Concerning the Jerusalem Light Rail - An Open War on Truth and Fact

Yisrael Medad..
My Right Word..
05 March '13..







More mendacious propaganda at Open Zion, Peter Beinart's weapon of words bunker:

One of the only mixed modes of transportation in Israel is the Jerusalem Light Rail—which, as it was originally built to connect surrounding Israeli settlements to central Jerusalem, is hardly equally inclusive to Palestinians. Historically, when the light rail system was first constructed, it uprooted several Palestinian neighborhoods, further displacing many Palestinians who once lived in Jerusalem. Now, though the train passes through several traditionally Arab neighborhoods, the stations are named in Hebrew rather than Arabic.

a. No "Israeli settlements".

There are the neighborhoods of Neveh Yaakov and Pisgat Ze'ev and French Hill. By the way, Neveh Yaakov was attacked, destroyed and ethnically cleansed of its Jews by Arabs in late 1947.

b. No "Palestinian neighborhoods" uprooted.

Simply untrue.

The Two-State Solution Myth and Hamas

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
19 November '12..

Since Hamas initiated the latest round of fighting in Gaza, Israel’s critics have been hard-pressed to criticize the country’s need to defend its people against a barrage of hundreds of rockets fired by terrorists. But that hasn’t stopped some of them from trying to use the conflict to claim that the only solution is to further empower the Islamist terrorist group that rules over Gaza with an iron hand. That’s the prescription for a new U.S. foreign policy coming from the Daily Beast’s Peter Beinart. Beinart thinks what America and Israel need to do is try and use a cease-fire agreement to co-opt the Islamists into backing a new peace process, along with their Fatah rivals of the Palestinian Authority, as well as to promote Palestinian democracy.

It is an article of faith on the left that the two-state solution, rather than Israeli military efforts, is the only answer to Palestinian terrorism. But though most Israelis, including the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, have accepted the idea in principle, the repeated refusal of even the so-called moderate Palestinians to negotiate have rendered the idea moot for the foreseeable future. But as unrealistic as calls for Israel to do something to boost the PA are at this moment, to imagine, as Beinart does, that Hamas can be co-opted into such a process by Western recognition demonstrates an astonishing lack of understanding of the situation.

Beinart is right when he characterizes the Israeli counter-offensive as merely a short-term solution rather than a long-term strategy. Many Israelis regard Operation Pillar of Defense in much the same way they saw the 2008 campaign called Cast Lead: as nothing more than a periodic effort to hamper Hamas’s military capability. The 2005 decision to withdraw from Gaza was a security disaster, but few Israelis want any part of governing the strip again. All they want is for it to be prevented from threatening their country, and to that end they back a regular “grass cutting” in Gaza that will make it harder for Hamas to terrorize millions of Israelis the way they have in the last week.

Beinart, Young Jews and Israel

Elliott Abrams..
Pressure Points..
11 July '12..

The past year has seen a long debate about whether young American Jews are becoming alienated from Israel. This assertion was the central argument in an article and then a book by Peter Beinart, who argued that this is happening. As Beinart announces at his web site, “A dramatic shift is taking place in Israel and America….In the United States, the refusal of major Jewish organizations to defend democracy in the Jewish state is alienating many young liberal Jews from Zionism itself.”

The book made quite a stir, as would be warranted if the facts were right. But now comes a new poll, conducted by the left-of-center group called the Workmen’s Circle and published in the left-of-center Jewish newspaper The Forward. Unfortunately for Mr. Beinart, who has gotten an enormous amount of attention, speaking engagements, and media appearances from his thesis, his thesis is wrong.

“Young Jews are now more attached to Israel than the previous generation,” the Forward article summarizes. Now, it can be anticipated that Beinart and others who take his view would respond that this reflects the attachment to Israel among the most religious young Jews. Not so:

Fearless truth-tellers? Attacking Israel Online.

