The Beinart Notebook

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.comOur guest this week is Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and the author of three remarkable books on the relationship between the United States, Israel and Iran. For as long as I’ve followed Trita’s work, he’s been warning that if hawks in Washington got their way, we would end up with the kind of catastrophe we’re witnessing in the Middle East. I invited him to give us a sense of what the Middle East and the world will look like going forward.Topics include…the likelihood of peace talks failingthe importance of Lebanonhow this war has affected Iran’s internal trajectoryIran’s nuclear capabilitiesthe war’s effect on the US and Israeli militarieshow Trump came to the decision to fight this warfacing charges of self-hatred from the diaspora

This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time, Friday at 1 PM Eastern. Our guest will be Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and the author of three remarkable books on the relationship between the United States, Israel and Iran. For as long as I’ve followed Trita’s work, he’s been warning that if hawks in Washington got their way, we would end up with the kind of catastrophe we’re currently witnessing in the Middle East. I want to ask him how this war will end— if it ever truly does— and what Iran, the Middle East and the world will look like afterwards. Please join us.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 Democratic presidential candidates who are turning against Israel.Mohammad Eslami and Zeynab Malakouti on how Iran will use the Strait of Hormuz to end sanctions and isolate the US.Nate Silver on why Trump’s approval rating will likely never recover from this war.Ziad Abu-Rish on why Lebanon won’t disarm Hezbollah.For the Foundation for Middle East Peace’s Occupied Thoughts podcast, I talked to Mara Kronenfeld, Executive Director of UNRWA USA, about what UNRWA does, and about the lies spread told about it.I talked to the Wisdom of Crowds podcast about whether Israel, or any state, has a right to exist.Last week, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza won the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction.AppearancesOn April 19, I’ll be speaking in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.On May 6, I’ll be speaking to the Joint Christian Advocacy Summit in Washington, DC.See you on Friday,PeterVIDEO TRANSCRIPT:So, I’ve been noticing that some of the people who still support this war are saying that those of us who oppose it want America to lose. This is a kind of a common rhetorical strategy one hears during war. It kind of diverts the conversation away from the legitimacy and wisdom of a war to suggesting that people in that country who oppose the war are kind of unpatriotic. So, it’s the kind of thing that was said during Vietnam. It’s, I’m sure, the kind of thing that Vladimir Putin and his comrades have been saying in Russia to people who oppose the war in Ukraine.And it is a tricky charge to deal with, right? Because even in an unjust war, one could imagine that feeling like you wanted your country to lose would be a difficult thing. But I think there are cases in which one has to forthrightly say, yes, I want my country to lose. Those circumstances would be one in which there was a war that had overwhelming popular support among the people in your country, but you thought it was wrong, and you wanted your country to lose.In Israel, for instance, this is a war that has overwhelming popular support. Even Netanyahu’s Jewish political opponents support it. It has widespread support among Jewish Israelis. So, if you say, it’s hard to say in this war I want Netanyahu to lose without saying I want Israel to lose because Netanyahu is waging the war with the support of Israel’s Jewish citizens, who are the vast majority of Israel’s citizens.In the United States, though, I think it’s different. Which is to say, I think one can say that I want Donald Trump to lose this war—and I do—without saying that I want America to lose the war, that I think we can distinguish this as Donald Trump’s war without saying it’s America’s war. Why? First of all, because the American public has never supported this war from the very beginning, and because there was never a process of consulting the American people about going to war, as should have been required by the Constitution, in which Congress would have voted to authorize the war. There hasn’t been such a vote, and I think if there were such a vote, the pro-war position would lose. So, this really is a war without popular support, without popular consultation, and in that way, I think one can distinguish it as Trump’s war without saying it’s America’s war.It’s also the case that I think if Donald Trump loses this war, America will be better off. That America and Americans will be better off if Donald Trump loses than if Donald Trump wins. First of all, that’s because the consequences of Donald Trump losing this war will not be catastrophic for Americans. We can imagine circumstances where if you say you want your country to lose the war, that means you want… that means accepting that your country is going to be occupied, invaded.Let’s say you were a German who wanted the Nazis to lose World War II. I would say that that person deserves a lot of—is an admirable person. But you would say so knowing that Germany losing that war would mean Germany ending up in ruins. You can say you want Donald Trump to lose this war against Iran, while recognizing the United States could lose the war, Trump can fail to achieve his aims vis-a-vis this war, and it will

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.comRabbi 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. Last year, we spoke after he wrote critically about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. In a time when so many Jews are hungry for moral leadership, Rabbi Schorsch’s courage and decency have been all too rare.I wanted to speak to him before the Passover holiday, as I and so many Jews are struggling to reconcile our Jewishness with opposition to Israel’s actions. I’m honored and grateful he agreed to speak with me again.

