Peter Beinart has now been excommunicated from his original community, the Establishment Israel lobby media, and Joshua Holland has a great interview up with Peter Beinart at Alternet in which the brave writer’s further evolution can be glimpsed.
The interview is remarkable for two points: First, Beinart’s shift toward cultural Zionism, away from political Zionism and the need for a Jewish state. He is readying himself to call for democracy for all citizens between river and the sea, so long as Jewish cultural existence is safeguarded. Second, there is Beinart’s very sharp analysis of how American Jews have become more conservative– lost their commitment to the idea of social equality– because of their support for Israel.
First Holland asks Beinart if he was surprised by the angry reception for his book. Beinart says No. I don’t believe him, but it’s the question I’ve always wanted to ask.
Peter Beinart: Not really. I knew this was a very emotional issue. I knew that it would produce a lot of anger. For somebody within the Jewish community to take a view of Israel’s direction that suggests it is deeply in the wrong path – this is an issue close to many people’s hearts. People come at it from their own perspectives. I wrote it knowing that whatever the initial reaction would be that this is going to be a debate that is probably going to continue in some form for the rest of my life. I wanted to try and make some statement about the danger of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank becoming permanent and threatening Israel’s status as a democracy while there was still time to do so.
Now here’s where he indicates that he is stepping away from political Zionism. He doesn’t go in for the celebration of “Jewish democracy” we heard so much of just a few weeks back.
I think there are very important questions that Israel is going to have to face. Remember this is a country without a constitution and that has never even really defined what the word “Jew” means. I think you can imagine an Israel that evolves toward greater mechanisms for full representation of the Arab population without fully losing the special responsibility it has for the safeguarding of Jewish life. It’s important to remember that Zionism historically has been a very broad canvas. I consider myself a political Zionist who believes in the democratic Jewish state, but it’s worth remembering that there was another strain of Jewish Zionism called cultural Zionism. It was from Theodore Herzl’s great rival Ahad Ha’am. It doesn’t even necessarily believe that a Zionist had to believe in a Jewish state. It posited that there must be a Jewish community inside Israel representing a cultural point for Jewish people in the diaspora.
Here’s his analysis of the American Jewish political presence. Note that Eric Alterman likes to say that Jews are liberals. I think the truth is far more nuanced, and Beinart is on to it:
I think what you’ve seen is the weakening of the institutional Jewish community’s historic commitment to issues of equity. There was a time, believe it or not, where the major instruments of American Jewish life would have been deeply invested in the Supreme Court’s decision on healthcare. In the middle of the 20th century, civil rights and questions of economic justice were very much at the fore in the institutional American Jewish community in a way that they’re not today. Obviously, lots of American Jews are very involved in the issues, but institutionally the community has moved toward a much stronger focus on defense of Israeli policies and defense against anti-Semitism — I would say that sometimes it’s perceived anti-Semitism, or anti-Semitism defined in a way that makes the term meaningless.
That was partly a response to the rise in Republican power in Washington and the need for the American Jewish community to do business with Republicans. It has fed into this alliance with the Christian right.
I believe that Peter Beinart has crossed a Rubicon, that his brave stance against his own community, the pro-Israel Establishment, has set him on a journey that will lead ultimately to his abandonment of the idea of a Jewish state.
Beinart has now been all but excommunicated by that community. Last week, Ben Cohen published an attack on him in Commentary that characterized him as “anti-Zionist” (a misrepresentation). Also last week, Beinart’s name was invoked from the podium at the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly in Pittsburgh, in one Presbyterian’s speech calling for divestment from companies doing business in the occupied territories. The speaker noted Beinart’s call for boycott of settlement products in a piece in the New York Times. So Beinart is now alienated from liberal Zionist groups Americans for Peace Now and J Street (whose shameful stance on divestment MJ Rosenberg slams here).
(Correction: Ben Cohen contacted us to say he has not worked at the American Jewish Committee since January 2011. The post has been amended.)
