The Beinart Notebook

This week’s zoom call will be at A SPECIAL TIME: THURSDAY AT 2 PM Eastern. In light of the Chanukah massacre in Sydney, we’ll talk to Sarah Schwartz, a human rights lawyer who grew up in Sydney, and is the founding executive officer of the Jewish Council of Australia, a Jewish community organization founded to fight against antisemitism and all forms of racism, and to support Palestinian freedom and justice. We’ll talk about the unique history of the Jewish community in Australia, about the rise of antisemitism there and about how to combat it while also opposing bigotry against all people.Cited in Today’s VideoThe Babylonian Talmud’s discussion of the dangers of lighting a Chanukiah in public.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!), Anne Irfan shows how the Trump plan for Gaza is crowding Palestinians there into even less land.Dana El Kurd talks to Matan Kaminer and Ben Schuman-Stoler about Gaza and the Abraham Accords.A list of ways to help Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.See you on Thursday at 2,PeterVIDEO TRANSCRIPT:When I woke up on Sunday morning and read the news of this terrible massacre on the first night of Chanukah in Sydney, Australia, a couple of things went through my mind.The first is about the nature of Jews in Australia, and the second is about the nature of Chanukah. I’ve had the good fortune of spending a fair amount of time in the Jewish community in Sydney and Melbourne, and the Australian Jewish community is one of the most extraordinary that I have ever seen anywhere in the world. It’s a very, very cohesive Jewish community; very, very vibrant; very strong dedication to Jewish education. And it’s different than the American Jewish community in that it is closer to the European experience. Most American Jews came to the U.S. in the late 19th or early 20th century. Many Australian Jews came later, before or after the Holocaust. And so, you have a much larger percentage of families in Australia that are the direct descendants of people who survived the Holocaust, with many, many families being touched very, very deeply by that experience. It is really a community that is more, I think, affected, more closer to, more traumatized by the experience of the Holocaust than almost any other Jewish community on Earth. And so, for a community that has that deep trauma in so many Australian Jewish families, to now have this new trauma, this terrible, terrible massacre that killed—we now know—15 people on the first night of Chanukah is just horrifying beyond words.The second thing is about the fact that it happened on Chanukah. When I read the news, I was reminded that there’s not a lot of discussion about Chanukah in the Talmud, but in the relatively brief discussion there is, there’s a discussion in Tractate Shabbat about the nature, about the mitzvah to put the Chanukiah—the Chanukah lamp—in the entrance to one’s house.And the rabbis say that the mitzvah, the obligation, is to put the Chanukiah, the lamp, in the window, so it is visible to the public. But then, they say that the sages say that in a time of danger, in a time of religious persecution, when Jews are not allowed to perform the mitzvah of lighting the Chanukah lamp, it is permitted to place the Chanukiah on the table instead, so it can’t be seen from outside.And so, it was very, very poignant to think about this discussion in the Babylonian Talmud against the backdrop of this experience in Sydney, Australia, which did turn out to be extremely dangerous—deadly, actually—to perform the mitzvah of publicizing the miracle of Chanukah, and that the rabbis, you know, the rabbis close to 2,000 years ago, were worried about this very issue. Could Jews safely celebrate Chanukah, publicize the mitzvah of Chanukah, or did we need a special dispensation to say that in times of grave danger, that Jews can perform the Chanukah ritual, the celebration, in private?And so, to me, that seems to me, in some ways, kind of one way of thinking about what is at stake today, in a world of rising antisemitism. Do we live in a world in which it is safe for Jews to light Chanukiahs in public, as the rabbis prefer to publicize the miracle that happened, that we celebrate on Chanukah, or do we live in a time of such great danger that Jews should have to do so in private because the risk of doing what those Australian Jews did on the first night on Bondi Beach in Sydney is actually too dangerous?I am sure, I am sure, that the response by Jewish communities around the world will be to double down on the obligation to publicize the miracle, perform the celebration of Chanukah in public, to not be daunted, to not be scared by this. But it is terrible. It is terrible to imagine that there might be some who actually now need to go back to the Talmudic discussion, about whether it’s safe, in fact, to light a Chanu

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.comMahmood Mamdani is the Herbert Lehman Professor of Government at Columbia University, and father of the mayor-elect of New York City. We’ll talk about Professor Mamdani’s new memoir about his family’s experience in Uganda, his research on the similarities—and differences—between settler-colonialism in South Africa, Israel-Palestine and the United States, and what it’s like to be a Muslim in Trump’s America.

. 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

Given the controversy over my talk at Tel Aviv University, I thought it would be interesting to talk to two experts on boycotts. Zackie Achmat is a veteran South African political activist and a leading authority on the role of boycotts in the anti-apartheid movement. Mazin Qumsiyeh is founder and volunteer director of the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability at Bethlehem University and the author of Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of Hope and Empowerment, which chronicles non-violent protest in Palestinian history. We spoke about the history of boycotts in both places, the ethical dilemmas they create, and whether or not they work. 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

Recently, Jeremy Ben-Ami wrote an essay criticizing my apology for speaking at Tel Aviv University. I thought it would be a good idea to have him on to explore our differences. 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.This week’s call will be at a special time, WEDNESDAY at 1 PM. Given the controversy over my talk at Tel Aviv University, and subsequent apology, I thought it would be interesting to talk to two experts on boycotts: one South African and one Palestinian. Zackie Achmat is a veteran South African political activist and a leading authority on the role of boycotts in the anti-apartheid movement. Mazin Qumsiyeh is founder and volunteer director of the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability at Bethlehem University and the author of Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of Hope and Empowerment, which chronicles non-violent protest in Palestinian history. We’ll talk about the history of boycotts in both places, the ethical dilemmas they create and whether or not they work.This week’s live Zoom call will be for paid subscribers, as usual. But we will make the video available for everyone.Cited in Today’s VideoThe Trump administration’s agreement with Northwestern University.At Harvard, Muslim students are more than twice as likely as Jewish students to feel unsafe.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!), Lee Mordechai chronicles Israel’s “collective amnesia” about the genocide in Gaza.For the Foundation for Middle East Peace, I talked to Ahmed Moor about my apology for speaking at Tel Aviv University.I talked on the Know Your Enemy podcast about the varying Jewish reactions to Zohran Mamdani.Haaretz profiles Israel’s “Faithful Left.”Check our Terrell Starr’s excellent Substack newsletter.The New York Times named Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza one of the 100 notable books of 2025.I’ll be speaking on December 8 at the Society for the Advancement of Judaism in New York City.Reader ResponseI occasionally publish letters from readers who take issue with something I’ve said. This one comes from Hillel Schenker, co-editor of the Palestine-Israel Journal:“I don’t understand why you felt you made ‘a serious mistake’ by speaking at Tel Aviv University. Virtually all of the humanities lecturers at the university are on the left, as are a good percentage of the students. They are highly critical of the extreme right-wing government policy, and the current Tel Aviv University President Prof. Ariel Porat has defended the right of Arab and left-wing students to protest against the war.My predecessor as Israeli Co-Editor of Palestine-Israel Journal was Prof. Daniel Bar-Tal. When he was the Co-Director of Tel Aviv University’s Walter Lebach Research Institute for Jewish-Arab Coexistence, together with Prof. Amal Jamal, a Palestinian-Israel, we arranged for them to host a presentation by Prof. Johan Galtung at the university, who is considered the father of peace research. That earned Bar-Tal the title of “enemy of Israel” from all the right-wing watchdogs. And Galtung himself (who was also on the enemy of Israel lists), who was highly critical of both Israeli and American government policies, had no problem appearing at Tel Aviv U. alongside an appearance we arranged for him at the Palestinian Al-Quds University in Abu-Dis in the West Bank.You could have found a way to show respect for the BDS movement while at the same explaining that you are critical of any support that any part of the university gives to the IDF. The literature departments definitely don’t supply arms to the IDF, and their curriculum is under attack from the right-wing ministers of education and culture.”See you on Wednesday,PeterVIDEO TRANSCRIPT:So, the day after Thanksgiving, the Trump administration announced another agreement with an American university—in this case Northwestern University. And it’s really striking if you look at the language that Trump’s Department of Justice uses in describing the terms of this agreement.So, let me just quote a couple of elements from it. The Justice Department writes that Northwestern University will ‘safeguard its students, employees and faculty from unlawful discrimination based on race, religion, sex, and national origin, including race-based admissions practices and a hostile educational environment directed towards Jewish students.’ And then it goes on that the university will ensure that it ‘does not preference individuals based on race, color, or national origin in admission, scholarships, hiring, or promotion.’ And then it goes on to say that it will ‘implement mandatory antisemitism training for all students, faculty, and staff.’So, what do you notice about this language? On the one hand, the Trump administration is boasting that Northwestern is going to treat all students equally, irrespective of race, religion, national origin, etc. And then, literally in the next sentence, it says and it’s also going to do this special thing to protect Jewish students, this special thi

