Peter Beinart’s Wedge

“Peter Beinart is brave, thoughtful, and capable of evolving views. Which is why we should read this carefully and remember that most of Peter’s critics are working off talking points that are dishonest and decades old.”—Ben Rhodes, former U.S. deputy national security advisor

Jews in America can be excused for feeling betwixt and between when it comes to their relationship with Israel. In certain proud Zionist quarters this is not the case. For religious Jews this is largely not the case. But for the average liberal American Jew—that is to say, for the average American Jew—Zionism has become an increasingly heavily laden term. The loudest voices on social media and in the newspapers of record are ever more skeptical of Israel, and it is now fairly normal to read op-eds and articles that openly accuse Israel of the greatest moral failings.

The effusive tweet quoted above, issued into the universe by the former Obama administration official Ben Rhodes, praises one such polemical essay written in this vein by the magazine editor and writer Peter Beinart. (Beinart’s essay was published originally in the magazine Jewish Currents and then in condensed form in the New York Times). In it, Beinart calls for a dissolution of the Jewish state of Israel in favor of a bi-national Jewish and Arab state. Other media figures, who just a few years ago might have been reliable critics of Israeli policy in the West Bank, but just as solid defenders of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, have deemed Beinart’s position a serious one. According to one media analyst, Beinart’s article will “carve out some space” for the bi-national position within the Democratic Party.