What Beinart Is Spawning: Brave New "Zionism"

Is this becoming the new Brave Beinart World?

From a NYTimes oped:-

Yes, there are risks for Israel in allowing a Palestinian state. But as Jews, we cannot tolerate a Jewish state that ignores its own Declaration of Independence and the teachings of our sages over thousands of years. A state that persecutes, deprives and denies its neighbors in a manner so similar to what our tormentors did to us cannot be acceptable.

That was from Stephen Robert, formerly a principal owner of the investment bank Oppenheimer & Co. and chancellor of Brown University, who currently chairman and cofounder of the Source of Hope Foundation. In Israel, it supports Hand-in-Hand, a center for Jewish-Arab education in Israel:-

Hand-in-Hand's mission is to build a network of integrated schools in Israel bringing together Arab and Jewish children for an education that spans both culture and languages. Classes are taught both in Hebrew and in Arabic...The organization's vision "Learning together – Living together", reflects the goal of creating a more peaceful, pluralistic and democratic society in Israel.

And in "Palestine", supports three programs:

...helping Palestinian trained engineers develop a software outsourcing industry similar to the Indian model...a sports group which helps disabled Palestinian athletes. This endeavor has sent Palestinian athletes to the International Para-Olympics competition...The Parent's Circle...

Peter Beinart seems to have let loose all the devils pent up in liberal, humanist, progressive Jews who now are making common cause with Israel's enemies. Robert also thinks:-

...can the Jewish people segue from deeply ingrained victimhood to the moral and practical dictates of being a major power?...Israel is losing the moral high ground through much of the world.  How can a people persecuted for so long act so brutally when finally attaining power? Will we continuously see the world as 1938, or can we use the strength of our new power to forgive, while never forgetting the lessons of our past?

Much of the world, of course, just like in 1938, couldn't care about the Jews.  And how could Israel be "brutal"?  Well, a 90-year old Arab terror campaign, continuing today, refusal to accept diplomatic overtures, specifically targeting civilians, mendacious propaganda, et al., could be the cause.  Mr. Robert, the Arabs are the primary cause and it is their responsibility to right it.  But for someone who thinks like this:

Palestinians will have to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, essentially abandoning the right of return...Ideally, Fatah and Hamas will form a unity government and Hamas will rewrite its untenable charter.

and presume it will happen is someone who is ideologically lost.

And is Beinart to blame?   Well, at Mondoweiss they think so:

I keep underestimating the Beinart effect. Three recent developments show Beinart's power. 1, Huffpo ripping off Beinart's Open Zion blog at the Daily Beast, 2, Stephen Robert's "God help an infant born in Palestine" op-ed in the IHT yesterday, and 3, Paul Krugman's support for Beinart in the Times. The liberal Zionists are having their moment...The Stephen Robert piece in the IHT, "A Reset in Jewish Thinking," borrows a lot from Beinart: for a start, the Hail Mary pass for the two-state solution. And also the idea that Jews are powerful in a way we've never been before...Beinart's book is allowing Jews to come out in a way they refused to do when Walt and Mearsheimer said it, because Walt and Mearsheimer made the mistake of being goyim.

And we learn that Robert had published an earlier version of his op-ed piece in The Nation which includes this:

...What I witnessed in the West Bank—home to about 2.5 million Palestinians and 400,000 Israeli settlers—exceeded my worst expectations. While the world’s statesmen have dithered, Israel has created a system of apartheid on steroids, a horrifying prison...How can Jews, who have been persecuted for centuries, tolerate this inhumanity? Where is their moral compass? How can this situation be acceptable to Judaism’s spiritual and political leaders? I don’t have that answer; except to say that Israel’s biggest enemy has become itself...That Israel has the upper hand now portends nothing about the future. A small state of 7 million holding 4 million neighbors in prison, without opportunity, sufficient medical care, food, water and equal justice is not a sustainable situation. When, eventually, stasis gives way to unimaginable change, it will be too late to alter course. Israel, “right or wrong,” a position taken by many, will lead to a catastrophe. It represents a suspension of critical thought; characteristic of many radical ideologies. Friends of Israel would serve it better to know the true facts and then drive Israel toward a moral and practical solution...Israel must regain the moral imperative, to disarm its enemies and secure its friends. Many believe there is an international campaign to delegitimize the Jewish state. At this point Israel is delegitimizing itself.

Yes, Beinart's Brave New Zionism is a rerun of Jewish anti-Zionism.  It ignores the threats even while noting them but dismissing them.  It promotes a liberalism that seeks to install a decidely undemocratic and oppressive regime in power.  It subverts the true demands of morality in international relations.  It derides any authentic expression of the rights of Jewish nationhood. 

In short, it is embarrassed by Jewish bravery and seeks the 'comfort' of the traditional Jewish postion amongst the nations which only can lead to a repeat of attempts to destroy the state of Israel and annihilate Jews by promoting the "it's the Jews' fault" calumny.

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It's 1930 All Over Again

There's a big storm on the horizon.

We've been suffering from Islamic Temple Mount Denial for years (see here, too) which I thought had come to an end.

Then there was Rachel's Tomb about which PM Netanyahu got upset.

