Published: 11 June 2025
Last updated: 11 June 2025
A packed room greeted Peter Beinart in Melbourne recently as he discussed his latest book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza. Beinart called out the devastating hunger of civilians in Gaza, the callousness of some members of Knesset, and the tragic failures of the IDF.
We hear the pain he articulates. Each death in Gaza and in Israel, is a devastating human tragedy that no political analysis should obscure.
But his conclusion that therefore we must abandon Israel as a Jewish state is flawed.
Josh Szeps, writing in The Age made a similar argument last week in an article titled “My grandmother fled the Holocaust. Now it’s time for Jews to abandon Israel.”
The narrative arc for both Beinart and Szeps is familiar but illogical.
- I’m Jewish (with biographical references or Hebrew terminology).
- I publicly condemn Israel.
- I’m moral – and if you don’t speak up, maybe you’re not.
- Jews no longer need a nation-state.
- Now I can sleep at night.
Beinart weaves in kippah references, quotes from Talmud, and nostalgia for Yavneh (the ancient city not the Melbourne school), in a persistent refrain: Don’t forget, I’m very Jewish.
Szeps draws on his family’s Holocaust trauma to ground his moral stance. (All four of my grandparents were Holocaust survivors but I won’t do the same. Frankly, wielding their suffering to justify my arguments feels a little uncouth.)
Comments11
SFE16 June at 09:47 pm
Thank you for drawing my attention to the comments and work of Beinart and Szeps, which I was not previously aware of. Unfortunately for you I find what they have to say, and the material they link to, much more persuasive than what you have written.
I don’t read them as being anti-Zionist but as unwilling to support Israel “[u]ntil Israeli politics can radically reorient itself” (to quote Szeps). It seems to me that you are so invested in Israel that you have closed your eyes, ears, heart and mind to any other possibility than supporting the Israeli State, with no apparent limit. Giving a blank cheque to the current Israeli government (or any government) is morally bankrupt and it’s also doing a disservice to Jews everywhere who will be living with the fallout of the current Israeli government’s actions for a long time to come.
Harold Zwier15 June at 05:34 am
It’s difficult to understand Adele Stowe-Lindner’s article as other than part of Israel advocacy from the heart of the rigid part of the Zionist community. The playbook is to undermine Peter Beinart and Josh Szeps. The method is classic – reduce their intellectual content to 5 simplistic points that make them seem like people incapable of grasping the complexity of Israeli policy and action in its war against Hamas and ordinary Gazans (let’s not avert our eyes from the 50,000 deaths of civilians and militants). Look at point 5 (now I can sleep at night) and tell me with a straight face that this article is serious! The nearest Stowe-Lindner comes to actually engaging with the issues raised by Beinart and Szeps is when she says, “Israel’s government deserves scrutiny. It should be better, a lot better.”
Is that all that needs to be said about the Israeli government? And in reference to withholding aid to Gazans she writes, “Progressive Zionists are unhappy with Israel’s failure to facilitate more humanitarian aid into Gaza but many of us are also unhappy with the campaign against Israel”. Zionist organisations and spokespeople are like pro-Palestinian groups who can see the need for justice for “us” but are unwilling to enagage with the injustice for “them”. Starvation in Gaza on one side and the atrocities carried out on 7 October 2023 by the other. And no, I’m not trying to equate the 2.
But opposition to the appalling conduct of Israel in Gaza can no longer be contained within even the mainstream Jewish community, and instead of ignoring, or at best deflecting those concerns, the Zionist organisations and the various roof bodies need to face them head on. It is not just the increase in antisemitism that is causing trauma and grief in our community.
Ian Grinblat12 June at 11:34 pm
Beautifully argued, Adele.
People such as Beinart and Szeps forget how perilous Jewish life was in Europe, even the most advanced nations, before WW2. Until the establishment of Israel, Jews, wherever they lived, were a vulnerable minority. Israel is a small state but, as a state, is able to defend itself. It has also acted to protect diaspora Jews as it did in 1976 with the raid on Entebbe.
Danny12 June at 09:37 pm
Excellent article Adele. I also wonder why people find it so hard to hold nuance. I can disagree with a government, a leader, a political strategy, but when in history has that delegitimised an entire country? My simple rule is that if you replace Israel with another country, would the sentiment sound reasonable? I would love to ask josh szeps if he thinks there are other countries we should ‘abandon’ as an idea.
James12 June at 12:03 pm
Ian, the reason “being Arab after the Holocaust” hasn’t been written is because there is zero Arab culpability for the Shoah. To say there was is to diminish German and European responsibility. Even Yad Vashem makes this clear: https://www.yadvashem.org/docs/haj-amin-al-husseini.html#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20claims%20raised,Jewish%20people%20by%20Nazi%20Germany%2C
Rachel Sussman12 June at 09:03 am
Thank you, thank you, thank you, for this beautiful spot on article!
Your words are mine and I could not say it any better…you answer all the self righteous and indeed each of us who are struggling with a mixture of feelings in the difficult reality we are now facing.
Your words strentgen, clarify and heal
Thank you!
Robyn12 June at 08:52 am
Well done Adele! A well articulated and thoughtful response to Beinart and Szeps. They are what Einat WIlf described in her recent visit to Oz,- the ‘Tikkin olam Jews’ who can only tolerate the good times. When times get challenging for the Jews they turn their back. Good luck to them
Pauline Grodski12 June at 07:29 am
Well said Simon!
Ian Light11 June at 07:13 am
The Jewish People need a militarily strong state as a refuge .
The State of Israel will makes mistakes and be ruthless at times .
But who knows when severe anti- semitism break out .
After the fall of the USSR from 1989-1991 many Jewish feared an anti-Semitic backlash .
It happened in Poland in 1967 after the Israeli victory in the Six Day War .
Ian Light11 June at 05:01 am
The situation in Gaza is very harsh but the Hamas would if they had the power be exponentially worse . Long before 1987 when Hamas was formed ,many Arab Leaders like Amin al -Husayni collaborated with the Nazis in WW2 and supported the Genocide of the Jewish People in Europe and in the Arab World and the Ancient Holy Land . A book being an Arab after the Holocaust has yet to be written .
Simon Krite11 June at 04:24 am
Well done !! Finally, someone calling out the self-righteous theatre. Beinart and Szeps dress up surrender as virtue… all heartbreak, no history. Sorry, but wrapping anti-Zionism in a tallit doesn’t make it holy.