The Beinart Notebook

Friday Zoom Call

This Friday’s Zoom call will be at 1 PM Eastern, our usual time. Our guest will be Abdullah Awwad, a doctor in the orthopedic department of the Al Shifa Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip. In his Go Fund Me page, he writes that his “once-vibrant city has been reduced to rubble” and that “we are currently living in overcrowded shelters, struggling for basic necessities like food, clean water, and medical supplies.” I’ll ask him what it’s like to work as a doctor in Gaza today.

The live call will be for paid subscribers only (due to capacity limits), but the full video will be made available Sunday to all subscribers, paid and unpaid.

Please consider supporting Abdullah and other Palestinians.

Cited in Today’s Video

Mandla Mandela on why Israel’s version of apartheid is worse than South Africa’s.

Things to Read

(Maybe this should be obvious, but I link to articles and videos I find provocative and significant, not necessarily ones I entirely agree with.)

On the Jewish Currents (subscribe!) podcast, Arielle Angel, Mari Cohen, Nathan Goldman, and I answered readers’ questions.

In the Guardian, Ahmad Ibsais asks why no one believed Palestinians when they called Gaza a genocide.

For the Foundation for Middle East Peace’s Occupied Thoughts podcast, Ahmed Moor talks to Marianne Hirsch, a scholar of Holocaust memory who withdrew from teaching at Columbia after it adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

On MSNBC, I debated whether there was a meaningful difference on Gaza between Trump and Biden.

I’ll be speaking this Tuesday, September 9, at the University of Virginia.

See you on Friday,

Peter

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

It was an interesting interview last week with Mandla Mandela, the grandson of Nelson Mandela, in which Mandla Mandela says that what Israel’s doing to the Palestinians is far worse—those are his words—far worse than what apartheid South Africa did to Black South Africans. And I think he’s right, and I think it’s interesting to think about why that’s turned out to be the case. It’s kind of counterintuitive on its face, because there are some Palestinians under Israeli control who have the right to vote. Palestinian citizens, so-called Israeli Arabs, have the right to vote. They’re a minority of the Palestinians under Israeli control, because most of the Palestinians under Israeli control live in the West Bank and Gaza and East Jerusalem, and don’t vote, basically can’t vote.

But the fact that any Palestinians under Israeli control can vote distinguishes Israel from apartheid South Africa in which no Black South Africans had the right to vote. There were, in the 1980s, two other groups, Indians and so-called Coloreds, who got certain kinds of voting rights, but Black South Africans never did. So, for that reason, one, I think, would naturally think that Israel’s domination is more benign, that Palestinians under Israeli control have more rights than Black South Africans did. But I think Mandla Mandela’s point was that modern-day South Africa, apartheid South Africa, didn’t commit a genocide against Black South Africans in the way that Israel is now doing in Gaza, and so for that fundamental reason that what Israel is doing is fundamentally worse.

And I think the reason for this difference is that the apartheid regime in South Africa was dependent on Black labor. Black South Africans were the backbone of the economy, so Israel… so South Africa could not engage in mass expulsion or mass destruction of the Black population. It could certainly oppress them very brutally, but it needed their labor. Israel doesn’t need Palestinian labor nearly as much. In recent decades, Israel has moved away from relying on Palestinian labor from the occupied territories, brought in a lot of guest workers from Asia, and that has made the Palestinian population ‘disposable’ from Israel’s point of view, which is part of the reason I think you can see this widespread support now in Israel for mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, and indeed, this just mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza, because Palestinians are not valuable to the state as a labor force.

And beyond that, in apartheid South Africa, because Black South Africans had the power of their labor, that became a very important part of the anti-apartheid movement in the 1980s, when the Black South African trade unions went on strike and put a lot of pressure on the government. In fact, Cyril Romaphosa, the current president of South Africa, was the head of the National Union of Mine Workers, which is a critical ally of the African National Congress in the anti-apartheid struggle. Palestinians don’t have that kind of similar power, which makes them more vulnerable.

