Peter Beinart on “Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza”

“States don't have a right to exist. People do.”

In Jewish tradition, states are instruments for the protection and flourishing of human life, for the lives of the people who live within those states. The entity that has unconditional value is the human being ... one judges a state based on how well it's treating the human beings under its control.
— Peter Beinart on The Zero Hour

I spoke with author, professor, and New York Times contributing opinion writer Peter Beinart about his important new book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning. We also touched on Peter’s recent column in the Times, which was headlined, “States Don’t Have a Right to Exist. People Do.”

Topics included the history of Zionism, its roots in European nationalism, and the way it transformed Jewish religious longing into a secular political movement. Peter also spoke about his personal journey from being a progressive Zionist to questioning the ethical foundations of a Jewish state that enforces legal supremacy over Palestinians, and what a future state might look like if it were free of religious and ethnic inequality.

We also spoke about the emotional difficulty of confronting deeply held beliefs about Israel and Jewish identity, especially within the Jewish community where I was raised and where Peter remains observant.

Here’s one exchange from the interview:

I remember in Hebrew school asking the rabbi when I was 10, “It says here that first the Messiah comes (and then Jews return to Jerusalem) ... but the Messiah isn't here. So how come we're going back? Isn't this against Torah?” He didn't really have a good answer. That, to me, reflects the rewriting of Judaism’s (spiritual) DNA code ... in the last 150 years.
—Richard

Yes, that's right. And that's why Zionism was generally rejected by Jewish religious leaders in its early decades ... This discourse that says that to be safe, Jews must rule in Israel and Palestine. But Israel/Palestine, where Jews rule, is actually the least safe place of any large Jewish community in the world. Jews are safer in the diaspora communities, even though we're small minorities, because those states have some commitment to equality under the law.
—Peter

Peter’s book, like his column and other recent writings, remain vitally important to the restoration of justice in the Middle East. The book, like all those discussed on this program, is available through many fine independent booksellers who are not named “Amazon.”