Ben Cohen..
Commentary Magazine..
July '12..

Throughout the greater Middle East, opposition to the concept and existence of a Jewish state is an idée fixe for hundreds of millions of Arab and non-Arab Muslims. A hatred of Jewish political sovereignty that frequently dovetails with more traditional anti-Semitism animates café discussions and street protests as surely as it prohibits regional political progress. Yet the strand of anti-Zionism that has lately come to attract the most attention in the West is the one articulated by a tiny minority of left-wing Jews at a handful of websites.

Full-time antagonists of Israel such as M.J. Rosenberg, Max Blumenthal, Philip Weiss, and Peter Beinart have accumulated an influence that vastly exceeds their single-digit numbers. This is in part due to the financial sponsorship of successful and well-established media institutions. Until March 2012, Rosenberg was employed by Media Matters for America (MMfA) at a salary of some $130,000 per annum. Weiss was supported for years by the Nation magazine’s Nation Institute. Peter Beinart’s new Open Zion blog is hosted by the Daily Beast, an online publication jointly owned by the Harman family and the Internet media giant IAC.

But Rosenberg, Weiss, and Beinart take a different view of their place in the media conversation. They believe themselves to be fearless truth-tellers who actively resist a censorious tribal culture that bulldozes any hint of discord. Rosenberg offered a pithy insight into this in an April 2012 opinion piece for the website of Al Jazeera. After claiming that pro-Israel advocacy organizations were hindering efforts to secure a peaceful resolution of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, he concluded with an exhortation. “Being pro-Israel means caring about Israel,” wrote Rosenberg, whose career has been built on the fact that he briefly worked for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee three decades ago. “It does not mean using it as an excuse for power brokering and suppressing dissident voices.”

Dissident voices? Properly understood, the word dissident describes intellectuals and activists operating in oppressive societies. What they do frequently results in imprisonment, torture, and even death. The dissidents of whom Rosenberg speaks so modestly, since they include himself, are not silenced, but rather celebrated, by media establishments ranging from the Huffington Post to the BBC.

Medad - Is It To Be 'Bye-Bye Beinart?

Yisrael Medad..
My Right Word..
04 June '12..





I entered a Steimatzky book store off of Zion Square (the real, live, Zionist-pulsating one in Jerusalem) to leaf through Peter Beinart's "Crisis of Zionism" - which I have previously noted is actually Beinart's and American liberal Jews' crisis with themselves.

I searched for the pages on Jabotinsky and found them repulsive, factually incorrect, lacking any attempt to contextualize and downright plain ignorant of the subject. In a word, Jabotinsky was a racist.

And this morning I read this by Jason Zengerle and understood:

Sherman - Richard Beinart and Peter Goldstone – Part 1 *

Martin Sherman..
Into the Fray/JPost..
31 May '12..

A Palestinian family named the Ghawis lives on the street outside their home of fifty-three years, from which they were evicted to make room for Jewish settlers – Peter Beinart, “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment,” June 10, 2010


* The interspersing of the names in the title is deliberate

In two recent articles, I made the following statements: “Peter Beinart [has] for all intents and purposes declared political war on Israel.” Indeed he has.

And, “There are only two possible explanations for [Beinart’s] actions: He is either sincere or he is not. If he is sincere, he is merely a ‘useful idiot,’ and he should be treated as such. If he is not, then he is engaging in activities that are intentionally detrimental to Israel. He is, therefore, an enemy – and should be treated as such.” Indeed he should.

Beinart has placed himself in precisely the same category as another self-professed “dedicated Zionist” – Richard Goldstone. He should be treated in precisely the same manner – by both the Jewish establishment and Israeli officialdom.

Leibler - Zionists Do Not Boycott Israelis

Isi Leibler..
Candidly Speaking from Jerusalem..
25 May '12..




Despite being a weekly columnist, I feel compelled to respond to the Jerusalem Post editorial titled “Zionist Unity” (22/5/12).