Both Beinart and yourself are tiptoeing around the issue of the Jewish self- government : what is the value of the cultural Zionism if it’s followers can be subjected to the whims of their rulers, which ,if follow the demographics of the “one state” dogma you pushing here, will be be non-Jewish? How you can shy away from that? It is not about some general issues or some philosophy- it is about lives of the people, who are claimed by Beinart to be his fellow Jews.
There are many ways to be Jewish person- religious or secular, orthodox or reformist , black or white, Asian or caucasian, but the uniqueness of Israel is only about Jewish self-government, hence political Zionism. Take that away and truly there shall be no need in it.
>> … but the uniqueness of Israel is only about Jewish self-government, hence political Zionism. Take that away and truly there shall be no need in it.
There is no need for supremacism anywhere, no matter how “unique”.
So, either i) make Jewish a bureaucratic nationality – which can be granted to all citizens of and immigrants to Jewish State – so that Jewish State can be a secular, democratic and egalitarian state of and for all its citizens, equally; or ii) take away political Zionism and make Israel a secular, democratic and egalitarian state of and for all Israelis, equally.
‘the one-state dogma you [are] pushing here . . .’
the current government in israel is the greatest proponent of ‘the one-state dogma’, or didn’t you get the news? the remaining questions concern the unequal treatment of the citizens of israel, which includes the west bank, and the need for international recognition of gaza as a state, a state under siege.
Then I would say that you zios have two choices: if you are such die-in-the-wool racists, then pull your gunmen, militants, settler colonialists and other scum back behind the 1967 lines, leave the Palestinians alone, and be satisfied living in your racist state, or learn to live in a multi-cultural state.
Perhaps the most racist, vile thought in this who subject is when zionists state — either directly or indirectly — that they have a right, or it is okay, for them to oppress the Palestinians in order to safeguard what they see as their right to rule.
”that they have a right, or it is okay, for them to oppress the Palestinians in order to safeguard what they see as their right to rule.”’…..Woody
That the problem isn’t it? The talk of Jewish ‘self rule’ is fluffy nonsense….it goes beyond that into ruling others.
I pay attention to way Israel and zionist talk to the world at large and to world governments and leaders….it’s always “We Demand”, ‘We Won’t Allow”….always ”dictating” to the world what They will and won’t accept and what the world ‘Must and Will’ do to satisfy their wishes and demands.
The problem is not “Jewish self-government” per se, its how it has been realized. No one would have a problem with a Zionist state located in Antartica. The problem is that, as constructed in the real world, it must inevitably be an apartheid state. I think the Zionist movement realized there were a few Arabs in Palestine when they made that territory the focus of their efforts at the expense of Uganda, the Patagonia region of Argentina or Birobidzan.
Does saying that there is such a thing as a Jewish nation make me a Zionist? Maybe. But I, like Beinart, insist that any political entity that receives American support be a democracy. Israel is not a democracy.
Ultimately, Beinart argues, apartheid rule over the Arabs will be fatal to any expression of political Zionism, since it is inherently unstable an increasingly reliant on American political and military support.
Yes, the problem is that, once conceived, the people who pushed zionism never asked whether it could be done ethically, with a willingness to abandon it, if it could not. In other words, simply because you can identify a people — the Jews — and propose that they exercise political autonomy — soverignty over a piece of land — you still have only discussed half the problem. It very well may be that those people were so dispersed that there could be no way for them to form a governing majority without destruction of the rights of others. In that situation, proceeding with zionism was per se unethical and should have been stopped.
i think there were some people who pushed zionism who were not pushing the zionism we see today.
That may be true, Annie, but even they ran into the same problem: the Jews were not concentrated anywhere in sufficient numbers that their exercise of soverignty would not require — require, being the key word — the destruction of others’ rights.
