Cited in Today’s Video

Why Israeli doves like former Shin Bet head Ami Ayalon want Israel to release Marwan Barghouti but the Israeli government won’t, despite Hamas’ request.

Why Barghouti’s son fears for his father’s life.

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

Our guest is Israeli-born historian Ilan Pappé, author of the new book, Israel on the Brink. We discuss why he chose a life of political rebellion against the state in which he was born and what he thinks the ceasefire in Gaza will bring. We also talk about his book, which suggests that in the coming decades, Israel may cease to exist as a Jewish state.

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 list of ways to help Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

If you’re in the US, consider joining the nationwide No Kings protests on October 18.

This Friday’s Zoom call will be at 1 PM Eastern, our usual time. Our guest will be Israeli-born historian Ilan Pappe, author of the new book, Israel on the Brink. I’ll ask Pappe why he chose a life of political rebellion against the state in which he was born and what he thinks the ceasefire in Gaza will bring. We’ll also talk about his book, which suggests that in the coming decades, Israel may cease to exist as a Jewish state.

Cited in Today’s Video

Naftali Benett asks why Palestinians and their supporters aren’t happier about the Trump deal.

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!), Abdullah Hany Daher reflects on the two years since October 7, 2023.

James Talarico on why requiring Texas schools to post the Ten Commandments violates the Ten Commandments.

Libby Lenkinski on how reparations for the Holocaust helped her family build a new life, and why Jews must demand reparations for the genocide in Gaza.

Shaul Magid on being human after the destruction of Gaza.

See you on Friday,

Peter

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

I’ve been struggling for days to try to find the words to express how I feel about the Trump deal because my feelings are so, like, profoundly conflicted. When this airs on Monday, it looks like the remaining Israeli hostages, and the bodies of the dead hostages will be returned. This is a kind of catharsis for Jews, for me, that is really one of the most profound and powerful things that I think I will have ever experienced in my life.

This entire experience of Jewish solidarity over the last two years has been extraordinary. I mean, it really has been one of the most powerful manifestations I’ve ever seen of this, you know, phrase that people use a lot, Kol Yisrael Arevim Zeh Bazeh, that all Jews are responsible for one another. I am kind of in awe of the people in my synagogue, and that I see around New York, who I see have been wearing dog tags to remember the hostages every day. I hear stories about people, you know, who have had a place at their table for a particular hostage now for the last two years. You know, in my tiny way, I’ve had the names of the hostages on my refrigerator door. We pray for them every week.

I mean, this has been incredibly, incredibly powerful. It’s been one of the most powerful Jewish experiences of my life, and I want to think tomorrow, as those hostages are coming home, and think about the Trump deal only through that vein, only through this vein of Jewish solidarity: us as a small, often brutalized, persecuted people who have learned and in accordance with our traditions, to really care for one another, to care for one another. And there’s so many people who have manifested that stuff so powerfully.

And to see the joy of those families returning their loved ones, and to see the way that people rally around them in this moment, and rally around those who don’t have loved ones who are coming back, is… I wish I could just stop there. I really wish that that would be the end of my message. And I thought a lot about just saying that, just saying that. Because I know that there are a lot of people who think that people on the left, like me, who criticize Israel, we don’t feel those things. And I know for me, it’s not true. I feel them like they’re some of the most profound feelings I feel.

But we’re also being told that the Trump deal should be a cause of celebration for Palestinians, right? Again and again, I’m seeing on social media people taunting, you know, pro-Palestinian activists. Why aren’t you celebrating? You claim this is a genocide. Why aren’t you celebrating? You’re unhappy because all you want is for Israel to be blamed. Now that actually something is good is happening to Palestinians and Israel, you can’t recognize that.

But this isn’t a day of celebration for Palestinians because it’s not fair to ask Palestinians to celebrate simply for not being bombed, right? The standard should be higher than that. Yes, it is, of course, a terrific thing that the bombs hopefully will stop, at least for a while, that Palestinians will get more food in. But if we see Palestinians as full human beings, as full human beings, we have to understand that the bar is a little bit higher than that. How dehumanizing is it to suggest that Palestinians should leap for joy and celebration simply because a genocide may be ending, and they’re returning to a state of apartheid? A state that, you know, as even Israel’s own human rights organizations have stated, a situation of blockade.