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.comIn the shadow of the war with Iran, Israel is doing terrible things in Lebanon: demolishing homes, killing more than one thousand people, displacing close to a million from their homes and perhaps pushing the country toward civil war. To discuss all this, our guest is Rami Khouri, a deeply knowledgeable commentator on Lebanese and international politics. He is Distinguished Public Policy Fellow at the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut, Director of the Anthony Shadid Archives Research Project, Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Arab Center in Washington and author of the Rami G. Khouri Substack.

This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time, Friday at 1 PM Eastern. In the shadow of the war with Iran, Israel is doing terrible things in Lebanon: demolishing homes, killing more than one thousand people, displacing close to a million from their homes and perhaps pushing the country toward civil war. To discuss all this, our guest will be Rami Khouri, a deeply knowledgeable commentator on Lebanese and international politics. He is Distinguished Public Policy Fellow at the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut, Director of the Anthony Shadid Archives Research Project, Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Arab Center in Washington and author of the Rami G. Khouri Substack. Please join us.Cited in Today’s VideoI’m grateful to Dr. Dror Bondi, Corcoran Visiting Chair in Christian-Jewish Relations at Boston College, who brought the Heschel quote about Abravanel to my attention. He cites it in this lecture.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 details the way Israel is using the current war to seize more Palestinian land in the West Bank.On the It Could Happen Here podcast, Dana El Kurd explores intra-Palestinian debates about armed resistance.For the Foundation for Middle East Peace’s Occupied Thoughts podcast, I talked with Sari Bashi, executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, about the dismissal of charges against five Israeli soldiers who were filmed violently abusing a Palestinian detainee in the Sde Teiman detention facility.AppearancesOn March 30, I’ll be speaking at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.On May 6, I’ll be speaking to the Joint Christian Advocacy Summit in Washington, DC.PartnershipStarting today, all paid subscribers of The Beinart Notebook get a 50 percent discount on a one-year paid subscription to Robert Wright’s Nonzero Newsletter. I’ve known and respected Bob for decades — my earliest appearance on his show will turn 20 this year, and the latest happened earlier this month. He’s a rare voice of reason on questions ranging from foreign policy to psychology of tribalism to AI, and I think you’ll find a lot of value in his writing. The NonZero Newsletter is part of a broader effort Bob has been building called the NonZero Network — a group of independent Substack voices, including mine, as well as Glenn Loury, Kaiser Kuo, and others with whom I may not always agree on substance, but who share a commitment to intellectual honesty and reasoned analysis.Reader CommentA listener (who asked that their name be withheld) commented on last week’s video, in which I argued that synagogues should remove the “We Stand with Israel” signs that dot their lawns.They write:“I think you mischaracterize attacks on Zionist institutions. I have seen these attacks’ defenders on social media, and their line is not support for attacks of synagogues as such. It is, rather, support (or at least apologia) for attacking institutions that align themselves with the Israeli state. I saw some people claiming that Temple Israel [in Michigan] was sending money to the IDF. That sounds dubious—I’m not intimately familiar with the Israeli military’s funding strategies, but it seems unlikely that American congregations play a major role—but it is certainly true that many Jewish American institutions’ support for Israel goes beyond the purely notional. To say, then, that one should not attack Americans who ‘share a religion, an ethnic, national ancestry, a race,’ with some disfavored foreign country—in this case, Jews and Israel—is to box with a strawman. To the attack’s supporters, it’s not about Jewishness as such, under whichever of the four rubrics you name one wishes to conceive of it; it’s about Zionism, and it’s about Israel.”See you on Friday,PeterVIDEO TRANSCRIPT:I recently came across a quote that just kind of stopped me, like, dead in my tracks, kind of almost dumbfounded, because it reflected a view of how Jews should live and think, which is so radically in contrast to the views propounded by the leadership of the organized American Jewish community today.The quote is from a biography that Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote of a remarkable Portuguese 15th century figure named Isaac Abravanel. Now, Abravanel was an advisor to the Portuguese king, as well as being a very distinguished commentator on the Bible and philosopher of Jewish thought—really a remarkable synthesis of the kind that you were able to have on the Iberian Peninsula for a period of time.And then in some ways reflects the kind of possibilities that might be imaginable in the United States today, in which Jews have the freedom to both wield political power and also study Torah in a serious way. And this is what Heschel writes about Abravanel and the Jews of his period in the Iberian Peninsula.Heschel writes, ‘the Jews, who ha

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.comOur guest is Diana Buttu, a Palestinian lawyer and political analyst with Israeli citizenship. Since this war began, I’ve struggled to understand why most Israeli Jews support it. I discussed this last week with the Iranian, Jewish, and Israeli writer Orly Noy. But sometimes, the people who best understand a society are those who live within it as outsiders. It’s that experience of marginality, of seeing things from below, that often animates the insights of Black writers in the US and long animated the insights of Jewish writers in Europe. That’s why I’m turning to Diana, a Palestinian in Israel, to help understand Jewish Israeli society in this awful moment. She’s someone I’ve been learning from for a long time. I’m grateful I had the chance to do so again.

