The Beinart Notebook
A conversation about American foreign policy, Palestinian freedom and the Jewish people. peterbeinart.substack.com
Norm Finkelstein
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Our guest is Norman Finkelstein, the longtime critic of Israel, and critic of the way the memory of the Holocaust—which both his parents survived—has been exploited to justify Israel’s actions. He has written a new book, titled Gaza’s Gravediggers.
I talked to Norman about what it’s like—after decades as a political outcast—to see his views becoming mainstream. I asked him about his concern, which I share, that legitimate fury at Israel is fueling conspi...
Rahm Emanuel and I Debate Israeli history
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Our guest is Rahm Emanuel, who has served as Chief of Staff for Barack Obama, a member of Congress from Illinois, mayor of Chicago, and US Ambassador to Japan. He recently gave a speech at Tel Aviv University that advocated US pressure on Israel, but also made claims about the history of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations with which I disagree.
First They Came for Abdul El-Sayed
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What do Anti-War Conservatives Believe?
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Our guest is Curt Mills, executive director of The American Conservative, and the subject of a recent profile in Jewish Currents. Curt is one of most influential thinkers in defining a conservative foreign policy that is skeptical of both war and unconditional support for Israel. We talked about why he supported Donald Trump in 2024, and what he thinks of Trump now, about the role of racism in conservative opposition to immigration, and about what J.D. Vance believes. We disagreed on...
How Abdul El-Sayed Won
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Our guest is Andy Levin, former Democratic congressman who represented Michigan’s 9th District until his 2022 loss to Haley Stevens. Stevens in turn appears to have lost to Abdul El-Sayed in yesterday’s Democratic primary for Senate. I invited Andy to analyze the race thus far and the general election to come.
The American Jewish Establishment Has Given Up on American Democracy
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Thomas Wright on His Time on Biden’s National Security Council
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Our guest is Thomas Wright, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and frequent contributor to the Atlantic who served as senior director for strategic planning at the National Security Council during the Biden administration.
Thomas is a smart guy who sees Israel-Palestine, and foreign policy more generally, very differently than I do. I think it was a valuable conversation.
The Incoherence of Blaming Mamdani for anti-Jewish Violence
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“People’s Feet Need to be Held to the Fire.”
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Our guests are Ben Rhodes, former deputy national security advisor to Barack Obama, co-host of Pod Save the World, and author of All We Say: A History of the United States in 15 Speeches, and Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine/Israel program at the Arab Center, Washington DC.
We discuss the Democratic Party’s rapid transformation on Israel-Palestine.
The Costs of Being Prematurely Correct
This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time: Friday at 1 PM. Our guests will be Ben Rhodes, former deputy national security advisor to Barack Obama, contributing opinion writer at The New York Times, co-host of Pod Save the World and author, more recently, of All We Say: A History of the United States in 15 Speeches, and Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine/Israel program at the Arab Center, Washington DC. We’ll discuss the Democratic Party’s rapid transformation on Israel-Palestine: What explains it, what are the new terms of debate, how will this shift shape the mi...
“There Are Lots of Members of Our Caucus Who Refuse to Recognize the Truth.”
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Our guest is Chris Van Hollen, Democratic Senator from Maryland. He’s been among the senators most vocal about changing US policy towards Israel. In May, he wrote a New York Times column calling for conditioning US arms sales to the Jewish state and suggested that “Democrats should pursue a last-gasp effort to salvage a two-state solution. If that effort fails, the United States will have to consider other options to secure equal political and legal rights for all.” We talk about...
The Pro-Israel Establishment’s Five Stages of Grief
This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time: Friday at 1 PM. Our guest will be Chris Van Hollen, Democratic Senator from Maryland. He’s been among the senators most vocal about changing US policy toward Israel. In May, he wrote a New York Times column calling for conditioning US arms sales to the Jewish state and suggested that “Democrats should pursue a last-gasp effort to salvage a two-state solution. If that effort fails, the United States will have to consider other options to secure equal political and legal rights for all.” We’ll talk about how the Democr...
