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Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza
A bold, urgent appeal from the acclaimed columnist and political commentator, addressing one of the most pressing issues of our time
In Peter Beinart's view, one story dominates Jewish communal that of persecution and victimhood. It is a story that erases much of the nuance of Jewish religious tradition and warps our understanding of Israel and Palestine. After Gaza, where Jewish texts, history and language have been deployed to justify mass slaughter and starvation, Beinart argues, Jews must tell a new story. After this war, whose horror will echo for generations, they must do nothing less than offer a new answer to the What does it mean to be a Jew?
Beinart imagines an alternate narrative, which would draw on other nations' efforts at moral reconstruction and a different reading of Jewish tradition. A story in which Israeli Jews have the right to equality, not supremacy, and in which Jewish and Palestinian safety are not mutually exclusive but intertwined. One that recognizes the danger of venerating states at the expense of human life.
Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza is a provocative argument that will expand and inform one of the defining conversations of our time. It is a book that only Peter Beinart could a passionate yet measured work that brings together his personal experience, his commanding grasp of history, his keen understanding of political and moral dilemmas, and a clear vision for the future.
In Peter Beinart's view, one story dominates Jewish communal that of persecution and victimhood. It is a story that erases much of the nuance of Jewish religious tradition and warps our understanding of Israel and Palestine. After Gaza, where Jewish texts, history and language have been deployed to justify mass slaughter and starvation, Beinart argues, Jews must tell a new story. After this war, whose horror will echo for generations, they must do nothing less than offer a new answer to the What does it mean to be a Jew?
Beinart imagines an alternate narrative, which would draw on other nations' efforts at moral reconstruction and a different reading of Jewish tradition. A story in which Israeli Jews have the right to equality, not supremacy, and in which Jewish and Palestinian safety are not mutually exclusive but intertwined. One that recognizes the danger of venerating states at the expense of human life.
Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza is a provocative argument that will expand and inform one of the defining conversations of our time. It is a book that only Peter Beinart could a passionate yet measured work that brings together his personal experience, his commanding grasp of history, his keen understanding of political and moral dilemmas, and a clear vision for the future.
193 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 28, 2025
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About the author
Peter Beinart
10 books149 followersPeter Beinart is the author of The Crisis of Zionism and The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris and The Good Fight. A former editor of The New Republic, he is an associate professor of journalism and political science at the City University of New York, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, and the senior political writer for The Daily Beast. He lives with his family in New York City.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/peterb...
http://us.macmillan.com/author/peterb...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 807 reviews
January 14, 2025
my only real complaint with this book is that I wish it was longer. this is the best book on the current situation related to Israel-Palestine, American Jewry and its relation to Israel, and antisemitism. All cards on the table, I basically agree with every word Beinart says at this point in his career, and this book is basically an expression of everything I have heard him say over the past year. As a result, I found myself getting angry, not at his arguments, but at the fact that the these arguments Beinart is rebutting are so widely accepted in my community and that Beinart and people like him are so heavily delegitimized and dismissed for holding the beliefs that they do. To me, Beinart represent an empathetic and common-sense approach to the conflict that many people seem to be lacking (on both sides may I add).
I wouldn't say it's the best if you want a comprehensive history of the conflict — I would read Khalidi for that —but if you want well constructed arguments that you can use in your everyday discussions on the current conflict, this book is for you. Beinart explains his arguments so clearly and succinctly that he manages to take some very complex arguments and make them both palatable and understandable to a general audience. Go read this book. It's only 120 pages and releases on January 28th :)!
I wouldn't say it's the best if you want a comprehensive history of the conflict — I would read Khalidi for that —but if you want well constructed arguments that you can use in your everyday discussions on the current conflict, this book is for you. Beinart explains his arguments so clearly and succinctly that he manages to take some very complex arguments and make them both palatable and understandable to a general audience. Go read this book. It's only 120 pages and releases on January 28th :)!
February 9, 2025
Thesis: After October 7th, Jews were in effect told if you cared about Israeli hostages, you should “support a war that kills and starves those very hostages” and that you should “support a war that will create tens of thousands more scarred, desperate young Palestinians eager to avenge their loved ones by taking Israeli lives. We need a new story – based on equality – because the current one doesn’t endanger only Palestinians. It endangers us.”
Book of Joshua: The American Jewish Council wants the book of Joshua invisible in today’s Hebrew Bible because it contradicts its narrative of victimhood. Joshua is the story of Israelites clearly conquering Canaan under Joshua Ben Nun’s leadership “from the seven nations that lived there.” The AJC needs to prove that Zionism is NOT a colonial movement, so the Book of Joshua’s colonial story must stay effectively ignored. Early Zionists loved the Book of Joshua – Jabotinsky actually called fellow Zionists “colonists”, and said that in seizing Canaan “our own ancestors under Joshua Ben Nun, behaved like brigands.” Ben Gurion in 1958 hosted a bimonthly study group on the book of Joshua. To early Zionists, if you thought you were all that and a bag of chips and “more advanced” than your fellow humans, you went and took what you wanted. This narrative has now been comically inverted with the former Israeli ambassador to the US Michael Oren comparing Israeli Jews to the Sioux. That would make sense if the Sioux had endless external financial backing and dropped 2,000-pound bombs on settlers, and freely imprisoned without charge thousands of entitled white assholes.
In 1948, “by the time the Arab armies attacked, Zionist forces had already largely depopulated Jaffa and Haifa, Palestine’s two largest cities.” “A 1948 report by Israel’s own intelligence service concluded that Zionist attacks accounted for roughly 70% of the Palestinian departures, while orders from Arab forces accounted for roughly 5%.” “The harsh truth is that Zionist forces had to expel large numbers of Palestinians in order to create a Jewish-majority state.” One month after the UN vote, Ben Gurion said, “Only a state with at least 80% Jews is a viable and stable state” – that meant expelling Palestinians. Even famed Zionist historian Benny Morris wrote, “Ben Gurion was a transferist.” Remember than Zionist hero Jabotinsky in 1923 wrote that “Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonized., that is what the Arabs are doing.” Imagine Netanyahu after October 7th repeating the words of Moshe Dayan in 1956: “For eight years they have been sitting in refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we have been transforming the lands and the villages, where they and their fathers dwelt, into our estate.” Jabotinsky and Dayan “understood that violent dispossession and violent resistance are intertwined”. In 1976, Israeli social critic Yeshayahu Leibowitz declared that, “In our times of worldwide decolonization, a colonial regime necessarily gives birth to terrorism.”
In the forced 1948 evacuation of the Palestinian town of Eilaboun, most of its residents served “as human shields for Israeli forces who walked behind them in case the road was mined. After forcing the villagers to walk all day with little food or water, the soldiers robbed them of their valuables and loaded them on trucks that deposited them across the Lebanese border (p.23).”
Zionists won’t tell you how after leaving Gaza in 2005, Israel kept 100% control of all access by sea and air and two of the three land crossings. Access at gunpoint is intentionally prison like.
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and even Israel’s own leading human rights group B’Tselem ALL call Israel’s practices “apartheid”. Apartheid is “legal dominance based on ethnicity, religion, or race.” “Between 2000 and 2023, Israel detained more than 13,000 Palestinian children (according to DCIP).” Of everyone the DCIP interviewed, 97% said they were interrogated w/o a family member present, 75% suffered physical violence, and 23% had at least two days in solitary confinement.”
Fun Facts: Since 2010, the Bedouin village of Al-Araqib has been demolished more than 200 times.” Israel Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said, “there are 2 million Nazis” in the West Bank. That could finally be true however in the FUTURE if Bezalel annexes it, cleanses it, and fills it with far-right settlers.
October 7th Analogy: The author says for a proper October 7th analogy think of historical violent outbreaks by colonialized or occupied peoples: think Lari Massacre by the Mau Mau, Fort Mims Massacre by Creek Indians, or the Massacre of Europeans in 1804 Haiti. Beinart to his discredit considers October 7th not as first a hostage gathering operation but as first an intentional massacre, which means he has made no effort to study the many recent books on Hamas and interviews with Hamas 10/7 planners out there. The 10/7 plan was not to cruelly anger the world, but to procure hostages who could be bartered for the thousands of Palestinian detainees or gain concessions to the occupied in Gaza. A 2006 paper by two University of Toronto sociologists found that most Palestinian suicide bombers “gave up their lives to avenge the killing of a close relative or as retribution for specific attacks against the Palestinian people.” One of Hamas’s co-founders, Al-Nakhalah, at the age of three watched his father’s execution by Israeli forces. Marwan Barghouti who planned attacks said, “You don’t want to end the occupation and you don’t want to stop the settlement, so the only way to convince you is by force.” Nelson Mandela said in 1964, “It was only when all else had failed, when all channels of peaceful protest had been barred to us that the decision was made to embark on violent forms of political struggle.” Palestine is yet one more valid liberation struggle.