This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time, Friday at 1 PM Eastern. Our guest will be Diana Buttu, a Palestinian lawyer and political analyst based in Israel. Since this war began, I’ve struggled to understand why most Israeli Jews support it. I discussed this last week with the Iranian, Jewish, and Israeli writer and translator Orly Noy. But sometimes, the people who best understand a society are those who live within it as outsiders. It’s that experience of marginality, of seeing things from below, that often animates the insights of Black writers in the US and long animated the insights of Jewish writers in Europe. That’s why I’m turning to Diana, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, to help understand Jewish Israeli society in this awful moment. She’s someone I’ve been learning from for a long time. And I’m grateful to have the chance to do so again this Friday. Please join us.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 explains AIPAC’s attack on liberal Zionist politicians.Greg Sargent on how the Iran War is hastening the end of the Trump coalition.An insightful discussion with Esfandyar Batmanghelidj on the American Prestige podcast about how this war might change the long term trajectory of the Gulf countries.Last week I spoke to Bob Wright (whose newsletter I strongly recommend) about Israel, antisemitism and this war.On March 26, Jason Stanley will speak with Nikole Hannah-Jones in Brooklyn about his book, Erasing History.AppearancesOn March 17, I’ll be speaking at George Washington University.On March 30, I’ll be speaking at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.See you on Friday,PeterVIDEO TRANSCRIPT:I want to say two things about this terrible attack on a synagogue in Michigan. The first is that no matter what Israel does, no matter how immoral or brutal or horrifying, it doesn’t justify attacking a synagogue or justifying attacking American Jews in any way. There’s a basic principle here. The principle is that Americans are not responsible for the actions of foreign governments or foreign organizations just because they share a religion, an ethnic, national ancestry, a race, with that state or foreign organization.So, by that principle, it is just as wrong to target a synagogue because you’re upset at what Israel did, as it was when people attacked Chinese Americans because they were angry at the Chinese government during COVID, or when people attack Muslim Americans because they’re angry at Al-Qaeda, or ISIS, or Hamas, or Iran, or as when the United States government itself held Japanese Americans responsible and put them in internment camps because of what the Empire of Japan had done in Pearl Harbor. These things are all fundamentally wrong.And—not but, but and—Synagogues in the United States should take down the signs that many have on their lawn that say, ‘We stand with Israel.’ They should take them down, because those signs make the congregants less safe, and because they are immoral. Because they create a climate of… they make the Congress less safe, because they encourage exactly the same conflation between Israel and American Jews that we must resist, and because in this moment, doing so is immoral.Now, if it were morally correct for our synagogues to say in this moment, ‘We stand with Israel,’ then I think you could make an argument that even though those signs may make the congregants less safe, that it would be legitimate to do so. You could say that it’s even courageous for Jews in a synagogue to come together and say: we’re going to take a moral action that’s going to create some risk to our safety because it’s the right thing to do.But how could one possibly argue that this is the right thing to do in this moment? That it is morally right to put yourself at risk by conflating yourself with the Israeli government when the Israeli government is doing the things that it is doing now.Let’s do a thought experiment. Let’s imagine that after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, that the Russian Orthodox churches in the United States, that they had signs saying ‘We stand with Russia.’ By putting those signs out there, they would be putting, to some degree, the people inside those churches at risk, because there would be people who were furious about what Russia had done in Ukraine, that might take out their anger against people in those churches. But beyond that, it would be immoral to say, given what Russia has done in Ukraine, for a church to say, ‘We stand with Russia.’And what Israel has done over the past few years, to Palestinians, and now, also, in Lebanon and Iran, is worse than what Russia has done in Ukraine. It’s worse. Let’s just look, for starters, at the numbers. The best numbers we have suggest that since the war that began in 2022 with Russia’s invasion—expanded invasion, because they first invaded in

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.comOur guest is Chris Hayes, host of All In with Chris Hayes on MSNOW and the Why Is This Happening? Podcast. He’s also author most recently of The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource. Chris sits at a difficult and crucial intersection, between the progressive world (he’s the former Washington editor of The Nation) and mainstream television. I want to talk about how he navigates it, including on Israel-Palestine, what progressives should understand about the American media, and how his work has changed given the perils now facing American democracy.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.comI taped a conversation with Orly Noy, an Israeli writer born in Iran who translates Farsi literature into Hebrew. We talked about the excruciating experience of watching her adopted country attack the other nation that she considers home.