“you still have only discussed half the problem. “
Right you are. It completely leaves out the discussion on how much trouble, how degraded and how persecuted they need to be before they fall for it, and are desperate enough to kill and steal for it. Sure, you can take care of the second part, once you’ve got ‘em, but you have to depend mostly on Gentiles for the first part. And you know how unwilling they are to help the Jews!
“…i think there were some people who pushed zionism who were not pushing the zionism we see today…”
This is true enough — but they were only able to maintain their moral purity through a kind of willing blindness. That whoever could even seriously label Palestine ‘a land without a people for a people without a land’ spoke volumes. That posture was essential, or Zionism was simply a non-starter. The existence of the Palestinians simply had to be denied — and so it was.
Unfortunately for the whole project, denying the Palestinians were there did not actually make them go away.
Annie
there were decent people in the same way the Democratic party has local good people. But the ones who drive the democratic party are bastards. And so it is with Zionism, but worse.
The ur-principle of Zionism is that the land belongs to the Jews and to them only.
Zionism could never be decent.
Ethnic cleansing is never decent.
Zionism could never stop.
It’s a machine that has to be stopped.
regardless of its original intentions, and by whatever name, colonialism inevitably adopts racist/supremacist practices. it is the nature of the beast.
Does saying that there is such a thing as a Jewish nation make me a Zionist?
but there is a difference between a jewish state and a jewish nation.
Saying there is a Jewish nation does NOT make anyone a Zionist. This is a fallacy promoted both by some Zionists and some anti-Zionists.
“Saying there is a Jewish nation does NOT make anyone a Zionist.”
ROTFLMSJAO!! (Rolling-on-the-floor-laughing-my-skinny-Jewish-ass-off!!)
Right you are, Newclench (or rather, good old Clenchner) And saying there’s a Jewish religion doesn’t make you a Jew, either!
Cause everybody knows the Jews are a nation! It just took the Zionists to make them a sucessful, self-determined nation!
There was no “need” for a Jewish state.
Particularly after the Jewish holocaust, the Jews were home free after that event, guaranteed their protection by the world powers.
They should have left it at that because zionism and Israel and it’s politics have put them back into the center of a storm.
“No one would have a problem with a Zionist state located in Antartica. ”
If it were a Jewish supremacy state, I would still object to it even if it were not exercising any actual supremacy over any non-Jews. However, my objection would just be a background grumble about people who reject humanity. It would hardly be distinguishable from my background grumbles about everything else.
How on earth would that work? Would we give them Florida or something? Then there would be Cubans and rednecks who would also have to live side by side with them? Even Utah, the state of the Mormons has a pretty large non- Mormon population that they have to consider.
Would it be like a native American reservation, where the US technically has little jurisdiction or will they find an island somewhere and label themselves a commonwealth?
They can live like the Amish and the Orhodox Jews in the US currently do, which is integrated into the American system but a self segregation from the rest of society.
Binyamin in Orangeburg says: ” The problem is not “Jewish self-government” per se, its how it has been realized. ”
I agree. I see no inherent problem with Tibetan self-government either, for example.
“Institutionally the community has moved toward a much stronger focus on defense of Israeli policies and defense against anti-Semitism ”
Is this not the phenomenon known as “left wing in youth and conservative in old age” ? Money takes over all other priorities and reaction follows.
And re “a much stronger Jewish focus on Antisemitism”- it has become such a part of the Jewish Zeitgeist. Endlessly reiterated yet ultimately meaningless. Very post modern.
“That was partly a response to the rise in Republican power”
the democrats are where the Republicans were in the 60s and the Republicans are far right now. They are extremists. The Israel problem is locked in the danse macabre of American political collapse
link to nybooks.com
“Romney is deeply committed to the false Republican narrative about what ails our economy, and all indications are that if he wins, he will make a bad situation much, much worse.) But ultimately the deep problem isn’t about personalities or individual leadership, it’s about the nation as a whole. Something has gone very wrong with America, not just its economy, but its ability to function as a democratic nation. And it’s hard to see when or how that wrongness will get fixed”
The same process has been observed in Israel. Broken politics.