The editorial makes the outrageous claim that left-wing Jews living in the Diaspora who call for global boycotts of Israeli settlements may be considered as acting within a Zionist framework. Furthermore, it states that unlike the South African government, diaspora Jews like Peter Beinart who are allegedly motivated by good intentions should not be condemned.

Some of the worst acts in history were instituted by well-intentioned people. That in no way justified their actions or detracts from deplorable initiatives.

The editorial brackets the boycott by diaspora Jews with similar initiatives promoted in Israel by Meretz and groups further to the left. But there is a major distinction. Those engaged in such activities within Israel, as the editorial itself notes, also serve in the IDF and for better or for worse, will personally reap the consequences of their actions. However, most Israelis would also condemn and regard with contempt those calling for boycotts of goods from settlements.

Diaspora Jews fall into an entirely different category. When they call for global boycotts of Israeli settlements, they are effectively promoting delegitimization and paving the way for broader boycotts. Besides, unlike their delusional Israeli counterparts, they are mere observers, physically unaffected by the negative repercussions of their actions.

It is the ultimate nonsense to suggest that some boycotts are “good” because they are promoted by well-intentioned advocates, in contrast to the South Africans who are “bad”. When we begin assessing hostile acts on the basis of good or bad intentions, we are surely heading towards an “Alice in Wonderland” situation.

Marquadt-Bigman - A professor holds forth on Israeli paranoia

Petra Marquadt-Bigman..
The Warped Mirror..
23 May '12..



Peter Beinart, author of the widely discussed – but apparently less widely read – book “The Crisis of Zionism,” can’t be held responsible for what his admirers write in their reviews. However, if an author tweets a review and highlights its complimentary character, I think it’s fair to conclude that he welcomes this review.

The review in question is published in the June issue of The New York Review of Books (NYRB) under the title “Israel in Peril.” It is written by David Shulman, Professor of Humanistic Studies at the Hebrew University; as Shulman’s biographical note at NYRB adds, he is also “an activist in Ta’ayush,” a group that describes itself as “a grassroots movement of Arabs and Jews working to break down the walls of racism and segregation by constructing a true Arab-Jewish partnership.”

Shulman begins his review by ridiculing Israel’s response to a planned “Air Flotilla” organized by various supposedly “pro-Palestinian” groups adamantly opposed to Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. Ignoring the fact that the “Air Flotilla” organizers were hoping to bring some 2000 activists to Ben Gurion airport, Shulman asks why “a handful of harmless demonstrators” should “elicit so severe a reaction” and he then proceeds to answer his own question by claiming that there is a “logic—that of the endless war between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness—[that also] underlies Netanyahu’s constant dwelling on the Holocaust in relation to Iran.”

Shulman then goes on to claim:

Leibler - Breakfast with Beinart

Isi Leibler..
Israel Hayom..
15 May '12..

During a recent visit to New York, I had an extended breakfast meeting with controversial author Peter Beinart, who in recent months has received enormous media exposure as the most prominent far Left critic of Israel in the U.S. Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, a feisty New York conservative Jewish activist, also participated.

I must confess that I prefer confronting less charming adversaries. Beinart, 41, is an amiable, charismatic and highly articulate personality. In contrast to many Jewish critics of Israel who are often ignorant and indifferent to their Jewish heritage, he considers himself a committed Jew, maintains a kosher home, attends synagogue and sends his children to Jewish day schools. He also regards himself as a passionate Zionist and claims that his prime motivation is to contribute to the long-term future of Israel and the Jewish people.

But despite his likable personality and insistence that “disagreements” with Israeli government policies do not detract from his ardent love of Israel, Beinart has unquestionably now assumed a prominent role as a leading Jew engaged in demonizing and delegitimizing the Jewish state.

(+ Video) Oh my! Beinart says it doesn’t matter to him.