The other reason that I think Mandla Medela is correct, that Israel’s version of apartheid, and Israel’s system has been declared an apartheid system by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, B'Tselem, and many others, is that Israel’s version of apartheid simply lasted much longer. Apartheid in South Africa ended in 1994. Israel’s has continued now for three decades longer. And I think that’s not only because of the different balance of power internally, it’s also because of the different geopolitical situation. The only really powerful argument that South Africa’s apartheid leaders had for preserving the system was their claim that if it fell, that a Black South African government would be communist and would turn against the West because the ANC was close to the South African Communist Party and did get a lot of support from the Soviet Union. But as the Cold War began to wane in the mid to late 1980s, that argument started to fall apart. It became clear that the West didn’t have so much to worry about in terms of a Black South African government because it couldn’t be a Marxist government, because the Soviet Union was withdrawing from its global competition with the United States. And so, in some ways, South Africa had no argument to make to Europe and the United States for why apartheid should be sustained.

Israel is much more powerful geopolitically. It’s much more economically and technologically influential. Many more countries rely on trade with it than they did with apartheid South Africa. Of course, it has the claim of antisemitism, which is a kind of just a cudgel to beat back pro-Palestinian activism in a way that, you know, White South Africans did not. But I think the other critical thing, and the thing which kind of worries me so profoundly about the system, the world, is that apartheid South Africa ended in a moment of this third wave of global democratization, in which there was this global movement for democracy against apartheid that helped to end American and European complicity and ultimately bring down that regime. There was a kind of triumph of a liberal democratic movement around the world over apartheid South Africa in a moment in which liberal democracy was on the ascent.

Today, the situation is radically different. Liberal democracy around the world is very, very deeply in decline. And what’s happened is that Israel’s version of supremacist ethno-nationalism, even though there’s widespread revulsion to what it’s doing in much of the world, in many other powerful pockets of the West, has become a kind of a model of the ethno-nationalism that the Republican Party wants in the United States, that Viktor Orban wants, that the AFD wants in Germany, that Marine Le Pen wants in France, that Narendra Modi wants in India. And this is happening at a time in which ethno-nationalism is on the rise.

And so, my geopolitical kind of nightmare is that apartheid South Africa is defeated in a moment when global democracy is rising. But that in Israel-Palestine, you potentially have the opposite, in which Israel contributes to the defeat of global democracy around the world, because it kind of serves as a kind of a vanguard for these movements that overthrow liberal democracy in the name of the supremacy of one group and a kind of ethno-nat…

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Our guest is Angela Davis. We discuss…

her history with Jewish people

how the civil rights movement saw the Palestinian strugle, and what lessons it offers today

when resistance turns violent

how student activism today compares to the activism of the 1960s

how she comes by her optimism

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit peterbeinart.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.com

Shabbos Kestenbaum was a student at the Harvard Divinity School and famously has sued Harvard, charging they failed to adequately deal with antisemitism on campus. He has been an outspoken defender of Israel and critic of Palestinians and their advocates, so, as you can imagine, we disagree strongly on many things. As frustrating as they can be, I think these conversations are important to have, so I’m grateful Shabbos agreed to this one.

A new way to donate to people in Gaza.

Friday Zoom Call

This Friday’s Zoom call, for paid subscribers, will be at 1 PM Eastern, our usual time. Our guest will be the renowned activist and educator Angela Davis. We’ll talk about how the Palestinian freedom struggle resembles, and differs from, the struggles of other oppressed groups, and what US policy toward Israel-Palestine says about the United States. This call will be cosponsored by Jewish Currents.

Cited in Today’s Video

Adam Friedland interviews Ritchie Torres.

Israel moves closer to building settlements in E1.

Things to Read

(Maybe this should be obvious, but I link to articles and videos I find provocative and significant, not necessarily ones I entirely agree with.)