Language Framing: When Netanyahu says anti-Zionist organizations on college campuses want Israel’s annihilation, he intentionally wants you to “equate Palestinian equality with Jewish death”. When Zionists foam at the mouth about Israel’s “Right to Exist”, it is code for demanding Jewish supremacy, by conflating a state and a political system. Few object to Israel as a state existing, the Israel problem arises because it’s force conjoined with a political system that constitutes apartheid. In a 2019 Jewish People Policy Institute poll, 75% of them agreed with the statement “to be a real Israeli, you must be Jewish” - that only happens with Jewish supremacy. If Israel was really based on legal equality, it would be called Israel-Palestine. When Rhodesia abandoned white rule, it changed its name to Zimbabwe; whites weren’t in fear of their lives.
In the first eight months after October 7th, AIPAC used the Hasbara hot phrase, “human shields” sixteen times [and in the Alan Dershowitz latest 63-page pamphlet he uses “human shields” fifteen times although both know Israel has more documented uses of human shields than Palestinians do. Simply google “Israeli use of human shields” and read the top 10 stories for proof. It a corollary of the childish “I know you are but what am I?” taunt preferred by unimaginative bullies for decades. First, we can all easily fact check that the Israeli military’s headquarters is in central Tel Aviv. In fact, “24 schools sit within a kilometer and a half of its General Staff building.” Note that in tiny Gaza Hamas HAS to be close to civilian areas, while in Tel Aviv infinitely more financed top IDF commanders daily work just as close to civilians.
What made Palestinians originally vote for Hamas? It was “the Palestinian Authority’s corruption and its inability to maintain law and order.” Note these first two answers were NOT at all about Palestinians wanting to kill Israelis, or disrespecting your tacky Am Yisrael Chai bracelet. Just before October 7th “Hamas was quite unpopular there (Gaza).” And only ¼ of the Palestinians currently in Gaza were old enough to vote back in 2006, so Israel is punishing ¾ of all Palestinians (mostly young’uns) for what they had NOTHING to do with. As the former head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security service (Ami Ayalon) said, “If we continue to dish out humiliation and despair, the population of Hamas will grow. And if we push Hamas from power, we’ll get al-Qaeda. And after al-Qaeda, ISIS.”
Funny Point: When Netanyahu said that the Jewish state cannot be judged by any external standard, he was making a wonderful case for idolatry – equating the state with an object of worship. In the Talmud, Rabbi Yochanan calls rejecting idolatry the essence of being a Jew, so why did Netanyahu embrace it and make his state an object of worship? Why do most American synagogues feature an Israeli flag on the bima and a prayer for Israel in the liturgy? Either idolatry is ok in Judaism or it’s not. Zionists call you anti-Semites to silence criticism of a war they know they can’t defend morally. By inverting logic, they posit that it is bigoted to “propose replacing Jewish supremacy with equality under the law” and never mind that the Zionist far right is deeply allied with white Christian nationalism that clearly threatens Jews.
Realize that defending Palestinians is first part of a “global anticolonial struggle”, supporting a liberation movement. In the end, all colonial powers are revealed as bad and have to stop colonizing; just look at history. “In Gaza, Israel isn’t fighting citizens of another country. It’s fighting people who hold no citizenship because Israel forced them from their land and now confines them to a coastal ghetto.” Israel can’t destroy Hamas, any more than the French could defeat the NLF in Algeria, or the US couldn’t destroy the Taliban or Vietcong, or the Brits couldn’t defeat the IRA; they ALL had public support because they all were offering the oppressed their only chance of freedom. Israel only tells Palestinians “no freedom for you” guaranteeing endless resistance and blowback. Back in 1970, Fatah offered one democratic state in Palestine, no expelling Jews, and making both Hebrew and Arabic official languages, and it was turned down. Israel blathers on all the time about ruling “from the river to the sea” (so did the founding charter of the Likud Party) but if Palestinians use the same term it’s treated as a clarion call for Holocaust v.2.0.
Iran: Iran’s leaders in 2017 signed an Organization of Islamic Cooperation statement to the effect that it would recognize Israel if Israel simply allows sovereign states in West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem and “a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem.” So, the threat of Iran is that it DARES to want the rogue state Israel to merely follow international law. But Iran is the only nearby country sympathetic to Palestinians that Israel hasn’t forced the US to bomb yet, and so it cries like a two-year old throwing a tantrum at a toy store.
Conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism is the Zionist recipe for turning the conversation on its head and showing Palestinians (instead of Zionists) as bigots. If only Americans were taught that most Zionists aren’t even religious but instead comfortably hide behind the Jewish faith when attacked: there is zero religious requirement to be a member of the Knesset. Fourteen prime ministers in Israel’s history and only ONE of those, Naftali Bennett, observed Jewish law. You can confuse the Torah with Gomorrah, confuse Menorah with Menudo, confuse the Star of David with the star of “Better Call Saul” and STILL be an Israeli prime minister.
My only complaints about this book are on page 90 (and page 120), when the author said on October 7th Hamas fighters “purposely” “sexually assaulted civilians” but in 2025, there is STILL no evidence that even one Israeli was sexually assaulted. And I’ve seen no evidence that on October 7th Hamas fighter “purposely” murdered or maimed any civilians, the plan was to get hostages, not to maim or murder civilians which would be obvious violations of international law. Murder one civilian and you obviously have one less hostage, so why do it? And NO WHERE does Beinart have the balls to mention the applied Hannibal Directive where Israel knowingly killed its own people on 10/7 to prevent them from falling into Hamas’s hands. In the past week (2/25), even Israel’s former defense minister Yoav Gallant confirmed that the Hannibal Directive was implemented on October 7th, yet Beinart doesn’t want readers to know ANYTHING about the Directive. And on page 120, Beinart attacks Putin, Modi, Xi, and Trump as all thugs who “steal their nations blind” but ignores that far worse in “stealing nations blind” has for decades has been US bipartisan neoliberalism, the World Bank, IMF, and USAID. Beinart, like a good liberal, attacks only Trump but NOT the decades of US led financial rape of countless countries. But, aside from both page 90 and page 120 red flags (Beinart/Hasbara/Liberal moments), I liked the rest of the book, and found it was an excellent rebuttal to the idiotic Dershowitz “Ten Big Anti-Israel Lies” book which I’ll review next.
Book of Joshua: The American Jewish Council wants the book of Joshua invisible in today’s Hebrew Bible because it contradicts its narrative of victimhood. Joshua is the story of Israelites clearly conquering Canaan under Joshua Ben Nun’s leadership “from the seven nations that lived there.” The AJC needs to prove that Zionism is NOT a colonial movement, so the Book of Joshua’s colonial story must stay effectively ignored. Early Zionists loved the Book of Joshua – Jabotinsky actually called fellow Zionists “colonists”, and said that in seizing Canaan “our own ancestors under Joshua Ben Nun, behaved like brigands.” Ben Gurion in 1958 hosted a bimonthly study group on the book of Joshua. To early Zionists, if you thought you were all that and a bag of chips and “more advanced” than your fellow humans, you went and took what you wanted. This narrative has now been comically inverted with the former Israeli ambassador to the US Michael Oren comparing Israeli Jews to the Sioux. That would make sense if the Sioux had endless external financial backing and dropped 2,000-pound bombs on settlers, and freely imprisoned without charge thousands of entitled white assholes.
In 1948, “by the time the Arab armies attacked, Zionist forces had already largely depopulated Jaffa and Haifa, Palestine’s two largest cities.” “A 1948 report by Israel’s own intelligence service concluded that Zionist attacks accounted for roughly 70% of the Palestinian departures, while orders from Arab forces accounted for roughly 5%.” “The harsh truth is that Zionist forces had to expel large numbers of Palestinians in order to create a Jewish-majority state.” One month after the UN vote, Ben Gurion said, “Only a state with at least 80% Jews is a viable and stable state” – that meant expelling Palestinians. Even famed Zionist historian Benny Morris wrote, “Ben Gurion was a transferist.” Remember than Zionist hero Jabotinsky in 1923 wrote that “Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonized., that is what the Arabs are doing.” Imagine Netanyahu after October 7th repeating the words of Moshe Dayan in 1956: “For eight years they have been sitting in refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we have been transforming the lands and the villages, where they and their fathers dwelt, into our estate.” Jabotinsky and Dayan “understood that violent dispossession and violent resistance are intertwined”. In 1976, Israeli social critic Yeshayahu Leibowitz declared that, “In our times of worldwide decolonization, a colonial regime necessarily gives birth to terrorism.”
In the forced 1948 evacuation of the Palestinian town of Eilaboun, most of its residents served “as human shields for Israeli forces who walked behind them in case the road was mined. After forcing the villagers to walk all day with little food or water, the soldiers robbed them of their valuables and loaded them on trucks that deposited them across the Lebanese border (p.23).”
Zionists won’t tell you how after leaving Gaza in 2005, Israel kept 100% control of all access by sea and air and two of the three land crossings. Access at gunpoint is intentionally prison like.
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and even Israel’s own leading human rights group B’Tselem ALL call Israel’s practices “apartheid”. Apartheid is “legal dominance based on ethnicity, religion, or race.” “Between 2000 and 2023, Israel detained more than 13,000 Palestinian children (according to DCIP).” Of everyone the DCIP interviewed, 97% said they were interrogated w/o a family member present, 75% suffered physical violence, and 23% had at least two days in solitary confinement.”