30 April '12..





From Martin Kramer on FB:

Peter Beinart’s tale of epiphany is dubious enough. He said he was moved to write his book by a clip showing a poor Palestinian being hauled away for stealing water. So here’s another Youtube, featuring members of the Palestinian’s family. (Beinart, the armchair expert, never followed up on the story.) They wish Israel to be blown away altogether. Beinart says it doesn’t matter to him. Guess they were just props.

A big TY to Martin Kramer for sharing another aspect of Peter Beinart's shallow grasp of the issues.

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page. Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand 
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Fresnozionism - Paul Krugman’s “what must be said”

Fresnozionism.org..
25 April '12..





The universal concealment of these facts,
To which my silence subordinated itself,
I sense as incriminating lies
And force–the punishment is promised
As soon as it is ignored;
The verdict of “anti-Semitism” is familiar.

– Günter Grass, explaining how he will be punished for his ‘courage’ in saying “what must be said.”

This could be the stupidest conceit of today’s Israel-haters: that they are breaking the silence, speaking out in a fresh and original way, daring to say things that others may be thinking but fear to put into words because of the terrible retribution of the Zionist conspiracy, which will destroy them by branding them as antisemites.

The latest expression of this idiotic meme comes from the economist Paul Krugman, someone I have always admired despite his left-of-center politics. I will quote in full his remark, published today in the NY Times:

Sherman - Perfidious Pete, treacherous Tom – Part I

Martin Sherman..
Into the Fray/JPost..
11 April '12..

There is something frankly silly to me about a Jewish community that feels so self- confident in how our values apply in Bosnia, the former Soviet Union and Darfur, but is so timid in talking about how our values apply in [Israel] the place we care about most. – Peter Beinart, Temple Beth Am, Los Angeles, June 21, 2010

Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year …was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby (September 17, 2011)…. The powerful pro- Israel lobby in an election season can force the administration to defend Israel at the UN, even when it knows Israel is pursuing policies not in its own interest or America’s. (13 December, 2011) – Tom Friedman, New York Times

Peter Beinart and Tom Friedman have for all intents and purposes declared political war on Israel. In their latest New York Times articles, they have chosen to side unequivocally with the Palestinians, offered them strategic counsel, and set themselves firmly against the elected government of the Jewish state. They must be confronted in accordance with their choice.

It time to take off the kid gloves. It is time to stop condoning deception and distortion under the guise of freedom of speech. It is time to call a spade a spade – and behave accordingly.

Hornik - Peter Beinart, Zionist Pioneer

P. David Hornik..
frontpagemag.com..
04 April '12..



At least Peter Beinart is original. In his recent New York Times op-ed and his new book The Crisis of Zionism, the American Jewish pundit and author calls for a new form of Zionist activity. As he says in the op-ed, “call it Zionist B.D.S.” Since BDS stands for “boycott, divestment, and sanctions” directed at Israel, for short we can call Beinart’s new type of Zionism “boycott Zionism.”

Historically, the three main streams of Zionism were Labor (socialist), Revisionist (nationalist), and Mizrachi (religious) Zionism. Zionists belonging to these streams (and others, or no particular stream at all) engaged in activities like: coming to live in Israel, settling it including particularly dangerous areas, serving in its security forces, smuggling arms, smuggling refugees, and so on. Israelis today, of course, continue to live in Israel, settle it including particularly dangerous areas, and serve in its security forces; fortunately, because it’s now an established state, they need no longer smuggle in arms or refugees.

But boycott Zionists don’t have to do any of those things. Indeed, boycott Zionism need not be an activity at all; all one need do to be a boycott Zionist in, say, New York City (where Peter Beinart lives) is see an Israeli product on a shelf and not buy it. Thus, so long as the nonbuying is intentional and not just accidental, just about anyone can be a Zionist now—that is, anyone who lives anywhere that Israeli products are sold, which is a lot of places.