In Jewish Currents (subscribe!), Simone Zimmerman asks why so many Jewish leaders took so long to condemn Israel’s assault on Gaza.

The Economist offers an “anatomy of a famine” in Gaza.

Why MAGA is turning against unconditional US support of Israel.

For the Foundation for Middle East Peace, I interviewed Al Jazeera’s Laila Al-Arian about Israel’s targeting of journalists in Gaza.

I talked to the Brave New Something Podcast about the need for a Jewish reckoning over Gaza.

See you on Friday,

Peter

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

So, there’s been a fair amount of attention, at least kind of that I’ve seen on social media, about an interview that a comedian named Adam Friedland did with Congressman Richie Torres that focused on the end of the interview a lot about Israel and Gaza. And it made me think about the role of comedians in often being able to say things that the mainstream media doesn’t say. You know, we think about people like Jon Stewart and John Oliver, and a lot of these folks. And I think that one of the reasons that these interviews with comedians often really break through, is that there is something fundamentally absurd about, especially about a lot of the American kind of establishment mainstream discourse about Israel and Palestine. And so often, the mainstream media, kind of takes this discourse as on the level, as credible, right, as sincere. And what comedians are more able to do is just recognize the absurdity of these things.

And one particular area where I think it would be really valuable if this just became much more common is this claim that we hear all the time by American politicians, by Jewish leaders, that they support the two-state solution, right? That’s kind of so often the refuge, right? Israel’s doing something bad for Palestinians, and people say, well, I support the two-state solution. The truth is that the vast, vast majority of people in American public office, in public life, people who lead American Jewish organizations who say they support a two-state solution simply do not. They obviously do not support the idea of a sovereign, contiguous Palestinian state. And yet, their claim to support a two-state solution is taken as serious, sincere, when it’s self-evidently not, right?

So, for instance, last week we heard news that Israel is kind of taking the final steps to build settlements in a territory called E1. Now, E1 basically would completely sever East Jerusalem, which is the largest Palestinian population center in the West Bank, from the rest of the West Bank, and also largely cut off the northern part of the West Bank from the southern part of the West Bank. So, it’s pretty obvious, right, that if you wanted a Palestinian state that was worth the name ‘state,’ right, which was a contiguous piece of territory, you could not possibly think it was a good idea to build Jewish settlements in E1. And yet, if you survey the vast, vast majority of politicians in Washington or Jewish leaders, or whoever, you know, who say they support a two-state solution, you will not hear them condemning what Israel’s doing in E1. And if you say to them, do you think the United States should condition military aid to try to stop Israel from building an E1? Should the US deploy sanctions to prevent this action that would clearly make a Palestinian state much, much more difficult, they would say no, right? And yet, they still say they support the two-state solution.

The Israeli government, since Netanyahu, you know, returned to power with this constellation, with Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, has been passionately doing everything in its power to destroy the possibility of a Palestinian state by funding massive new settlement growth. And yet, the vast majority of people in Washington who say they support a two-state solution are not willing to support and would in fact actively resist any meaningful U.S. effort to stop that settlement growth that clearly makes a Palestinian state much, much harder—I would argue, at this point, actually, impossible.

So, it’s an absurd position to take, and there’s something ridiculous. It’s a dereliction of duty for people in the media to take claims seriously when they’re confronted by a politician or a Jewish official whose own actions so obviously make it clear that they don’t actually hold the position they claim to hold, right? I mean, I often think when I hear these people saying they support the two-state solution, that it would be a little bit like me saying that my position is that I support running the New York Marathon, right? And if I said that, the next question I think that would be legitimate for someone to ask would be, well, do you do any running? Are you practicing for the New York Marathon? Do you run at all? And if the answer is, no, I don’t do any running. I mostly sit on my couch and eat chocolate cake, right? And I’m actively opposed to anyone who actually tries to get me to go running, then the right response to the claim that my position is that I’m going to run the New York Marathon would be laughter, right?