I mean, look at what we know about the Trump deal. It offers no path, no path, for Palestinians to gain citizenship, the most basic fundamental right that all human beings deserve, the right to be a citizen of the country and you’re in. And beyond that, Israel is now, as in the first phase of the Trump plan, Israel sits on 53% of Gaza. And in the second phase, if this Arab stabilization force comes in, it’ll go to 40% of Gaza. I think, based on what I’m reading, it’s very unlikely that this deal will ever go to the third phase, in which Israel would control 15% of Gaza. It would still mean that Palestinians will have less access to Gaza than they had before, but I don’t think Palestinians are going to get 85% of Gaza because the third withdrawal requires Hamas to demilitarize, which even Israel’s own security forces don’t think will happen.

So, it seems the very likely outcome of this is that Palestinians are basically going to be on 60% of the Gaza Strip. This is already one of the most overcrowded places on Earth. It was declared unlivable by the United Nations before October 7th. My friend Mohammad Shehada said that everyone he knew growing up in Gaza before October 7th contemplated suicide because of what it was like to live every day in what Human Rights Watch called an open-air prison.

And now it’s been bombed to absolute rubble. The UN says there’s 17,000 unaccompanied children there. There is no prospect, really, of Gaza being made livable. Yes, more humanitarian aid may come in. There may be better quality tents. But Israel will control all access in and out, and there’s very little prospect, based on past Israeli behavior, that Israel is going to allow in the heavy-duty construction that would be allowed Gaza to truly rebuild because Israel will claim that those are dual-use items that could be used for weapons, as Israel has claimed for, you know, for a long time.

So, to tell Palestinians that they need to celebrate that, that their lives are worth so little that they should be jumping for joy simply because they may not be killed by a bomb tomorrow? That doesn’t recognize Palestinian humanity, doesn’t recognize that Palestinians are human beings created equal in the image of God, equal to everybody else. And that’s why, it seems to me, I can’t see this deal and what will happen tomorrow only as a celebration. As profoundly as it matters to me that we as a people, begin to heal as Jews, and that our hostages are returned, I simply do not believe in Judaism as a purely tribal creed, in which we think only for ourselves and demand and expect that other people deserve less. That’s not Judaism to me.

Judaism is based on this profound and remarkable tension between the idea that we have a special relationship with God, and the idea that God sees all human beings as being equal in the image of God. So, yes, I will be celebrating and perhaps crying tomorrow along with so many other people, when we see these hostages come out. But I’m not gonna get up here and say that Palestinians should be thrilled to live under permanent subjugation in a hellhole, without the basic necessities of life, and without freedom, which they deserve just as much as everybody else.

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

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Our guests are former PLO negotiator, Hussein Agha and former Clinton, Obama and Biden administration official, Rob Malley. We talk about their new book, Tomorrow is Yesterday: Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine and learn what they’ve learned from decades of seeing Israeli, Palestinian, and American policy from the inside.

A list of ways to help Palestinians in Gaza.

This Friday’s Zoom call will be at 1 PM Eastern, our usual time. Our guests will be the former PLO negotiator Hussein Agha and the former Clinton, Obama and Biden administration official, Rob Malley. They’ll talk about their new book, Tomorrow is Yesterday: Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine. I’ll ask what they’ve learned from decades of seeing Israeli, Palestinian and American policy from the inside.

Cited in Today’s Video

Yeshayahu Leibowitz’s essay on colonialism and terrorism.

Mouin Rabbani on the Trump plan.

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!), Avigayil Halperin talks to Audrey Sasson about whether it’s possible to atone for genocide.

39% of American Jews think Israel is committing genocide.

Washington Democrats turn against AIPAC.

See you on Friday,

Peter

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

So, I have these two kind of contradictory feelings about the Trump plan on Gaza. The first is that I hope it goes through. I hope it’s implemented. I just desperately, desperately hope that these Israeli hostages are returned and can go back to their families. And I desperately hope that Palestinians can wake up one day in the coming days, and just not worry that they’ll be killed by an Israeli bomb, and that their children will be able to have more to eat. I mean, just at a basic human level, that would be a really just a blessing.