Cited in Today’s VideoThe video of Marine veteran Brian McGinnis shouting “No one wants to fight for Israel.” 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 Aslı Ü. Bâli, the Howard M. Holtzmann Professor of Law at Yale. Given the magnitude of what the US, with Israel, has now done, I wanted to talk about more than just Iran, about the kind of global power the United States has become, and what it means, not just for the safety of people in the Middle East, but for people across the world. Aslı is the most brilliant thinker I know about international law, American foreign policy, and the Middle East. I’m grateful she made time for 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

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.comNader Hashemi is Director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and an Associate Professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics at Georgetown University. We spoke about the roots of America’s antagonism with the Islamic Republic, comparisons between Iran and Cuba, and why Iranians deserve a democratic revolution but Trump and Netanyahu won’t create one.

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 public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit peterbeinart.substack.com/subscribeTopics include:* Mark Carney’s speech* the role of University Hillels* the intelligence of Zionists* Gaza and the West Bank today* Report from Minnesota* how we speak of our opponents* weighing truthfulness against political expediency* speaking to progressives and liberals* polling JewsThe monthly AMA live session and full video is a special perk for Premium paid subscribers. Sample Q&A from last month’s session is for everyone. Thanks so much to all for your support at any level.(A Substack glitch fails to distinguish between subscription tiers in these messages. You can review the various options here.)

A list of ways to help Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time, Friday at 1 PM Eastern. Our guest will be Negar Mortazavi, Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy and host of the excellent Iran Podcast. We’ll talk about the potential for another US and Israeli attack on Iran, how Iranian dissidents view such a move, the role of the Iranian diaspora, and America and Israel’s efforts to boost Reza Pahlavi, the son of the deposed shah.Ask Me AnythingOur next Ask Me Anything session, for PREMIUM SUBSCRIBERS ONLY, will be this Tuesday, February 24, from 11-12 AM Eastern time.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!), Josh Nathan-Kazis writes about the Jewish community’s reckoning over Les Wexner, patron of Jeffrey Epstein.Muhammad Shehada on how Europe might develop an alternative vision to Trump’s plans for Gaza.My friend, the Swedish writer Goran Rosenberg, has published a beautiful memoir, Israel: A Personal History.Give a Purim gift to Israelis who resist the draft.AppearancesI talked about white Christian nationalism on Ali Velshi’s show on MSNOW.On February 24, I’ll be speaking via Zoom to the Britain Palestine Project.On March 9, I’ll be speaking to Carolina Jews for Justice in Asheville, North Carolina. On March 10, I’ll be attending a fundraiser for Gaza in Asheville.On March 30, I’ll be speaking at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.See you on Friday,PeterVIDEO TRANSCRIPT:So, Donald Trump has moved this massive military arsenal to near Iran, and there’s a lot of reports that any day now, the U.S. could launch a military assault on Iran. And when I watch the debate about this kind of thing in the United States, I find it very frustrating, because I find that even people who are against Donald Trump attacking Iran, it seems to me, don’t necessarily raise the most fundamental questions. They say, well, how do we know this would work in overthrowing the regime, or how do we know it would work in eliminating Iran’s nuclear program, or, you know, why hasn’t Congress had a vote on this, or why hasn’t Donald Trump explained it to the American people, or why isn’t he focusing on domestic issues?I mean, all of these are legitimate points to make, but it seems to me, they miss a far more fundamental point, which is: by what right does the United States have to attack a country that clearly poses no threat to the United States, and that the American exceptionalism is so deep in mainstream American political culture that almost never are Americans asked to flip things, and imagine the idea of Iran or China, for that matter, attacking the United States, right? To reverse the lens, the notion that the United States somehow has the right to do things to other countries that we would never, in a million years think it was okay to do to us is just so baked into American conversation. But I think it’s just worth doing the thought experiment, right?Think about the justifications for America’s attack on Iran, right? And think about how they could be applied if a foreign country wanted to attack the United States. So, one is that Iran has this nuclear program, right? Doesn’t have nuclear weapons, but it supposedly has some kind of nuclear program that could be used to make nuclear weapons one day, right? But Iran has done a much better job of complying with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty than the United States does. Iran actually signed the Obama nuclear deal, which actually went beyond the obligations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, right?The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty basically says that countries that don’t have nuclear weapons cannot get them, but crucially, it also says that nuclear-armed countries need to move in the direction of disarmament, right? Donald Trump has moved exactly in the opposite direction, right, basically scrapping the remaining nuclear arms control treaties that exist, moving to modernize and build more and more nuclear weapons, right? So, if the claim is that you have the right to attack countries, because they’re not meeting their obligations on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, I think that would be a better justification for attacking the United States than for the United States attacking Iran.The second claim is that Iran represents a threat to its neighbors. Now, it’s true Iran has supported groups like the Houthis and Hezbollah and groups in Iraq that have taken violent actions against Israel or against American troops. But the level of aggression that Iran has been involved in vis-a-vis its neighbors absolutely pales to the degree of aggression that the United States has been involved in vis-a-vis its neighbors, right? The United States literally just sent the U.S. military in to kidnap, to abduct a foreign leader in Venezuela. The U.S. is basical