You get this echo chamber effect where white becomes black and climate change and international law are reduced to theories that may be taken or left.
But the most important question remains.
Will the Mondoweiss commentators love him?
>> Will the Mondoweiss commentators love him?
Dunno about love, but if he in fact no longer advocates for a supremacist Jewish state and instead advocates for a secular, democratic and egalitarian Israeli state – a state of and for all Israelis, equally – I can certainly respect that.
Amazing how much attention an individual receives for finally doing the right thing. Really something
I’m certainly happy to see it — it leads straight to the resolution I want anyway.
But ‘respect it’? No, I don’t respect it. I think it’s wishful thinking.
If people want to advocate a ‘nice’ Israel I find their advocacy useful. However, if they think that animal’s going to live very long, they’re kidding themselves.
I think people have to make up their minds — and I actually have enough faith in the intellectual integrity of many that they will bite the bullet and pick the right side when they have to.
Algerie cannot stay Francaise. This just has to be accepted.
i have always thought he was a brave man, even when i didn’t agree with certain things he said.
i’m glad he said what he did about cultural zionism.
do you have anything of value to contribute to the conversation oleg, or just the diversion tactics again?
What value do you expect to derive from this post.
Half the commenters here will praise Beinrat just like you did or eljay
and the other half will condemn him as not being radical enough
or even accuse him in being a fifth column Zionist or something.
And all of this will be based on
Phillips interpretations on Beinarts direction of thought.
Which i think reside in the realm of wishful thinking on Phillips part.
you answered my question with a question. iow, no..you’re not here to offer anything of value to the thread. just here to distract.
“Half the commenters here will praise Beinrat just like you did or eljay
and the other half will condemn him as not being radical enough
or even accuse him in being a fifth column Zionist or something.”
Oleg, I’m sure we all understand how disturbing any diversity of opinion must be to a Communist-turned-Zionist.
I know what you’re thinking, in the good old days, Stalin wouldn’t have put up with crap like that. Oh well, Oleg, the whole world’s going to hell in a handbasket since the fall of the Wall
“Which i think reside in the realm of wishful thinking on Phillips part.”
Aw, take it easy, comrade. Unlike you, some of don’t have all we wish for.
I have been convinced by your posts Oleg and am now a fully signed up Israel Beitenu member.
mavet la ‘aravim
Will the Mondoweiss commentators love him?
Nope. He still supports a “Jewish state”.
Most important for who exactly?
Do you think he is poring over the comments here looking for validation? I rather doubt it.
I’m glad to see Beinart is alive to the situation and able to expand his understanding, and where appropriate alter his position. That’s a lot more than you can say for most zionists isn’t it?
That was a rhetorical question Sumud.
A rhetorical question is asked to make a point of some sort – what is yours?
i’ll give beinart credit, he is taking political positions at great personal cost, although i don’t sense that he is able to objectively assess israel’s status as a ‘democracy’ or understands what would constitute protected ‘jewish culture’ in israel. but at least he’s sincerely struggling with these questions, a sign of intellectual life absent elsewhere.
But the most important question remains.
Will the Mondoweiss commentators love him?
well, i presume that most mondoweiss commentators don’t love you, olerg. does that make you feel important маленький человек?
Agree. Give him credit for finally doing the right thing. But not adoration
Ahh gush you went to google.translate just for lil old me…
i don’t need google translate for that. but pobrecito, you do seem a bit maudlin today, every argument or transaction being measured on the ‘like/love’ scale. maybe a bit of nostalgia for mother russia tugging at the heart strings? i do hope you kept your passport.
I see you and I are thinking along the same lines, marc b.
yes, olerg couldn’t bear the discrimination in the CCCP, being on the receiving end of it, so he loaded up his truck and moved to israel-y where the whip/whipping boy dichotomy is properly fixed in his favor. (you probably didn’t know it but i’m an amateur linguist, mooser, and i loosely translate olerg as ‘man of oatmeal’ in ancient hebrew.)
