\n
![](\"https:\/\/progressive.org\/downloads\/21739\/download\/JewsSayNotoGenocide.jpg?cb=32091171abc4e39c4cbda5b6d3b21779\")
<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
Peter Beinart begins Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning<\/a>\u2014<\/em>a provocative and incisive book about trauma and Jewish identity after October 7, 2023\u2014with a note to an unnamed former friend whose fanaticism about Israel he\u2019d come to view as unacceptable. The note reflects the painful divisions that have deepened within Jewish communities in the aftermath of Hamas\u2019s horrific attack on Israel, and Israel\u2019s subsequent, grotesque destruction of Gaza. In deeply felt, achingly personal terms that will surely resonate with millions of Jews in the United States and throughout the world, Beinart argues that far too many Jews are so committed to that with which they identify\u2014the Israeli hostages, Israel, and Zionism itself\u2014that they have somehow neglected, or even cavalierly dismissed, the lives and suffering of millions of Palestinians. His note concludes with a plea: \u201cI hope the rupture is not final.\u201d<\/p>\n But it very well might be final. Israel is the touchiest subject among Jews\u2014almost a taboo topic in many circles\u2014and the state\u2019s genocidal campaign in Gaza will likely destroy long-standing friendships and family relationships, perhaps even permanently. Tensions are enormously fraught. I\u2019ve seen it first-hand in my encounters with friends, associates, and my students at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), many of whom are Jews whose perspectives mirror those that Beinart\u2019s book sets out to critique.<\/p>\n Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning<\/em><\/p>\n
By Peter Beinart<\/p>\n
Knopf, 176 pages<\/p>\n
Publication date: January 28, 2025<\/p>\n
\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza <\/em>mounts a righteous assault on the present state of contemporary mainstream Jewish identity. In the book\u2019s prologue, Beinart is forthright: \u201cWe Need a New Story.\u201d He calls out Jews who have concluded that protecting themselves requires subjugating others, even if they are personally pained by Gaza\u2019s agony. He demands a new narrative, one that is based on equality rather than supremacy. This is an extremely difficult proposition for many Jews; the blinders of conquest, domination, oppression, and moral indifference are now deeply ingrained in the minds of millions of Jews in Israel and throughout the Jewish Diaspora. In many cases, this is even an unconscious process, because it emerges from family, religious communities, and social groups. Regrettably, this dynamic has been reinforced in the United States by powerful institutions and organizations such as the American Jewish Congress (AJC), American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Anti-Defamation League, and other advocacy groups, as well as many campus chapters of the pro-Israel Jewish student organization Hillel.<\/p>\n The origins of Jewish supremacy in Israel trace back to long before the country\u2019s official formation. Before the United Nations voted in 1947 to partition Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, Jews made up about a third<\/a> of its population. To create and maintain a Jewish majority, Zionist forces expelled<\/a> around 750,000 Palestinians\u2014an inconvenient and highly disconcerting truth for many Jews today. As a result, Beinart persuasively argues, far too many Israelis and Diaspora Jews have relied on euphemisms, vagueness, and even outright lies to conceal the egregious human rights abuses that underlie the creation of the modern Israeli state.<\/p>\n Israel controls the entirety of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, including the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, though it withdrew<\/a> its troops from Gaza twenty years ago before reinvading it after October 7, 2023. Israeli soldiers can arrest and torment whomever they want\u2014they have free rein, and they exercise it with brutal efficiency, with little or no regard for the dignity of their Palestinian captives.\u00a0<\/p>\n Beinart notes that Amnesty International and other human rights organizations have labelled<\/a> Israel\u2019s governance of the region as apartheid. It\u2019s an unsavory designation, but an accurate one, practiced in this case by the descendants of those murdered by Nazis during the Holocaust. No amount of verbal acrobatics can conceal this ugly reality.\u00a0<\/p>\n Beinart understands perfectly the trauma that Hamas\u2019s October 7 attack wrought for Jews in Israel and elsewhere. It would be both foolish and morally grotesque to downplay the impact of that day on Jews throughout the world: I felt it personally, especially as a second-generation Holocaust survivor. But despite what Benjamin Netanyahu and the standard Jewish establishment, including pro-Israel lobbying groups throughout the world have claimed, it was not a crime comparable to the Holocaust.