Fun Facts: Since 2010, the Bedouin village of Al-Araqib has been demolished more than 200 times.” Israel Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said, “there are 2 million Nazis” in the West Bank. That could finally be true however in the FUTURE if Bezalel annexes it, cleanses it, and fills it with far-right settlers.
October 7th Analogy: The author says for a proper October 7th analogy think of historical violent outbreaks by colonialized or occupied peoples: think Lari Massacre by the Mau Mau, Fort Mims Massacre by Creek Indians, or the Massacre of Europeans in 1804 Haiti. Beinart to his discredit considers October 7th not as first a hostage gathering operation but as first an intentional massacre, which means he has made no effort to study the many recent books on Hamas and interviews with Hamas 10/7 planners out there. The 10/7 plan was not to cruelly anger the world, but to procure hostages who could be bartered for the thousands of Palestinian detainees or gain concessions to the occupied in Gaza. A 2006 paper by two University of Toronto sociologists found that most Palestinian suicide bombers “gave up their lives to avenge the killing of a close relative or as retribution for specific attacks against the Palestinian people.” One of Hamas’s co-founders, Al-Nakhalah, at the age of three watched his father’s execution by Israeli forces. Marwan Barghouti who planned attacks said, “You don’t want to end the occupation and you don’t want to stop the settlement, so the only way to convince you is by force.” Nelson Mandela said in 1964, “It was only when all else had failed, when all channels of peaceful protest had been barred to us that the decision was made to embark on violent forms of political struggle.” Palestine is yet one more valid liberation struggle.
Language Framing: When Netanyahu says anti-Zionist organizations on college campuses want Israel’s annihilation, he intentionally wants you to “equate Palestinian equality with Jewish death”. When Zionists foam at the mouth about Israel’s “Right to Exist”, it is code for demanding Jewish supremacy, by conflating a state and a political system. Few object to Israel as a state existing, the Israel problem arises because it’s force conjoined with a political system that constitutes apartheid. In a 2019 Jewish People Policy Institute poll, 75% of them agreed with the statement “to be a real Israeli, you must be Jewish” - that only happens with Jewish supremacy. If Israel was really based on legal equality, it would be called Israel-Palestine. When Rhodesia abandoned white rule, it changed its name to Zimbabwe; whites weren’t in fear of their lives.
In the first eight months after October 7th, AIPAC used the Hasbara hot phrase, “human shields” sixteen times [and in the Alan Dershowitz latest 63-page pamphlet he uses “human shields” fifteen times although both know Israel has more documented uses of human shields than Palestinians do. Simply google “Israeli use of human shields” and read the top 10 stories for proof. It a corollary of the childish “I know you are but what am I?” taunt preferred by unimaginative bullies for decades. First, we can all easily fact check that the Israeli military’s headquarters is in central Tel Aviv. In fact, “24 schools sit within a kilometer and a half of its General Staff building.” Note that in tiny Gaza Hamas HAS to be close to civilian areas, while in Tel Aviv infinitely more financed top IDF commanders daily work just as close to civilians.
What made Palestinians originally vote for Hamas? It was “the Palestinian Authority’s corruption and its inability to maintain law and order.” Note these first two answers were NOT at all about Palestinians wanting to kill Israelis, or disrespecting your tacky Am Yisrael Chai bracelet. Just before October 7th “Hamas was quite unpopular there (Gaza).” And only ¼ of the Palestinians currently in Gaza were old enough to vote back in 2006, so Israel is punishing ¾ of all Palestinians (mostly young’uns) for what they had NOTHING to do with. As the former head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security service (Ami Ayalon) said, “If we continue to dish out humiliation and despair, the population of Hamas will grow. And if we push Hamas from power, we’ll get al-Qaeda. And after al-Qaeda, ISIS.”
Funny Point: When Netanyahu said that the Jewish state cannot be judged by any external standard, he was making a wonderful case for idolatry – equating the state with an object of worship. In the Talmud, Rabbi Yochanan calls rejecting idolatry the essence of being a Jew, so why did Netanyahu embrace it and make his state an object of worship? Why do most American synagogues feature an Israeli flag on the bima and a prayer for Israel in the liturgy? Either idolatry is ok in Judaism or it’s not. Zionists call you anti-Semites to silence criticism of a war they know they can’t defend morally. By inverting logic, they posit that it is bigoted to “propose replacing Jewish supremacy with equality under the law” and never mind that the Zionist far right is deeply allied with white Christian nationalism that clearly threatens Jews.
Realize that defending Palestinians is first part of a “global anticolonial struggle”, supporting a liberation movement. In the end, all colonial powers are revealed as bad and have to stop colonizing; just look at history. “In Gaza, Israel isn’t fighting citizens of another country. It’s fighting people who hold no citizenship because Israel forced them from their land and now confines them to a coastal ghetto.” Israel can’t destroy Hamas, any more than the French could defeat the NLF in Algeria, or the US couldn’t destroy the Taliban or Vietcong, or the Brits couldn’t defeat the IRA; they ALL had public support because they all were offering the oppressed their only chance of freedom. Israel only tells Palestinians “no freedom for you” guaranteeing endless resistance and blowback. Back in 1970, Fatah offered one democratic state in Palestine, no expelling Jews, and making both Hebrew and Arabic official languages, and it was turned down. Israel blathers on all the time about ruling “from the river to the sea” (so did the founding charter of the Likud Party) but if Palestinians use the same term it’s treated as a clarion call for Holocaust v.2.0.
Iran: Iran’s leaders in 2017 signed an Organization of Islamic Cooperation statement to the effect that it would recognize Israel if Israel simply allows sovereign states in West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem and “a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem.” So, the threat of Iran is that it DARES to want the rogue state Israel to merely follow international law. But Iran is the only nearby country sympathetic to Palestinians that Israel hasn’t forced the US to bomb yet, and so it cries like a two-year old throwing a tantrum at a toy store.
Conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism is the Zionist recipe for turning the conversation on its head and showing Palestinians (instead of Zionists) as bigots. If only Americans were taught that most Zionists aren’t even religious but instead comfortably hide behind the Jewish faith when attacked: there is zero religious requirement to be a member of the Knesset. Fourteen prime ministers in Israel’s history and only ONE of those, Naftali Bennett, observed Jewish law. You can confuse the Torah with Gomorrah, confuse Menorah with Menudo, confuse the Star of David with the star of “Better Call Saul” and STILL be an Israeli prime minister.
My only complaints about this book are on page 90 (and page 120), when the author said on October 7th Hamas fighters “purposely” “sexually assaulted civilians” but in 2025, there is STILL no evidence that even one Israeli was sexually assaulted. And I’ve seen no evidence that on October 7th Hamas fighter “purposely” murdered or maimed any civilians, the plan was to get hostages, not to maim or murder civilians which would be obvious violations of international law. Murder one civilian and you obviously have one less hostage, so why do it? And NO WHERE does Beinart have the balls to mention the applied Hannibal Directive where Israel knowingly killed its own people on 10/7 to prevent them from falling into Hamas’s hands. In the past week (2/25), even Israel’s former defense minister Yoav Gallant confirmed that the Hannibal Directive was implemented on October 7th, yet Beinart doesn’t want readers to know ANYTHING about the Directive. And on page 120, Beinart attacks Putin, Modi, Xi, and Trump as all thugs who “steal their nations blind” but ignores that far worse in “stealing nations blind” has for decades has been US bipartisan neoliberalism, the World Bank, IMF, and USAID. Beinart, like a good liberal, attacks only Trump but NOT the decades of US led financial rape of countless countries. But, aside from both page 90 and page 120 red flags (Beinart/Hasbara/Liberal moments), I liked the rest of the book, and found it was an excellent rebuttal to the idiotic Dershowitz “Ten Big Anti-Israel Lies” book which I’ll review next.
April 5, 2025
"[Israel] is not 'self-determination'. It is 'apartheid'. Apartheid is violent. ... most [Palestinians] have spent the bulk of their lives under blockade, unable to leave a territory less than half the size of New York City ... an 'open-air' prison." (p. 53 of ebook)
Wikipedia definition of Apartheid:
Apartheid, meaning "separateness" in Afrikaans, was a system of institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s, characterized by an authoritarian political culture based on baasskap (lit. 'boss-ship' or 'boss-hood').
Wikipedia definition of Apartheid:
Apartheid, meaning "separateness" in Afrikaans, was a system of institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s, characterized by an authoritarian political culture based on baasskap (lit. 'boss-ship' or 'boss-hood').
July 14, 2025
It's really something to read an essay where the author is in personal moral agony while trying to be rational and reasonable, and to offer a way forward. The book treads an interesting line where Beinart is ostensibly trying to reach a common understanding with Jews who disagree with him, while the same time giving me, a Catholic, the background I need to understand how the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has been defined the way it has. It's a very interesting read that will probably change no one's mind. But maybe.
November 20, 2024
the best book I’ve read on Israel and Palestine. one of the best books I’ve read in recent memory. short and beautifully written, full of empathy and evidence.