Anne Irfan is an expert on Palestinian refugee rights, the UN and UNRWA. She is a Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Race, Gender and Postcolonial Studies at University College London (UCL). She has previously taught at the University of Oxford, the London School of Economics, and the University of Sussex.I invited her to talk about her latest book, A Short History of the Gaza Strip. 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.comOur guest is Chapman University Professor Emeritus Nubar Hovsepian, author of the new book, Edward Said: The Politics of an Oppositional Intellectual. We talked about Professor Hovsepian’s insights into Said, his close friend, and about what we might learn from Said’s work for this moment in Israel-Palestine and the United States.

Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove is the rabbi of the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York City. He has written for a variety of Jewish publications, including The Jewish Week and The Forward. He is the author of the 2024 book “For Such a Time as This: On Being Jewish Today” and the host of the podcast Common Faith.We have some strong disagreements so I’m grateful that he was willing to come on and discuss them with me. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit peterbeinart.substack.com/subscribe

A list of ways to help Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.This Friday’s Zoom call will be at 1 PM Eastern, our usual time. Our guest will be Chapman University Professor Emeritus Nubar Hovsepian, author of the new book, Edward Said: The Politics of an Oppositional Intellectual. We’ll talk about Professor Hovsepian’s insights into Said, his close friend, and about what we might learn from Said’s work for this moment in Israel-Palestine and the United States.Ask Me AnythingOur next Ask Me Anything session, for PREMIUM subscribers only, will be this Wednesday, November 12, from 1-2 PM Eastern time.Cited in Today’s VideoRabbi Chaim Steinmetz’s message to his congregation that after Mamdani’s victory, life for New York Jews is “beginning to feel like the 1930s.”Jason Sokol’s, There Goes My Everything: White Southerners in the Age of Civil Rights, 1945-1975.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!), I argued that Zohran Mamdani’s victory may herald a coalition between anti-Zionists and liberal Zionists that can transform the Democratic Party.Why the polls may understate Mamdani’s share of the Jewish vote.Yeshayahu Leibowitz, 50 years ago, on last week’s Parsha, Parshat Vayeira.Rabbi Aron Wander on the psychotheology of American Zionism.I’ll be speaking on November 10 at Cornell University and Congregation Tikkun v’Or in Ithaca, New York and on December 8 at the Society for the Advancement of Judaism in New York City.Reader ResponseI occasionally publish letters from readers who take issue with something I’ve said. This one comes from Sophia (last name withheld):I’ve been reading your coverage of Mamdani and although I think a lot of it is very fair criticism of establishment Judaism, respectfully, I think you are missing one major point. Speaking only for myself, I can tell you that I *hate* Cuomo, and that the idea of voting for him is repellent to me. I too hate the Islamophobia that is showing in our community, and I hate the message that sexual harassment is acceptable in a way that antisemitism is not. These messages are embarrassing and offensive to me.Two things can be true at the same time, though. I have no issue with people being so-called critical of Israel, and of that criticism having grown in intensity in the last two years (it certainly has for me). However, I find Mamdani to be monomaniacally obsessed with Israel and its crimes in a way that I find concerning and even antisemitic. When people say what about North Korea, China, Sudan, etc., I don’t find that to be an excuse for Israel’s behavior. But when he identifies Israel in one way or another as the source of most evils here in the US, I think that is suspicious. Israel is not the cause of racist policing in the U.S., that predates Israel! I am not assuaged by him promising to protect synagogues; that would be his job as mayor, not a favor he hands out to Jews. If he is so concerned (correctly) about affordability in the city, stop campaigning on your commitment to defund the Technion; it is basically a dog-whistle at this point for the anti-Israel and even antisemitic Left (which are two descriptors that I distinguish between, as I don’t believe being anti-Israel is necessarily antisemitic)See you on Friday,PeterVIDEO TRANSCRIPT:So, there’s a rabbi on the Upper East Side of New York named Chaim Steinmetz. He is the rabbi of a synagogue called Kehilath Jeshurun. It’s probably the most prominent Orthodox synagogue on the Upper East Side of New York. It’s one of the most prominent Orthodox synagogues in all of New York, in fact, in all of America.And after Zohran Mamdani’s victory in last week’s election for mayor of New York, he wrote in a letter to his congregants, ‘it’s beginning to feel like the 1930s.’ It’s beginning to feel like the 1930s. He’s not the only person who feels this way. A prominent rabbi in the Hamptons on Long Island announced that he’s going to build an entire Jewish Day School, because he’s expecting so many Jews to flee New York City in fear, and come out to Long Island, and he’s going to build a day school for their children.Now, for many, many people, many non-Jews, but also many Jews, many progressive Jews, this is baffling. It’s just really, really hard to understand how people could look at Zohran Mamdani, a guy who won at least a third of the Jewish vote, a guy who’s got tons and tons of Jews in his campaign, a guy who speaks again and again and again about Jewish safety and about his opposition to antisemitism, a guy who smiles constantly, that they would feel this level of terror just because Mamdani believes that Israel should be a state in which Palestinians and Jews are treated equally.But it’s important to try to understand the reason for this terror, which I think in many, many people’s cases is actually genuine. And it’s also really important to understand t

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.comOur guests are Palestinian-American Georgia State Representative, and gubernatorial candidate, Ruwa Romman, who was denied the chance to speak at last year’s Democratic convention, and former Obama speechwriter Ben Rhodes, co-host of the podcast, Pod Save the World.

