Two decades ago, Ruth Wisse ended her book “If I am Not for Myself . . . The Liberal Betrayal of the Jews” with these words:
Jews will never prove themselves moral by seeking refuge from their struggle behind the banner of liberalism. But liberalism assuredly will be judged by whether it can protect the Jews.
Noah Pollak, in his compelling COMMENTARY essay, “Peter Beinart and the Destruction of Liberal Zionism,” demonstrates that the failure of the “peace process” – which produced successive wars after successive Israeli withdrawals in the name of peace — has been “not Israel’s but liberalism’s.” It is essential reading.
Pollak is withering in his response to Beinart’s statement that his article criticizing Jewish organizations for their support of Israel was “the hardest thing I’ve ever written:”
Please. . . . there are few postures today from which it is more comfortable and advantageous to call out one’s anguish and concern than as a Jewish critic of Israel. …
How hard it must be for Beinart to ally with his employer, the New America Foundation, and Haaretz, Americans for Peace Now, the Israel Policy Forum, the New York Review of Books, the Nation magazine, the New York Times editorial and op-ed pages, Time magazine, the American Conservative, the American Prospect, Mother Jones, the entirety of the British and European media, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, B'tselem, J Street, J Call, the New Israel Fund, Richard Goldstone, the UN Human Rights Council, the UN General Assembly, the European Union, the British Foreign Office, the European Council, scores of NGOs, Walt and Mearsheimer, Tom Segev, Avi Shlaim, Tony Judt, Tel Aviv University, every Middle East Studies department, George Soros, the Ford Foundation, Brent Scowcroft, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter, Andrew Sullivan, Noam Chomsky, Mondoweiss, and … well, you get the picture.
The sad truth is that Peter Beinart isn't any kind of trailblazer or whistleblower, and he most certainly has not earned himself any trouble by coming out as an Israel-basher. … In Beinart’s work, we are not witnessing an act of courage but rather a spectacle of conformity.
He is no trailblazer; he is retracing the well-worn path that Ruth Wisse described two decades ago, and complimenting himself for doing so.