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a few hints of what to expect in this book. it opens with a letter to a friend who disagrees w/ him. several lines and facts throughout made me write “ooof” in the margins. too many quotable lines to choose. But here’s one from the last few pages: “don’t have to close off a piece of ourselves and barricade it from our best qualities — kindness, compassion, fairness — because that’s the only way we can defend what’s being done in our name.” read with care, caution, & an open mind.
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can’t recommend highly enough- BEING JEWISH AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF GAZA hits stores in early 2025. many thanks to PRH for the advanced copy.
.
.
a few hints of what to expect in this book. it opens with a letter to a friend who disagrees w/ him. several lines and facts throughout made me write “ooof” in the margins. too many quotable lines to choose. But here’s one from the last few pages: “don’t have to close off a piece of ourselves and barricade it from our best qualities — kindness, compassion, fairness — because that’s the only way we can defend what’s being done in our name.” read with care, caution, & an open mind.
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can’t recommend highly enough- BEING JEWISH AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF GAZA hits stores in early 2025. many thanks to PRH for the advanced copy.
January 23, 2025
Making the argument that Israel has overstepped the bounds of humanitarianism and has fought a war to destroy its enemy, Hamas ( which he equates with Gaza) journalist Peter Beinart takes a stand that.the perception of victimization is no excuse for the continuation of Israeli Hamas war. This was very difficult for me to read as the initial slaughter of innocent Israeli dancers and party goers seems to have escaped his observations and conscience There are many varied viewpoints on this topic. I prefer a more balanced approach. I do not recommend this one sided position paper. Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf, Vintage Pantheon and Anchor for and advanced copy of this book for my review. It is being published January 28, 2025. My opinion- skip it.
March 3, 2025
“Even if you are able to overlook Beinart's decision to centre Jews at this moment - for surely interrogating what it means to be Jewish as the Jewish state embarks on a project of annihilation of another people is excruciatingly narcissistic at best - the book itself is a motley collection of illogical reasoning and conclusions.
Whereas Beinart looks to provide a rational and religious argument as to how, why and when the Jewish people lost track of their oppressive Zionist project, the book is really his attempt to provide Jews or Jewish Zionists an escape route from what they have perpetuated on Palestinians.
Beinart's book is an extension of his experimental thought process that began more than a decade ago in the pages of the New York Review of Books, and later in Jewish Currents and The New York Times, when he purportedly became the de facto spokesperson for mainstream liberal American Jews. It's a role he has relished and appears unwillingly to relinquish even as he lags behind many young anti-Zionist Jews pushing more imaginative ways of ending Israel's occupation.
Rather than taking the issue back to the question of Zionism, which is the need of the hour, he instead sidesteps it and goes on to wrap the discussion in neatly written hubris that ends up at the same place he had ended up years back.
Where is the reckoning? There is none. So, what does it mean to be Jewish after the destruction of Gaza?
For Beinart, it's just like it was after the war in Iraq: there's regret, but not enough shame.” -Azad Essa
Whereas Beinart looks to provide a rational and religious argument as to how, why and when the Jewish people lost track of their oppressive Zionist project, the book is really his attempt to provide Jews or Jewish Zionists an escape route from what they have perpetuated on Palestinians.
Beinart's book is an extension of his experimental thought process that began more than a decade ago in the pages of the New York Review of Books, and later in Jewish Currents and The New York Times, when he purportedly became the de facto spokesperson for mainstream liberal American Jews. It's a role he has relished and appears unwillingly to relinquish even as he lags behind many young anti-Zionist Jews pushing more imaginative ways of ending Israel's occupation.
Rather than taking the issue back to the question of Zionism, which is the need of the hour, he instead sidesteps it and goes on to wrap the discussion in neatly written hubris that ends up at the same place he had ended up years back.
Where is the reckoning? There is none. So, what does it mean to be Jewish after the destruction of Gaza?
For Beinart, it's just like it was after the war in Iraq: there's regret, but not enough shame.” -Azad Essa
December 15, 2025
An attempt to reckon with being an anti-Zionist Jew after the last two years of genocide in Gaza from a respected Jewish intellectual and journalist. There is much to appreciate in this book, especially the ways Beinart uses the Talmud and Torah to illustrate his points. His arguments tackle Zionist logic head on. He addresses Jewish victimhood by highlighting how Jews have perpetrated violence and harm. I think in some ways a book like this is useful to have conversations with family and friends who are (or lean) Zionist. But, what Beinart is saying isn’t new. In fact Palestinians have been saying it for decades. But as much as I that it is true, having a respected white, formerly Zionist Jew, say it gives it a resonance that might help get through to those who are unable to separate the message from the messenger.
August 30, 2025
No words. Mandatory reading for every single Jewish person in the world I think. Beinart articulates things that swirl in my head but that I couldn’t even begin to comprehend outloud. He deeply inspires and teaches me about how to navigate this thinking succinctly, directly and with nuance. The last chapter especially was so moving I found myself having to pause when reading it to just take deep breaths (although honestly did that throughout the whole book). Thank god we have Beinart’s voice in these conversations.
March 3, 2025
This book was written with 0 objectivity. He avoids tons of historical evidence that shows the Jews and Israel in a positive way. Justifies all of the atrocities committed by Hamas, and ignores the fact that regular Palestinians participated in October 7th.
Examples of selective bias:
Rates of Hamas popularity goes up when Israel bombs Palestine. Those strikes are almost always in response to Hamas rocket attacks which could also be a source of pride in Hamas for attacking Israel
The Palestinians are forced to send their sewage into the sea. Why? Because they used all of the pipe sent to them as humanitarian aid for making rockets
Palestinians are starving! No they aren’t, they are starving… hostages!
Hamas isn’t using human shields according to the international laws definition! But he admits they’re holding hostages in hospitals which means Hamas operates in hospitals. But Israel is bad for bombing buildings like hospitals. With that logic you’re rooting for Hamas
Examples of selective bias:
Rates of Hamas popularity goes up when Israel bombs Palestine. Those strikes are almost always in response to Hamas rocket attacks which could also be a source of pride in Hamas for attacking Israel
The Palestinians are forced to send their sewage into the sea. Why? Because they used all of the pipe sent to them as humanitarian aid for making rockets
Palestinians are starving! No they aren’t, they are starving… hostages!
Hamas isn’t using human shields according to the international laws definition! But he admits they’re holding hostages in hospitals which means Hamas operates in hospitals. But Israel is bad for bombing buildings like hospitals. With that logic you’re rooting for Hamas
March 11, 2025
Give me a fucking break. How many of these will he have to write before he realizes they won’t pick him?
March 2, 2025
Oy vey
June 29, 2025
“This book is about the story Jews tell ourselves to block out the screams [from Gaza].”
If you read only one book about Israel-Palestine post October 7, read this. Concise, sincere, righteous—Beinart writes with piercing moral clarity. I was pleasantly surprised by the robust theological arguments coming from a politically liberal American Jewish journalist.
The book is also a masterclass in fierce but charitable disagreement with one’s own tribe.
If you read only one book about Israel-Palestine post October 7, read this. Concise, sincere, righteous—Beinart writes with piercing moral clarity. I was pleasantly surprised by the robust theological arguments coming from a politically liberal American Jewish journalist.
The book is also a masterclass in fierce but charitable disagreement with one’s own tribe.
February 9, 2025
Nothing is sadder than a privileged Jew condemning Israel right to exist. He glosses over that the Jewish people were hated and not wanted anywhere in the world and were basically sent to "Palestine" by the rest of the world. Anti Semitism does exist, too bad he is such an elitist he doesn't see it. Are there atrocities committed by the Israeli Army, yes, but it is war. What does he expect? Sadly, he is influencing so many young people that have never know or learned of the atrocities done to the Jewish people. History and truth is lost on him.
There are better books, I am not sad I read the book. I do not agree with him, but I have the advantage of knowing more Jewish history and feel they have a right to exist. I am saddened he hates his heritage so much.
There are better books, I am not sad I read the book. I do not agree with him, but I have the advantage of knowing more Jewish history and feel they have a right to exist. I am saddened he hates his heritage so much.
May 17, 2025
A few months ago, I had a conversation with an old friend from my Yeshiva days in Brooklyn. At Yeshiva and in high school we were very close, and it is the case with many people we drifted apart over the years but intermittently we kept in touch. Holiday greetings, a periodic email, or phone call were our communication over the decades, and I still have fond memories of our relationship. It was during that conversation and his reaction to a number of my book reviews which I posted on my web site that I realized that a wall might be developing between us. The foundation of our disagreement involved our reactions to events in Gaza that followed Hamas’ brutal attack of October 7, 2023, when over 1200 Israelis were slaughtered and 250 hostages were seized by the Palestinian terrorist group. In our last conversation we “agreed to disagree” as he said so we could continue our friendly catch up conversation. The crux of our disagreement rested on Israel’s reaction to the October 7th massacre which led to the destruction in Gaza making large parts of the territory almost inhabitable.