Darializa Avila Chevalier on Zionism, October 8, and Her Experience in the West Bank
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Our guest is Darializa Avila Chevalier, who just won the Democratic nomination for Congress in New York’s 13th district. Avila Chevalier has attracted controversy for her views on Israel-Palestine, among other issues. But the interviews with her that I’ve seen haven’t probed those views in depth. I want to better understand her beliefs about October 7, about Zionism, and about what would constitute a just future in Israel-Palestine.
This conversation was co-sponsored by Jewish Currents.
Topics...
We Still Haven’t Said “Never Again”
This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time: Friday at 1 PM. Our guest will be Darializa Avila Chevalier, who last month won the Democratic nomination for Congress in New York’s 13th district. Avila Chevalier has attracted controversy for her views on Israel-Palestine, among other issues. But the interviews with her that I’ve seen haven’t probed those views in depth. I want to ask what she saw while living in the West Bank and as an activist at Columbia University’s Gaza encampment. I want to better understand her views about October 7, about Zionism and Zionis...
“This Realignment is Happening.”
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Our guest is Brad Lander, who last week won the Democratic nomination for Congress in New York’s 10th district. Brad’s victory is a milestone: A Jewish politician, running on his support for Palestinian rights, winning in one of the most Jewish districts in the country. Even a few years ago, it would have been unimaginable. We’ll talk about what Brad learned in his campaign, about where he agrees and disagrees with the other insurgents who won last week in New...
A Disagreement Among Old Friends
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Our guest is Rachel Timoner, Senior Rabbi at Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn. I’ve known her since college. Our political and religious trajectories have taken us in unexpected directions, and left us with different views about Israel-Palestine. I’m grateful she took the time to discuss them with me.
Topics include:
Is the BDS movement eliminationist?
Can a Jewish state be democratic?
Is Israel a settler-colonial project?
Does the left in t...
Reckoning with Anti-Israel Rage
This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time: Friday at 1 PM. Our guest will be Brad Lander, who last week won the Democratic nomination for Congress in New York’s 10th district. Brad’s victory is a milestone: A Jewish congressman, running on his support for Palestinian rights, winning in one of the most Jewish districts in the country. Even a few years ago, it would have been unimaginable. We’ll talk about what Brad learned in his campaign, about where he agrees and disagrees with the other insurgents who won last week in New York City, ab...
“An Imperial Decline Story”
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Our guests are Aslı Bâli, professor international law at Yale, and Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute. These two are near the top of the list of people I’d want to advise the next Democratic president. They care deeply about the United States, but see past the exceptionalism that prevents so many in Washington from understanding American foreign policy’s actual impact on the world.
In a perfect illustration of the insanity of contemporary Washin...
May “Ask Me Anything”
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A monthly “Ask Me Anything” session is the one perk offered to Premium paid subscribers only. A sample question and answer is free for all.
Topics include:
* Israel bombing Lebanon
* Cenk Uygur
* The Brooklyn Food Co-Op Israel boycott
* The BDS movement
* Right of return negotiations in Oslo
Israel’s Defenders Say Legal Equality Would Bring Repression and Bloodshed
This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time: Friday at 1 PM. Our guests will be Aslı Bâli, professor international law at Yale, and Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute. When I imagine the people I’d want to advise the next Democratic president, Asli and Trita are near the top of my list. They care deeply about the United States but they’re not American exceptionalists, which helps them see past the mythology that prevents so many in Washington from understanding American foreign policy’s actual impact on the rest of the world. In...
Christian Anti-Zionism
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Our guest is Munther Isaac, a Palestinian minister and theologian based in the West Bank who runs the Bethlehem Institute for Peace and Justice. He gained international attention for his Christmas 2023 sermon, Christ in the Rubble. We talk about Palestinian life in the West Bank, Munther’s critique of Christian Zionism, his views of Hamas and his interview with Tucker Carlson.
Topics include:
How Isaac’s understanding of scripture leads him to a very different worldview than Amer...
Is a Jewish Democracy a Contradiction in Terms?
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Dan Shapiro served as ambassador to Israel under the Obama administration. He’s currently Distinguished Fellow at the Scrowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council. Shapiro and I hold very different views about what needs to happen in Israel-Palestine, so I invited him to discuss them.
Topics include:
Why there has been no two-state solution
Should the US have conditioned aid on an end to settlement growth?