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.comOur guest is Sabri Jiryis, who for more than half a century has been among the most important Palestinian intellectuals trying to understand Zionism and promote Palestinian freedom. As a young man, he helped found al-Ard, the first Palestinian political movement in Israel, which called for Palestinian national rights and the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. In 1966, he wrote The Arabs in Israel, his landmark book on the Palestinians who remained in Israel after the Nakba. In 1970, Jiryis was exiled to Lebanon, where he became a close advisor to Yaser Arafat and director of the Palestine Research Center, the research and publication center of the PLO. In 1977, he published the first volume of his seminal Arabic-language book, A History of Zionism, and followed it up with a second volume in 1986. That book has now been translated into English by his daughter Fida. Following the Oslo Accords, Jiryis was one of the few Palestinians allowed to return to Israel and now lives in his native village, in the Galilee. We discussed his understanding of Zionism, and his extraordinary life.

This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time, Friday at 1 PM Eastern. Our guest will be Sabri Jiryis, who for more than half a century has been among the most important Palestinian intellectuals trying to understand Zionism and promote Palestinian freedom. As a young man, he helped found al-Ard, the first Palestinian political movement in Israel, which called for Palestinian national rights and the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. In 1966, he wrote The Arabs in Israel, his landmark book on the Palestinians who remained in Israel after the Nakba. In 1970, Jiryis was exiled to Lebanon, where he became a close advisor to Yaser Arafat and director of the Palestine Research Center, the research and publication center of the PLO. In 1977, he published the first volume of his seminal Arabic-language book, A History of Zionism, and followed it up with a second volume in 1986. That book has now been translated into English by his daughter Fida. Following the Oslo Accords, Jiryis was one of the few Palestinians allowed to return to Israel and now lives in his native village, in the Galilee. We will discuss his understanding of Zionism, and his extraordinary life, on Friday.Reader SurveyWe created a super-short, four question, survey to see how subscribers feel about the Beinart Notebook. If you have 5 minutes, please fill it out. It will help us figure what topics to cover, and what guests to interview, in the coming year. Thanks to everyone who has already filled it out.Cited in Today’s VideoThe open letter claiming that accusing Israel of genocide constitutes a “blood libel.”The letter’s link to one paper published on the International Association of Genocide Scholars’ website accusing Hamas of genocide.The International Association of Genocide Scholars accuses Israel of genocide.Scholars estimate that Israel has killed roughly 100,000 people in Gaza.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!), Daniel May writes about the lessons of Minneapolis’s resistance to ICE.In 972Mag, Sophia Goodfriend explains how ICE is adapting surveillance practices pioneered by Israel.For the Foundation for Middle East Peace’s “Occupied Thoughts” podcast, I interviewed Adalah’s Myssana Morany and B’Tselem’s Sarit Michaeli about the forced displacement of Palestinians in both the West Bank and the Naqab/Negev.AppearancesOn February 17, I’ll be speaking on a panel for the World Policy Forum about Muslim-Christian-Jewish Coexistence in the Holy Land.On February 24, I’ll be speaking via Zoom to the Britain Palestine Project.On March 9, I’ll be speaking to Carolina Jews for Justice in Asheville, North Carolina. On March 10, I’ll be attending a fundraiser for Gaza in Asheville.On March 30, I’ll be speaking at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.See you on Friday,PeterVIDEO TRANSCRIPT:So, there’s this open letter which has been signed by a bunch of people that accusing Israel of genocide constitutes a blood libel. Some of the initial signatories are the Israeli journalist Yossi Klein Halevi, Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, Rabbi Shmuly Yankolovich. I mention them in particular because part of what is so depressing to me, dispiriting to me about this letter, is that these are people who, in other aspects of their lives, I actually think are really, really talented and thoughtful people.I mean, Yossi Klein Halevi—I disagree with his political views—but he’s a very talented narrative journalist. If you read books of his, like, you know, We Were Like Dreamers about the Israeli soldiers in the 1967 war and what happened to them. Yitz Greenberg is one of the most important American rabbis of his generation, really a giant in the kind of field of post-Holocaust theology who shaped, you know, whole generations of Orthodox American Jews. Shmuly Yankielovich, who’s based in the United States, runs an Orthodox organization that, in domestic American politics, on questions of the rights of immigrants, on opposing ICE, has actually done some really, really, you know, wonderful, wonderful work.And so, this letter, to me is a kind of an example of how there’s something about this question, about the question of Israel and the Palestinians that I think takes people’s best qualities—their qualities of intellectual curiosity, and their qualities of empathy—and it kind of drains them. And this letter, I think, is a specimen of kind of what has happened to establishment American Jewish and Israeli discourse.And I just want to explain why I find it so dispiriting. The first point is if you wanted to write an intellectually and morally honest, you know, letter opposing the claim that Israel has committed genocide—you know, and to be fair, genocide is a very particular kind of crime, right? It’s different than crimes against humanity, for instance, right? Genocide has to do with intent. One co