I went to the Gaza Strip in the spring of 1984 when I had a Fulbright Fellowship at Hebrew University. It was a time of war after Israel invaded Lebanon to root out Palestinian terrorists who were making life miserable for Israelis living near their northern border. When I visited Gaza I witnessed many of the living conditions that made refugee camps that were run down and squalid. At the same time, I was amazed at the beauty of the Mediterranean coast that bordered the Palestinian enclave. As a Ph. D in history who focused and published on Arab Israeli relations I am keenly aware of the positions of both sides, Arab and Jew when it came to the riots of the 1930s, the Holocaust, and events surrounding the 1948 War that led to the bifurcation of the region between differing viewpoints. I have always held the belief that peace between the two sides was almost impossible based on ideology, the emotional attachment to the land by all parties, the leadership in the region, and the role of major powers.
With my mindset I was fortunate to come across Peter Beinart’s latest work; BEING JEWISH AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF GAZA where the author lays out the issues for people who have undying loyalty to the Israeli state, born of the Holocaust, seeing it always morally and ethically correct because of the neighborhood in which it resides, and those who find that the Netanyahu government, dominated by right wing nationalists had gone too far in trying to completely destroy Hamas. No one can defend the abhorrent behavior of Hamas, but at what point do we draw the line when contemplating the destruction of an entire society through collective punishment.
It seems that every Jewish person has had the conversation with friends, relatives, and acquaintances over whether as Jews we can still support a government that engages in war crimes. I realize “war crimes” is a difficult term to apply, but I must ask how else can you describe the discriminatory bombing and food deprivation of civilians who are being held hostage by Hamas that has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. It is difficult to hold these discussions with people who firmly believe that Jewish goodness and integrity translates into Israeli virtue and exempts the Netanyahu government from the normal laws of humanity. As Beinart writes, “we are not hard wired to forever endure evil but never commit it. That false innocence, which pervades contemporary Jewish life, camouflages domination as self-defense,” which is at the core of the debate.
Over the years the author has been a stalwart supporter of Palestinian rights, even as he attends shul arguing that Jews are fallible human beings. His goal as Benjamin Moser writes in the May 4, 2025, New York Times is “to wrestle with the knottiness and ambiguity in our sacred texts and correct for the omissions in the mythology of purity that so many of us were taught as children and that many continue to subscribe to as adults.”
Beinart relies on Jewish texts and draws lessons from South Africa, where his family is from, to confront Zionism and what he sees as complicity from the American Jewish establishment in Palestinian oppression. He argues for a Jewish tradition that has no use for Jewish supremacy and treats human equality as a core value. In his book, he appeals to his fellow Jews to grapple with the morality of their defense of Israel. Beinart has a history of changing his opinions be it his support for the Iraq War or tolerating workplace sexual harassment. Beinart’s plea is for the Jewish community to reexamine their views that would require a painful about face concerning views they have held for most of their lives.
Beinart called on American Jews "to defend the dream of a democratic Jewish state before it is too late,” especially in light of the policies perpetrated by a government whose leader is under indictment who clings to power by accommodating the right wing minority in his cabinet. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems to prosecute the war on Gaza as a vehicle to remain in power which would avoid a trial and his possible imprisonment. Whether you agree or disagree with the author he should be commended for his courage for standing up to what he believes is correct and accepting the consequences of the loss of friendships, anger from family members, and constant criticism and ostracization by his many critics.
One of Beinart’s major themes revolves around the argument that victimhood often feels like the natural state for Jews throughout history. But this mentality covers up the fact that Jews can be “Pharoah’s too.” This selective vision permeates Jewish life. Jews employ the bible to refute the claim that Israel is a settler-colonial state. Anything that contradicts this contemporary narrative is not accepted. Interestingly the author weaves the ideas of Vladimir Jabotinsky, an important historical figure for right wing Israelis into the narrative, i.e.; the ideology of virtuous colonization, which today has been replaced by virtuous victimhood to support his views.
To Beinart’s credit he recounts the brutal Hamas attack of October 7 in detail. He delves into the impact on Israeli families and society and accurately concludes the entire country was a victim on that horrendous day of murder, rape, and kidnappings, not just those who experienced the immediate impact. He even points out how Israeli progressives and leftists in the United States and Europe, ones, political partners reacted with indifference to the attack and many justified Hamas’s actions. The message that was conveyed is that the killing of Jews was nothing new, it’s just the way it has always been.
Many Jews have compared October 7 to the Holocaust, but Beinart concludes there is a fundamental difference . “To preserve Israel’s innocence, it has transforms Palestinians from a subjugated people into the reincarnation of the monsters of the Jewish past, the latest manifestation of the eternal, pathological, genocidal hatred that to the Passover Haggadah, in every generation rises up to destroy us.”
Beinart tries to understand Hamas’s actions; in doing so he tries to explain the Palestinian mindset as they see themselves as victims of colonialism. They, like other victims in the past, have no army, so they do not follow the rules of warfare and commit barbaric acts characteristic of colonial revolt. However, countries like China and Russia have armies and they do not follow the rules of law in Ukraine, Georgia, Crimea, Chechnya, and in China’s case the victims are the Uyghur population and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups who can be considered genocide victims.
In trying to understand, it is clear “that violent dispossession and violent resistance are intertwined.” In the end Israeli oppression is not the only course of Palestinian violence. It is Palestinians, like all people who are responsible for their actions. However, Israeli oppression makes Palestinian violence more likely. It comes down to despair for the Palestinian people as it is clear there is no way the Netanyahu government will accept a two-state solution.
In analyzing death figures put out by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and the Gaza Health Ministry it is clear that over 50,000 people have died and 20% are probably children. Beinart relies on many sources to verify these numbers, but Israeli leaders minimize the toll and shift blame onto Hamas arguing that Hamas uses human shields, seizes food and supplies targeted for Palestinian civilians, and murders any opposition. However, Beinart’s argument that Hamas’s actions are typical of other insurgent movements is no excuse and to absolve them of one iota of legitimacy is wrong and their actions are considerably heinous when compared to other insurgent movements. But Israel’s strategy to deliver as much destruction as possible in order to shock the Palestinians and get them to turn against Hamas has not been effective. Blaming the Palestinians for Hamas’s 2006 victory at the polls is not valid since the Palestinian people had little choice. Another Israeli argument that they must destroy Hamas to be safe, but it is an impossible task because the alternative Israel must offer, the ability to vote, a high degree of autonomy, and a future state will not be forthcoming so why should Palestinians opt for peace? They need a viable alternative for Hamas which is not forthcoming. In reality, as long as Israel tries to destroy each insurgent group, their actions foster the next generation of insurgents. As Palestinians believe they are not safe, they will do their best to make sure Israelis are not safe also.
In reading Beinart’s work I wondered if there is such a thing as “Jewish exceptionalism” that makes Israel unaccountable for the type of warfare they are waging. Historically I do not see it as other nations/groups have engaged in atrocities and war against civilians have been condemned with sanctions etc.
Another major issue that Beinart raises is that of the “new anti-Semitism.” Israel has equated any criticism of its actions as anti-Semitic as a vehicle of deflecting criticism of what they are doing in Gaza. In doing so they turn the conversation about the war into a conversation about the motives of people who oppose their actions. What is clear is that when Israel kills Palestinians, what is perceived to be anti-Semitism increases, but the Israeli government conflates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism in order to depict Palestinians and their supporters as bigots, therefore turning a conversation about the oppression of Palestinians into a conversation about the oppression of Jews. In the end Judaism and Israel are separate and Jews, the world over should not be blamed for the actions of the Israeli government.
A great deal of Beinart’s discussion revolves around the actions of American Jews who support Israel’s policies. It seems as progressives in the United States turn against Israel they are forcing Jews to choose; defend exclusion in Israel or inclusion in the United States and some of America’s leading institutions are choosing the former.
Beinart offers a comparison of historical situations that are somewhat similar to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He delves into apartheid in South Africa and the fears of white Afrikaners; he discusses the hatred and fears that existed in Northern Ireland until a settlement was reached overcoming Protestant fears of the IRA; the Reconstruction period in the late 19th century in the United States is explored as southern whites feared the newly freed black population and fueled by northern liberals. In these situations, the key to avoiding as much violence as possible was to give the aggrieved party the vote and a voice to express their concerns because inclusion yields greater, not total safety.
I do not believe that Beinart is naive enough to support the idea that if a settlement ever arrives between Israel and the Palestinians that peace will break out in the Middle East. In a region where Iran, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and numerous other terrorist groups abound violence will lessen, but the author’s emotional and heart felt appeal for reconciliation is really the only hope for the future no matter how impossible that appears today. I admire Beinart’s beliefs and the professional risks he has taken to engage the public in a proper debate – that should be allowed in a free society and the back and forth between those who disagree should be civil, not based on fear.
I went to the Gaza Strip in the spring of 1984 when I had a Fulbright Fellowship at Hebrew University. It was a time of war after Israel invaded Lebanon to root out Palestinian terrorists who were making life miserable for Israelis living near their northern border. When I visited Gaza I witnessed many of the living conditions that made refugee camps that were run down and squalid. At the same time, I was amazed at the beauty of the Mediterranean coast that bordered the Palestinian enclave. As a Ph. D in history who focused and published on Arab Israeli relations I am keenly aware of the positions of both sides, Arab and Jew when it came to the riots of the 1930s, the Holocaust, and events surrounding the 1948 War that led to the bifurcation of the region between differing viewpoints. I have always held the belief that peace between the two sides was almost impossible based on ideology, the emotional attachment to the land by all parties, the leadership in the region, and the role of major powers.
