The Beinart-like binational “solution”, that collapsed under the weight of Jewish blood and Arab intransigence - by Sean Durns

“The study of history,” British author Paul Johnson once wrote, “is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.”

Sean Durns..
JPost/Opinion..
06 August '20..
Link: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/brit-shalom-and-peter-beinart-analyzing-jewish-palestinian-land-solution-637784

From his home in New York City, the American pundit Peter Beinart has recently called to dismantle the Jewish state of Israel, advocating instead for a “one-state solution” – a binational Jewish-Palestinian Arab state. Beinart’s proposal was hailed as “a monumental, agenda-setting piece” by Washington Post foreign affairs columnist Ishaan Tharoor, among other analysts, many of whom live far from Israel. But it is nothing of the sort. Indeed, arguments for a binational “solution” are a century old – and they collapsed under the weight of Jewish blood and Arab intransigence.

Ninety-five years ago this past May, a group of philosophers, academics and theologians announced the formation of Brit Shalom (the Covenant of Peace) in British-ruled Mandate Palestine. Brit Shalom “sought to promote peace between Jews and Arabs, primarily by arguing that Jews should give up their quest for statehood,” historian Daniel Gordis noted in his 2016 Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn.

The movement, Gordis documented, “never had more than a hundred members, but its influence far outstripped its members.” This was largely due to its composition. Brit Shalom members would, over time, include prominent and well-known Jewish figures like Judah Magnes, an American Reform rabbi and the future president of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Arthur Ruppin, a famous economist and high-ranking Jewish Agency official, as well as well-known philosophers like Gershom Scholem and Martin Buber. Other future members would include then attorney general of Mandate Palestine, Norman Bentwich, and Edwin Samuel, the son of the first High Commissioner to Palestine Herbert Samuel. Brit Shalom even counted Albert Einstein as a supporter. The movement was, in every sense, confined to a small number of the elite and intelligentsia.

Initially, Brit Shalom conceived of itself less as a political party than as a “study circle” which hoped to influence debates about the future of Jewish self-determination. Brit Shalom’s foundational charter articulated the movement’s objective: “to arrive at an understanding between Jews and Arabs as to the form of their mutual social relations in Palestine on the basis of absolute political equality of two culturally autonomous peoples, and to determine the lines of their cooperation for the development of the country.”

The group founded a newspaper, She’ifoteinu (Our Aspirations), authored editorials and made public speeches advocating for the adoption of a binational state. But problems soon arose.

Another Day. Today’s Peter Beinart lie: “Palestinians have been excluded from mainstream US media” - by Elder of Ziyon

The truth is the exact opposite of his claim. But when someone is seeking attention for his immoral ideas, making things up is not unexpected.

Elder of Ziyon..
26 July '20..

Peter Beinart continues with his push to destroy Israel with another whopper of a lie.

“For decades, Palestinians have been largely excluded from the mainstream US media conversation about Israel-Palestine. That exclusion continues today, and represents one more form of Palestinian dispossession,” he tweeted.

Really?

Judging from the New York Times op-ed page since Arafat rejected Oslo, I see articles by

Marwan Barghouti
Saeb Erekat
Diana Buttu
Ahmed Abu Artema
Mahmoud Abbas
Hanan Ashrawi
Ali Abunimah
Ayman Odeh
Raja Shehadeh
Zena Agha
Daoud Kuttab
Yasir Arafat
Ali Jarbawi
Yousef Munayyer
Rashid Khalidi
Khalil Shikaki
Linda Sarsour
Zahi Khoury

I’m probably missing some. Most of these were in the past decade. Many of these have written articles more than once. (If you include the years before 2000, there are even more, like Edward Said and Mamdouh Aker. )

Not to mention that Rashida Tlaib has been all over the media since her election. Hanan Ashrawi and Saeb Erekat have been staples on TV news shows for decades.

Now, how many countries can claim to have had more citizens writing in US media?

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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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The World of One-Stater Israel-Haters: Attacking Jewish Human Rights in the Name of Morality - by Elder of Ziyon

Sometimes, though, the one-stater Israel-haters are forced to answer the question about Jewish human rights directly. And their response is simply, yeah, that might be a problem, but we hope it won’t be that bad, and anyway it is a small price to pay for their vision of a world without Israel.

Elder of Ziyon..
10 July '20..

The Israel-haters, a category that we must now add Peter Beinart to, use the argument that the imperative of Palestinian human rights demands a one-state solution with a natural Arab majority and Jewish minority.

The basic problem with the thesis that a one-state solution is the only way to give Palestinians the human rights they deserve is that this same “solution” would ensure that Jews lose the human rights they deserve.