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.comSari Bashi, is the founder of Gisha, the Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, the leading Israeli human rights group offering legal assistance to Palestinians. She’s also author of the new memoir, Upside-Down Love, about her love affair with a Palestinian professor confined by Israel to the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Ethan Katz is Associate Professor of History at the University of California at Berkeley. He’s the faculty director of the Center for Jewish Studies and co-founder of both the Antisemitism Education Initiative and the Bridging Fellowship Dialogue program.His most recent co-edited book is When Jews Argue: Between the University and the Beit Midrash.He recently wrote an essay for Sources entitled When Is Anti-Zionism Antisemitic? Getting Beyond the Polemics and, while I didn’t agree with all of it, I found it an interesting good faith exploration of these issues, so I invited him to discuss it. 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

In this age of unfathomable cruelty and suffering, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. But I want to highlight one individual, and one campaign, for you to consider supporting. The individual is Abdullah Awwad, a surgeon in the Gaza Strip I interviewed last year. He’s been working for years in horrifying conditions. He’s been accepted to multiple overseas medical programs but needs the money to leave Gaza with his family.The campaign is by Shir Tikvah, the synagogue whose rabbi, Arielle Lekach-Rosenberg, I interviewed last week. It’s to raise money for people harmed by ICE’s assault on the Twin Cities. Please consider supporting both of these efforts.This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time, Friday at 1 PM Eastern. Our guest will be Sari Bashi, founder of Gisha, the Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, the leading Israeli human rights group offering legal assistance to Palestinians. She’s also author of the new memoir, Upside-Down Love, about her love affair with a Palestinian professor confined by Israel to the West Bank city of Ramallah. We’ll talk about her story of love in the face of institutional oppression, and about Israel’s restrictions on Palestinian movement, particularly in Gaza, where despite a so-called “cease-fire,” Palestinians remain largely unable to enter or leave the Strip.Reader SurveyWe created a super-short, four question, survey to see how subscribers feel about the Beinart Notebook. If you have 5 minutes, please fill it out. It will help us figure what topics to cover, and what guests to interview, in the coming year.Cited in Today’s VideoI wrote about patriotism and nationalism for The Atlantic in 2018.How the UAE bribed Trump to give it America’s most sensitive technology.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.)For Jewish Currents (subscribe!), I wrote about Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace.”For the Foundation for Middle East Peace’s “Occupied Thoughts” podcast, I interviewed Jaser Abu Mousa, a 2025 Yale Peace Fellow and past program officer working for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) in Gaza, about life and death in the Gaza Strip.For one day, The Nation magazine devoted its entire website to writing about Gaza, by writers from Gaza.After years of disputing the Gaza Health Ministry’s death toll numbers, Israel now accepts them.Eve Fairbanks writes about the American right’s nostalgia for apartheid South Africa.AppearancesOn February 9, I’ll be virtually speaking to Our Common Beliefs.On February 12, I’ll speaking at the Conference on the Jewish Left at Boston University.On Feb 24, I’ll be speaking via Zoom to the Britain Palestine Project.On March 9, I’ll be speaking to Carolina Jews for Justice in Asheville, North Carolina. On March 10, I’ll be attending a fundraiser for Gaza in Asheville.Reader CommentOccasionally, I publish readers’ responses to my videos. Here’s one from Deborah Seligsohn, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Villanova University, about my criticism of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum for its criticism of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s suggestion that a child in Minnesota may one day write a book like Anne Frank’s.“I went to the US Holocaust Museum with my Dad (whose father had died in a concentration camp), an incredibly moving experience. I can’t remember exactly when we went, except that I was carrying my baby in a front pack, and that I think for both of us being able to hold on to precious new life was emotionally what got us through. But what I also remember, which is why I want to mention it to you, is that there was an exhibit about the abuses in Bosnia (and this had to be before Srebrenica - it was probably November 1994 that we went, and Srebrenica was July 1995). The Museum was making a direct analogy to the holocaust. So, if they are now saying that analogies are always impermissible, that is a new point of view or more likely a rather selective one. My recollection of the museum was that you started at the top with the 1930s and worked down through 3 levels that end with the death camps, and then there is another level below that is about other genocides - or at least it was when I went - and that area was about Bosnia. When I look at their website, they have a huge section on other genocides in their genocide prevention section. What is striking there is that genocide is pretty broadly construed, except with the glaring missing discussion of the Palestinians.”See you on Friday,PeterVIDEO TRANSCRIPT:So, this was a somewhat difficult evening, for me on Sunday evening as my hometown New England Patriots lost in the Super Bowl. But, actually, the word patriots got me thinking earlier in the week because I was looking for some merchandise about the New England Patriots and, when I was searching online, what I noticed was that if you search up, kind of, hats or t-shirts with the word ‘patriots,’ you get

