Peter Beinart is one of America’s leading Jewish columnists and political commentators. A former editor of The New Republic, he was once a supporter of the Iraq war and an ardent Zionist. But now, Beinart has questioned many of his previous positions and is a prominent voice for Palestinian liberation.
Beinart is an editor-at-large for Jewish Currents, a contributing opinion columnist at The New York Times and a political commentator for MSNBC. He also covers US foreign policy, Palestinian freedom and the Jewish people on his Substack, ‘The Beinart Notebook.’
Last week, Beinart published a provocative new book titled Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning. In the book, Beinart calls on the Jewish community to abandon a long-held narrative of persecution and victimhood in the wake of Oct. 7 and Israel’s war on Gaza. He urges Jews to tell a new story, one that recognizes victims can also be victimizers.
He joins Mehdi for a powerful conversation about his new book, the conflation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism, and his thoughts on the ceasefire agreement.
Beinart calls Oct. 7 one of the worst days of his life, but notes that when it comes to Palestinians being killed in Gaza, they are often “nameless, faceless and generally unmentioned.”
Peter Beinart, the author of four books and a Professor of Journalism at CUNY, states that “We are talking about Palestinians constantly, but never listening to Palestinians, which is a recipe for dehumanization.”
“Israeli safety and Palestinian safety are intertwined,” Beinart tells Mehdi. “It just makes very little sense to think that you need to expose people to brutal violence and not also create conditions that endanger yourself.”
Beinart hopes that the Jewish community can “challenge the moral catastrophe that has happened” while also acknowledging how “Judaism was swallowed by ethno-nationalism.”
“If you worship states, terrible things happen,” Beinart said.
If you are a paid subscriber, you can watch the Town Hall in full above to hear Beinart talk about the growth of anti-Zionist Jews in the US, the need for more Palestinian voices in the media, and how his position on Israel’s war in Gaza has impacted his relationship with his Jewish community.
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