With my mindset I was fortunate to come across Peter Beinart’s latest work; BEING JEWISH AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF GAZA where the author lays out the issues for people who have undying loyalty to the Israeli state, born of the Holocaust, seeing it always morally and ethically correct because of the neighborhood in which it resides, and those who find that the Netanyahu government, dominated by right wing nationalists had gone too far in trying to completely destroy Hamas. No one can defend the abhorrent behavior of Hamas, but at what point do we draw the line when contemplating the destruction of an entire society through collective punishment.
It seems that every Jewish person has had the conversation with friends, relatives, and acquaintances over whether as Jews we can still support a government that engages in war crimes. I realize “war crimes” is a difficult term to apply, but I must ask how else can you describe the discriminatory bombing and food deprivation of civilians who are being held hostage by Hamas that has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. It is difficult to hold these discussions with people who firmly believe that Jewish goodness and integrity translates into Israeli virtue and exempts the Netanyahu government from the normal laws of humanity. As Beinart writes, “we are not hard wired to forever endure evil but never commit it. That false innocence, which pervades contemporary Jewish life, camouflages domination as self-defense,” which is at the core of the debate.
Over the years the author has been a stalwart supporter of Palestinian rights, even as he attends shul arguing that Jews are fallible human beings. His goal as Benjamin Moser writes in the May 4, 2025, New York Times is “to wrestle with the knottiness and ambiguity in our sacred texts and correct for the omissions in the mythology of purity that so many of us were taught as children and that many continue to subscribe to as adults.”
Beinart relies on Jewish texts and draws lessons from South Africa, where his family is from, to confront Zionism and what he sees as complicity from the American Jewish establishment in Palestinian oppression. He argues for a Jewish tradition that has no use for Jewish supremacy and treats human equality as a core value. In his book, he appeals to his fellow Jews to grapple with the morality of their defense of Israel. Beinart has a history of changing his opinions be it his support for the Iraq War or tolerating workplace sexual harassment. Beinart’s plea is for the Jewish community to reexamine their views that would require a painful about face concerning views they have held for most of their lives.
Beinart called on American Jews "to defend the dream of a democratic Jewish state before it is too late,” especially in light of the policies perpetrated by a government whose leader is under indictment who clings to power by accommodating the right wing minority in his cabinet. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems to prosecute the war on Gaza as a vehicle to remain in power which would avoid a trial and his possible imprisonment. Whether you agree or disagree with the author he should be commended for his courage for standing up to what he believes is correct and accepting the consequences of the loss of friendships, anger from family members, and constant criticism and ostracization by his many critics.
One of Beinart’s major themes revolves around the argument that victimhood often feels like the natural state for Jews throughout history. But this mentality covers up the fact that Jews can be “Pharoah’s too.” This selective vision permeates Jewish life. Jews employ the bible to refute the claim that Israel is a settler-colonial state. Anything that contradicts this contemporary narrative is not accepted. Interestingly the author weaves the ideas of Vladimir Jabotinsky, an important historical figure for right wing Israelis into the narrative, i.e.; the ideology of virtuous colonization, which today has been replaced by virtuous victimhood to support his views.
To Beinart’s credit he recounts the brutal Hamas attack of October 7 in detail. He delves into the impact on Israeli families and society and accurately concludes the entire country was a victim on that horrendous day of murder, rape, and kidnappings, not just those who experienced the immediate impact. He even points out how Israeli progressives and leftists in the United States and Europe, ones, political partners reacted with indifference to the attack and many justified Hamas’s actions. The message that was conveyed is that the killing of Jews was nothing new, it’s just the way it has always been.
Many Jews have compared October 7 to the Holocaust, but Beinart concludes there is a fundamental difference . “To preserve Israel’s innocence, it has transforms Palestinians from a subjugated people into the reincarnation of the monsters of the Jewish past, the latest manifestation of the eternal, pathological, genocidal hatred that to the Passover Haggadah, in every generation rises up to destroy us.”
Beinart tries to understand Hamas’s actions; in doing so he tries to explain the Palestinian mindset as they see themselves as victims of colonialism. They, like other victims in the past, have no army, so they do not follow the rules of warfare and commit barbaric acts characteristic of colonial revolt. However, countries like China and Russia have armies and they do not follow the rules of law in Ukraine, Georgia, Crimea, Chechnya, and in China’s case the victims are the Uyghur population and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups who can be considered genocide victims.
In trying to understand, it is clear “that violent dispossession and violent resistance are intertwined.” In the end Israeli oppression is not the only course of Palestinian violence. It is Palestinians, like all people who are responsible for their actions. However, Israeli oppression makes Palestinian violence more likely. It comes down to despair for the Palestinian people as it is clear there is no way the Netanyahu government will accept a two-state solution.
In analyzing death figures put out by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and the Gaza Health Ministry it is clear that over 50,000 people have died and 20% are probably children. Beinart relies on many sources to verify these numbers, but Israeli leaders minimize the toll and shift blame onto Hamas arguing that Hamas uses human shields, seizes food and supplies targeted for Palestinian civilians, and murders any opposition. However, Beinart’s argument that Hamas’s actions are typical of other insurgent movements is no excuse and to absolve them of one iota of legitimacy is wrong and their actions are considerably heinous when compared to other insurgent movements. But Israel’s strategy to deliver as much destruction as possible in order to shock the Palestinians and get them to turn against Hamas has not been effective. Blaming the Palestinians for Hamas’s 2006 victory at the polls is not valid since the Palestinian people had little choice. Another Israeli argument that they must destroy Hamas to be safe, but it is an impossible task because the alternative Israel must offer, the ability to vote, a high degree of autonomy, and a future state will not be forthcoming so why should Palestinians opt for peace? They need a viable alternative for Hamas which is not forthcoming. In reality, as long as Israel tries to destroy each insurgent group, their actions foster the next generation of insurgents. As Palestinians believe they are not safe, they will do their best to make sure Israelis are not safe also.
In reading Beinart’s work I wondered if there is such a thing as “Jewish exceptionalism” that makes Israel unaccountable for the type of warfare they are waging. Historically I do not see it as other nations/groups have engaged in atrocities and war against civilians have been condemned with sanctions etc.
Another major issue that Beinart raises is that of the “new anti-Semitism.” Israel has equated any criticism of its actions as anti-Semitic as a vehicle of deflecting criticism of what they are doing in Gaza. In doing so they turn the conversation about the war into a conversation about the motives of people who oppose their actions. What is clear is that when Israel kills Palestinians, what is perceived to be anti-Semitism increases, but the Israeli government conflates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism in order to depict Palestinians and their supporters as bigots, therefore turning a conversation about the oppression of Palestinians into a conversation about the oppression of Jews. In the end Judaism and Israel are separate and Jews, the world over should not be blamed for the actions of the Israeli government.
A great deal of Beinart’s discussion revolves around the actions of American Jews who support Israel’s policies. It seems as progressives in the United States turn against Israel they are forcing Jews to choose; defend exclusion in Israel or inclusion in the United States and some of America’s leading institutions are choosing the former.
Beinart offers a comparison of historical situations that are somewhat similar to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He delves into apartheid in South Africa and the fears of white Afrikaners; he discusses the hatred and fears that existed in Northern Ireland until a settlement was reached overcoming Protestant fears of the IRA; the Reconstruction period in the late 19th century in the United States is explored as southern whites feared the newly freed black population and fueled by northern liberals. In these situations, the key to avoiding as much violence as possible was to give the aggrieved party the vote and a voice to express their concerns because inclusion yields greater, not total safety.
I do not believe that Beinart is naive enough to support the idea that if a settlement ever arrives between Israel and the Palestinians that peace will break out in the Middle East. In a region where Iran, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and numerous other terrorist groups abound violence will lessen, but the author’s emotional and heart felt appeal for reconciliation is really the only hope for the future no matter how impossible that appears today. I admire Beinart’s beliefs and the professional risks he has taken to engage the public in a proper debate – that should be allowed in a free society and the back and forth between those who disagree should be civil, not based on fear.
February 16, 2025
Whether you agree with Mr. Beinart or not--and I struggle greatly with the cognitive dissonance of this issue--there is no denying that this is a reasoned and thoughtful argument. I can't imagine that anyone would think anything he's written comes from a place of hate.
This has given me a lot of food for thought, and I am likely to revisit this slender book more than once.
This has given me a lot of food for thought, and I am likely to revisit this slender book more than once.
January 27, 2025
I wrote a whole review for this but then I accidentally swiped away and it was gone 😢. I highly recommend this read!
March 13, 2025
A succinct, powerful, well-written, and genuinely nuanced read about seeing through political obfuscation and untangling Judaism from Zionism. I think this could be a really important bridge book for US Jews open to questioning Zionism or struggling to articulate things they’ve been witnessing and feeling for the first time since October 7. I wish I could get my Zionist relatives to read it.