Does Israel practice apartheid?
...A Reply to Sam Harris
This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time: Friday at 1 PM. Our guest will be Munther Isaac, a Palestinian minister and theologian based in the West Bank. He gained international attention for his Christmas 2023 sermon, Christ in the Rubble. We’ll talk about Palestinian life in the West Bank, Munther’s critique of Christian Zionism, his views of Hamas and his interview with Tucker Carlson. Please join us.
I also recorded a conversation with former US ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro, where we debated the reasons the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process” didn’t produce a Palestinian...
“You Cease, We Fire”
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James Zogby is a scholar on Middle East issues and a Visiting Professor at New York University Abu Dhabi. From 2001 to 2017, he was part of the Executive Committee of the Democratic National Committee. He was appointed by Barack Obama to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. He is the founder of the Arab American Institute.
Topics include:
Why is Israel in constant conflict with Lebanon?
What will become of Gaza and its people?<...
A Glimpse into The Horror in Gaza
This week’s Zoom call will be at a special time: Thursday at 1 PM. Our guest will be Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories and author of the new book, When the World Sleeps: Stories, Words and Wounds of Palestine. She has been sanctioned by the Trump administration, which has barred her from entering the United States and frozen her assets in the country. We’ll talk about her new book, her investigations into Israeli actions in Gaza and the West Bank, her views of US, European, and United Nations policy toward Israel, and...
“You Cannot Pick and Choose Exceptions to Your Bigotry”
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Palestinian-American Georgia State Representative Ruwa Romman recently wrote on X of former Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene: “I’m tired of Palestine being used to erase every other misdeed once someone with a platform says anything for us.”
Ben Lorber is the co-author of Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism, and a senior research analyst at Political Research Associates, who writes frequently about the American right.
Topics include:
Why have segments of the Am...
Being Israeli After the Destruction of Gaza
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Ariel Beery believes American progressives should listen more carefully to Israeli liberal Zionists. I listened to him, and asked some questions.
Topics include:
Is Israel a liberal democracy?
Is America a Christian state like Israel is a Jewish state?
Beery’s decision not to include Palestinian voices in his book
Should Palestinian refugees have the right to return?
Condemning Settler Violence is Not Enough
This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time, Friday at 1 PM Eastern. We will talk about how progressives should respond to the anti-Israel right. Our first guest will be Ruwa Romman, a Palestinian-American State Representative from Georgia, who in a recent comment on X about former Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote, “I’m tired of Palestine being used to erase every other misdeed once someone with a platform says anything for us.” Our second guest will be Ben Lorber, co-author of Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism, and a senior research analyst at Polit...
What We Told Nicholas Kristof
Issa Amro is a renowned non-violent human rights activist in the West Bank, and Sari Bashi is the executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel. Both were referenced in the recent New York Times op-ed by Nicholas Kristof entitled The Silence that Meets the Rape of Palestinians. Given the strong reaction against the piece by supporters of Israel, I wanted to dig deeper with them into the atrocities it described, and what must be done.
* This conversation includes frank descriptions of torture and sexual violence. *
This is a public episode. If...
Abdul El-Sayed on Being Targeted by AIPAC
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Our guest is Abdul El-Sayed, a candidate for Senate in Michigan, whose Democratic primary has become the most hotly contested in the nation. El-Sayed has been attacked for saying that both Israel and Hamas have acted in evil ways, for campaigning with Hasan Piker and for calling Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal. He recently declared that “AIPAC and Israel are not the same as Judaism and the Jewish people” and that “The most dangerous thing they’ve tried to do is extend t...
Did Zionism Go Wrong or Was it Always Wrong?
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Professor Omer Bartov, is the author of the newly released, Israel: What Went Wrong. Haaretz Columnist Gideon Levy, in a recent column, criticized an interview about the book that Bartov conducted with Haaretz. I invited both of them to join me in a discussion.
Topics include…
The difficulty for some Jews of declaring oneself anti-Zionist
Did Zionism go awry or was it always meant to be what it has become?
What might a mo...
