Aside from the zero chance that the Palestinians would accept Beinart’s binational Disneyland - by Steve Frank

Although the reaction to Beinart’s latest vision has been mixed, most reasonable people agree on one thing: it will never happen. That is because, for different reasons, it is totally unacceptable to both parties to the conflict. It might be a diverting thought experiment for Beinart and his fellow academicians on the Upper West Side, but it is totally divorced from reality to those who have skin in the game, i.e., the Palestinians and Israelis.

Steve Frank..
JNS.org..
16 July '20..

Peter Beinart, the enfant terrible of Zionism, is at it again.

The darling of the progressive left has long been an ardent advocate of the “two-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but in a jaw-dropping recent op-ed in The New York Times, with the click-bait title “I No Longer Believe in a Jewish State,” calls for abandoning it in favor of the more extreme “one state solution.” As JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin acutely observes, “that state is not Israel.”

Instead, Beinart proposes dismantling the 72-year-old State of Israel and replacing it with a hypothetical “Jewish-Palestinian binational state” in which he concedes Jews would be a minority. But he nevertheless insists, with a straight face, that the Jews would fare well in a democratic regime under their Muslim rulers.

Even Beinart realizes he has crossed a “red line” with his latest epiphany. In the longer version of his proposal (“Yavne: A Jewish Case for Equality in Israel-Palestine,” published in Jewish Currents), he acknowledges that:

“Questioning Israel’s existence as a Jewish state is … akin to spitting in the face of people I love and betraying institutions that give my life meaning and joy. Besides, Jewish statehood has long been precious to me, too. So I’ve respected certain red lines.”

No more. Beinart now has irrevocably crossed that line. His latest—and likely final—solution to the conflict has been greeted with glee by some and denounced by others as beyond the pale.

Although the reaction to Beinart’s latest vision has been mixed, most reasonable people agree on one thing: it will never happen. That is because, for different reasons, it is totally unacceptable to both parties to the conflict. It might be a diverting thought experiment for Beinart and his fellow academicians on the Upper West Side, but it is totally divorced from reality to those who have skin in the game, i.e., the Palestinians and Israelis.

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