And while I don’t believe in mocking people, being cruel to people, there should be an element of laughter when politicians, year after year, go and say they support a two-state solution, when what they’re doing effectively is to prevent the United States from stopping Israel from doing the things that manifestly make a Palestinian state more difficult or more impossible. And the fact that so often the mainstream media doesn’t do that, that it takes these claims as serious, as on the level when they’re manifestly not, I think is part of what’s created this space in which so many people are hungry for a kind of alternative discourse, in which people will simply say often in a kind of humorous way, that this the emperor has no clothes here. That the whole thing is a farce, right? And I think if politicians were forced to answer for that farce, and they had people who said that to them—this is a farce—we would make progress towards facing the real questions that I think exist in terms of our vision for Israel-Palestine.

Which is: do we believe in the fundamental principle that Israelis and Palestinians should have equality under the law? Because if you believe in that fundamental principle, right, then, I actually think the question of whether you support one state or two states is not as important as the question of the nature of those states, right? Are they going to be states in which people are treated equally irrespective of their ethnicity or their religion or their race? But this claim that I support the two-state solution becomes a kind of a barrier to having that more fundamental, deeper question, and that it needs to be punctured first before we get to, I think, the meaningful question about principles, which will make it clear how many American politicians, when it comes to Israel and Palestine, actually support not the principle of equality under the law, but the principle of Jewish supremacy.

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Our guest is Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian-American green card holder abducted by the Trump administration in retaliation for his activism at Columbia University— and later released.

We discuss…

Growing up in a refugee camp

His conversion to Buddhism

His abduction and confinement

Columbia’s abandonment and why he chose to return to Columbia despite it

Rabbi Dr. Ismar Schorsch is chancellor emeritus of The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) and the Rabbi Herman Abramovitz Distinguished Professor of Jewish history. He’s had a long, illustrious career of service to the Jewish community, so some where surprised by his recent essay, A Hard Tisha B’Av, which is critical of both Israel and the lack of response from Jewish leadership.

I’m honored he agreed to discuss it with me.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit peterbeinart.substack.com/subscribe

A new way to donate to people in Gaza.

Friday Zoom Call

This Friday’s Zoom call, for paid subscribers, will be at 1 PM Eastern, our usual time. Our guest will be Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian-American green card holder abducted by the Trump administration in retaliation for his activism at Columbia University— and later released. We’ll talk about his childhood in the West Bank, his experience at Columbia, his detention, and what he’s learned from the experience.

Ask Me Anything

Our next Ask Me Anything session, for premium subscribers, will be this Monday, August 25, from 2-3 PM Eastern time.

Cited in Today’s Video

Jonathan Greenblatt’s recent appearance on CNBC.

Marwan Barghouti on the Second Intifada.

The polls about Zohran Mamdani’s support among New York Jews.

Things to Read

(Maybe this should be obvious, but I link to articles and videos I find provocative and significant, not necessarily ones I entirely agree with.)

In Jewish Currents (subscribe!), Maya Rosen and Erez Bleicher remember slain Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen.

The Israeli military’s own data suggests that over 80% of the people it has killed in Gaza are civilians.

How Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro influenced the University of Pennsylvania’s response to pro-Palestinian protest on campus.

Omer Bartov predicts that the International Court of Justice will find Israel guilty of genocide.

Eyal Press on Columbia’s disastrous decision to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

I talked to Harrison Berger about Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza.

“Home? A Palestinian Woman's Pursuit of Life, Liberty, & Happiness” is playing in San Francisco and New York this fall.

See you on Monday and Friday,

Peter

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

I think when this horror in Gaza is over—this destruction, this slaughter, starvation, which so many human rights organizations and legal scholars now call genocide—when it’s over, there’s gonna have to be a reckoning in the United States. Not just in the U.S. government providing the weapons and diplomatic support, but a kind of broader cultural reckoning. Because there’s so many institutions that I think are culpable in this, that will need to look themselves in the mirror. And one of them is the U.S. mainstream media. Because even now, even after almost 2 years into this, it’s still so easy for people who support unconditional support of what Israel’s doing to go on the U.S. media and say things that are palpably, obviously untrue, and not be challenged on these things, right?