———
“The insistence that Israel must destroy Hamas, even as it becomes ever more obvious that it can’t, is ultimately just another way of not facing the human consequences of this war. It’s another way of not seeing what is being done in our name. [… These claims] are less arguments than talismans. They ward off dangerous emotions like grief and shame.
During Vietnam, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
said, “Whenever I open the prayer book, I see before me images of children burning from napalm.” I suspect that’s what we fear: that if we put down our amulets and look Gaza in the eye, we’ll never get its images out of our head. Well look at our prayer books […] and see Gaza’s burning, starving flesh. We’ll see it on the walls of our synagogues and Jewish community centers, at our Passover Seders and shabbat meals. The ground underneath us will grow unsteady. Maybe we’ll even fear the judgment of God.”
———
“The insistence that Israel must destroy Hamas, even as it becomes ever more obvious that it can’t, is ultimately just another way of not facing the human consequences of this war. It’s another way of not seeing what is being done in our name. [… These claims] are less arguments than talismans. They ward off dangerous emotions like grief and shame.
During Vietnam, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
said, “Whenever I open the prayer book, I see before me images of children burning from napalm.” I suspect that’s what we fear: that if we put down our amulets and look Gaza in the eye, we’ll never get its images out of our head. Well look at our prayer books […] and see Gaza’s burning, starving flesh. We’ll see it on the walls of our synagogues and Jewish community centers, at our Passover Seders and shabbat meals. The ground underneath us will grow unsteady. Maybe we’ll even fear the judgment of God.”
August 9, 2025
The author ‘leads a conversation among us Jews’, on the take of Israeli Jews, and Jews world wide, on how ‘we’ view the State of Israel, and Israeli treatment of the Palestinians….
Israel is a Jewish state that shows no interest in a two state solution. Israel has zero interest in bringing the Palestinians to their midst, with voting rights, equality, and equal funding to their civil institutions.
Yes Hamas is the enemy. So you reduce the homes, schools, hospitals, businesses to the ground in Gaza, and Hamas is still in charge..
The book is provocative, thoughtful, gut wrenching, but maybe it’s just way of the world..
Northern Ireland and South Africa are not irrelevant contrast to the Palestine struggle for a state….
Nor are USA, Canada, Argentina, Australia or New Zealand, models of humanity when they colonized the New World, and reduced the indigenous population to destitute….
Israel is a Jewish state that shows no interest in a two state solution. Israel has zero interest in bringing the Palestinians to their midst, with voting rights, equality, and equal funding to their civil institutions.
Yes Hamas is the enemy. So you reduce the homes, schools, hospitals, businesses to the ground in Gaza, and Hamas is still in charge..
The book is provocative, thoughtful, gut wrenching, but maybe it’s just way of the world..
Northern Ireland and South Africa are not irrelevant contrast to the Palestine struggle for a state….
Nor are USA, Canada, Argentina, Australia or New Zealand, models of humanity when they colonized the New World, and reduced the indigenous population to destitute….
April 16, 2025
Peter Beinart is an interesting figure. His arguments against Israeli apartheid are pretty standard on the Left — but Beinart was, until fairly recently, a liberal pundit who supported the Iraq War. Since his conversion to anti-Zionism, he has been able to bring left-wing arguments into the New York Times.
Beinart is a wonderful writer. His family came from South Africa, and he draws many interesting parallels to Israel. He is also deeply religious, and founds his anti-Zionism in Jewish traditions. This was the most interesting part of the book for me, delving into the Book of Joshua and the story of Korach.
He points out that many mainstream Jewish institutions in the U.S. do not demand adherence to any religious law — but do require unconditional loyalty to Israel. Today, Jewish young people in the U.S. are moving in the opposite direction, away from Zionism and toward religious traditions
Beinart is a wonderful writer. His family came from South Africa, and he draws many interesting parallels to Israel. He is also deeply religious, and founds his anti-Zionism in Jewish traditions. This was the most interesting part of the book for me, delving into the Book of Joshua and the story of Korach.
He points out that many mainstream Jewish institutions in the U.S. do not demand adherence to any religious law — but do require unconditional loyalty to Israel. Today, Jewish young people in the U.S. are moving in the opposite direction, away from Zionism and toward religious traditions
July 17, 2025
brief but full of deeply compelling humanitarian, theological, and political arguments.
February 5, 2025
Another excellent reading on Palestine-Israel. Those who claim that this document, and others like it, is not a "balanced accounts" and other such oppressive continuations of the status quo should think critically. It's painfully clear that the zionist settler colonial project has had the upper hand for more than 70 years. There is no balanced account because Israel continues to prioritize ideological exclusivity in the form of oppression, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and genocide of the Palestinians and Israel receives no accountability. Noam Chomsky's writings also shows that Israel does what it wishes because the US supports their special privileges as a state. Rashid Khalidi would agree. The U.S. is not an unbiased "broker of peace;" instead the U.S. protects and supports Israel's desires overwhelmingly. There is no peace process because the U.S. and Israel do not want peace that is not favorable to Zionists end goals.
November 6, 2025
Another book that I think should be required reading.
February 20, 2025
By seeing a Jewish state as forever abused, never the abuser, we deny its capacity for evil. Before October 7, I thought I understood the dangers of this way of thinking. Turns out I had no idea.
December 20, 2025
Yes, ... and, again, yes.
Among other things, it's a fitting companion to Omar El Akkad's (deserving National Book Award winner), One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, but, obviously, intended for a more narrow audience. (Indeed, having read, reviewed, recommended, and often discussed that one, I'm actually a little surprised this hadn't previously appeared on my reading radar screen).
This isn't light reading, nor is it easily digestible (palatable?) for some, because it causes (again some ... us?) to question accepted doctrine (and indoctrination) spanning a lifetime of education, religion, reading, myth, family, community, travel, dinners, and, well you get the idea. But sometimes it's important to be shaken out of one's (our?) complacency: This book is about the story that Jews tell ourselves to block out the screams, ... that enables our leaders, our families, and our friends to watch the destruction of the Gaza Strip-the flattening of universities, ... the children freezing to death under buildings turned to rubble by a state that speaks in our name-and shrug, if not applaud....
I could re-type kernels/nuggets that caught my eye all day, and my book is heavily dog-eared, but some of the most important/obvious stuff seems so simple. For example: [i]t's crucial to distinguish condemnations of Israel and Zionism that deploy antisemitic concepts from the condemnation of Israel and Zionism itself, which is no more bigoted than opposing any other state or political ideology. [Yet] Israeli and American Jewish leaders constantly conflate the two ... to try to silence criticism of a war whose morality they can't defend.
In terms of the book's importance, but, equally importantly, the author's courage, I kept returning (not only to his exquisite dedication to his grandmother's memory, but also) to this chilling passage, which, sadly, resonated with innumerable memories of growing up within a (then even stronger) Zionist/pro-Israeli family/community: It's hard to talk so frankly today. In many Jewish communities [and families]... suggesting that October 7 stems from anything but Hamas's pure evil is a ticket to excommunication. Soon after the massacre, one of our closest family friends asked my wife whether we believed that Israel bore any responsibility for the carnage. She answered yes. He said he would never speak to us again.
I'm so glad I found this (although, having said that, I'm not surprised where I found it ... as one does, when visiting my favorite NYC indie bookshop, prominently displayed on the staff recommendations wall).
And, more broadly, in the more of the same category, add this one to the stack of short/small books (and novellas) I've been reading this year (or, OK, over the last year or so), including Johnson's Train Dreams, which I found/bought during the same visit... and I'm obviously not alone in that, Margaret Renkl described the trend/phenomenon in her December 2025 NYT essay, aptly titled Short Books Are Perfect for Our Distracted Age ... In this context, I think of Claire Keegan, Domenico Starnone, Patrick Modiano, Sonya Walger's Lion (a pleasant surprise), and El-Mohtar's The River Has Roots (sublime), and even Novik's recent Summer War, ... but you get the idea)...
Well worth reading ... and sharing.
Among other things, it's a fitting companion to Omar El Akkad's (deserving National Book Award winner), One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, but, obviously, intended for a more narrow audience. (Indeed, having read, reviewed, recommended, and often discussed that one, I'm actually a little surprised this hadn't previously appeared on my reading radar screen).
This isn't light reading, nor is it easily digestible (palatable?) for some, because it causes (again some ... us?) to question accepted doctrine (and indoctrination) spanning a lifetime of education, religion, reading, myth, family, community, travel, dinners, and, well you get the idea. But sometimes it's important to be shaken out of one's (our?) complacency: This book is about the story that Jews tell ourselves to block out the screams, ... that enables our leaders, our families, and our friends to watch the destruction of the Gaza Strip-the flattening of universities, ... the children freezing to death under buildings turned to rubble by a state that speaks in our name-and shrug, if not applaud....