Ottolenghi - Re: Beinart’s Slippery Slope on Boycotts

Emanuele Ottolenghi..
Commentary/Contentions..
02 Aril '12..



This weekend Jonathan weighed in on the letter signed by a number of UK artists calling for a boycott of Israel’s Habima theatre company.

Had the letter not contained the names of celebrities Emma Thompson and Mike Leigh, I doubt it would have made the splash it did – and, to further Jonathan’s point about Peter Beinart and the role he plays in delegitimating Israel, the letter’s signatories include the usual suspects among the Jews-for-Justice-for-anyone-but-the-Jews, whose fame, in the world of the performing arts, is more closely linked to their anti-Zionist crusades than their artistic talents.

Still, one point deserves to be added to Jonathan’s excellent take-down.

The “artists” explain their call to target Habima on the grounds that Habima performed in the Territories and that “By inviting Habima, Shakespeare’s Globe is undermining the conscientious Israeli actors and playwrights who have refused to break international law.” The inference here is that giving a stage to Habima will undermine those in Israel who refused to go along and perform in Ariel and other settlements.

But it also suggests that performing in the Territories is a breach of international law.

Now that’s something else. There is no clause in the Fourth Geneva Convention forbidding theatre companies from performing a play in Territories under military occupation as a result of a conflict still waiting to be settled.

As an international law scholar whom I turned to in order to confirm the absence of such a rule from the annals of international law said with reference to the boycotters – “for them it is not international law, it is ‘my’ law.”

Same with Beinart and others afflicted by the same selective moral indignation – they make up facts and rules as they go along, which they then invoke to prove their hatred for Israel right.

Link: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/04/02/beinart-slippery-slope-on-boycotts/#more-789623

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page. Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand 
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Tobin - Emma Thompson Illustrates Beinart’s Slippery Slope on Boycotts

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
01 April '12..

Friends of Israel have been able to take some satisfaction in the fact that Peter Beinart’s intellectually vapid attempt to promote what he has the temerity to call “Zionist BDS” (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) against the Jewish state has been panned by liberals as well as conservatives across the political spectrum. Few outside of the far left have been convinced by his call for a boycott of Jews who live in the West Bank and parts of Jerusalem so as to save Israel from itself and bring about Middle East peace. Unlike the foolish Beinart, most Americans — like the overwhelming majority of Israelis — understand the obstacle to a resolution to the conflict comes from the Palestinians’ inability to make peace with a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn.

All this eludes Beinart, but the writer, who has assumed the pose of the self-appointed conscience of American Jewry, also misses another key point. He fails to comprehend that his distinction between boycotts of the settlements and of the rest of the country inside the green line (which he tells us he loves passionately) is not one that the rest of the world is necessarily going to respect. As Oscar-winning actress and writer Emma Thompson proved this week, efforts to stigmatize West Bank Jews have a curious habit of morphing into boycotts of other Israelis, including those who, like Beinart, are not part of the settlement project.

As the Times of Israel reports today, the much-loved Thompson joined with 36 other prominent figures in the English theater (including Jews like playwright and director Mike Leigh and director Jonathan Miller) to demand the exclusion of Israel’s prestigious Habimah Theater Company from a dramatic festival taking place at Shakespeare’s Globe Theater in London next month. The excuse for this crude act of anti-Semitic incitement: the fact that Habimah has not joined in efforts to boycott theater productions in the settlements.

Jack Johnson, Jabotinsky, and Beinart's identity crisis

An absolutely fascinating piece from Rick Richman, The Crisis of Peter Beinart, can be found in the NY Sun of March 24th:

One of the most stunning error/omissions — it falls in both categories — is Mr. Beinart’s mistaken reliance on a 1910 essay by Vladimir Jabotinsky, which Mr. Beinart used to support his theory that “the reason is simple” why Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t trust Barack Obama (whom Mr. Beinart calls “the Jewish President”): “Obama reminds Netanyahu what Netanyahu doesn’t like about Jews”:

Understanding what Netanyahu doesn’t like about Jews requires understanding what Vladimir Jabotinsky didn’t like about Jews. … What Jabotinsky didn’t like about Jews was their belief that they carried a moral message to the world. … “The Bible says ‘thou shalt not oppress a stranger; for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt,’” wrote Jabotinsky in 1910. “Contemporary morality has no place for such childish humanism.