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.comOur guest is Arielle Lekach-Rosenberg, lead rabbi of Shir Tikvah, a “justice-seeking, song-filled” congregation in South Minneapolis. With a background in organizing for migrant rights, she has bridged faith and activist communities locally and nationally to confront the Trump administration’s ongoing siege of Minneapolis, including by co-convening a recent gathering of over 650 clergy in the city.

A list of ways to help Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time, Friday at 1 PM Eastern. Our guest will be Arielle Lekach-Rosenberg, lead rabbi of Shir Tikvah, a “justice-seeking, song-filled” congregation in South Minneapolis. With a background in organizing for migrant rights, she has bridged faith and activist communities locally and nationally to confront the Trump administration’s ongoing siege of Minneapolis, including by co-convening a recent gathering of over 650 clergy in the city. We’ll talk about the role of religious leaders in general— and the Jewish community in particular— in the struggle to defend human rights and the rule of law in Minneapolis.Cited in Today’s VideoMinnesota Governor Tim Walz’s comparison of undocumented children in Minnesota to Anne Frank.The attacks on Walz’s comparison by the head of the Anti-Defamation League, the Holocaust Museum in Washington and Donald Trump’s antisemitism envoy.Former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe “Boogie” Yaalon’s claim that “the ideology of ‘Jewish supremacy,’ which has become dominant in the Israeli government, reminds one of the Nazi racial theory.”Zach Foster on the long history of Israelis comparing other Israelis to the Nazis.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 talks to three organizers from Minnesota.On February 3, I’ll be speaking at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.On February 9, I’ll be virtually speaking to Our Common Beliefs.On February 12, I’ll speaking at the Conference on the Jewish Left at Boston University.On Feb 24, I’ll be speaking via Zoom to the Britain Palestine Project.On March 9, I’ll be speaking to Carolina Jews for Justice in Asheville, North Carolina. On March 10, I’ll be attending a fundraiser for Gaza in Asheville.On March 8, Smol Emuni (the Religious Left) will hold a conference in New York.Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza is a finalist for PEN America’s John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction.See you on Friday,PeterVIDEO TRANSCRIPT:So, on January 24th, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, observing what ICE and Border Patrol have been doing in his city, which is just terrifying so many immigrant families that their children are unwilling to leave the house, he wrote, ‘we have got children in Minnesota hiding in their houses, afraid to go outside. Many of us grew up reading that story of Aunt Frank. Somebody’s going to write that children’s story about Minnesota.’So, after that, Walz was attacked by the Anti-Defamation League and the Holocaust Museum in Washington, and Trump’s antisemitism envoy for having kind of desecrated the history of the Nazi Holocaust by invoking Anne Frank’s name to talk about what happened in Minnesota, even though Tim Walz was not saying that children in Minnesota were being sent to death camps. He didn’t say anything like that. He simply was saying that there were children who were hiding in their homes, and that perhaps one of those children would be writing a diary that people would [read about some] day.I mean, it’s just important to make—this should be an obvious point—but not every comparison with the Nazis is to suggest that the thing being compared to the Nazis is involved in a process of mass extermination. The Nazis did many, many things in addition to the mass extermination of Jews, and Roma, and LGBT folks, and others, right?But these organizations, the ADL, the Holocaust Museum, right, basically don’t want to use the example of the Holocaust to suggest that something terrible is happening in Minnesota. They’re much less concerned about the massive human rights abuses and massive violations of the rule of law that are happening in Minnesota and across the country than in maintaining the claim that nothing can be compared to the Holocaust, or at least no other human rights abuses can be compared to the Holocaust, because they have no problem, for instance, comparing the Iranian regime with the Nazis, if that serves Israeli foreign policy.Interestingly, a few days after Walz’s comments, there was another analogy to the Holocaust, and this came from Moshe “Boogie” Yaalon. Boogie is his nickname. Boogie Yaalon is not a leftist radical. He was actually the chief of staff of the IDF. And then he was Benjamin Netanyahu’s defense minister from 2013 to 2016.And this is, I’m going to read you snippets of the translation of what Boogie Yaalon wrote. He wrote: ‘on the last Tuesday evening, I participated in an event marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day. When I got home, I received a message about Jewish pogromists attacking Palestinians in southern Mount Hebron, stealing their sheep, and burning their property.’ And then he writes, “you can’t compare.”He goes on: “After ambulances, which tried to reach the scene were delayed by t