It’s also, though, really important just to remember, because I think there’s a certain kind of discourse that tends to take place about these diplomatic negotiations, a kind of insider-y discourse about how it’s going to be implemented, and what the role the Palestinian Authority is going to play, and what different Arab governments are going to do, and all this stuff, which just can often, I just find, kind of, like, completely obscure, like, the basic foundational realities, which always need to be kept front and center, right?

The basic foundational realities are that Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem live under the control of a state that does not grant them the most basic of rights, the right of citizenship. This state, the Israeli state, has life and death power over them, and yet they can’t vote for that government that controls their lives. This will be true after the Trump plan is implemented, if it’s implemented. It may be that the genocide ends, which would be a blessing, but before the genocide, there was apartheid, and there will be actually an even worse form of apartheid now because Israel’s blockade of Gaza is likely to be stricter, and Israel’s already said that it’s basically going to take more control over parts of the Gaza Strip, herding Palestinians even into an even smaller area of the Gaza Strip.

So, remember, Gaza was deemed unlivable by the United Nations before October 7th. Human Rights Watch called it an open-air prison. My friend Mohammad Shehada has written about how everyone he knew in Gaza growing up contemplated suicide, because there was just no prospect for a better life. And when people say, well, this is gonna fundamentally change if Hamas is no longer in charge in Gaza, unfortunately, that’s just a complete illusion, because Hamas has not been in charge in the West Bank. To the contrary, the West Bank, for the last 20 years now, has been run by a Palestinian Authority, which essentially serves as Israel’s subcontractor, which is basically doing Israel’s bidding to prevent armed resistance.

And what is life like for Palestinians in the West Bank? A form of apartheid that gets worse and worse and worse as Israel takes over more and more land, confines Palestinians into smaller and smaller ghettos, in which Palestinians are subjected to more and more violence by the Israeli military and also by settlers who, unlike them, have citizenship and are protected by an Israeli state that doesn’t protect them. That’s what Palestinian life looks like in the West Bank, where you don’t have Hamas running things, right?

So, anyone who thinks that you’re solving the problem for Palestinians by not having Hamas be in charge in Gaza is fundamentally missing the point. It would be a good thing for Hamas to not be in charge in Gaza. I have no love lost for Hamas whatsoever. It killed a friend of mine in a bus bombing in the 1990s. It’s committed terrible war crimes even before October 7th, and then in a massive way on October 7th.

But the fundamental problem is a system of brutal, brutal oppression. And the problem is that so much Western journalism and so much Jewish discourse just ignores that basic oppression. And that system of violent oppression produces violence in return. It doesn’t justify violence against civilians. Violence that targets civilians is never justified, regardless of the level of oppression. But it’s a system of oppression that produces violence in response, especially if you have shut down the avenues for nonviolent resistance, which Israel and the United States have done and continue to do, literally kind of making it a crime for the Palestinians to try to, you know, to promote boycotts, or to go to the International Criminal Court, or the Court of Justice, or these kind of things, right? So, this system of violence, which creates radical unsafety for Palestinians also creates unsafety for Israeli Jews. And that will be the case after the Trump plan, because the Trump plan doesn’t in any way whatsoever deal with that fundamental root cause of the problem.

I was reading over Shabbat an essay by one of my heroes, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, the great Israeli Orthodox social critic. He wrote this in 1976, an essay that he starts by writing, ‘In our times of worldwide decolonization, a colonial regime necessarily gives birth to terrorism. In our times of worldwide decolonization, a colonial regime necessarily gives birth to terrorism.’ What I take to mean by colonial is a situation in which people are subjects of a state but cannot be citizens of a state. That is the circumstance that Palestinians in the occupied territories live under in Israel. Yet Leibovitz was not justifying terrorism. God knows he did not want violence to come to Israelis or to his family. But he was saying that a system of violent oppression will produce counter violence. And that violence will come again, even after this genocide ends, if the root grievance, the root problem, which is lack of Palestinian freedom, is not addressed.

Hamas could cease to exist. It could disappear from the face of the Earth. And you know what would happen if Palestinians continued to live under apartheid, especially if their non-violent efforts are continually defeated by the world’s most powerful superpower in league with Israel, new Palestinian organizations, they might not be Islamists, they could be communists, Marxists, Maoists, God knows what ideology they will espouse. They will fight Israel, and Israeli Jews will die, which I desperately don’t want to happen.

