Jewish scholar Peter Beinart imagines a world where Jews who support Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and Jews who are utterly opposed make accommodations with each other.
murderous attacks by Hamas on October 7, 2023. This human suffering is immeasurable – and it has had a dramatic effect on the Jewish community across the world, tearing friends and family apart. Can you be a community that for centuries has experienced persecution and victimhood but turns away when asked to account for violence in your name?is brilliant, painful. Brilliant because of the scholarly way Beinart approaches the complexity of the issues.
“In families where there is a disagreement, people are able to put that aside because there is an investment in the relationship,” he said. “Those who are deeply divided can try to find ways of engaging with the subject that involve empathy for one another. I try to express an understanding of the perspectives of those people who are in a different place than I am.”And when might this reconciliation take place? “Perhaps as we move further away from the trauma of October 7,” he says.
“I hear it used all the time. It is one of the stupidest phrases,” Beinart says. To acknowledge that Israel is murdering Palestinians is not a libel. “There is a basis in reality,” he says.That form of silencing is also used to stifle debate at universities. In the past year in Australia alone, there have been dozens of instances of universities being called upon to apologise for making students feel unsafe. Beinart is unconvinced.
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