\u00a0<\/p>\n Beinart notes that Jews in Israel enjoy legal supremacy while Palestinians lack basic freedoms. This is a significant distinction, and while making it in no way absolves Hamas for its carnage, it\u2019s important to note that Israel has its own deeper responsibility for the historical oppression of Palestinians, including those effectively imprisoned in Gaza. Insisting on this truth can result in the loss of relationships within Jewish families and communities, as was the case in Beinart\u2019s own family.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s much harder to be Jewish after the destruction of Gaza. Beinart notes that in the aftermath of October 7, many Jews, including educators, rabbis, and community leaders, have made a point to speak out about the Israelis who were killed or kidnapped during Hamas\u2019s attack. They\u2019ve spoken at length about the victims\u2019 personalities, their hopes and dreams, and their entire family histories. Who could be unmoved by these heartfelt and emotional expressions of grief and sorrow?<\/p>\n But this communal outpouring of grief was also distressingly tribal, and often came without mention of the Palestinian casualties in Gaza or the stories of those victims. The Palestinian lives shattered by Israeli bombs and bullets\u2014women, men, children, grandmothers, grandfathers, disabled people\u2014were regarded as little more than statistics to be disputed. In taking stock of this chilling reality, Beinart laments that Judaism has been redefined into a purely selfish creed, devoid of any genuine notion of universal love and empathy.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the carnage in Gaza has slowly but unmistakably developed into outright genocide. Yet far too many Jews in America and elsewhere pay scant attention. Some blame Hamas itself: They brought it on themselves; What did they expect?; They hide among civilians; Israel has to defend itself before the terrorists destroy it.\u201d Israel\u2019s utterly e<\/em>gregious and often lethal attacks on hospitals, universities, journalists, and helpless civilians have shocked the conscience of the world, yet many Jews have maintained indifference and outright callousness toward Palestinian suffering through these rationalizations for its disproportionate aggression.<\/p>\n One of the most insidious methods by which the Israeli government and its enablers have avoided responsibility is claiming that any opposition reflects the new antisemitism. The ADL, AIPAC, the AJC, and their rightwing allies, including so-called Christian Zionists, have been effective in labelling anti-Zionism, or really any criticism of Israel, as antisemitic. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s depiction of American campuses as awash with Nazi-like antisemitic mobs, Beinart\u00a0 writes, is both cynical and absurd. But he also acknowledges elements of anti-Jewish sentiment and action that have arisen within parts of the Palestine solidarity protest movement.\u00a0<\/p>\n Here, I feel compelled to add my own addendum to Beinart\u2019s observation. Like many other schools, including Columbia University, Harvard University, Dartmouth College, and the University of California, Berkeley, UCLA has been a prominent site of anti-Israel protests. Having personally witnessed many, participated in some, and written about the overall phenomenon, my conclusion is that antisemitic incidents associated with these protests were relatively minor, regrettable, and largely perpetrated by overzealous young knuckleheads. Every instance of antisemitism is unacceptable and should be vigorously condemned.\u00a0<\/p>\n But to make the leap to claiming that UCLA is a hostile environment for Jewish students, faculty, and staff strikes me as preposterous. The most significant act of violence during the protests at UCLA occurred on May 1, 2024, when a group of \u201cpro-Israeli\u201d demonstrators destroyed<\/a> the peaceful Free Palestine encampment, whose ranks contained a substantial number of Jewish participants. I would label these demonstrators \u201cZionist thugs,\u201d and I\u2019m not going to retreat from that designation.<\/p>\n ADL National Director Jonathan Greenblatt has insisted<\/a> that Zionism and Jewishness are inseparable: Reject Zionism and you\u2019re no longer a Jew. But as Beinart makes clear, Greenblatt and the ADL have no mandate to define who is a Jew. The notion that they could do so is as insulting and offensive as the boorish audience members who have occasionally called me a \u201cself-hating Jew\u201d when I have criticized Israel during presentations.<\/p>\n\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n