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.comDaoud Kuttab is an award-winning Palestinian journalist and author of State of Palestine NOW. He supports two states, because “the most urgent and doable solution now is the creation of an independent state of Palestine that can live at peace with Israel.”His brother, Jonathan Kuttab is a co-founder of the human rights groups Al Haq and Nonviolence International and author of Beyond the Two State Solution. He believes two states “is no longer feasible.” He therefore supports “solutions that truly address the fundamental issues and the needs of all parties, including settlers, and Palestinian citizens of Israel, which the two-state solution failed to do.” This week, Daoud and Jonathan offered their competing perspectives.

A list of ways to help Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time, Friday at 1 PM Eastern. Last week’s guests were two Jewish brothers who disagree politically. This week, the intra-family disagreement will be between two Palestinian brothers. Daoud Kuttab is an award-winning Palestinian journalist and author of State of Palestine NOW. He supports two states, because “the most urgent and doable solution now is the creation of an independent state of Palestine that can live at peace with Israel.” His brother, Jonathan Kuttab is a co-founder of the human rights groups Al Haq and Nonviolence International and author of Beyond the Two State Solution. He believes two states “is no longer feasible.” He therefore supports “solutions that truly address the fundamental issues and the needs of all parties, including settlers, and Palestinian citizens of Israel, which the two-state solution failed to do.” Daoud and Jonathan will offer their competing perspectives on Friday.Ask Me AnythingOur next Ask Me Anything session, for PREMIUM SUBSCRIBERS ONLY, will be this Wednesday, January 28, from 11-12 AM Eastern time.Cited in Today’s VideoParshat Bo in the Book of Exodus.Donald Trump’s interview with the New York Times.Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech at Davos.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 reports on whether congressional candidate Brad Lander can recreate Zohran Mamdani’s coalition between liberal and anti-Zionists.In The Guardian, I argued that Donald Trump is just the latest president to fall in love with war.In Haaretz, Libby Lenkinski asks whether the Netanyahu government will destroy independent cinema in Israel.Former Clinton official Abby Ross argues that it’s time to disband NATO.Because of bad weather, my talk to Carolina Jews for Justice in Asheville, North Carolina has been rescheduled from January 26 to March 9 and the subsequent fundraiser for Gaza has been rescheduled from January 27 until March 10.On February 3, I’ll be speaking at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.On February 12, I’ll speaking at the Conference on the Jewish Left at Boston University.On March 3, three descendants of Americans punished during the red scare will discuss America’s new McCarthyism.On March 8, Smol Emuni (the Religious Left) will hold a conference in New York.See you on Friday,PeterVIDEO TRANSCRIPT:So, there’s this famous line by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach where he says that Torah is a commentary on the world, and the world is a commentary on Torah. By which I think he meant that we see new things in Torah, just as people could see new things in any religious text, because of our life experience, because of what we see happening in the world in our time. And, I thought there was a kind of interesting illustration of this in last week’s Torah portion in the book of Exodus, Parshat Bo, which is particularly powerful to read in the age of Donald Trump.There’s one particular line. It’s during the last of the three plagues in Egypt. And Moses and his brother Aaron go to Pharaoh to announce the eighth plague, the plague of locusts. And when Pharaoh still refuses to allow the Israelites to go, to leave, the text says that ‘Moses turned and left Pharaoh’s presence.’ And the medieval commentator, ibn Ezra, interprets this phrase as suggesting that Moses left Pharaoh’s presence without Pharaoh’s permission, which, for an all-powerful ruler like Pharaoh, was potentially, risked death. There’s a bit of a parallel between the line we read in the book of Esther, in which Esther enters the presence of the Persian king without his permission, also an act punishable by death.And this is considered an act of tremendous courage, and it’s considered a kind of defiance, not only of Pharaoh’s tyranny, but of Pharaoh’s idolatry. Because in Jewish tradition, the fact that Pharaoh considers himself a god is intimately linked with Pharaoh’s tyranny and brutality. And so, to suggest that Pharaoh is not all-powerful, that Pharaoh doesn’t have some kind of divine status is not only part of a struggle for freedom, but it’s actually a rejection of idolatry itself. And so, Pharaoh becomes a kind of anti-model for the Jewish kings in the Hebrew Bible who are required to write a Sefer Torah, to write a kind of book of law, to show that they are not the law there, that the law binds them, and indeed, that they are not God.Now, Donald Trump, in his own kind of more modern secular language, also, I think, suggests often that he is a kind of a divine figure, right? He said to the New York Times recently that basically he is bound by no law other than his own sense of morality, kind of warped as that sense is. He also said, in speaking about his first year in office, or in his first year since returning to office, he said, Go