Beinart “I wanted to try and make some statement about the danger of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank becoming permanent and threatening Israel’s status as a democracy while there was still time to do so.”
Excommunication from a community that basically has been supporting an apartheid state is a good and tough thing to do. . Sounds like Beinart has come a long way. Always better late than never.
As Israel moves even more quickly to destroy more Palestinians homes, etc, building more illegal settlement housing etc…Israel wiping out the possibility of a two state solution. Seems like this is what they are after
Great stories in the book about Rabbi Wolf and Heschel, and their influence on Obama dealing with social equality issues.
He’s getting attacked and rightfully so – his critics do not want to share a stage with him. He’s smart and quick on his feet. Very worthy of a debate with the best of them. He shreds the talking points with ease in the book.
Cultural Zionism sounds like anti-Communism when there is no longer Communism.
Can’t have a culture without someplace to put it, can you? It’s like having an orchestra with no hall to play in. What are you gonna do, play outside where everyone can hear for free?
In order to have a true national culture, don’t you need a soil for it to spring from?
Mooser,
I notice you slid from “culture” to “true national culture”.
I don’t think a culture per se must be rooted in a defined physical territory.
I’m trying to figure out what ‘cultural Zionism’ could be. Israel is to be dumped: it’s unlikely to remain ‘Israel’ if Jews don’t hold political dominion. How then would this ‘cultural Zionism’ be distinct from ordinary Jewish community life?
Is this ‘cultural Zionism’ to exist in Israel? The faith that this implies in the goodness, material generosity, and willingness to forgive and forget on the part of the Palestinian people is touching but perhaps misplaced. Palestinians may well be fine folks — I doubt if they’re a race of saints.
On the other hand, if this cultural Zionism is not to exist in Israel, what on earth could it be?
“Crossed the Rubicon…” Maybe so. Maybe so. Interesting development.
Seems to me Beinart’s next step is to define Cutural zionism.
What is it?
Zionism has always been about separation and Jewish exclusiveness based on Jews being different and not fitting in or being allowed to fit in with others necessitating their own Jewish ruled nation.
Define culture any way you want, convolute it, add to it or twist it around as I am sure the Pilpul Jewish wing will or has, the most accurate description still remains the beliefs, behaviors, traditions and other characteristics common to the members of a particular group or society.
So I don’t see how anyone can get an admirable or acceptable culture out of zionism particulary as it applies to Israel.
Beinart wants to ‘change’ zionism …BUT….but for the purpose of STILL holding onto the Jewish creation of Israel, which is a zionist “political’ creation and entity. Can’t be done imo.
. “Last week, Ben Cohen, who works for the American Jewish Committee, published an attack on him in Commentary that characterized him as “anti-Zionist” (a misrepresentation).”
You don’t think Ben Cohen knows an anti-Zionist when he sees one? Of course anti-Zionists pose as Zionists! It’s a crude, nothing-availing attempt to get inside and subvert Zionism!
I trust Ben Cohen. He, of all people, should know an anti-Zionist when he sees one. It’s nice you’re covering for Beinart, but I doubt you’ll be able to fool Zionists like Ben Cohen. He knows what’s up.
“I think you can imagine an Israel that evolves toward greater mechanisms for full representation of the Arab population without fully losing the special responsibility it has for the safeguarding of Jewish life.”
I think this is hypocritical nonsense. Imagine — if you can — an America which has ‘mechanisms for full representation of the Jewish population without fully losing the special responsibility it has for the safeguarding of Christian life.’
It wouldn’t be equal. It never could. Necessarily, Jews would be a marginalized and probably oppressed community.
This gets back to dreaming the ‘ol impossible dream: a ‘nice’ Israel. There ain’t no such animal, there never was, and there never can be.