And so, one example is from last week. The ADL, Anti-Defamation League, head, Jonathan Greenblatt, goes on a show called ‘Squawk Box’ on CNBC, and just says one thing after another that are just obviously untrue, right? First, he says that Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York ‘has visited churches and mosques, not a single synagogue. Not once has he gone to a Jewish neighborhood.’ Immediately, people started tweeting pictures of Zohran Mamdani in his mayoral campaign having gone to synagogues, because he went to multiple synagogues, he went to multiple Jewish neighborhoods, he had multiple meetings with New York Jews and different Jewish officials, right?

And then Greenblatt kind of incredibly, lamely says, I just meant that he hasn’t done so since he won the primary, which is not what he said at all. But the striking thing is that he wasn’t challenged on the show when he said that, right? And then he goes on to say in reference to the Intifada, this is how Greenblatt defines the Intifada. He says, ‘the Intifada was a violent uprising in the Palestinian territories where they murdered over 1,000 people simply because they were Jewish.’ Again, obviously, factually incorrect, right? First of all, there were two Intifadas since 1967. Intifada is an Arabic word that means, kind of, uprising or shaking off. But if one’s talking about in the West Bank and Gaza since 1967, there’s a First Intifada in the late 1980s, and a second in the early 2000s, right? Greenblatt is only referring to the second, probably because the first one was actually much, much more non-violent. So first of all, that’s dishonest, right, to begin with.

Secondly, he says that they murdered over a thousand people, Israeli Jews. Greenblatt never mentions that at least three times as many Palestinians were murdered, right? So, these are really, I think, blatant dishonesties by omission. But then the last part is that these people were murdered simply because they were Jewish. I don’t think there’s a single scholar who has genuine academic credentials, who studied the Second Intifada, including in Israel, who, you know, or in Jewish scholars in the United States, who believe that, right? The Second Intifada was a violent uprising against Israeli oppression. Yes, it was an uprising that committed war crimes, that violated international law by targeting civilians. There were clearly civilians targeted to a significant degree, and that’s a violation of international law. You cannot, no matter what your circumstances, target civilians. It’s a war crime. It’s fundamentally immoral. That is totally legitimate to say.

But to say that these people were targeted because they were Jewish, rather than because they were part of a state that’s committing oppression, it makes about as much sense as saying that people who were killed in Kenya in the Mau Mau Rebellion were killed because they were white or British. Or that people who were killed in Algeria were killed because they were French, right? Or people who were killed by Native Americans in the United States in the 19th century in violent uprisings that targeted civilians often were killed because they were white Americans. It’s nonsense. It just completely erases the structure of oppression that exists. Again, the structure of oppression, I want to be very clear, does not excuse legally or morally everything that’s done. Not at all. But to simply erase it and suggest—because again, Jonathan Greenblatt has one hammer, which is antisemitism. So, everything has to become a nail. So, essentially, everything the Palestinians do has to become antisemitism because he will never actually discuss the political, legal reality of oppression that is the context for what Palestinians do. It doesn’t justify everything that Palestinians do but is the crucial context to understand why there was an Intifada to begin with. That’s completely erased, right?

Marwan Barghouti, who’s probably the most prominent leader of the Second Intifada, said—this is how Barghouti describes the Second Intifada, just compare it to what Jonathan Greenblatt says—Barghouti says, ‘how would you feel if on every hill in territory that belongs to you, a new settlement would spring up? If your best friends with whom you fought shoulder to shoulder continue to rot in jail. I reached a simple conclusion. You, Israel, don’t want to end the occupation, and you don’t want to stop the settlements, so the only way to convince you is by force.’ Now, one can critique Marwan Baghouti on strategic grounds. One can criticize him on moral grounds. But the idea that these uprisings, these attacks were done simply because they were Jews, it’s just nonsense, right? Again, and even among pro-Israel scholars, they would recognize that this is nonsense.