A list of ways to help Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.This Friday’s Zoom call will be at 1 PM Eastern, our usual time. We’ll talk about the New York mayoral race’s ramifications for the Israel-Palestine debate nationally. Our guests will be Palestinian-American Georgia State Representative, and gubernatorial candidate, Ruwa Romman, who was denied the chance to speak at last year’s Democratic convention, and former Obama speechwriter Ben Rhodes, co-host of the podcast, Pod Save the World.Cited in Today’s VideoThe Department of Justice alleged that Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed thirteen women.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!), Rhys Machold questions the “Start Up Nation” myth.Senator Rand Paul defends the Constitution against Donald Trump.The funeral of Rabbi Arthur Waskow, z’’l.Check out Arno Rosenfeld’s new Substack, Antisemitism Decoded.The Halachic Left on Parshat Lech Lecha.I discussed Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza on KALW public radio in the Bay Area.I’ll be speaking on November 3 at the University of Chicago, November 6 at Columbia Journalism School, and November 10 at Cornell University and Congregation Tikkun v’Or in Ithaca, New York.See you Friday, PeterVIDEO TRANSCRIPT:So, when I started writing my book, I didn’t think it would be about idolatry. I mean, I knew it would be about Israel and the destruction of Gaza, but it ended up kind of being a book about idolatry because the more I wrote it, the more I began to feel that the organized American Jewish community was willing to sacrifice almost anything to preserve unconditional support for the state of Israel, that every other value, every other principle was subordinated to that.And I’m seeing that so dramatically and, to me, in what is such a disgraceful way in the final days of this campaign against Zohran Mamdani. What are you willing to sacrifice in order to prevent a New York mayor who says that Israeli Jews and Palestinians should live equally under the same law? What are you willing to try to do to destroy such a candidate? The answer is: lie with almost anyone, do almost anything.Let’s just look at the examples. We have now all of these rabbis who have either explicitly or implicitly endorsed Andrew Cuomo to be next mayor of New York. This is a man who the Department of Justice found had sexually harassed 13 women, sexually harassed 13 women according to the Department of Justice. And you have rabbis telling their congregants that they need to overlook this and support this man.Do these rabbis ever think about what message that sends to the women in their own congregations who are being sexually harassed, who might look to a rabbi for pastoral care? Your message it sends to those women when your rabbi gets up and says, I want you to vote for the serial sexual harasser, what does it say about how much you care about women’s right to be free of sexual harassment?It says it is much less important to you than the principle of ensuring that Israel never faces accountability for its crimes under international law, even when those crimes have been widely acknowledged by the world’s leading genocide scholars, including many Israeli-born genocide scholars, right? That maintaining Israeli impunity to commit genocide and ensuring that Israel doesn’t have to face pressure for equality with Palestinians, that that is more important than the principle that sexual harassment is wrong and that sexual harassers should not be in high public office.What else are these Jewish leaders willing to sacrifice for the idolatry of unconditional support for the state of Israel? Well, complicity in a mass campaign of anti-Muslim bigotry. We’re daily deluged in the final days of this campaign by just the crudest, most vicious anti-Muslim bigotry against Zohran Mamdani. Now, I’m not saying that everyone who opposes Zohran Mamdani is an anti-Muslim bigot. Of course not.But I wonder whether it should at least give some of these Jewish leaders a little bit of pause that they have thrown in their lot with a candidate, Andrew Cuomo, who laughed and suggested with a radio talk show host that Zohran Mamdani would have applauded 9/11. This is the people with whom you are throwing in your lot, a viciously anti-Muslim bigoted campaign, and you’re saying, well, you know, opposing anti-Muslim bigotry is less important to me than preserving unconditional support for the state of Israel to be able to perpetuate what the world’s leading human rights organizations have termed as apartheid and genocide.And then there’s the question of American democracy, right? Because this mayoral election is not happening under ordinary circumstances, right? It’s happening amidst the potential authoritarian takeover and destruction of America’s system of liberal democracy by Donald Trump. And so, one thing you might really wa

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.comOur guest is Jonathan Mahler, a staff writer at the New York Times Magazine and author of the new book, Gods of New York: Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists, and the Birth of the Modern City: 1986-1990. With New York on the verge of electing a socialist, Muslim, anti-Zionist mayor, I ask Jonathan how the city has changed over the last three decades, and how those changes enabled the rise of Zohran Mamdani.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.comKat Abughazaleh, the 26-year-old Palestinian-American running for Congress in Illinois’s Ninth District, has been federally indicted after being arrested at an ICE protest. We talk about that and about her vision for a revitalized Democratic Party.

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.This Friday’s Zoom call will be at 1 PM Eastern, our usual time. Our guest will be Jonathan Mahler, a staff writer at the New York Times Magazine and author of the new book, Gods of New York: Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists, and the Birth of the Modern City: 1986-1990. With New York on the verge of electing a socialist, Muslim, anti-Zionist mayor, I want to ask Jonathan how the city has changed over the last three decades, and how those changes enabled the rise of Zohran Mamdani.Ask Me AnythingOur next Ask Me Anything session, for premium subscribers, will be this Tuesday, October 28, from Noon-1 PM Eastern time.Cited in Today’s VideoRabbi Ammiel Hirsch, Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, and Bret Stephens attack Zohran Mamdani.According to CBS, Mamdani is winning 38 percent of the Jewish vote.According to the Washington Post, 39 percent of American Jews think Israel is committing genocide.Mamdani has called both Narendra Modi and Vladimir Putin war criminals.When apartheid South Africa’s prime minister complained about “double standards.”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!), Suzanne Schneider analyzes the Trump administration’s grant to a neoconservative Jewish group.Waleed Shahid on Mamdani’s lessons for Democrats.Nathan Thrall on what Israelis and Palestinians have learned since October 7.Rabbi David Polsky argues that starving Palestinians in Gaza violates Jewish law.I’ll be speaking on November 2 at Tzedek Chicago, November 6 at Columbia Journalism School, and November 10 at Congregation Tikkun v’Or in Ithaca, New York.See you on Tuesday and Friday,PeterVIDEO TRANSCRIPT:So, as we get near the New York mayoral race, the attacks on Zohran Mamdani have been become more intense, and in particular from a number of rabbis and Jewish commentators. And it’s really interesting to look carefully at the nature of these attacks on Mamdani to see what they say and what they don’t say.What you notice is the attacks on Mamdani do not actually engage in a substantive critique with any actual evidence against the positions that Mamdani has taken, for instance, that Israel’s committing genocide, or that the New York City should support the International Criminal Court’s indictment of Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes, or that Israel should be a state that treats all its citizens equally rather than one that gives Jews legal superiority. None of these arguments are actually made. What you see instead is a series of techniques that are all designed to suggest—although not always explicitly—that basically Mamdani is an antisemite. And I think there are two particular ways that are worth noting about the way in which these claims of antisemitism are created.The first is that these critics—Jewish critics of Mamdani—posit that they speak for a Jewish consensus, a kind of Jewish pro-Israel consensus. And the fact that Mamdani is against that Jewish pro-Israel consensus is evidence that he has something against Jews, right? So, Rabbi Ammiel Hirsh did this video where he said that most Jews are deeply offended by Zohran Mamdani saying that Israel has committed genocide. Now, that itself is kind of interesting, right? Hirsch is not presenting any evidence that the claim is wrong. He’s simply saying that most Jews are offended. So, it’s a kind of like an identity claim argument, right, that there must be something problematic about this charge of genocide because most Jews are offended, i.e., this probably, you know, suggests some anti-Jewish animus on Mamdani’s part.But it’s just factually wrong, actually. The Washington Post just recently came out with a poll showed that 39 percent of American Jews think Israel is committing genocide; fifty one percent don’t. So, it’s not a majority of American Jews who think Israel is committing genocide. But it’s a quite large minority of American Jews, right. So, by taking this position, Zohran Mamdani is essentially siding with the more progressive wing of the American Jewish community over the more conservative wing of the American Jewish community, which is hardly surprising given that he’s a political progressive, right, that he is in a way exposing a very deep and increasingly bitter divide among Jews in New York and other places. In fact, it’s probably not a coincidence that Zohran Mamdani is getting about in the polls around 40% of the Jewish vote, running close to Andrew Cuomo, which is roughly the same percentage of Jews nationally think Israel’s committing genocide, right?But Ammi Hirsch can’t acknowledge that. He has to portray himself as kind of someone who speaks for Jews as a whole, right, even though nobody has elected him, right? Very few Jewish New Yorkers even know who he is. There’s no reason to believe that he would have the right to do that. But he has to do it in order