If one disregards the store of rancor, the profoundly racial supremacist attitudes of most Israeli Jews, and the minor detail that the whole place is hopelessly overcrowded by now, one could advocate a multi-ethnic secular state — although these actually have a pretty poor track record as well.
However, it is the purest nonsense to assert that there can be an Israel that is at one and the same time genuinely democratic and genuinely Jewish. The mere presence of a large Palestinian population renders that a non-starter.
People may seek to delude others on this point, but they shouldn’t delude themselves. Any move to push Israel away from its essentially racial supremacist base is simply pushing it off the cliff.
So you have to pick your side. Are you for or against Israel? It’s really not a complex issue.
“Cultural Zionism”? Well, I don’t see any harm in that, as long as they don’t get hold of an olim.
In the 19th century we got ‘religious Zionism’, in the 20th century we got ‘secular’ and ‘political Zionism’, now in the 21th century we get ‘cultural Zionism’, that may turn into ‘no-more-Zionism Zionism’.
Cultural Zionism is not fundamentally different from political. They are both founded in opposition to liberal society, as Elmer Berger insisted.
Read them. Actually you can’t trust the translations of Ahad Ha’am, which are all by Leon Simon in 1912, and were bowdlerized for the goyim, it is said. But read Steven Zipperstein’s bio, written in the hope that AH would provide some illumination to Zionism’s state today. Zip gave that idea up; AH was a late 19th-c conservative, and an anti-gentile. He disowned his daughter when she married a goy. When it was suggested that the groom convert, he said, for a secular Jew like himself, “a goy remains a goy.”
His great brief for the Palestinians on which his reputation among lib Zios rests is very weak. Alan Dowty provided the first translation of the entire piece and discussed it in an article.
Ahad Ha’am was supremely political when it was opportune. He lived in London from around 1903 to 1921, and was a close confidante of Weizmann; AH’s home in Maida Vale was the HQ of Zionist negotiations with HM Govt over the Balfour Declaration.
Read Buber; because German is more accessible than Hebrew the xlations are reliable. Compare his romanticization of the Hasidim to Deutscher’s scathing comments on him, and dismissal of his own rabbinical education. Buber was no great humanist; he was a dilletante philosopher of sensory “flux” after Heraclitus. When in touch with the “flux”, “life becomes a work of art”, he informed the Neue Gemeinschaft, a kind of Berlin student commune, in 1903. (“Go with the flow”, basically).
He welcomed WWI as a “great awakening of the Volk”, an epic “kinesis”, full of “fighting Jews”, who would be stirred to return to the primordial community of their Blut. It took 2 yrs of epic slaughter and bitter denunciation from best friend Gustav Landauer against “Kriegsbuber”, the “aestheticizer of violence”, to bring him around. And despite later disavowals he has never lived down the racialism of his Blut und Boden romanticism.
His disillusion on WWI led to his discovery of the other, of “Thou”, lurking in the flux. But Thou had limited rights. In 1923, Buber proclaimed to a Zionist Congress that “we are returning to Palestine, and nothing can stand in our way. But we come in peace.” Right, we just want (when Jews were 15% of the population) half of the place, or a majority, which we will let you peacefully give us. These were the formulations of binationalism, which was always Zionism by other means.
After the war, when Jews were 33%, “binationalist” Hashomer Hatzair refused to accept Jewish minority status. Neither did the Ihud, the Buber/Magnes et al group, and they busily calculated immigration quotas and birth rates to achieve parity, and eventually majority, subject to various fanciful agreements with the Arabs.
I think Buber knew very well that proposing that the other side give up their country to essentially open-ended migration, presented as “constructing the land together”, was a preposterous fraud. Magnes was not so cynical, did not fully grasp the colossal absurdity, which his voelkisch idealism concealed from him. (“Jewish identity must be good”)
MW, for all its nominal heterodoxy, is still crippled by the “Jewish identity” fetish. Freedom is normative and absolute, not “Jewish identity”. Being religious is one thing. Why dig 2000 yrs into the past to unearth some secular “identity” for the modern world?
