what is good for Israel or the Jews in this fight because there is no reasonable in zionism or Israel. That kind of thinking and thinking that you must be a fair and reasonable person..which most people want to be … is in reality a f***** trap when it comes to the zionist.
link to avigailabarbanel.me.uk
Taking sides
The relationship between Israel and the Palestinians increasingly looks to me like a relationship between a disordered person and his or her victim. In everyday conflict good people try to ‘see both sides’. Under normal circumstances this is appropriate. But it doesn’t work when one of the people in the conflict is disordered. It may go against all our instincts but when dealing with disordered people and their victims, it is necessary to take sides. Many murders and murder-suicides have been allowed to happen because people misguidedly tried to remain impartial and ‘fair’ and didn’t believe the victim or listen when he or she pleaded for help. The murder and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians is allowed to happen partly because world leaders behave as if the Palestinians and Israel are equal sides and therefore everyone should try to be impartial.
In couple therapy we usually try to remain impartial. But if a couple therapist identifies a personality disorder in one of the partners (or evidence of violence in the relationship), the therapist must terminate couple therapy and side with the non-disordered partner (or the victim of the violence). In ordinary situations we expect both partners equally to take responsibility for the mess they’re in. But this works only when both partners are capable of taking responsibility, and disordered people simply cannot.
Trying to remain impartial in a situation like this is not just unhelpful but will also backfire because it plays into the hands of the disordered partner, whose agenda is to avoid responsibility at all cost and be allowed to continue what they’re doing uninterrupted. Disordered partners want the therapist to be on their side and often try to co-opt the therapist into ganging up on their victim.
Notice how similar this is to the way Israel has been manipulating world public opinion to support Israel and ignore the Palestinians, or worse still, see them as the ‘bad guy’. This is of course absurd given that everyone can see that Israel is a powerful occupying force and the Palestinians are the victims, cooped up in refugee camps.”