Mr. Beinart found the above quotation in a secondary source. It is unlikely he read Jabotinsky’s 12-page essay before using it as the crux of his analysis, because Mr. Beinart not only egregiously misstated the theme of the essay; he even misinterpreted the two-sentence quote.

Mr. Beinart might have liked the essay if he had read it. Understanding it requires understanding the aftermath of the July 4, 1910 heavyweight championship fight between Jack Johnson, the son of emancipated slaves who was defending his title, and Jim Jeffries, the former champion who had retired undefeated after refusing to fight black men, and who returned from retirement to, as he told the Los Angeles Times, “reclaim the heavyweight championship for the white race.”

Perhaps to use, a slightly different version of an overly misused Pres. Obama favorite, Mr. Beinart is punching well below his weight level. Rick Richman's piece, on the other hand, 1st rate scholarship, and engaging.

Continue to "The Crisis of Peter Beinart"

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page. Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand

Fresnozionism - Beinart’s anti-Zionist boycott

Fresnozionism.org..
19 March '12..

Peter Beinart has a new piece in the New York Times. It will be called ‘important’ because part of his message and that of his supporters is that he is telling an important truth that is suppressed by the Jewish establishment. He insists that he is a Zionist and supports Israel. But there is little truth in his analysis and a huge amount of fantasy in his prescriptions.

Beinart calls for boycotting Jewish communities (‘settlements’) beyond the Green Line, because he wants to end what he calls “undemocratic Israel:”

…both names mislead. “Judea and Samaria” implies that the most important thing about the land is its biblical lineage; “West Bank” implies that the most important thing about the land is its relationship to the Kingdom of Jordan next door. After all, it was only after Jordan conquered the territory in 1948 that it coined the term “West Bank” to distinguish it from the rest of the kingdom, which falls on the Jordan River’s east bank. Since Jordan no longer controls the land, “West Bank” is an anachronism. It says nothing meaningful about the territory today.

Instead, we should call the West Bank “nondemocratic Israel.” The phrase suggests that there are today two Israels: a flawed but genuine democracy within the green line and an ethnically-based nondemocracy beyond it. It counters efforts by Israel’s leaders to use the legitimacy of democratic Israel to legitimize the occupation and by Israel’s adversaries to use the illegitimacy of the occupation to delegitimize democratic Israel.

Beinart mischaracterizes the area east of the Green Line; actually it is already two ‘states’: what is called Areas A and B which are under Palestinian Authority (PA) administration and contain at least 97% of the Arab population, and area C, where all of the ‘settlers’ live and which is under Israeli administration.

What Beinart finds “nondemocratic” is that Palestinian Arabs in the territories do not have the right to become citizens of Israel, which ‘controls their lives’. But they are citizens of the PA. Elder of Ziyon explains that

Medad - Beinart is being part of the threat, not its preventiion

Yisrael Medad..
Green-Lined/JPost..
19 March '12..

I had an exchange of Tweets with Peter Beinart during the AIPAC Conference, when I referred to him as an interrupting noise maker in response to his deriding reference to the thousands of Jews who flocked to Washington, among other things, burying the J Street and Americans for Peace Now attempts to divide the American Jewish community’s support for Israel vis a vis Congress and contra the Obama administration.

Not one to give up, even on a losing proposition, he has now gone to the favorite playing field for Jews who have problems with themselves and their Judaism, their Zionism and their politics which is the op-ed pages of the New York Times which, to the best of my knowledge, has never printed an opinion article by an actual resident of one of the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria so often pilloried there.