The recent inclusion of Marc Ellis on MW, quite apart from the virtues or defects of his views, is a typical liberal Jewish muddying of the religious/secular divide, like JVP’s “rabbinical council”, a late addition to a group that was founded as secular. We don’t go to temple, or really believe in G_d, but… we can’t resist Jewish family gravity…
I never held Buber in great esteem, he believed the Jews are “a holy species”.
As to: “MW … is still crippled by the “Jewish identity” fetish.”
Yes, he longs for a ‘Judaism without Zionism’, a Jewish identity without a Zionist one. An anti-Zionist stance without an anti-Semitic one etc. – The Jewish identity remains the essential property, quality that one can’t renounce and denounce.
(Well, actually he denounces the ‘elitist Jewish identity’ once in a while.)
“The Jewish identity remains the essential property, quality that one can’t renounce and denounce.
(Well, actually he denounces the ‘elitist Jewish identity’ once in a while.)”
This need to identify with being “Jewish” has always confused me. Seems tied somehow to wanting to elevate one self, separate from the rest.
The only admissable “secular Jewish identity” is perhaps what the late Israel Shahak called the “modern secular Jewish tradition” which he traced to Spinoza, the greatest of the 17th c rationalist philosophers. IS was planning a book on Spinoza at his untimely death in 2001 at age 68. Gabriel Piterberg discusses something like this, the “conscious pariah”, which he discusses in the work of Arendt and others, and opposes to the “sovereign settler” of Herzl. It is marked by self-conscious dedication to the ideals of cosmopolitanism and internationalism. It’s in Piterberg’s “The Returns of Zionism”.
Such a stance today would lead one into opposition to the whole North American Jewish left, from Chomsky to JVP on down, for their substitution of “Chomskyism”–”solutions” discourse/anti-occupation/strategic asset/ahistorical law and rights—for universalism, the values of classical Reform/Marxist internationalism/modern sec J tradition, or some update thereof.
Indeed updating the universalist traditions, in the presence of a Jewish state, against the “Jewish superpower” that Avraham Burg referred to,would seem to have been the major task of any Jewish left worthy of the name. The substitution of Chomskyism for universalism surely ranks as a “treasons of the intellectuals” like Julien Benda described in his book on the period before WWI. (Norman, you cribbed that reference from me, didn’t you?)
Mondo is right on the edge, wanders back and forth betw universalism and Chomskyism, torn betw its knowledge and its conscience, and tribal gravity.
CitizenC says: “The only admissable “secular Jewish identity” is…”
Admissible by whom or what, or into what? What other forms of human social identity are inadmissible? What forms are admissible?
Beinart’s shift toward cultural Zionism, away from political Zionism
Yes, but will that be a liberal cultural Zionism or a conservative (pro-Zionist if you will) cultural Zionism?
And could you hurry on a bit Mr Beinart with that another book, millions of Palestinians are waiting anxiously (may I say: dying) for the outcome.
C’mon over Mr. Beinart. The cause of justice in I/P could use another intelligent, articulate voice.
To the degree that Beinart is moving away from political Zionism, this is, indeed, significant. I have long believed that a significant impact of Zionism and Israel is the effect it has had upon the psychology and politics of American Jews, particularly organized Jews. At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a strong identification of Jewish involvement in the international socialist and Marxist movements. This contributed to modern anti-Semitism in the capitalist nations. Wilson had his “red scare’ and Hitler referred to the Soviet elite as Judeo-Bolsheviks. Additionally, organized Jewish involvement in progressive causes impinged upon capitalist prerogatives. The capitalist elite viewed the Jews as a threat except for the Jewish Zionists who were seen as the “good Jews” in Germany and elsewhere.
