Peter Beinart author of The Crisis of Zionism
A key point of Peter Beinart’s 2010 attack on The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment, which comes out in expanded book form in a month, is the idea that many young liberal American Jews are “alienated” from Zionism. Beinart referred to surveys by pollster Frank Luntz and sociologist Steven Cohen among others.
Well guess what? They are no longer alienated!
I was reading a seriously hysterical critique of Beinart’s new book The Crisis of Zionism at Sheldon Adelson’s Israeli newspaper and noted a strange statistic on American Jewish youth based on a survey sponsored by The Israel Project (TIP) and the American Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE).
Mitchell Bard is Executive Director of AICE. He cites a survey by Public Opinion Strategies (POS), a Republican polling firm, that completely contradicts Beinart’s sources. Bard reveals the findings in the Jerusalem Post: ‘ Young Jews are Pro-Israel ‘:
The nationwide poll of 400 Jewish college students sponsored by the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise and The Israel Project found:
· 90% agree that Israel is the spiritual center of the Jewish people.
· 83% said caring about Israel is an important part of being Jewish.
· 73% said American and Israeli Jews share a common destiny.
· 89% have warm/favorable feelings toward Israel.
· 78% sympathize with Israel vis-a-vis the Palestinians.
· 84% think America should support Israel.
That’s a far cry from Beinart’s sources:
[M]any professing “a near-total absence of positive feelings.”
As positive editorial reviews are stacking up for Beinart, the groundwork is being laid to slam The Crisis of Zionism from all angles. A major brouhaha erupted when NYT’s new Jerusalem bureau chief, Jodi Rudoren, gave it thumbs up and we can expect a lot more where that came from. The battle lines are drawn for an extended fight.
Rust never sleeps.
P.S. Don’t forget Isi Leibler’s review at Israel Hayom. It’s so bad it’s funny: “Netanyahu is portrayed [by Beinart] as the devil incarnate”. How camp is that?
Thanks Annie. Mr. Beinart should fasten his seatbelt- it is going to be a stormy book tour next month. The more the “liberal Zionists” like Beinart are publicly slammed by the likes of Isi Leibler & Sheldon Adelson the further to the left they will be driven, further undermining their belief in Zionism itself. Bring on the fight!
Off topic, but the concert cancellation by jazz singer Cassandra Wilson, who had been scheduled to headline the Women’s Festival in Holon (inside ’48 Israel), is good news for the cultural boycott!
The poll that you cited was deeply skewed. First, the sample was really small.
Second, it had a much bigger proportion of Orthodox students. And third, it had homes which at much higher proportions sent their kids to summer camp and hebrew school.
The sample was way too small and highly skewed in such a way to give Zionists multiple orgasms after reading it.
Still, Beinart’s case is slightly overstated. I’ve read fairly good statistical reports that basically lays out the claim that disconnection to Zionism is in large part a result of a disconnect to Judaism as a whole, which means that those Jewish kids who didn’t have a ‘strong’ Jewish background(summer camps, Birthright, hebrew school, mild observance of tradition on a regular basis(if secular) and so on) also didn’t have strong feelings towards Zionism. These kids were very often the result of intermarriage.
But if you look at Jewish kid with Jewish parents on both sides with a fairly strong Jewish background(and not necessarily Orthodox in any shape or form) then you did see a strong support to Zionism.
So in this case, sadly, the dedication to ‘Jewish values’ was correlated strongly to outright, often uncritical, support for Zionism. Another example of how Zionism has superceded everything, even Judaism itself.
It’s now more or less an established fact and conventional wisdom inside the Jewish community that anti-Zionism is racism. But if you’re anti-nationalist in general, but for all people, why should you make an exception for Jews(on principle) no matter how compelling the historical subtext? Because you know that etno-nationalism(and even more so etno-religious nationalism, which is even more aggressive) leads to violence and, ultimately, facism. Regardsless of which group of people who wields it’s sword. So now you’re some vicious Jew-hater and/or Nazi-sympathizer if you’re a Gentile or a self-hating Jew?
I think the outburst against Beinart is very telling. Both the neocons on Commentary as well as the masquerading ‘liberals’ like Jeffrey Goldberg attacked the new NYT beaurau chief’s support for Beinart’s book as ‘more dangerous'(their words) than her casual kindness to Ali Abunimah.
Beinart is more dangerous, according to the neocons(including the ‘liberal’ ones like Goldberg), because he’s one of us y’know. He speaks our language, he moves effortlessly in Jewish tradition and can point to a counter-narrative in Judaism which is genuine and real and which belies the claim that ‘Jewish values’ should in any shape or form somehow mandate uncritical support for Israel because the opposite is true. Judaism in it’s purest form is question of others but also, perhaps more so, of yourself and your own causes and assumptions dear to your heart.
And Beinart is, after all, a liberal Zionist who no matter how convoluted in his ideology, tries amiably to draw them together in ways far more sympathetic than the thuggish commisar Goldberg does(who quotes Netanyahu’s father’s book in favourable light and calls him ‘inspirational’, the same man who David Remnick of the New Yorker calls a proto-facist. Says all you need to know about commisar Goldberg).
So Beinart has to be destroyed. Now, of course, I disagree with Beinart’s thesis in many ways. But I still see him as far more intellectually honest than the fake liberals, which is why they are trying to tear him down.
It will be good if Beinart takes “heat” if it is LOUD, PUBLIC heat. Private heat is useless. Also, the whole thing might be a distraction from the NYT’s (and others’) refusal to TELL THE FACTS (FROM “THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN GROUND”).
Thus, it’ll be good if Beinart’s defense includes telling WHY USA’s Jews are distancing themselves from Israel. To say that they ARE DISTANCING themselves and not explain WHY will be a bit unhelpful. I look forward to reading the book.
Seems the book does exactly that. Per review of Isi Leibler:
RE: “Rust never sleeps.” ~ Annie Robbins
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