Our guest is Gaza-born political analyst Muhammad Shehada, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. He’s been explaining why Trump’s ceasefire isn’t even a ceasefire, let alone a path to Palestinian freedom. And he’s been discussing the clashes inside Gaza between Hamas and Israeli-supported clans. We talked about the Trump plan, Gaza’s future, and the long-term consequences of this genocide. 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/subscribe

Cited in Today’s VideoWhy 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 VideoNaftali 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,PeterVIDEO 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 i

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.comOur 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 VideoYeshayahu 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,PeterVIDEO 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 vio

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.comOur 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.comOur 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 itThe schism among Jews todayJewish 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,PeterVIDEO 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 found

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.comOur 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 VideoEzra 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 dissentFor 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,PeterVIDEO 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

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.comOur guest is Avrum Burg, the former speaker of the Knesset, who has been using traditional Jewish religious forms in remarkable ways to challenge the genocide in Gaza. He has authored a poem entitled, “If God Were in the Heavens of Gaza” and a Kaddish “for the blessed memory of all innocent” victims. We read them during our call, and discuss, in these days leading up to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, how Jews can repent for our complicity in the horror being committed in our name.

An Auction to Support the People of GazaWEDNESDAY Zoom CallThis week’s Zoom call will be at a special time, WEDNESDAY at 1 PM Eastern. Our guest will be Avrum Burg, the former speaker of the Knesset, who has been using traditional Jewish religious forms in remarkable ways to challenge the genocide in Gaza. He has authored a poem entitled, “If God Were in the Heavens of Gaza” and a Kaddish “for the blessed memory of all innocent” victims. He will read them during our Zoom call, and we will discuss, in these days leading up to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, how Jews can repent for our complicity in the horror being committed in our name.Ask Me AnythingOur next Ask Me Anything session, for premium subscribers, will be this Tuesday, September 16, from 1-2 PM Eastern time.Cited in Today’s VideoBari Weiss on “Je Suis Charlie.”Bari Weiss on overcoming “Trump derangement syndrome.”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!), Sean Pergola reflects on the Los Angeles Holocaust Museum’s apology for saying “’Never Again’ Can’t Only Mean Never Again For Jews.”Sam Adler-Bell on how former Biden officials are spinning their actions on Gaza.Nadine Apelian Dobbs on a story of Palestinian survival.Daniel Levy on how Israel’s disengagement from Gaza laid the foundation for the current genocide.How many Democrats does New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand know?I was the subject of a profile in Haaretz’s magazineSee you on WEDNESDAY,PeterVIDEO TRANSCRIPT:So, in the wake of the terrible murder of Charlie Kirk, I was struck by this tweet by Bari Weiss. And Bari Weiss writes, ‘whether you agree with him or not is completely, utterly, totally beside the point. We won’t do it. Je suis Charlie.’ That’s a kind of reference to the newspaper Charlie Hebdo, the French newspaper, where there were these terrible murders 10 years ago by people supposedly upset by the kind of the cartoons that the newspaper was doing of the prophet Muhammad. And Bari Weiss, as I understand it, is suggesting here that there’s something wrong with saying in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder that you think that some of his political views were reprehensible, that somehow that detracts from your opposition to his murder. This doesn’t seem to me to make any sense whatsoever.I think it’s obvious that the killing of Charlie Kirk was horrifying, that that person should be put in jail. They should be punished to the full extent of the law. No matter what someone’s political views, you absolutely have no right to resort to violence. It’s a horror for his family and all the people who cared about him. It’s just absolutely fundamentally wrong. But just because something that was fundamentally wrong was done to someone—a crime—doesn’t mean that when discussing that person’s legacy, you can’t talk about their political views. And the suggestion in this case, that Bari Weiss thinks that that conversation is illegitimate, I think is really quite revealing, right, about what she actually thinks about Charlie Kirk.Because let’s imagine, God forbid, that Rashida Tlaib were assassinated or Zohran Mamdani were assassinated. I think it’s really hard to imagine that Bari Weiss would be tweeting, you know, je suis Rashida, je suis Zohran. Of course, she wouldn’t. She would say that the murders were wrong, but she would not think it was illegitimate in any way to talk about the fact that their political views in her mind were ones that she fundamentally opposed, right?Or to take a different side of the ideological spectrum, let’s think about the assassination many years ago of the racist Israeli politician, Meir Kahane, who was assassinated, right? And that was wrong. He should not have been assassinated. That was a crime, right? But I think, I would hope no one would have responded to that by saying, je suis Meir, right? As if to say, I’m going to embrace everything about Meir Kahane simply because he was killed, right? You should be able to say, it’s wrong that he was killed. That person should be prosecuted under the law. And the man also had reprehensible racist views.And I don’t think Bari Weiss would have difficulty understanding that whatsoever if it was someone whose political views they really disagreed with. And here, I think, is really the critical point here, right, is that Charlie Kirk, among many other things, was someone who very actively supported Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. He even organized to send buses of people to the rally that attacked the Capitol in trying to overthrow that democratic election. Charlie Kirk was therefore fundamentally an opponent of liberal democracy in the United States. When you try to overthrow free elections in the United States, you’re declaring war on American democracy.Again, to say it again and again and again, of course, it doesn’t mean that by any means he should ha

Our guest was Abdullah Awwad, a doctor in the orthopedic department of the Al Shifa Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip. In his Fundraising page, he writes that his “once-vibrant city has been reduced to rubble” and that “we are currently living in overcrowded shelters, struggling for basic necessities like food, clean water, and medical supplies.” Because of the difficulty of connecting to WiFi in Gaza, I was only able to speak with Dr. Awwad sporadically. We used the remaining time to speak with others with information about Gaza. 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

