Saying that the dehumanization of Palestinians is a cancer in the Jewish community, Peter Beinart is no longer showing deference to the Jewish guardians of the communal victimhood discourse. This is his cultural importance,” claiming Jewish authority for himself and discrediting Bari Weiss’s discourse of victimhood.
Bari Weiss’s rage over Peter Beinart’s role in a panel on antisemitism with Rashida Tlaib and Marc Lamont Hill next month shows that Weiss is in a battle with Beinart about who will represent American Jews. Weiss represents a tribal perspective of sacred victimhood; and Beinart’s universalism and openness to the Palestinian story is a threat to her.
Bari Weiss says antisemites convinced Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to back out of a Rabin memorial. AOC actually was concerned with Rabin’s human rights record. But she and her supporters now join the “three-headed dragon of modern anti-Semitism” living in Bari Weiss’s imagination. And in Weiss’s perspective of sacred Jewish victimhood, defamation and dishonesty are no vice when fighting the enemies of the Jews.
Change is in the air and the Israel lobby can no longer stamp it out by using its gatekeepers to censor and malign opposing voices. This is the real significance of Bari Weiss’s resignation from the New York Times.
Bari Weiss’s exit from The New York Times is good news for Palestinian news and opinion. Weiss has made a career as a Zionist warrior, often smearing anti-Zionists in ways that she is quick to call McCarthyism when others employ the same methods.
An open letter published by Harper’s magazine, and signed by 150 prominent writers and public figures, has focused attention on the apparent dangers of what has been termed a new “cancel culture”. It is easy to agree with the letter’s generalized argument for tolerance and free and fair debate, but the intent of many of the letter’s signatories is the very reverse of their professed goal: they want to stifle free speech, not protect it.
Why is the New York Times missing in action on the burning issue of annexation? Undoubtedly because there is no way to twist annexation in a pro-Israel direction.
NYT regrets running Sen. Cotton’s call for military crackdown on protest. It should do the same for 4 op-eds justifying Israel killing nonviolent demonstrators. But Bari Weiss’s role at newspaper reflects long attachment to Zionism at NYT.
Joe Biden has bent over backwards to tell the Jewish community he can work with Netanyahu and won’t sanction Israel if it annexes West Bank lands. He cannot afford to alienate the largest source of Democratic campaign funding, from pro-Israel Jews, a source Trump is making a play for.
Pompeo’s lightning visit to Israel shows that Republicans have a lot to gain by making Israel a political football, possibly gaining Jewish votes in Florida.