And now, it's all coming to a head:

West Bank religious sites first for world heritage request

Significant religious sites throughout the West Bank, including the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem and Joseph's Tomb in Nablus, will be among the first to be pushed forward for world heritage status now Palestine has been granted membership of UNESCO.

A Palestinian Authority spokesman there were many sites and shrines in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip that until now had been unprotected because of a lack of recognition and funding.

''Now we will be able to protect them and make sure they are known around the world,'' he said. ''We believe that becoming a member of the UNESCO is an overdue right for a country that has such a significant amount of heritage sites.''

...The authority claims agreements such as the 1994 Paris Protocol severely restrict tourism and therefore economic development in the Palestinian territories.  Joseph's Tomb in Nablus - a site important to Christians, Jews and Muslims - has been at the centre of deep sectarian conflict. With UNESCO membership, the Palestinian Authority would now be responsible for ensuring the site was protected, the official said.

This reminds me of the dispute over to who the rights of the Western Wall back in 1930.

The Jewish case is contained in this memorandum. A review is here. And I have gone into this here where I write:

I mentioned the International Commission of Inquiry established by the British Mandatory authorities in 1930 which issued a report that resulted, in May 1931, in unjust restrictions on Jews by the Western Wall in addition to awarding to the Muslim Waqf the ownership of the Wall and the small courtyard which served as the worship site.

This is a matter of identity theft. See here for what appears to be an article translated from the Arabic to comprehend their thinking.

If this is the culture UNESCO will be promoting at the initiative of its new member, there will be two outcomes.

The first is a reframing of the Arab-Israel conflict in terms of religion and national ethos.

The second is the reorientation of Jewish concerns on our rights to Eretz-Yisrael.

It may be difficult at the outset but good will come out of it in the form of a strengthened Jewish national character.

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Ibish's Idiotic Nonsense

Complete fabricated nonsense:

Neither the Palestinian nor the Israeli national identity is more or less "authentic" or “legitimate” than the other because both are self-defined nationalisms adhered to by millions of people. The extent to which they are based on imaginary constructs—as all modern national ideologies ultimately prove largely to be—is meaningless in practice. Objecting to these mythologies is the political equivalent of complaining about the rain.

Translation: there is no such thing a "Palestinian nationalism". To prove that that really doesn't make a difference, Jewish nationalism doesn't exist either.

Here:

In the decades immediately preceding 1948, the word “Israeli” was totally unknown * and meant nothing, and the word "Palestinian” meant many things, but certainly not what it means today. Both of these national identities—the Jewish Israeli and the Arab Palestinian—are contemporary constructs *  born of recent history...The analytical challenge is to recognize that while not all nationalist claims are necessarily equally valid (they may speak on behalf of very few people, for example, and not really have the constituency they claim), in some important senses they are, however, all equally invalid.

Idiot.

Oh, the author has been tweeting nonsensicals to me this past week as well as to other bloggers and this is the hint:

The pro-Israel voices objecting to these virtually self-evident observations seem unconcerned with defending the Israeli national identity, but obsessed with attacking the invocation of any heritage or tradition on which Palestinian nationalism can draw.

The impulse to negate the other seems overwhelming...These critics assume all aspects of Jewish and biblical Hebrew mythology, traditions and history automatically legitimize the Israeli national project. However, such claims were highly controversial among the Jews of the world for many decades, and are again being subjected to significant interrogation.

If there is any mythology, Islam is its most outlandish proponent.  Jerusalem isn't mentioned in the Koran but El-Aksa is located there and Muhammed reached there, supposedly, how?  Well, it went like this:

During the month of Rajab, the Prophet Muhammad made a night -time trip to the city of Jerusalem (isra’), visited the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and from there was raised up into heaven (mi’raj). While there, he came face-to-face with previous prophets and received instructions about the number of prayers the Muslim community should observe each day. Muhammad and his followers perceived this as a miraculous journey, and it gave them strength and hope that God was with them despite recent setbacks.

"Miraculous"?

The prophet prayed at the rock, if not to the rock, during what has been rendered as a miraculous night journey he undertook on a white flying horse (l-Buraq El-Sharif) from Mecca to Jerusalem about 10 years after he began receiving "revelations" that disciples later codified as the Koran.

That's not mythology?

And that idiot is Hussein Ibish is a senior research fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine and blogs at http://www.ibishblog.com/.

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*  What is Ibish talking about?  Doesn't he know:

One of the most important discoveries that relate to the time of the Exodus is the Merneptah stele which dates to about 1210 BC. Merneptah, the king of Egypt, boasts that he has destroyed his enemies in Canaan. He states: Plundered is the Canaan with every evil; Carried off is Ashkelon; seized upon is Gezer; Yanoam is made as that which does not exist; Israel is laid waste, his seed is not; (ANET 1969, 378).The word "Israel" here is written in Egyptian with the determinative for people rather than land (ANET 1969, 378 note 18). This implies that Israel did not have a king or kingdom at this time. This would be the time of the judges. The text also implies that Israel was as strong as the other cities mentioned, and not just a small tribe.

*  See my Continuum of Presence.


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