And yet, Jonathan Greenblatt can say these things. He’s not challenged. And then, one of the interviewers, to their credit, when Jonathan Greenblatt is basically saying that he’s positing himself as the arbiter of how Jews feel about Zohran Mamdani, because evidently someone made Jonathan Greenblatt pope. I wasn’t around for that election, but evidently we made Jonathan Greenblatt our pope. And this one interviewer, to her credit, on CNBC’s ‘Squawk Box’ starts to quote polls to Jonathan Greenblatt. She quotes one poll suggesting that he won a third of the Jewish vote, which was a plurality in the primary, and a second one suggesting that among younger Jewish New Yorkers, I think under the…

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Our guest is Abdul El-Sayed, a child of Egyptian immigrants to the US, a Rhodes Scholar, a graduate of Columbia University Medical School and currently a Democratic candidate for the Senate in Michigan. I’m not endorsing Abdul’s candidacy (or anyone else’s), but I was keen to talk to him about being an Arab and Muslim American politician in the age of Trump and about the political debate over Israel’s destruction of Gaza.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.com

Larry Summers, former US Treasury Secretary and Harvard President Emeritus, has been a strong defender of Israel and has been critical of what he sees as a lack of leadership from institutions like Harvard in condemning antisemitism on campus. We have some sharp disagreements on these issues, so I appreciate his willingness to hash them out with me.

A new way to donate to people in Gaza.

Friday Zoom Call

This Friday’s Zoom call, for paid subscribers, will be at 1 PM Eastern, our usual time. Our guest will be Abdul El-Sayed, a child of Egyptian immigrants to the US, a Rhodes Scholar, a graduate of Columbia University Medical School and currently a Democratic candidate for the Senate in Michigan. I’m not endorsing Abdul’s candidacy (or anyone else’s), but I’m keen to talk to him about being an Arab and Muslim American politician in the age of Trump and about the political debate over Israel’s destruction of Gaza.

Ask Me Anything

Our next Ask Me Anything session, for premium subscribers, will be a week from Monday, August 25, from 2-3 PM Eastern time.

Cited in Today’s Video

Harvard’s decision to shut down programs that study Palestinians at the School of Public Health and Divinity School.

The IHRA definition of antisemitism.

Columbia historian Rashid Khalidi’s warning that enforcing the IHRA definition would make honest teaching and scholarship about Israel and Zionism impossible.

Things to Read

(Maybe this should be obvious, but I link to articles and videos I find provocative and significant, not necessarily ones I entirely agree with.)

In Jewish Currents (subscribe!), Alex Kane details the role of the Department of Health and Human Services in Trump’s assault on free speech on campus.

Mosab Abu Toha on the kinds of planes you see in Gaza.

Trita Parsi on why Israel and Iran may soon be at war again.

Adam Sticklor on Gaza as a Jewish story.

A new poll shows Zohran Mamdani with a huge lead among young Jewish voters.

Gaza’s average life expectancy has fallen by 35 years since October 7.

I talked about Being Jewish After the Destruction with Piers Morgan

See you Friday,

Peter

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

So, there are reports that Harvard may soon settle with the Trump administration and reportedly pay $500 million and agree to some set of terms. This would follow, you know, deals by Colombia and Brown, and probably set in motion a whole series of additional kind of agreements by universities with the Trump administration. Harvard says that this agreement will not violate academic freedom.

The harsh reality is that Harvard has already seriously infringed upon academic freedom. There’s already been a very serious imprint in violation of academic freedom, even before this agreement. It’s just that it doesn’t get noticed so much because it has to do with the rights of Palestinian scholars and Palestinian students, and people who want to study the fate of Palestinians. And there’s so little attention to the academic freedom and rights of Palestinian students and scholars, as opposed to Jewish students.

