Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza

Ralph welcomes Peter Beinart, to discuss his book Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza. An observant Jew, Beinart argues “We are not history’s permanent virtuous victims. We are not hardwired to forever endure evil but never commit it.” Plus, premier global trade expert, Lori Wallach, joins to help sort out the on again, off again tariffs Donald Trump is assessing U.S. trade partners. What kind of a tool is a tariff? When should it be used? Who should it be used against? And are the current tariff threats on Canada really about stopping fentanyl?

Peter Beinart is Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the Newmark School of Journalism at the City University of New York. He is also Editor-at-Large of Jewish Currents, an MSNBC political commentator, a frequent contributor to The New York Times, and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace. His latest book is entitled “Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza” and his recent op-ed in the New York Times is “States Don’t Have a Right To Exist. People Do.”

We are not history’s permanent virtuous victims. We are not hardwired to forever endure evil but never commit it. That false innocence, which pervades contemporary Jewish life, camouflages domination as self-defense. It exempts Jews from external judgment. It offers infinite license to fallible human beings.

Excerpt from Being Jewish After The Destruction of Gaza by Peter Beinart

Israel can't destroy Hamas. Israel has totally laid waste to Gaza, and yet Hamas is still there. And Hamas will have new recruits from all of these people whose family members were killed by Israel. And Hamas will reconstitute its weapons, because I think actually a lot of the Hamas weapons now are coming from assembling Israeli weapons that were dropped on Gaza, just like the Viet Cong did in Vietnam. They reassemble to make their own weapons. So Hamas will still be there as a force for Israel to continue to fight. And I think Netanyahu will continue this war for as long as he can.

Peter Beinart

So what I think Israel is trying to do, to various degrees of self-consciousness, is to try to reduce the population in Gaza and the West Bank. And that's why the Trump plan was so popular in Israel, not just among Netanyahu, but even among his centrist opponents, like Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid, who embraced the idea. Because for them, it solves the problem. Israel doesn't have a way of solving the Palestinian problem. So if you have fewer Palestinians, then they're less of a problem. This is, after all, how the United States solved its problem with Native Americans in the 19th century.

Peter Beinart

Lori Wallach is a 30-year veteran of international and U.S. congressional trade battles starting with the 1990s fights over NAFTA and WTO where she founded the Global Trade Watch group at Public Citizen. She is now the director of the Rethink Trade program at American Economic Liberties Project and is also Senior Advisor to the .css-j9qmi7{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:2.8rem;width:100%;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:start;justify-content:start;padding-left:5rem;}@media only screen and (max-width: 599px){.css-j9qmi7{padding-left:0;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;}}.css-j9qmi7 svg{fill:#27292D;}.css-j9qmi7 .eagfbvw0{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;color:#27292D;}