Progressives Must Not Give Tucker Carlson a Pass
This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time, Friday at 1 PM Eastern. Our guest will be Abdul El-Sayed, a candidate for Senate in Michigan, whose Democratic primary has become the most hotly contested in the nation. El-Sayed has been attacked for saying that both Israel and Hamas have acted in evil ways, for campaigning with Hasan Piker and for calling Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal. He recently declared that “AIPAC and Israel are not the same as Judaism and the Jewish people” and that “The most dangerous thing they’ve tried to do is extend the definition...
They Called Zionism “The Most Evil Enemy of the Jewish Proletariat”
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Our guests are Molly Crabapple, author of the newly released, New York Times bestseller, Here Where We Live is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund, and Joshua D. Zimmerman, Professor of History and Chair in Holocaust Studies at Yeshiva University, and author of Poles, Jews, and the Politics of Nationality: The Bund and the Polish Socialist Party in Late Tsarist Russia, 1892–1914. We discuss the history of Jewish socialism in Eastern Europe and its legacy for debates about Zionism, antisemitism, an...
How Should Democrats Think About Iran and Israel?
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Ro Khanna is a U.S. representative from California's 17th congressional district and sits on the House Armed Services Committee. He also served in the Obama administration in the US Department of Commerce.
Topics include…
Should the US accept defeat in Iran?
How scared should Americans be of an Iranian nuke?
Should Trump officials be charged for war crimes?
Should the US sell weapons to Israel?
If ethnonationalism is wr...
The Far Right Now Talks About Judaism The Way It Has Long Talked About Islam
This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time, Friday at 1 PM Eastern. Our guests will be Molly Crabapple, author of the newly released, New York Times bestseller, Here Where We Live is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund, and Joshua D. Zimmerman, Professor of History and Chair in Holocaust Studies at Yeshiva University, and author of Poles, Jews, and the Politics of Nationality: The Bund and the Polish Socialist Party in Late Tsarist Russia, 1892–1914. We’ll be discussing the history of Jewish socialism in Eastern Europe and its legacy for debates about Zionism, antisemitism, and so...
Where Cenk Uygur and I Disagree
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Our guest is Cenk Uygur, co-creator and host of The Young Turks, a popular progressive political show. Cenk and I largely agree about the war in Iran and US policy towards Israel, but I’ve been uncomfortable with some of his comments about Israel’s role in America's wars. I’m grateful to Cenk for being willing to publicly discuss my concerns—as well as sharing his critiques of me.
Topics include…
Israel’s influence on American politics
...Israel is Not Hungary
This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time, Friday at 1 PM Eastern. Our guest will be Cenk Uygur, co-creator and host of The Young Turks, a popular progressive political show. A month or so ago, Cenk and I were interviewed together by Piers Morgan and while we agreed about the war in Iran and US policy towards Israel, I was uncomfortable with some of the ways he spoke about Israel’s supporters in the US. Some of his subsequent comments have added to my concern. We spoke privately and then agreed to hold a public conversation. I’m...
"I Lost My Parents on October 7th, But I Won Aziz."
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Our guests are Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon, co-authors of the new book, The Future is Peace. Aziz, a Palestinian born in the West Bank, saw his brother die from injuries sustained while held in an Israeli prison. Maoz, a Jewish Israeli born on a kibbutz near Gaza, lost both of his parents on October 7, 2023. Somehow, both men have turned their suffering into activism for justice and peace. We talk about their personal journeys, about the challenges of joint Jewish...
How Hasan Piker Sees the World
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Twitch streamer and political commentator Hasan Piker has been much in the news of late. He first rose to fame as a producer and host for The Young Turks, where he created the popular news series The Breakdown. Today, he’s one of the most-watched creators on Twitch, frequently collaborating with political figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to engage younger audiences in political activism. We agree on a lot, so I thought it would be better to focus in this chat on so...
It’s Not Just the Presidential Candidates
This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time, Friday at 1 PM Eastern. Our guests will be Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon, co-authors of the new book, The Future is Peace. Aziz, a Palestinian born in the West Bank, saw his brother die from injuries sustained while held in an Israeli prison. Maoz, a Jewish Israeli born on a kibbutz near Gaza, lost both of his parents on October 7, 2023. Somehow, both men have turned their suffering into activism for justice and peace. We’ll talk about their personal journeys, about the challenges of joint Jewish and Pale...
