The Middle East Sampler 3/20/2012: Peter Beinart Smackdown On Twitter And Media

From DG:

1) Beinart smackdown

Challah Hu Akbar has a list of various critiques of yesterday's ahistorical and counter-factual op-ed by Peter Beinart.

Challah Hu Akbar links to the New York Times letters page (the Abe Foxman comment) but there was a different one that was also worthy of mention. The final letter, by Donald Isler reads (in part):

Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza. And has ever since been regularly attacked by missiles and rockets fired out of Gaza. What plan does Mr. Beinart have to put pressure on the Palestinian side? Then, something worthwhile might be achieved.

In the op-ed Beinart tells us to ignore Palestinian terror. But when Israeli concessions bring not peace but more terror, how can he separate the latter? Especially when hundreds of thousands of Israelis are now under an increased terror threat? Even twenty miles away? The sheer callousness of Beinart's argument - especially at this time - is cruel.

In addition to criticisms of Beinart's column, Sol Stern, who previously dismantled Jeremy Ben Ami's tendentiousness, scathingly reviewed Beinart's book:

What is wrong with Beinart’s book is contained within its title, The Crisis of Zionism. Zionism itself is not in crisis. The liberal Zionism Beinart espouses is, because Beinart and others like him have decided to condition their belief in a Jewish national homeland on its pursuit of policies that make them feel good. They prefer an Israel of social-democratic fantasy—an Israel that need not take account of the behavior of its Palestinian interlocutors, that need not take account of the safety and security of its own population, and an Israel that need not take account of the views and wishes of its own electorate—to the real thing. In locating the ideal form of Zionism in the perspective of Stephen Wise, who died less than a year after the founding of the Jewish state, Beinart wishes to return Israel to its uncomplicated days of glory, circa 1949.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Peter Beinart and BDS.