Friday Zoom CallThis Friday’s Zoom call will be at 1 PM Eastern, our usual time. Our guest will be Abdullah Awwad, a doctor in the orthopedic department of the Al Shifa Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip. In his Go Fund Me page, he writes that his “once-vibrant city has been reduced to rubble” and that “we are currently living in overcrowded shelters, struggling for basic necessities like food, clean water, and medical supplies.” I’ll ask him what it’s like to work as a doctor in Gaza today.The live call will be for paid subscribers only (due to capacity limits), but the full video will be made available Sunday to all subscribers, paid and unpaid. Please consider supporting Abdullah and other Palestinians.Cited in Today’s VideoMandla Mandela on why Israel’s version of apartheid is worse than South Africa’s.Things to Read(Maybe this should be obvious, but I link to articles and videos I find provocative and significant, not necessarily ones I entirely agree with.)On the Jewish Currents (subscribe!) podcast, Arielle Angel, Mari Cohen, Nathan Goldman, and I answered readers’ questions.In the Guardian, Ahmad Ibsais asks why no one believed Palestinians when they called Gaza a genocide.For the Foundation for Middle East Peace’s Occupied Thoughts podcast, Ahmed Moor talks to Marianne Hirsch, a scholar of Holocaust memory who withdrew from teaching at Columbia after it adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism.On MSNBC, I debated whether there was a meaningful difference on Gaza between Trump and Biden.I’ll be speaking this Tuesday, September 9, at the University of Virginia.See you on Friday,PeterVIDEO TRANSCRIPT:It was an interesting interview last week with Mandla Mandela, the grandson of Nelson Mandela, in which Mandla Mandela says that what Israel’s doing to the Palestinians is far worse—those are his words—far worse than what apartheid South Africa did to Black South Africans. And I think he’s right, and I think it’s interesting to think about why that’s turned out to be the case. It’s kind of counterintuitive on its face, because there are some Palestinians under Israeli control who have the right to vote. Palestinian citizens, so-called Israeli Arabs, have the right to vote. They’re a minority of the Palestinians under Israeli control, because most of the Palestinians under Israeli control live in the West Bank and Gaza and East Jerusalem, and don’t vote, basically can’t vote.But the fact that any Palestinians under Israeli control can vote distinguishes Israel from apartheid South Africa in which no Black South Africans had the right to vote. There were, in the 1980s, two other groups, Indians and so-called Coloreds, who got certain kinds of voting rights, but Black South Africans never did. So, for that reason, one, I think, would naturally think that Israel’s domination is more benign, that Palestinians under Israeli control have more rights than Black South Africans did. But I think Mandla Mandela’s point was that modern-day South Africa, apartheid South Africa, didn’t commit a genocide against Black South Africans in the way that Israel is now doing in Gaza, and so for that fundamental reason that what Israel is doing is fundamentally worse.And I think the reason for this difference is that the apartheid regime in South Africa was dependent on Black labor. Black South Africans were the backbone of the economy, so Israel… so South Africa could not engage in mass expulsion or mass destruction of the Black population. It could certainly oppress them very brutally, but it needed their labor. Israel doesn’t need Palestinian labor nearly as much. In recent decades, Israel has moved away from relying on Palestinian labor from the occupied territories, brought in a lot of guest workers from Asia, and that has made the Palestinian population ‘disposable’ from Israel’s point of view, which is part of the reason I think you can see this widespread support now in Israel for mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, and indeed, this just mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza, because Palestinians are not valuable to the state as a labor force.And beyond that, in apartheid South Africa, because Black South Africans had the power of their labor, that became a very important part of the anti-apartheid movement in the 1980s, when the Black South African trade unions went on strike and put a lot of pressure on the government. In fact, Cyril Romaphosa, the current president of South Africa, was the head of the National Union of Mine Workers, which is a critical ally of the African National Congress in the anti-apartheid struggle. Palestinians don’t have that kind of similar power, which makes them more vulnerable.The other reason that I think Mandla Medela is correct, that Israel’s version of apartheid, and Israel’s system has been declared an apartheid system by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, B'Tselem, and many others, is that Israel’s version of apartheid simply lasted much longer. Apartheid in South Afr

Our guest is Angela Davis. We discuss…her history with Jewish peoplehow the civil rights movement saw the Palestinian strugle, and what lessons it offers todaywhen resistance turns violenthow student activism today compares to the activism of the 1960show she comes by her optimism This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit peterbeinart.substack.com/subscribe

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

A new way to donate to people in Gaza.Friday Zoom CallThis Friday’s Zoom call, for paid subscribers, will be at 1 PM Eastern, our usual time. Our guest will be the renowned activist and educator Angela Davis. We’ll talk about how the Palestinian freedom struggle resembles, and differs from, the struggles of other oppressed groups, and what US policy toward Israel-Palestine says about the United States. This call will be cosponsored by Jewish Currents.Cited in Today’s VideoAdam Friedland interviews Ritchie Torres.Israel moves closer to building settlements in E1.Things to Read(Maybe this should be obvious, but I link to articles and videos I find provocative and significant, not necessarily ones I entirely agree with.)In Jewish Currents (subscribe!), Simone Zimmerman asks why so many Jewish leaders took so long to condemn Israel’s assault on Gaza.The Economist offers an “anatomy of a famine” in Gaza.Why MAGA is turning against unconditional US support of Israel.For the Foundation for Middle East Peace, I interviewed Al Jazeera’s Laila Al-Arian about Israel’s targeting of journalists in Gaza.I talked to the Brave New Something Podcast about the need for a Jewish reckoning over Gaza.See you on Friday,PeterVIDEO TRANSCRIPT:So, there’s been a fair amount of attention, at least kind of that I’ve seen on social media, about an interview that a comedian named Adam Friedland did with Congressman Richie Torres that focused on the end of the interview a lot about Israel and Gaza. And it made me think about the role of comedians in often being able to say things that the mainstream media doesn’t say. You know, we think about people like Jon Stewart and John Oliver, and a lot of these folks. And I think that one of the reasons that these interviews with comedians often really break through, is that there is something fundamentally absurd about, especially about a lot of the American kind of establishment mainstream discourse about Israel and Palestine. And so often, the mainstream media, kind of takes this discourse as on the level, as credible, right, as sincere. And what comedians are more able to do is just recognize the absurdity of these things.And one particular area where I think it would be really valuable if this just became much more common is this claim that we hear all the time by American politicians, by Jewish leaders, that they support the two-state solution, right? That’s kind of so often the refuge, right? Israel’s doing something bad for Palestinians, and people say, well, I support the two-state solution. The truth is that the vast, vast majority of people in American public office, in public life, people who lead American Jewish organizations who say they support a two-state solution simply do not. They obviously do not support the idea of a sovereign, contiguous Palestinian state. And yet, their claim to support a two-state solution is taken as serious, sincere, when it’s self-evidently not, right?So, for instance, last week we heard news that Israel is kind of taking the final steps to build settlements in a territory called E1. Now, E1 basically would completely sever East Jerusalem, which is the largest Palestinian population center in the West Bank, from the rest of the West Bank, and also largely cut off the northern part of the West Bank from the southern part of the West Bank. So, it’s pretty obvious, right, that if you wanted a Palestinian state that was worth the name ‘state,’ right, which was a contiguous piece of territory, you could not possibly think it was a good idea to build Jewish settlements in E1. And yet, if you survey the vast, vast majority of politicians in Washington or Jewish leaders, or whoever, you know, who say they support a two-state solution, you will not hear them condemning what Israel’s doing in E1. And if you say to them, do you think the United States should condition military aid to try to stop Israel from building an E1? Should the US deploy sanctions to prevent this action that would clearly make a Palestinian state much, much more difficult, they would say no, right? And yet, they still say they support the two-state solution.The Israeli government, since Netanyahu, you know, returned to power with this constellation, with Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, has been passionately doing everything in its power to destroy the possibility of a Palestinian state by funding massive new settlement growth. And yet, the vast majority of people in Washington who say they support a two-state solution are not willing to support and would in fact actively resist any meaningful U.S. effort to stop that settlement growth that clearly makes a Palestinian state much, much harder—I would argue, at this point, actually, impossible.So, it’s an absurd position to take, and there’s something ridiculous. It’s a dereliction of duty for people in the media to take claims seriously when they’re confronted by a politician or a Jewish official whose own actions so obviously make it clear that they d

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.comOur guest is Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian-American green card holder abducted by the Trump administration in retaliation for his activism at Columbia University— and later released. We discuss…Growing up in a refugee campHis conversion to BuddhismHis abduction and confinementColumbia’s abandonment and why he chose to return to Columbia despite it