The issue isn’t human rights. Everyone supports human rights. The issue is how to balance competing human rights of two different groups. But the Israel haters don’t want you to think about that problem – they want to emphasize the Palestinian human rights issue and they do everything possible to avoid the obvious fact that Jews would not do well under any Arab majority government. They also avoid the equally obvious fact that Palestinians under “occupation” are in far better shape than Jews would be under Arab rule.

Why is this obvious? Just look at how Christians are doing in the Arab world. They are oppressed and fleeing as fast as they can.

Arab Muslims hate Jews much more than they hate Christians.

Sometimes, though, the one-stater Israel-haters are forced to answer the question about Jewish human rights directly. And their response is simply, yeah, that might be a problem, but we hope it won’t be that bad, and anyway it is a small price to pay for their vision of a world without Israel.

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Does Beinart seriously believe that Hamas and Islamic Jihad would be disarmed in his fantasy state? Does he care? - by Elder of Ziyon

Peter Beinart is supremely concerned over what he sees as Jewish mistreatment of Palestinians yet shows literally zero concern over the certainty – not probability, but certainty - that his plan will result in massive Arab abuse of Jews.

The New York Times published
a similar op-ed in 2009 for a
one-state solution

Elder of Ziyon..
09 July '20..

Peter Beinart has gotten a lot of press this week over his essays in the far-Left Jewish Currents and the increasingly far-Left New York Times opinion pages for his proposal that instead of a two-state solution, the preferred outcome is a Jewish “homeland” in a single state that would presumably be called “Palestine.”

This is of course not a new idea. In 1947, when Arabs faced the possibility that the UN would vote for partitioning the land and creating a Jewish state, they suddenly declared that they were interested in a “bi-national” state with the Jews – predicated on the idea that Jewish immigration must end first, which would ensure an Arab majority in any election.

The more modern version of the idea espoused by many English-speaking Arabs also emphasizes to their Western audiences that a one state solution with equal rights is wonderful, as long as millions of Arabs with Palestinian ancestry are first allowed to flood the area and ensure that there is an Arab majority in any election.

Another version of the plan is Iran’s, where only the Jews whose families were in Palestine before 1917 would be allowed to vote.

The New York Times published a similar op-ed in 2009 for a one-state solution. It’s author was that famous peacemaker, Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, where he actually pretended to be proposing this plan for Jews’ security:

A two-state solution will create an unacceptable security threat to Israel. An armed Arab state, presumably in the West Bank, would give Israel less than 10 miles of strategic depth at its narrowest point.

Obviously Jews should live next to Arabs who want to kill them rather than across a border. See how much he cared?

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Israel bashing and the further forays of Peter Beinart in his fight against Israel and Zionism - by Yisrael Medad

Arabs who support the idea of an Arab Palestine engage in falsification of history, identity theft and something even worse than bigotry. And a Jew supporting them is no friend of Zionism—no matter how much he claims to be one.

Yisrael Medad..
JNS.org..
03 December '19..

Peter Beinart has made another foray in his fight against Israel and Zionism. The contributing editor at The Atlantic has written as a supporter of IfNotNow, and has helped inspire other radical anti-Zionists. But, of course, he denies what is obvious to all in his thinking and actions.

In remarks he recently delivered in the framework of a Munk Debate, the question of which was “Be it resolved, anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism,” his fellow debater was New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, and since a debate consists of arguments from both sides of an issue, I, at least, can only presume that Beinart thinks anti-Zionism is, at least a bissel, not quite anti-Semitic.

Indeed, in the published version, Beinart asserts that “No, anti-Zionism doesn’t always mean anti-Semitism.” Perhaps indicative of his convoluted presentation, the Munk Debates site highlighted his words that “equating Palestinian politics with bigotry undermines the quest for peace.”

Having followed him since his 2010 essay in which he promoted the view that the reality of Israel challenged the liberal values of Jewish college students they had imbibed as Americans such as a belief in open debate, a skepticism about military force and a commitment to human rights and contradicted them. Beinart, however, did not so much as seek to explain to those students that those values very much existed in Israel, did not exist in the Arab/Muslim culture that threatened Israel’s existence and that, despite their innocence, they did not have think they were required to shed those values when it came to Israel.

Rather, he sought to rip out the heart of Jewish solidarity from these youth and pit them against Israel. Ever since, he has been pirouetting—twisting ideas, terms and concepts so as to confound and discombobulate a younger generation of Jews.

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Yisrael Medad is an American-born Israeli journalist and political commentator.