Comments on: Political is personal: The allure of Peter Beinart

By: phlegmatico

phlegmatico — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 07:09:44 +0000

Delia –
The American Jewish Liberals will end up where the Kaifeng Jewish Liberals did…. in the dustbin of history. So why should feed them? Give the effort to the Hebrew Charter schools, which is the only part of American Jewry which will be remembered 500 years from now.

By: delia

delia — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 00:32:15 +0000

“He openly states that when his children grow up, and ask him how it is that he inherited a Jewish democratic state from his parents, but failed to pass it on to them, he will be able to say that he stood up and said something, and didn’t just sit around and let it happen.”

This is what makes me believe that his target audience is the silent majority — those liberal American Jews who still think of themselves as Zionists but who refuse to speak out because they’re scared of the brutal politics of it. He is presenting himself as an example of what those liberal Jews should be doing — smearmeisters, be damned.

By: Sol

Sol — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 20:21:38 +0000

“It interesting that Mairav states that, that Yehoshua states that, and that also Lieberman states that. ‘You can’t possibly understand what we are experiencing. Don’t intervene, even comment.’ ”

Incorrect. Lieberman states: “You can’t possibly understand what we are experiencing. So shut up. Never criticize us. Just follow Yisrael Beiteinu and Likud blindly.”

By: ish yehudi

ish yehudi — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 20:19:46 +0000

the author seems to have lost the channel of dreaming– and also the possibility of change… another fallen leftist, something so sad in my eyes…
aren’t myths the place that inspire vision and potentially (if utilized, like Beinart seems to want to inspire) create new realities?
why does the left (or so many of the progressive movements- environmentalists for eg?) languish? is it perhaps because they’ve forgotten the “shabbat”? that space where dreams can enter and affect?
In our call to expose the emperor to the masses of backwards racist believers of this world, so many throw out the baby with the bathwater. Utopian dreaming is not to be faulted…
it’s true that there is great need to shatter the delusions and illusions and myths that are blinding us to the suffering and sufferers. But those cold analytical “facts” are nowhere near as imploring or inspiring as real vision and hope.
“This idyllic, unabashedly utopian and highly personal conception of the Israel he wishes to see is consistent with his working assumption that Israel is a test of how Jews operate now that they have been enjoying power for the first time in history.”
somebody saying progressive things in a way the right can’t write him off for and you wanna knock him for continuing to be a member of his tribe? I don’t know your complete writings, but is there a double standard about critiquing Palestinian national aspirations also being based on myths? ( by me, myths is just an academic word for what we believe and live our life for- not denigrating any beyond the towers of human pride in which it was conceived).
the tziniut is so pervasive and the language of despair allows you to deflate what is potentially a real modus for change.
And you critique him for his contradiction? The fact that he is straddling paradox in the current realities relegates him to narishkeit? In my book, thats a reason to at least listen to what he’s saying
didnt this whole balagan begin with people who said things like im tirtzu? are we supposed to be ubra rationals now who will act according to the cold facts and revealed justice that our objective bloggers give us and that will make the change? G-d forbid we should acknowledge we have a heart and a peoplehood and work from there!

By: Arieh Zimmerman

Arieh Zimmerman — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 15:06:24 +0000

Allow me a comment from Israel regarding American Jews and Israel.
It is easy, all too easy, to castigate the current Israeli government and its supporters, and I have no interest in seeing that curtailed.
However, a more productive approach might entail support, political, professional and monetary support for Israel’s parties of the Left which have been sadly orphaned by much of liberal American Jewry.

By: pabelmont

pabelmont — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:02:19 +0000

In his book and op-ed, Beinart is speaking generally — and not only to the Jewish community. That’s obviously necessary if there is to be change.
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However, he is speaking his criticisms in a muted fashion and does not call for REAL TOUGH LOVE for Israel from the community of nations, only for a (IMO) ridiculous civil-society BDS-lite of commercial products made in O/T, possibly not even Syrian Golan.
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What might be a lot more helpful — and his books and so forth hint in this direction — is for Jews less worried about Jewish-community-acceptability to go to their national publics seeking to “give permission” to their nations to perform BDS-heavy — such as withdrawal of ambassadors and cessation of commercial air-traffic — until Israel complies with I/L to the extent (for example) of removing all 650,000 settlers, dismantling the wall and the settlements (per UNSC-465 (1980)), removing internal check-points, and ending the siege of Gaza.
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Holocaust-consciousness (guilt, pity) on the part of “the nations” has tended to prevent them from holding Israel to the standard of compliance with UNSC resolutions and I/L — at great cost, including money wasted on PA, the threat of more-and-more war, and the plight of the Palestinians.
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The nations need a lot of urging (to overcome their own natural inertia and the USA’s pressures toward inaction). Jews should lead that urging, not oppose it.

By: phlegmatico

phlegmatico — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:01:15 +0000

The same crowd that would spend daddy’s money on a graduate degree on “the changing definition of being “pro-Israel” in American Jewry”, thinks that Peter Beinart is alluring. That might be about 1500 people in the whole world.

Everyone else thinks that he couldn’t pass Calculus 101, so therefore he got washed out of a respectable college career. And he’s too ADHD to be trusted near a welding machine, so the kibbutz metal factories don’t want him. And he’s nowhere near as hardworking as Thailander ovdim zarim, so even the kibbutz fieldcrops managers don’t want him on their team.

Apparently he’s a perfect fit for the “American Jewish Blogosphere”.

By: Richard Witty

Richard Witty — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 10:15:10 +0000

Beinart has got a real lot right.

I’m also a “foreigner” and cannot possibly know what is really going on, intimately.

It interesting that Mairav states that, that Yehoshua states that, and that also Lieberman states that. “You can’t possibly understand what we are experiencing. Don’t intervene, even comment.”

An Israeli common attitude.

Beinart is likely open to reasonable approaches, including long-term a federation of two states. Ask him.

He’s not open to erasing his personal or shared cultural memory. He is open to discussing the plausible and hopeful current response.

Good things. Not dismissable as utopian.

He should run for Congress, though Israel is such a secondary issue in American politics these days, he’d have to develop alternative bona-fides.

By: aristeides

aristeides — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 00:14:47 +0000

Better he should run for Congress.

By: Rainer

Rainer — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 21:36:04 +0000

Caden, you’re saying that things are complicated, and you ask what ‘you’ want to see happen in the U.S. Personally and politically, I believe that the U.S. should use its power and influence, including carrots and sticks, to back up Israel and the Palestinians in achieving a viable 2-state solution. Yes, there would be a huge uproar and ‘pain’ for all sides, but the outcome would make the world a safer and more stable place for Israel, Palestine, the U.S. and plenty of others. That’s our job as American citizens, and plenty of us Jews are involved. What I don’t get is how you can talk ‘complicated,’ and then imply that the choices are between the status quo and the U.S. abandoning Israel and embracing Hamas. Come on, how simplistic!! Do you really think those are the only choices?!