How do we know this? Because long before Hamas, there were Palestinian groups, mostly not Islamist groups—leftist groups, nationalist groups, all kinds of groups that fought Israel because they were fighting against a system of brutal oppression, as people do all over the world when they’re brutally oppressed. Unless you deal with that fundamental grievance, the grievance of people who deserve, like all human beings, to be free, and who have been denied that freedom, you will be subjecting Palestinians, perhaps not to genocide, but to a brutally inhumane system of oppression, a system that ultimately endangers everybody between the river and the sea. That’s what we need to remember even as we say the Trump plan is good because it means the killing stops for the moment.

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

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Our guest is the Palestinian journalist and activist Ahmed Abu Artema, a co-organizer of Gaza’s 2018 Great March of Return. In October 2023, Israel killed his eldest son, Abdullah, and five other relatives. A few weeks ago, he left Gaza for the Netherlands. He wrote about his departure in the Dutch newspaper, De Correspondent. He told us what it’s like to survive a genocide and live with the memory of those who did not.

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

Our guest is actor and comedian Hannah Einbinder. She recently used the huge platform of her Emmy acceptance speech to stand up for Palestinian freedom.

Topics include:

Her Zionist upbringing, and how she evolved away from it

The schism among Jews today

Jewish fragility in the face of disagreement

A list of ways to help Palestinians in Gaza.

This Friday’s Zoom call will be at 1 PM Eastern, our usual time. Our guest will be the Palestinian journalist and activist Ahmed Abu Artema, a co-organizer of Gaza’s 2018 Great March of Return. In October 2023, Israel killed his eldest son, Abdullah. A few weeks ago, he left Gaza for the Netherlands. He wrote about his departure in the Dutch newspaper, De Correspondent. I’ll ask what it’s like to survive a genocide and live with the memory of those who did not.

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 and attorney Shayana Kadidal discuss new US sanctions on Palestinian human rights groups.

In The Guardian, David Adler details his reasons for joining the flotilla to Gaza.

Kyle’s mom from South Park confronts Benjamin Netanyahu.

See you on Friday,

Peter

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

So, at the heart of this period in the Jewish year, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, what we call the Yamim Noraim, is the basic idea that human beings are judged, that we don’t know how that judgment manifests itself in the world, but there’s a faith, a fundamental belief that there is some kind of accounting, there is some kind of reckoning, ultimately. And that notion fills me this year with a sense of really tremendous fear because I know that I have been inadequate to the monstrous evil of this period: the genocide in Gaza and the destruction of liberal democracy in the United States.

There are so many times when I’ve just decided to turn away because it was easier to not look at the images, or to not participate in actions of protest that I could have done, just because I had other things that I wanted to do more, that were easier for me, that were more fun for me, so I really tremble at my own accountability for this. But I guess I also take some kind of comfort in the notion that there may be some collective accounting, some collective reckoning.

Again, many of the prayers that we say during these High Holidays are in the plural. And when I think about collectively, in the Jewish community, and more generally in the United States, I do take some kind of comfort in the sense that there will be some kind of accounting, because the level of cowardice that we see around us is just beyond my wildest imagination. It’s beyond my wildest imagination.

I mean, Donald Trump is a fundamentally kind of deranged and deformed person, someone who just doesn’t seem, I think, to really, really understand very basic ideas like the rule of law, right? But many, many other people around him do. I mean, we know this because many of the people who are his most fanatical supporters now—J.D. Vance, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio—they said earlier on, when they weren’t so afraid of him, they said, this man is a pathological liar, this man wants to be a dictator. We know that they believe these things. We know that they can see these things. These things are obvious, right? They’re not subtle.

I mean, I almost chuckle now at the idea that Donald Trump was really concerned about antisemitism when he used antisemitism as the pretext to try to cripple the independence of American universities. Because we now see that Donald Trump doesn’t need any pretext at all. I mean, when he says that we should shut down television networks just because they criticize him, or that the Justice Department should investigate people just because they’re his political opponents, he doesn’t even need any pretext, right? It’s just the fact that they are limiting his power, and he wants dictatorial powers. That’s really all he needs.

And when I see virtually the entirety of the Republican Party going along with this—you know, the Republican Party has always, you know, for as long as I can remember, liked to talk about appeasement, liked to talk about cowardice, always imagining themselves as the kind of the Churchills, the manly men, the people who could be counted on in the moment of peril to stand up to the forces of evil. You know, I mean, what an utter irony that has turned to be, right?

