Glasgow Jewish Educational Forum
Description: Context is everything
Following the publication of Peter Beinart’s article in Jewish Currents , ‘Yavne: a Jewish case for equality in Israel-Palestine’, on 7 July, I was reminded of a panel discussion I participated in with him and Mira Sucharov at the University of Chicago, on 10 March 2015. It followed the publication of my op-ed in the New York Times , ‘The end of liberal Zionism’ in August 2014.
My opening presentation at the panel anticipated many of the arguments Peter shows he now accepts in his Jewish Currents article. I welcome his ‘conversion’ to ‘equality in Israel-Palestine’, while not agreeing with all he writes. Had he, and other prominent liberal Zionists heeded the arguments that I and many others were making for some years, perhaps the barriers to achieving equal rights would have been less elephantine than they are now. Then again, perhaps not.
What is certain is that the far right governing forces in Israel have made good use of the fig leaf liberal Zionism has been for the fundamental injustices inherent in Zionist ideology.
Glasgow Jewish Educational Forum