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'We don't really have any moral red lines': Peter Beinart's quest to disrupt Jews' relationship to Israel

JL;DR SUMMARY Peter Beinart's new book, 'Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning,' challenges American and Israeli Jews to reconsider their often unexamined support for Israeli policies, especially in relation to Palestinians. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

TrumpGazaPalestinian RightsJewish CurrentsAmerican JewsPeter BeinartMiddle East PoliticsMoral AccountabilityJewish Victimhood

Places mentioned

United States
"In a phone call, I told Beinart that his new book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning, is an effort to disrupt the often-automatic thought patterns and reactions of American Jews about Israel."
Israel
"Jews having a narrative of victimhood in which we couldnt possibly be the perpetrators. That can lead, you write, to Jews not seeing Palestinians as anything but kind of stick figures. The norm is that Palestinians dont speak inside Jewish institutions. Theyre not spoken about, theyre not humanized. That was true before Oct. 7, but the level of trauma and fear from Oct. 7 is unlike anything weve seen. So what happens is a discussion that refuses to engage with the context of the conditions that people were living under in Gaza, and becomes a kind of discourse of Palestinian savagery, which then lays the foundation for even greater violence against Palestinians, which I think ultimately creates greater danger for Israeli Jews."

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Retrieved 2025-02-14 05:30:41 UTC
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