Because it turned out that there is no greater group of appeasers, no greater group of cowards, than the people in the modern Republican Party today, who, because they’re afraid of Donald Trump, afraid that he could get them to lose their job, or afraid that he might go after them personally. Because, after all, Donald Trump goes after Republicans too, right? He’s going after John Bolton because John Bolton had the temerity to criticize him. These people who constantly talk about how tough they are and how manly they are, how they hate appeasement, and how they accuse their opponents of appeasement because they support diplomatic deals with Iran or other countries, now actually turn out to be willing to appease Donald Trump, even when he’s systematically moving to destroy equality under the law, which is the foundation of a free society, right, by basically just using the organs of the state in whatever ways he can to punish his political opponents, to prevent the possibility that people will be able to openly criticize him, and that the other party might be able to beat him in an election.

And beyond that, I look at the organized American Jewish community. I mean, just go to the websites of the most powerful American Jewish organizations: AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League, the Conference of Presidents of American Jewish Organizations. Would you realize that American democracy is in peril? Would you realize that the Trump administration is trying to create an authoritarian state? No, you would see virtually nothing of that because these organizations care really only about one thing: about maintaining unconditional U.S. support for Israel. It’s much more important to them that America maintains unconditional support for Israel than that America remains a liberal democracy. They would actually prefer an authoritarian America that supports Israel unconditionally than a liberal democratic America that changes its policy on Israel.

And the evidence is right in front of you. Just look at what outrages them. Look at what they focus their political attention on. It’s about maintaining unconditional support for Israel. It’s not fighting for liberal democracy. It’s not opposing Donald Trump’s obviously, nakedly obvious efforts at creating an authoritarian, tyrannical state. I take some comfort in the notion that those leaders in our community, as well as those Republicans in Congress, as well as those business leaders, and people in industry, and some of these university presidents, that all of them will be judged.

I think we’re already in terrible, terrible times, and probably heading for worse. And so, I think there is a Jewish tradition, in moments of great pain and trauma, of taking refuge in the idea that we believe in a God who judges, and that there is some kind of cosmic justice, even if we can’t understand it, even if we may not live to see it. And from the depths of my being, I hope that there is an accounting, that there is a reckoning, there is a judgment for the profound moral cowardice that is allowing the evil that is taking place, both in the destruction of Palestinians in the genocide in Gaza, and the destruction of the basic principles of liberal democracy in the United States.

And I feel grateful that I have some modicum of faith because it’s that faith that gives me the belief that there will be a judgment and also reminds me that I need to redouble my efforts. I need to make a much, much more concerted effort to be part of the struggle against these forms of evil, both in Israel and Palestine that my government is complicit in, and the evils that my government is complicit in in the United States. That, all of us need not give in to despair, to not look away, to look this in the eye, and do whatever possibly we can to fight against this evil, which most Americans don’t want. Most Americans don’t want. And just say to ourselves, are we really a country that could allow the likes of Donald Trump to destroy all the things that are most precious in the country, really? Are we that kind of people? I would think that we’re better than that. And it’s my hope that one day we will be worthy of having said that in this moment, conscious of the accounting and the reckoning that we believe will come, that we tried to acquit ourselves better in the year to come.

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

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Our guest is author and attorney Ken Stern, director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate. Ken was an important figure in the drafting of the definition of antisemitism now taken up by the IHRA but has been outspoken against its current uses.

Please Help Palestinians in Gaza.

There is no Zoom call this Friday. We’ll return on Friday, October 3.

With the Jewish High Holidays approaching, I’m opening up for all readers my conversation with Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, former chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, who argues that what Israel is doing in Gaza and the West Bank constitutes a stain on Judaism itself.

Cited in Today’s Video

Ezra Klein and Ta-Nehisi Coates on the murder of Charlie Kirk.

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 writes about the aid group favored by pro-Israel organizations.

Leonard Benardo interviews Rob Malley for the Ideas Letter.

In The New York Times, I wrote about the Trump Administration’s use of Charlie Kirk’s murder to crack down on dissent

For the Foundation for Middle East Peace, I interviewed David Adler, who is aboard the Sumud flotilla heading to Gaza.