Rabbi Dr. Ismar Schorsch is chancellor emeritus of The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) and the Rabbi Herman Abramovitz Distinguished Professor of Jewish history. He’s had a long, illustrious career of service to the Jewish community, so some where surprised by his recent essay, A Hard Tisha B’Av, which is critical of both Israel and the lack of response from Jewish leadership. I’m honored he agreed to discuss it with me. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit peterbeinart.substack.com/subscribe

A new way to donate to people in Gaza.Friday Zoom CallThis Friday’s Zoom call, for paid subscribers, will be at 1 PM Eastern, our usual time. Our guest will be Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian-American green card holder abducted by the Trump administration in retaliation for his activism at Columbia University— and later released. We’ll talk about his childhood in the West Bank, his experience at Columbia, his detention, and what he’s learned from the experience.Ask Me AnythingOur next Ask Me Anything session, for premium subscribers, will be this Monday, August 25, from 2-3 PM Eastern time.Cited in Today’s VideoJonathan Greenblatt’s recent appearance on CNBC.Marwan Barghouti on the Second Intifada.The polls about Zohran Mamdani’s support among New York Jews.Things to Read(Maybe this should be obvious, but I link to articles and videos I find provocative and significant, not necessarily ones I entirely agree with.)In Jewish Currents (subscribe!), Maya Rosen and Erez Bleicher remember slain Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen.The Israeli military’s own data suggests that over 80% of the people it has killed in Gaza are civilians.How Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro influenced the University of Pennsylvania’s response to pro-Palestinian protest on campus.Omer Bartov predicts that the International Court of Justice will find Israel guilty of genocide.Eyal Press on Columbia’s disastrous decision to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism.I talked to Harrison Berger about Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza.“Home? A Palestinian Woman's Pursuit of Life, Liberty, & Happiness” is playing in San Francisco and New York this fall.See you on Monday and Friday,PeterVIDEO TRANSCRIPT:I think when this horror in Gaza is over—this destruction, this slaughter, starvation, which so many human rights organizations and legal scholars now call genocide—when it’s over, there’s gonna have to be a reckoning in the United States. Not just in the U.S. government providing the weapons and diplomatic support, but a kind of broader cultural reckoning. Because there’s so many institutions that I think are culpable in this, that will need to look themselves in the mirror. And one of them is the U.S. mainstream media. Because even now, even after almost 2 years into this, it’s still so easy for people who support unconditional support of what Israel’s doing to go on the U.S. media and say things that are palpably, obviously untrue, and not be challenged on these things, right?And so, one example is from last week. The ADL, Anti-Defamation League, head, Jonathan Greenblatt, goes on a show called ‘Squawk Box’ on CNBC, and just says one thing after another that are just obviously untrue, right? First, he says that Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York ‘has visited churches and mosques, not a single synagogue. Not once has he gone to a Jewish neighborhood.’ Immediately, people started tweeting pictures of Zohran Mamdani in his mayoral campaign having gone to synagogues, because he went to multiple synagogues, he went to multiple Jewish neighborhoods, he had multiple meetings with New York Jews and different Jewish officials, right?And then Greenblatt kind of incredibly, lamely says, I just meant that he hasn’t done so since he won the primary, which is not what he said at all. But the striking thing is that he wasn’t challenged on the show when he said that, right? And then he goes on to say in reference to the Intifada, this is how Greenblatt defines the Intifada. He says, ‘the Intifada was a violent uprising in the Palestinian territories where they murdered over 1,000 people simply because they were Jewish.’ Again, obviously, factually incorrect, right? First of all, there were two Intifadas since 1967. Intifada is an Arabic word that means, kind of, uprising or shaking off. But if one’s talking about in the West Bank and Gaza since 1967, there’s a First Intifada in the late 1980s, and a second in the early 2000s, right? Greenblatt is only referring to the second, probably because the first one was actually much, much more non-violent. So first of all, that’s dishonest, right, to begin with.Secondly, he says that they murdered over a thousand people, Israeli Jews. Greenblatt never mentions that at least three times as many Palestinians were murdered, right? So, these are really, I think, blatant dishonesties by omission. But then the last part is that these people were murdered simply because they were Jewish. I don’t think there’s a single scholar who has genuine academic credentials, who studied the Second Intifada, including in Israel, who, you know, or in Jewish scholars in the United States, who believe that, right? The Second Intifada was a violent uprising against Israeli oppression. Yes, it was an uprising that committed war crimes, that violated international law by targeting civilians. There were clearly civilians targeted to a significant degree, and that’s a violation of international law. You can

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

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.comLarry Summers, former US Treasury Secretary and Harvard President Emeritus, has been a strong defender of Israel and has been critical of what he sees as a lack of leadership from institutions like Harvard in condemning antisemitism on campus. We have some sharp disagreements on these issues, so I appreciate his willingness to hash them out with me.

A new way to donate to people in Gaza.Friday Zoom CallThis Friday’s Zoom call, for paid subscribers, will be at 1 PM Eastern, our usual time. Our guest will be Abdul El-Sayed, a child of Egyptian immigrants to the US, a Rhodes Scholar, a graduate of Columbia University Medical School and currently a Democratic candidate for the Senate in Michigan. I’m not endorsing Abdul’s candidacy (or anyone else’s), but I’m keen to talk to him about being an Arab and Muslim American politician in the age of Trump and about the political debate over Israel’s destruction of Gaza.Ask Me AnythingOur next Ask Me Anything session, for premium subscribers, will be a week from Monday, August 25, from 2-3 PM Eastern time.Cited in Today’s VideoHarvard’s decision to shut down programs that study Palestinians at the School of Public Health and Divinity School.The IHRA definition of antisemitism.Columbia historian Rashid Khalidi’s warning that enforcing the IHRA definition would make honest teaching and scholarship about Israel and Zionism impossible.Things to Read(Maybe this should be obvious, but I link to articles and videos I find provocative and significant, not necessarily ones I entirely agree with.)In Jewish Currents (subscribe!), Alex Kane details the role of the Department of Health and Human Services in Trump’s assault on free speech on campus.Mosab Abu Toha on the kinds of planes you see in Gaza.Trita Parsi on why Israel and Iran may soon be at war again.Adam Sticklor on Gaza as a Jewish story.A new poll shows Zohran Mamdani with a huge lead among young Jewish voters.Gaza’s average life expectancy has fallen by 35 years since October 7.I talked about Being Jewish After the Destruction with Piers MorganSee you Friday,PeterVIDEO TRANSCRIPT:So, there are reports that Harvard may soon settle with the Trump administration and reportedly pay $500 million and agree to some set of terms. This would follow, you know, deals by Colombia and Brown, and probably set in motion a whole series of additional kind of agreements by universities with the Trump administration. Harvard says that this agreement will not violate academic freedom.The harsh reality is that Harvard has already seriously infringed upon academic freedom. There’s already been a very serious imprint in violation of academic freedom, even before this agreement. It’s just that it doesn’t get noticed so much because it has to do with the rights of Palestinian scholars and Palestinian students, and people who want to study the fate of Palestinians. And there’s so little attention to the academic freedom and rights of Palestinian students and scholars, as opposed to Jewish students.And so, Harvard is already shut down two programs it had that worked on the question of the rights and livelihood of Palestinians: one at the School of Public Health, which was done in partnership with Birzeit University and the West Bank. The other at the Harvard Divinity School, which, led by Israeli and Palestinian scholars, used Israel and Palestine as a kind of case study in questions of religion, conflict, and oppression. Those have already both been shut down by Harvard, under pressure from Republican lawmakers, donors, establishment Jewish. Organizations. So, there’s already been a very serious infringement. There was no kind of real academic due process that led to the shutdown of this program. It was done nakedly in response to political pressure.But the deal would be much, much more dangerous because Harvard has already, to some degree, adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism. But if it’s only adopted in name, the dangers are relatively limited. But if you make a deal with the Trump administration for some kind of enforcement mechanism in which the IHRE definition of antisemitism, which, by the way, has very little support from actual scholars of antisemitism. It’s been pushed for years, not by academics who study antisemitism, but by the Israeli government and pro-Israel organizations. If you enforce that definition, you make the teaching of Israel and Palestine basically an absurdity. You make genuine teaching and scholarship on the question of Israel-Palestine essentially impossible.Let me try to explain why. Two of the examples of antisemitism that are listed in the IHRA definition are first, denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor. And secondly, drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis. So, let’s look at both of these. First of all, the language denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination is itself profoundly dishonest, right? Because Israel is not simply an exercise in Jewish self-determination. Self-determination is determination of the self. What Israel is doing is that it is determining, it is controlling the lives of millions of Palestinians, another people who lack individual and collect

