BEING JEWISH AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF GAZA

Petitioning Israel and supporters of its war in Gaza.

Beinart, a self-described “Jewish loyalist” whose critiques of Israel have been controversial in some quarters, amplifies his position, challenging the country’s justifications for killing tens of thousands of Palestinians in the current conflict. The former editor of the New Republic denounces Hamas for its Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, during which about 1,200 people—most of them Israeli civilians—were murdered and roughly 250 taken hostage. But in response, Israel has committed “grave crimes” in Gaza, Beinart writes, further entrenching its “subjugation” of Palestinians. “The more brutally Israel behaves, the more brutal [the] resistance is likely to be.” Which is why Israel, he argues, must end an “apartheid” system that deprives Palestinians of basic rights. To those who protest that this would make life unacceptably dangerous for Jews, Beinart cites the beneficial social developments that followed the expansion of rights for historically oppressed groups in South Africa and Northern Ireland. Though “abandoning supremacy” doesn’t guarantee peace, it would “lift the weight that oppressing Palestinians imposes on Jewish Israelis, and indirectly, on Jews around the world.” But such an about-face is impossible without major modifications to “the story Jews tell ourselves to block out the screams” caused by “the horror that a Jewish country has perpetrated.” Such a revised story’s “central element should be this: We are not history’s permanent virtuous victims.”

A learned, powerful book that asks tough—if contentious—questions.