On Monday September 22, I’ll be discussing the parallels between Israel’s response to 10/7 and America’s response to 9/11 for the Quincy Institute.

See you a week from Friday,

Peter

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

So, a really interesting debate broke out, last week between Ezra Klein and Ta-Nehisi Coates about the legacy of Charlie Kirk. Ezra Klein wrote a column in which he said that Charlie Kirk was practicing politics in the right way because he was trying to persuade people. He was going to college campuses where, you know, lefty students are around, and he was engaging them in argument. And he contrasted this persuasion with this rising political violence that we see in America.

And Coates was challenging that binary, and I want to explain why I agree with Coates. As I understand it, I think the point that Coates is making is not just that the kind of persuasion that Charlie Kirk is engaged in isn’t really good faith discourse, that it’s more like demagoguery, right, in which he tries to kind of make his political opponents look like fools, especially through the kind of editing of these interactions he’s having on college campuses.

But I think the point is actually deeper, which is to question what we mean when we use the term political violence. Generally, the way this is used is that we’re thinking about violence by non-state actors. So, a lot of people have been saying we’re in a rising era of political violence because of the murder of Kirk, and the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, and the attack on Paul Pelosi, and the killing of this Minnesota state representative, and that’s what we define as political violence.

But it’s worth noting that what that leaves out is political violence by the state, right? Violence by the state for a political purpose. It’s a little like the way we use the term terrorism, which is also basically a synonym for political violence, but only gets applied, really, generally, to non-state actors. So, we generally don’t think of the things that states do as political violence or as terrorism, although sometimes we make an exception for states we really don’t like, like Iran, let’s say, right?

But states commit lots and lots of political violence, and states create lots of terror, right? If terrorism is making people feel terrified for a political purpose, then states do that a lot. And I think what Coates is doing is he’s looking at the language that Charlie Kirk is employing, the way he’s talking about trans people, the way he’s talking about Muslim people. And, of course, Charlie Kirk is not directly using violence against anybody. And it should go without saying, it should be obvious, of course, that it was fundamentally, completely wrong for this person to murder him, and that person should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

But I think what Coates is getting at is that when we think about this binary between persuasion and violence, we have to think about the fact that Charlie Kirk was explicitly supporting a lot of violence by the state. Violence that now we’re seeing, particularly in the Trump era, right? Terrible, terrible violence that’s being used by the state against people who are claimed to be violating immigration laws, against people who are disfavored by the Trump administration in all kinds of ways. And to be fair, the definition of a state is that entity which has a monopoly on legitimate violence. But I think the question that Coates is raising is how we think about legitimate versus illegitimate political violence when it involves the state, rather than simply using the category of political violence to imply that all violence by the state is legitimate, and the only illegitimate political violence is used by non-state actors.

And I think this, you know, this bears also on the question of Israel and Palestinians. As I’ve said many, many, many, many times, I think the terrorism that was used by Hamas on October 7th was fundamentally wrong. It targeted civilians and inflicted terrible, terrible violence and cruelty, and indeed, terror, right? But it’s also, it seems to me, pretty undeniable that the state of Israel is imposing a tremendous amount of terror on Palestinians. We think of just ordinary Palestinians in Gaza who don’t know, you know, whether they’ll be able to feed their children, or whether they’re going to be destroyed in a bus, you know, in a bombing tomorrow, right? It’s unbelievable amounts of terror being experienced by Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

And so, I think what Coates is getting at here is to question the way in which we use terms like terrorism and political violence to excuse the unlawful violence, or the unlawful infliction of terror by states, whether it’s Israel or the United States, or for that matter, another state. Again, none of which is to justify the use of political violence, and indeed, the use of terror by non-state actors. But it suggests that this problem of violence, this problem of the infliction of terror on people for political means without legal justification is not only a problem that we see with non-state actors, it is also very, very much a problem of states especially in this age in which we’re seeing rising authoritarianism and very, very explicit and brutal racism—in the case of Israel, even genocide being inflicted on people.

And I think this is where it’s really, really important to think carefully. Again, this is one of the points that George Orwell made so, so famously, to think carefully about the language we use, and whether it’s really being used honestly. And I think if we use the term political violence honestly, we have to remember that while we may be in an age of very dangerous political violence by non-state actors, we are also very, very profoundly in an age of very, very dangerous political violence by the state. And that should not be ignored in this conversation.

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