In “To Save Israel, Boycott the Settlements”, he suggests adopting the policies of Israel's most hateful enemies, one that plays into the hands of the anti-Semites and anti-Zionists and hopes he can limit it to the 150 communities with almost 400,000 Jews with their industry, science, agriculture and social institutions.

Some of his remarks and my comments in italics in the brackets:-

Sultan Knish - Power and Weakness in Zion

Daniel Greenfield..
Sultan Knish..
14 February '12..

The liberal deconstruction of Zionism begins with the Jews as the victims and ends with the Jews as oppressors. To understand their mindset it is enough to see a protest banner of the Star of David transformed into a Swastika paralleling the journey from concentration camp victim to concentration camp guard.

There is a certain amount of historical revisionism in play here, and not just the obvious kind. The left had been calling Zionists, Fascists and later Nazis, before there was a modern State of Israel and before the left was hard at work pretending that it cared about Muslim militias and clans who would later be rebranded as the Palestinian people. A meaningless name up there with the South American people.

The reason why the left damned the Zionists as fascists had nothing to do with oppression and everything to do with the left's rejection of a unique national identity for the Jewish people. Even the left leaning Zionist movements still linked nationalism and ethnic identity in a way that the left found reactionary, at least as applied to the Jews. Had there been no Arabs in Israel, the left would still have denounced Zionism for daring to assert a national right for the Jewish people.

Peter Beinart's splashy new book, The Crisis of Zionism, follows this same tired old path, attacking Jews for acting like concentration camp victims when they really ought to own up to being concentration camp guards. Beinart and his defenders pretend that they are cutting edge provocateurs, when they are really advancing tiresome arguments that depend entirely on the postmodern left's construct of victims and oppressors.

Keyes - Who’s Not Listening to Israeli Soldiers?

David Keyes..
Commentary/Contentions..
09 February '12..

On Tuesday, Peter Beinart chastised American Jews for not listening more closely to Israeli soldiers. “There’s nothing American Jews love more than Israeli soldiers, except perhaps, Israeli spies,” he wrote in a piece in the Daily Beast titled “U.S. Jews Should Heed Top Israeli Soldiers Who Oppose Bombing Iran.” “So perhaps American Jews should start noticing that an astonishing number of Israel’s top soldiers and spies are warning against bombing Iran.”

A few years ago, I witnessed a debate inside the Israeli Knesset between two former heads of Israeli military intelligence, research and assessment, General Yaakov Amidror and General Danny Rothschild. The veterans disagreed on everything — technology, threats, solutions, defensible borders, control of territory and disengagement. During my service in the military, I saw the same phenomenon among officers at every rank. In robust democracies “listening” to soldiers—or civilians—is almost never a shortcut to obvious or unanimous answers.

With that in mind, Beinart is as guilty as anyone of not listening to Israeli soldiers. Consider all the Israeli generals whose opinions he casts aside because they differ from his. On the matter of Gaza and the West Bank, he rejects the opinion of former Chief of Staff General (ret.) Moshe Ya’alon, who opposes disengagements on security grounds. He disregards the former head of Israel’s General Security Service, Avi Dichter, who warned that “the evacuation [from Gaza] is dangerous, and the retreat will give the Palestinians a sense of victory and encouragement for terrorism.” Beinart dismisses the assessments of withdrawals of former head of Israeli intelligence, General Zeevi Farkash, former Israeli Air Force Chief General Ben Eliyahu, and former military secretary to the prime minister, General Gadi Shamni. He also rejects the advice of current National Security Advisor General Amidror, who believes control of territory is essential to defeating terrorism.

On the Iranian threat, he casts aside the warnings of former Mossad chief Shabtai Shavit, that a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities is the best way to keep Israel safe.

Beinart has every right to favor withdrawals from territories and oppose a strike on Iran, but this has little to do with his listening to Israeli soldiers.