I could re-type kernels/nuggets that caught my eye all day, and my book is heavily dog-eared, but some of the most important/obvious stuff seems so simple. For example: [i]t's crucial to distinguish condemnations of Israel and Zionism that deploy antisemitic concepts from the condemnation of Israel and Zionism itself, which is no more bigoted than opposing any other state or political ideology. [Yet] Israeli and American Jewish leaders constantly conflate the two ... to try to silence criticism of a war whose morality they can't defend.
In terms of the book's importance, but, equally importantly, the author's courage, I kept returning (not only to his exquisite dedication to his grandmother's memory, but also) to this chilling passage, which, sadly, resonated with innumerable memories of growing up within a (then even stronger) Zionist/pro-Israeli family/community: It's hard to talk so frankly today. In many Jewish communities [and families]... suggesting that October 7 stems from anything but Hamas's pure evil is a ticket to excommunication. Soon after the massacre, one of our closest family friends asked my wife whether we believed that Israel bore any responsibility for the carnage. She answered yes. He said he would never speak to us again.
I'm so glad I found this (although, having said that, I'm not surprised where I found it ... as one does, when visiting my favorite NYC indie bookshop, prominently displayed on the staff recommendations wall).
And, more broadly, in the more of the same category, add this one to the stack of short/small books (and novellas) I've been reading this year (or, OK, over the last year or so), including Johnson's Train Dreams, which I found/bought during the same visit... and I'm obviously not alone in that, Margaret Renkl described the trend/phenomenon in her December 2025 NYT essay, aptly titled Short Books Are Perfect for Our Distracted Age ... In this context, I think of Claire Keegan, Domenico Starnone, Patrick Modiano, Sonya Walger's Lion (a pleasant surprise), and El-Mohtar's The River Has Roots (sublime), and even Novik's recent Summer War, ... but you get the idea)...
Well worth reading ... and sharing.
December 13, 2025
‘The problem with our communal story is not that it acknowledges the crimes we have suffered. The problem is that it ignores the crimes we commit…By seeing a Jewish state as forever abused never the abuser, we deny its capacity for evil.’
January 31, 2025
Being Jewish After The Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning by Peter Beinart
This is a quick read that explores the history of Israel and Palestinian conflicts and what are the causes of why a peaceful solution couldn’t be agreed by both parties. Peter started with describing how difficult it was for him and his wife to have more objective views about Middle East conflict. Some of their Jews friends decided never to speak again with them because they think they are against a Jewish state. As I read, I only find Peter very reasonable to ask the right questions for what could be a possible solution where Jews and Palestinians can live together in a democratic setup where they are protected under the laws and get equal opportunities to thrive with peace. He compared similar model in South Africa where inclusiveness of native African in government librates people from fear of being attacked as repercussions of oppressing the native Africans by the state. It also ended regional war because the causes of the conflict become no more when internally they able to negotiate and resolve differences. Same can be applied here in Middle East. It may look impossible but it is possible as long as we listen with open mind and open heart and respect human life no matter which religion or caste they belong to.
This is a quick read that explores the history of Israel and Palestinian conflicts and what are the causes of why a peaceful solution couldn’t be agreed by both parties. Peter started with describing how difficult it was for him and his wife to have more objective views about Middle East conflict. Some of their Jews friends decided never to speak again with them because they think they are against a Jewish state. As I read, I only find Peter very reasonable to ask the right questions for what could be a possible solution where Jews and Palestinians can live together in a democratic setup where they are protected under the laws and get equal opportunities to thrive with peace. He compared similar model in South Africa where inclusiveness of native African in government librates people from fear of being attacked as repercussions of oppressing the native Africans by the state. It also ended regional war because the causes of the conflict become no more when internally they able to negotiate and resolve differences. Same can be applied here in Middle East. It may look impossible but it is possible as long as we listen with open mind and open heart and respect human life no matter which religion or caste they belong to.
February 16, 2025
Essential reading.
I picked this book up on a recent trip to New York, where I, coincidentally (although not that coincidentally) pointed out some hamantaschen to my partner, who was unfamiliar with them.
I read Beinart’s recounting of the Book of Esther and Purim and how that story curiously stops short. It falls into the “they tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat” format of many Jewish traditions, with the evil Haman being defeated (and his ear, or maybe pockets, turned into a delightful treat).
But that’s not where Esther ends. After defeating Haman, the Jews, empowered by the king, slaughter 75,000 of their enemies. And then they eat. It’s the same with Hanukkah and the Maccabees. We remember the miracle of the lights and not the dynasty they became, “which the rabbis of the Talmud disdained for amassing unchecked power and subverting the rule of law.” (Beinart, 14)
This is a short, powerful book that contains everything you need to know about what is happening in the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Beinart is at his most powerful in exhorting his fellow Jews to not see themselves as perpetual victims nor Israel as intrinsically holy. It’s an exhortation to open one’s eyes. To see past the abbreviated traditions, past the dehumanization of Palestinians.
In the final pages, he uses that vision to see possibilities. The possibility of a safer world through a binational state, an Israel-Palestine or Palestine-Israel. Safer for Palestinians, no longer abused and degraded and murdered. Safer for Jews (like his children), no longer threatened by a Palestinian resistance that will cease to be needed. And safer for everyone, no longer tolerating the denigration and destruction of humanitarian institutions and the rule of law like we’ve seen with Amnesty International and the ICC.
I picked this book up on a recent trip to New York, where I, coincidentally (although not that coincidentally) pointed out some hamantaschen to my partner, who was unfamiliar with them.
I read Beinart’s recounting of the Book of Esther and Purim and how that story curiously stops short. It falls into the “they tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat” format of many Jewish traditions, with the evil Haman being defeated (and his ear, or maybe pockets, turned into a delightful treat).
But that’s not where Esther ends. After defeating Haman, the Jews, empowered by the king, slaughter 75,000 of their enemies. And then they eat. It’s the same with Hanukkah and the Maccabees. We remember the miracle of the lights and not the dynasty they became, “which the rabbis of the Talmud disdained for amassing unchecked power and subverting the rule of law.” (Beinart, 14)
This is a short, powerful book that contains everything you need to know about what is happening in the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Beinart is at his most powerful in exhorting his fellow Jews to not see themselves as perpetual victims nor Israel as intrinsically holy. It’s an exhortation to open one’s eyes. To see past the abbreviated traditions, past the dehumanization of Palestinians.
In the final pages, he uses that vision to see possibilities. The possibility of a safer world through a binational state, an Israel-Palestine or Palestine-Israel. Safer for Palestinians, no longer abused and degraded and murdered. Safer for Jews (like his children), no longer threatened by a Palestinian resistance that will cease to be needed. And safer for everyone, no longer tolerating the denigration and destruction of humanitarian institutions and the rule of law like we’ve seen with Amnesty International and the ICC.
March 20, 2025
I was hesitant to read this book after seeing ‘New York Times bestseller’ on the cover. Given the amount of work that magazine has done to launder Israel’s genocide, their recommendation blights this book more than endorses it.
Despite my hesitation, Beinart weighs in thoughtfully. The title centres his experiences, and the purpose of the book is to be in conversation with his community, but he consistently ensures that the reality for Palestinians is focal. It is a difficult conversation to take within his community, and though I do not always share his empathy with some of the ideologies he is reaching out to, ultimately Beinart speaks with the integrity and compassion.
So much of this genocide has been characterised by disinformation and dehumanisation of Palestinians. I found it refreshing and honest of Beinart to constantly draw a line back to the real and overwhelming devastation experienced by Palestinians whenever he discussed his own community reactions to October 7 and his personal challenges. His connection to his faith, and reflections on how lessons from the Tanakh have been neglected, ignored or misrepresented by those who connect this genocide with the practice of Judaism was thoughtful and provoking.
This is a book written primarily for within the Jewish community to bring along those still tying themselves to Israel’s genocidal colonial project. Beinart summarises the war with integrity. However, as an entry point into the Palestinian genocide I would still encourage other books over this to learn about the history of Israel’s colonial project. For that I still strongly recommend Rashid Khalidi.
Despite my hesitation, Beinart weighs in thoughtfully. The title centres his experiences, and the purpose of the book is to be in conversation with his community, but he consistently ensures that the reality for Palestinians is focal. It is a difficult conversation to take within his community, and though I do not always share his empathy with some of the ideologies he is reaching out to, ultimately Beinart speaks with the integrity and compassion.
So much of this genocide has been characterised by disinformation and dehumanisation of Palestinians. I found it refreshing and honest of Beinart to constantly draw a line back to the real and overwhelming devastation experienced by Palestinians whenever he discussed his own community reactions to October 7 and his personal challenges. His connection to his faith, and reflections on how lessons from the Tanakh have been neglected, ignored or misrepresented by those who connect this genocide with the practice of Judaism was thoughtful and provoking.
This is a book written primarily for within the Jewish community to bring along those still tying themselves to Israel’s genocidal colonial project. Beinart summarises the war with integrity. However, as an entry point into the Palestinian genocide I would still encourage other books over this to learn about the history of Israel’s colonial project. For that I still strongly recommend Rashid Khalidi.
March 7, 2025
An incredible book. From the very beginning, Beinart’s dedication struck me: “In memory of my grandmother. She disagreed with arguments in this book and her spirit is on every page.” Highly recommended for all
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