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.comI was honored to speak with the Hungarian-Canadian physician Gabor Maté. We’ve never talked before, but I’ve long been struck by the psychological insight he brings to discussions of Israel-Palestine and the Jewish experience.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.comOur guest is children’s educator and entertainer Rachel Griffin-Accurso, better known as Ms. Rachel, who is often described as this generation’s Mr. Rogers. She has been outspoken on behalf of children in Gaza.

A new way to donate to people in Gaza.Friday Zoom CallThis Friday’s Zoom call, for paid subscribers, will be at 1 PM Eastern, our usual time. Our guest will be the children’s educator and entertainer Rachel Griffin-Accurso, better known as Ms. Rachel, who is often described as this generation’s Mr. Rogers. We’ll talk about her decision— despite outside pressure— to denounce the killing and starving of children in Gaza. This conversation will be cosponsored with Jewish Currents.Cited in Today’s VideoRichie Torres’ tweet about aid to Gaza.Some of the voices who were right after October 7.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!), Arielle Angel calls for new Jewish institutions in the wake of the genocide in Gaza.Rashid Khalidi on why he cancelled his class at Columbia.I talked to NPR’s The World about antisemitism, to B’Tselem’s Yuli Novak for the Foundation for Middle East Peace about their report accusing Israel of genocide and on CNN about US policy toward Gaza.What the data actually says about antisemitism at Columbia.Krystal Ball and Saager Engeti challenge Senator Elisa Slotkin on US policy toward Gaza.Rajan Menon on the genocide debate.David Polsky and Barnett Rubin on Tisha b’av in a time of genocide.See you on Friday,PeterVIDEO TRANSCRIPT:So last week, Richie Torres, who’s one of the most kind of well-known defenders of the Israeli government, tweeted something somewhat surprising. He tweeted, ‘the free world has a moral responsibility to Palestinians in distress. Flood Gaza with food.’ And I think it was just one illustration of this sense over the last week or so that a kind of dam has broken in American public discourse. It hasn’t yet changed U.S. policy, tragically, but that in mainstream media discourse and public discourse more generally, that people are much more willing to say things that they were reluctant to say in the past, that there is starvation in Gaza, that it is Israel’s fault, and that beyond that, that this slaughter and starvation, this assault on the people of Gaza, has to end, and that it’s immoral.And I think this kind of dam breaking raises some really interesting questions for people who care about ending the starvation and slaughter, and more generally, who care about Palestinian freedom. And I’m not saying that Richie Torres is about to become part of a Palestinian movement for freedom, but the broader issue of people who come to these things late I think is something that now is very much on the table.And I would say I have a few thoughts about the right way to respond to this. The first is that I think it’s worth being generous to people who come to realizations that one believes are morally correct, even if they come painfully late, and much, much later than one would like. And I take this vision partly because I feel like I have to, because I myself feel like I have been very painfully late to a lot of things that I now believe are true and didn’t just hold views that I now think are wrong and perhaps immoral, but actually championed them. And so, who am I basically to stand in judgment of someone who evolves slowly, more slowly than I would like, on a set of issues when I myself have done so and have needed the kind of forgiveness and understanding and grace of other people.The second point is that I think pragmatically, if you look at moral movements that try to change U.S. policy, that to succeed, to gain the power to change policy, they have to swell beyond the initial group of activists and bring in people who may not be as morally pure as those people. But you need those growing numbers. You need these kinds of concentric circles, right?If you think about the movement to end the war in Vietnam and the people who, by 1974, the Democrats in Congress who cut off military aid, I don’t think most of those people held that view a decade earlier in 1964 and 1965 when you started to see the first real protests against U.S. ground troops in Vietnam. They weren’t as morally pure. They weren’t as radical in their critique. But it was their entrance into this movement that ultimately gave it the political heft to make change. And so, I just think it’s counterproductive to say to people who come late to these things, sorry, basically, you know, you’re not welcome because you didn’t realize this earlier.And beyond that, I think when you’re talking about politicians in particular, most politicians respond to political incentives. And so, the role of activists, of people of conscience, is to act to try to change the political incentives. And then you can’t really blame politicians for responding and shifting in terms of political incentives. I mean, it would be great if they were truly morally driven, but most will not be. And if you can change the political incentive so a politician who’s fundamentally concerned about winning reele

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.comOur guest is New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg. We talk about the Democratic Party, the media, and the politics of Israel-Palestine in the age of Gaza and Trump.

