The Evil That Lurks in Beinart

Peter Beinart, as we all know, want American Jews to boycott Jews and their industries and businesses if they live and work in Judea and Samaria, across the "Green Line". But he has more expansive desires. He wants American Jews to do more and involve others outside the "Tribe". As reported,

...in his J Street address, [Beinart] also repeated his call for changing U.S. tax rules so that charitable contributions to West Bank settlements will not be deductible.

That, I would suggest is an intolerable step to take. It reveals the evil that lurks in his heart. If his opposition to Jewish life in portions of the historical Jewish national home, as delineated by the League of Nations, a territorial area that was betrayed by the British Mandatory regime, is rational-based, there would be room for debate and discussion although, as I and others have written, his arguments and thinking are ridiculous and his facts are, well, not facts. But in making an appeal to involve outsiders, he is taking the controversy into uncharted waters, for who knows what will develop. Has the recent Supreme Court decision on Jerusalem bothered him? To what other issues will his animosity take his attention and activity? What will he next consider undemocratic in his illiberalism? Beinart must be informed and persuaded that he has chosen a wrong path. And let me add this interpretation of his that highlights his problem: “What really struck me when I read [Netanyahu's] writings and that of his father Benzion, and then about the Revisionist tradition, is this belief that the world is a very nasty place, and the Jews are in danger because they don’t recognize its nastiness. Because they’ve gotten this crazy idea that they’re supposed to be better than everybody else. And that this is deep in our history, it’s something that has emerged over hundreds and hundreds of years in the Diaspora − and we’ve got to get rid of it. We’ve got to become like everybody else.” As we know, especially after Touluse, yes, the world is a nasty place. And, yes, the Jews are in danger. We do not have this idea of being better. He has it for otherwise, he wouldn't be berating Israel to be better. And we surely do not need to get rid of the feeling and as for being like evertone else, well, it's an either/or situation, Peter. Either we are, for example, like the Arabs or like the United States, who act much worse than Israel on the battlefield, in the diplomatic world, etc. or we are like - khow we are and deal with it. Many have criticized him. There need be more. ^