Following World War II, organized American Jewry became overwhelmingly Zionist, devoting time and resources into support for Israel, hence away from social justice issues, at least to some extent. At the very least, visible Marxism was curtailed. With the 1967 war, Israel, and by extension Jewish Zionists, performed a valuable service for the US empire by smashing pan-Arabism and effectively destroying Nasser, the symbol of secular Arab nationalism. This was a huge defeat for the USSR, and established Zionist Jews as an asset and not a threat to American and world capitalism. Elite resistance to Jewish inclusion melted away and the Jews became wildly successful. Israel and Zionism established the bona fides of the American Jewish elite as staunch supporters of capitalism and militarism, and opened the door for the success which followed. Additionally, it reoriented the outlook of the non-elite Jews such that it was “now an interest of the Jews to have a large and powerful military establishment in the United States” to support Israel. (Irving Kristol, 1973)
American Jewish elite support for Zionism has been contingent upon the power-seeking benefits it has provided. The changing attitude expressed by Beinart indicates that perhaps the younger Jewish elite no longer perceive that political Zionism is necessary, or that a Jewish state is defensible. Of course, the old guard will remain committed to their discredited ideology.
“I have long believed that a significant impact of Zionism and Israel is the effect it has had upon the psychology and politics of American Jews, particularly organized Jews. “
You mean that Empire Judaism Marc H. Ellis is kvetching about?
MOOSER- Interesting observation. I hadn’t read the “Exile and the Prophetic” posts on Mondoweiss because I wasn’t in the mood for what I assumed to be more discussions concerning the Jewish soul, however, I followed your link and was pleasantly surprised. In general terms, I think that yes Marc Ellis is talking about the same phenomenon that I am attempting to put into words, but from a different perspective. I must say that I was impressed with his writing style. He elegantly gets to the essence of the matter with a minimum of verbiage. I will likely reread his more recent and future posts and possibly make a comment or two. First, I’m off to do a bike ride at Snoqualmie pass. Thanks for the link.
RE: “The interview is remarkable for two points: First, Beinart’s shift toward cultural Zionism, away from political Zionism and the need for a Jewish state. He is readying himself to call for democracy for all citizens between river and the sea, so long as Jewish cultural existence is safeguarded. . . ” ~ Weiss
MY COMMENT: But to borrow from the Chris Hedges article excerpted below, will Israel’s supporter’s listen to Beinart’s “dissident voice”, or will they continue “turning a blind eye” so as to preserve their “national myths of identity” and “ignore unpleasant facts that intrude on self-glorification”?
SEE: “How to Think”, by Chris Hedges, TruthDig.com, 7/09/12
ENTIRE COMMENTARY – link to truthdig.com
Bill Clinton praised Beinart’s book and wrote its back cover blurb. If Beinart’s evolving position can bring Bill Clinton with him, it would be a positive step. Unfortunately for policy, however, I doubt even Bill has much influence with his wife.
It’s nice to see this Beinart person is moving away from the fiercest forms of Zionism.
Is he someone important?
Probably (heh) in the minority on this, but, depending on how Beinart defines “cultural Zionism,” and overlooking the use of the word Zionism at all, at first pass it seems that this tack could be an entré to an exercise in good “cherry picking” that would in turn leave bare, and enable the long overdue and crucial re-examination of, Israel’s founding mythology.
If Zionism, for the sake of people that still want to call it Zionism, could be divided into “this is who we strive to be/really are” and “what were we thinking?/Oh dear, in MY name?!” it might/could lead to an opening to come to grips with the Israeli past as immutable obstacle to regional future. Maybe the beginnings of a rationale for a “Truth and Reconciliation”-like effort.
Maybe I’m overthinking, but this seems like it might be a shift to a more fundamental and holistic approach by Beinart, rather than the contrived-for-acceptance approach of settlement-only boycotts (not that he’s likely to go either/or and drop the settlement boycott approach).
Sorry for all the conditionals…