Please consider supporting Medical Aid for Palestinians, which is trying to help Palestinians in Gaza and beyond.Friday Zoom CallThis Friday’s Zoom call, for paid subscribers, will be at 1 PM Eastern, our usual time. Our guest will be New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg. We’ll talk about Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Party, and the politics of Israel-Palestine in the age of Gaza and Trump. Please join us.Cited in Today’s VideoUSAID, Cindy McCain of the World Food Program, and even Israel’s own officials refute the claim that Israel had to shut off aid to Gaza—and shut down the UN food distribution system— because Hamas was systematically stealing aid.Nir Hasson’s report in Haaretz on Israel’s starvation of Gaza.Gideon Shimoni’s Community and Conscience: The Jews in Apartheid South Africa.Rabbi Yochanan Ben Zakkai’s blessing to his students in Tractate Berakhot of the Babylonian Talmud.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!), Elisheva Goldberg writes about the Knesset’s effort to impeach Israel’s most prominent Palestinian legislator, Ayman Odeh.I spoke to Public Radio’s “The World” about antisemitism and on CNN about the starvation in Gaza.For the Foundation for Middle East Peace’s “Occupied Thoughts” podcast, I talked to University of California at Berkeley historian Ussama Makdisi about being targeted by Congressional Republicans.Alonso Gurmendi on the claim that Israel isn’t committing genocide because it could be killing more people.When American Jewish groups called out a genocide, in Myanmar.CorrectionIn last week’s video I said that Kishinev (now called Chishinau), site of the infamous 1903 pogrom, was in Ukraine. That was wrong. As my friend, the political scientist Rajan Menon explained to me: “In 1903, it was part of the Bessarabia Governorate of the Romanov Empire but not part of the Empire’s Ukrainian territories. From 1940 onward, having been part of Romania from the end of World War II, it became part of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic within the USSR.” It is now the capital of the Republic of Moldova. My apologies.See you on Friday,PeterVIDEO TRANSCRIPT:So, this is the time of year when many rabbis begin to think about what they are going to say in their Divrei Torah, in their sermons on the yamim nora’im, the high holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, which come in the fall when they have their largest audiences, and what do they want to say about what Judaism calls us to do? And as I think about those rabbis thinking about what they’re gonna say in their most important words of the year. The question that occurs to me is: do our rabbis believe in God? Because it seems to me, if you believe in God, and you believe that human beings—all human beings, Palestinians included—are created equal, b’tzelem elohim, in the image of God, and you see what Israel is doing to Palestinians, you have no choice but to speak out as forcefully as you can against this.I would encourage the rabbis, any rabbi who’s thinking about what they’re going to say, to just spend a couple of minutes—it really only takes a couple of minutes—watching a video, or listening to a doctor who has worked in Gaza, or listening to some of the reporters who’ve been in Gaza. Within less than a minute, I think, when I do this, I’m just rendered utterly speechless by the horror that is now before us and is not hidden. This is not the Shoah. This is not a time when technology meant that we could not see these things. We can see them very easily if we want to.Just a couple of quotations from an essay in Haaretz by Nir Hasson. He talks about a doctor in Gaza who says that tens of thousands of people, mostly children, are what he calls moving skeletons, whose organs are collapsing, and have already entered the final stage of hunger. He quotes from a video of a man, a starving man, his pants held up by a rope, who is kneeling in the sand, trying to gather flour that was spilled in the sand. And the man is saying in the video, ‘I have 10 children, and they haven’t eaten anything for a week. I’m trying to sift the flour from the sand.’So, I think the question for our rabbis to ask in the face of this is whether they believe in God. If the rabbis genuinely want to claim that this is Hamas’s fault, then they’re simply lying. They’re lying. Because we now have claims from both USAID, and from the United Nations, and Cindy McCain of the World Food Program, and from Israel’s own officials that there certainly might have been incidents of Hamas or other people, you know, stealing aid. Because, after all, when people are starving, people will try to get that aid and take it for themselves. That in fact, the claim that Israel had to deny aid for 3 months, and had to shut down the UN system of distributing aid at 400 distribution centers, and move to this Gaza Humanitarian Foundation,

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.comOur guest is Aharon Dardik, a Columbia University undergraduate with a remarkable story. The son of an orthodox rabbi, he spent part of his childhood in a religious settlement in the West Bank. After studying in yeshiva in Israel, he went to prison rather than serve in the Israeli military, and then enrolled at Columbia, where after October 7 he founded Columbia Jews for Ceasefire. Earlier this year, he was among the Jewish students who chained themselves to a gate to protest the university’s complicity in the detention of Mahmoud Khalil.

Every week I link to the GoFundMe page for Hossam and Mariam Alzweidi, who live in Gaza with their four children and have been injured by Israeli bombs and displaced ten times since October 7, and are trying to leave. I know putting up a Go Fund Me for one family is totally inadequate given the scale of the horror in Gaza, and the millions of people there who need our help— and most of all, need an end to this monstrous slaughter. Still, it’s something.Please considering helping.Friday Zoom CallThis Friday’s Zoom call, for paid subscribers, will be at 1 PM Eastern, our usual time. Our guest will be Aharon Dardik, a Columbia University undergraduate with a remarkable story. The son of an orthodox rabbi, he spent part of his childhood in a religious settlement in the West Bank. After studying in yeshiva in Israel, he went to prison rather than serve in the Israeli military, and then enrolled at Columbia, where after October 7 he founded Columbia Jews for Ceasefire. Earlier this year, he was among the Jewish students who chained themselves to a gate to protest the university’s complicity in the detention of Mahmoud Khalil. How does someone so young challenge so much of what he has been taught and then endure the consequences of that rupture? We’ll talk about that this Friday.Ask Me AnythingLast week’s Ask Me Anything session, for premium subscribers, was rescheduled for technical reasons. We will meet this Wednesday, July 23, from 3-4 PM Eastern time.Cited in Today’s VideoHaaretz on Michael Spagat and Khalil Shikaki’s estimate that 100,000 people have been killed 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!), Kim Phillips-Fein writes about Fiorello LaGuardia’s lessons for Zohran Mamdani.Omer Bartov on why he believes Israel is committing genocide.Adam Shatz on the 12 Day war.An interviewer challenges former Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren about Israel’s plan for a “humanitarian city” in Gaza.Hannah Habtu on the assault on the people of Tigray.For The Foundation for Middle East Peace’s Occupied Thoughts podcast, I talked with Iyad El-Baghdadi about Israel’s vision of the Middle East.Imagine if every Democrat spoke this way about Israel and Palestine.Shaul Magid reflects on a “Nero moment” for Jews. See you on Wednesday and Friday,PeterVIDEO TRANSCRIPT:So, one of the most difficult and depressing things about this moment is that the slaughter in Gaza goes on and on and on. And yet, it’s been relegated, you know, to the back pages of the newspaper. Americans are now more consumed by our own catastrophes. And so, there’s this way in which we’ve normalized, you know, in Western media discussion in the U.S, there’s been a kind of normalization of just that is kind of routine, that every day Palestinians are dying more and more and more. And it doesn’t even really provoke that much conversation anymore. And I’ve been thinking about how you can respond to that. And obviously the people who have tried the most are the Palestinians in Gaza themselves, journalists and others who are desperately kind of recording what’s happening to them and trying to speak to the outside world. And I think one of the things that people have done very powerfully is to highlight individual stories of individuals who’ve died. Um, uh, in order to kind of humanize the people and remind us of them.But I also think there perhaps is a value in just trying to step back and look at the scale of this, and think about how desensitized we’ve become compared to other moments and places in history. So, there’s a British academic named Michael Spagat—I actually quote him in my book—at the University of London, and he basically counts death in wars. That’s his academic specialty. He did this very, very large study with the Palestinian political scientist Khalil Shakaki where they surveyed 2,000 households in Gaza in order to try to get a more accurate count of the death toll. Because the irony is that although people were constantly, especially early on after October 7th, claiming that the quote-unquote ‘Hamas’ health ministry could not be trusted, it was massively inflating the numbers, that I think overwhelmingly, the scholarly consensus is that the numbers from the Gaza Health Ministry are way too low. And it’s not hard to understand why, because they’re basically counting bodies that come to hospital morgues. But anyone who just looks at a picture of Gaza can understand that many, many people will have died and not made it to hospital morgues.So, Spagat and Shikaki do this very, very large survey, and they come to the conclusion that as of January 2025, that the number of people who were directly killed in a violent death was about 75,000, the vast majority of them killed by Israeli arms. But then people who study deaths in wars also recognize that there are going to be another group of people who di

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.comOur guest is former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. He has recently called Israel’s assault on Gaza a “war of devastation: indiscriminate, limitless, cruel” but denies that Israel is committing genocide and believes its actions were legitimate until the spring of 2024.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.comI spoke with Avey Rips and Seph Mozes, two members of Jewish Voice for Peace Chicago, who recently participated in a hunger strike to protest the starvation of Palestinians in Gaza.We talked about…Why they took this extreme stepThe responses they gotHow historic victimization of Jews leads some to compassion and others to tribalismAspects of Jewish tradition that informed their decisionWhat 18 days of hunger taught them about what Gazans are going throughWhat they feel was achieved