Being Jewish after the destruction of Gaza A reckoning

Beinart, an observant Jew, professor of journalism and political science, and political commentator, draws on his deep expertise in Judaism and Israeli and Palestinian history to create an invaluable primer on the mindsets and events behind the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and Israel's ongoing retaliatory war against Gaza. With deep understanding of Jewish trauma, Beinart dissects the erroneous concept of Jews as perpetual victims and rhetoric that conceals the hard facts about the forced removal of Palestinians to create the state of Israel and the systemic denial of basic rights and harsh military rule in the West Bank and Gaza. He tracks the course of previous wars and the knotty politics of Israeli leaders and the nation's greatest ally, the U.S. While acknowledging the terror of October 7, Beinart fully illuminates the massive losses and suffering in Gaza. He also critiques the misleading conflation of antisemitism with criticism of Israel and its brutal mistreatment of Palestinians. Beinart's cogent and caring analysis guides readers toward moral clarity and a sharper understanding of the crisis and its profoundly devastating consequences.

Beinart (The Crisis of Zionism), editor-at-large of Jewish Currents, issues an impassioned critique of the American Jewish community's reaction to the war in Gaza. According to the author, "even Jews who are genuinely pained by Gaza's agony" have convinced themselves that Israel's outsize military response is necessary "to keep us safe," hijacking historical narratives that frame Jews as a perennially victimized people as a justification for Israel to wield "life and death power over millions of Palestinians who lack even a passport." To rebut such narratives, he draws from Israeli government records that attribute most of the Palestinian Arab departures from their homes and lands during the late 1940s to "Zionist attacks," pointing to a deliberate strategy of expulsion to create a Jewish-majority state. In denying legal equality to most of the country's Palestinian residents, Israel is "not merely offering Jews the right to determine their own lives" but "dominance over another people," Beinart writes. He draws especially intriguing links between the "moral evasion" of what's happening in Gaza by some diasporic Jews and increasing Jewish secularization, which, he argues, is replacing a more overtly moralistic "rabbinic tradition" that demands Jews "look inward and reckon with their sins." Urgent and thought-provoking, this is sure to spark debate. (Jan.)

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 theNew 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. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.