And so, Harvard is already shut down two programs it had that worked on the question of the rights and livelihood of Palestinians: one at the School of Public Health, which was done in partnership with Birzeit University and the West Bank. The other at the Harvard Divinity School, which, led by Israeli and Palestinian scholars, used Israel and Palestine as a kind of case study in questions of religion, conflict, and oppression. Those have already both been shut down by Harvard, under pressure from Republican lawmakers, donors, establishment Jewish. Organizations. So, there’s already been a very serious infringement. There was no kind of real academic due process that led to the shutdown of this program. It was done nakedly in response to political pressure.

But the deal would be much, much more dangerous because Harvard has already, to some degree, adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism. But if it’s only adopted in name, the dangers are relatively limited. But if you make a deal with the Trump administration for some kind of enforcement mechanism in which the IHRE definition of antisemitism, which, by the way, has very little support from actual scholars of antisemitism. It’s been pushed for years, not by academics who study antisemitism, but by the Israeli government and pro-Israel organizations. If you enforce that definition, you make the teaching of Israel and Palestine basically an absurdity. You make genuine teaching and scholarship on the question of Israel-Palestine essentially impossible.

Let me try to explain why. Two of the examples of antisemitism that are listed in the IHRA definition are first, denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor. And secondly, drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis. So, let’s look at both of these. First of all, the language denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination is itself profoundly dishonest, right? Because Israel is not simply an exercise in Jewish self-determination. Self-determination is determination of the self. What Israel is doing is that it is determining, it is controlling the lives of millions of Palestinians, another people who lack individual and collective rights. So, that is not self-determination when you are controlling and denying basic rights to members of another people, right?

But to say that you can’t claim that Israel is a racist endeavor on a college campus in your scholarship or teaching, or in a seminar, when Israel’s own leading human rights organizations, B’Tselem, and Yesh Din, have said Israel is practicing apartheid. That Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have said Israel is practicing apartheid. That Amnesty International has said that Israel is committing genocide, and B’Tselem, Israel’s human rights organization, has said it’s committing genocide, right?

Given those circumstances, you can’t say that Israel is racist, and you can’t make any comparison between the actions of Israel, and the actions of the Nazis, even though one sees these comparisons in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz literally every day. This makes teaching on Israel and Palestine an absolute absurdity, right? Think about how could you teach about the United States in the era of Trump, right, without raising questions about comparisons of America to the Nazis and other periods in which liberal democracy slept, you know, fell into authoritarianism and into fascism.

If Israel is classified as an apartheid state, right, can we imagine a situation in which you were not allowed to teach about apartheid South Africa, and call it racist, or make comparisons to the Nazis? That you couldn’t teach about the Jim Crow South if you made comparisons with the Nazis, given that the Nazis learned from the white supremacy of the segregated Jim Crow South? Or that you couldn’t call the Jim Crow South apartheid? Or that you couldn’t teach about China if you were to call China a racist system against non-Han Chinese? Or if you couldn’t teach about Myanmar, or country after country after country?

Under these parameters, it makes an absolute absurdity of the idea of trying to teach honestly about the realities in Israel and Palestine. And this is happening because of this really unholy alliance of a Trump administration that couldn’t care less about Jews, and in fact is in league with all kinds of antisemitic white nationalists, but is just using antisemitism like it’s using trans, like it’s using crime, like it’s using whatever, to basically try to cripple independent institutions. And a set of establishment American Jewish actors, organizations, and also individual donors and others, who basically are desperate to try to prevent an open conversation in the United States about what’s actually happening on the ground to Palestinians.

And this is a very good way of doing that, because you literally make it impossible to actually think about Israel in a comparative context. And you make it impossible to ask fundamental questions about the moral legitimacy of an enterprise, even though the moral legitimacy of the enterprise has been questioned profoundly by the world’s leading human rights organizations and Israel’s leading human…

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit peterbeinart.substack.com/subscribe