This story is part of a series exploring the backgrounds and agendas of the players — the well known names and behind-the-scenes operators alike — who will wield power in Trump’s second term.
Years before Peter Navarro went to prison for contempt of Congress, he was already known for his contempt for Congress.
Throughout Donald Trump’s first term, lawmakers often left meetings with Navarro — the president’s trade attack dog — uncertain of the new administration’s strategic endgame. They were hearing concerns from companies in their districts about Trump’s tariffs on imports from America’s allies, which were causing higher prices and threatening jobs. Could someone explain, they wondered, why paying more for steel and aluminum from Canada and Mexico was necessary for national security?
Rep. Warren Davidson shared apprehensions like those in a meeting with Navarro, but it left him frustrated. It was “a complete waste of time,” he recalled in a recent interview with NOTUS.
Peter Navarro, the White House trade adviser, has been one of President Trump’s most loyal and steadfast allies since the beginning of his administration. Navarro has been a vocal advocate for Trump’s tough stance on trade, particularly with China, and has been instrumental in shaping the administration’s trade policies.
Now, Navarro is finally getting his trade war. Trump’s recent announcement of tariffs on steel and aluminum imports has been met with widespread criticism and has sparked fears of a trade war with major trading partners. But Navarro remains undeterred, defending the tariffs as necessary to protect American industries and jobs.
Despite facing backlash from both Democrats and Republicans, Navarro continues to stand by Trump’s side, unwavering in his support for the president’s trade agenda. As the trade war heats up, Navarro’s influence within the administration is only likely to grow, solidifying his position as one of Trump’s most trusted allies.
Love him or hate him, there’s no denying that Peter Navarro is a key player in Trump’s trade war strategy. Only time will tell if his unwavering loyalty will pay off in the end.
Almost two years after it impressed critics at several festivals, Peter Dinklage’s reboot of the ’80s cult classic The Toxic Avenger has finally secured a theatrical release in late 2025. The black comedy superhero franchise began with 1984 in Michael Herz and Lloyd Kaufman’s feature that focused on a ridiculed janitor turned mutant crimefighter. The Toxic Avenger spawned a successful franchise that included three sequels, a stage musical, an animated series, and more, with Macon Blair helming the Toxic Avenger reboot that was originally intended to premiere in 2023.
After a lengthy delay as it searched for a distributor, Deadline reports that Legendary Pictures and Troma Entertainment’s ToxicAvenger has finally been slated for a theatrical release on August 29. The movie stars Dinklage as the hero once known as Winston Gooze as he attempts to strike a balance between fighting corrupt CEOs and rebuilding his relationship with his son. The feature has 92% on Rotten Tomatoes after various festival appearances. Cineverse will handle distribution for the unrated theatrical run in the US and Canada, as well as the movie’s home release on digital storefronts, streaming, and physical media.
What We Know About The Toxic Avenger’s Release Date Delay
The Movie Received A Drastic Rework That Left Distributors Nervous
Despite the cult status of the Toxic Avenger franchise, the modern reimagining has had trouble finding its way to screens ever since intentions of a reboot were announced in 2010. Initially envisioned as a more family-friendly reboot in the vein of the ToxicCrusaders animated series, it took eight years for the movie to be acquired by Legendary in 2018, and another year for Blair to join in 2019. By the time cameras began rolling in Bulgaria in 2021, it was clear from Blair’s comments on the movie’s practical gore that it would be aimed at a more mature audience.
Cineverse may be more keen on taking a gamble…
This element, however, would play into The Toxic Avenger’s struggle to find a distributor. Though it garnered acclaim from critics at festivals, distributors were reluctant to pick up the feature in case the graphic content severely limited how it could be released to the point that certain experts raised concerns that it could potentially become lost media. However, with the success of R-rated features such as Deadpool & Wolverine and Gladiator II in 2024, Cineverse may be more keen on taking a gamble in case The Toxic Avenger could attract similar success.
The Toxic Avenger Aversion Never Made Sense
The Movie Is Part Of A Long Legacy
The long delay in bringing the remake of the iconic Troma movie to the screen is somewhat bizarre, as its approach to the material, while intense, is generally in keeping with the rest of the franchise as well as the company’s output. While Troma Entertainment is a wide-ranging studio and distributor whose previous work includes distributing the iconic Studio Ghibli fantasy movie My Neighbor Totoro, they are best known for creating and distributing genre movies and exploitation titles that push the envelope in terms of content and taste.
Troma developed this reputation over the course of the 1980s with movies including the slasher-adjacent titles Mother’s Day, Bloodbath in Psycho Town, and Luther The Geek. Many of their releases announced their intentions to present bold, envelope-pushing ideas in their titles, including 1986’s Class of Nuke ‘Em High, 1987’s Surf Nazis Must Die, 1988’s Rabid Grannies, 1990’s A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell, and 1996’s Killer Condom.
Killer Condom is based on a German graphic novel and had its titular monster designed by Alien‘s H.R. Giger.
While The Toxic Avenger might feel brash when compared to Blair’s more low-key directorial debut I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore, it is hardly shocking when held against the previous output of Troma itself. It also boasts one of the company’s most exciting ensemble casts, as in addition to Dinklage, it features Jacob Tremblay, Taylour Paige, Kevin Bacon, Sarah Niles, Julia Davis, Julian Kostov, and Elijah Wood. While it may never be a blockbuster tentpole, it makes sense to give the movie a chance in theaters.
Our Take On The Toxic Avenger’s Long-Awaited Release Date
Fears About The Movie’s Content Could Be A Strong Selling Point
While fellow dark cult-classic hero The Crow’s 2024 reboot failed to please audiences and critics, The Toxic Avenger is already in a stronger position to potentially become one of 2025’s cinematic successes. After earning a high Rotten Tomatoes critic score in 2023 and releasing a bloody and brutal red band trailer in October 2024, the reboot of the cult classic has given moviegoers surprisingly lofty expectations.
The Crow starred Bill Skarsgård as a new version of the iconic comic book character, who was originally portrayed onscreen by the late Brandon Lee in 1994.
When paired with its struggle to find a distributor and discussions about its graphic content, many potential viewers unfamiliar with the project may be keen to give the movie a viewing based on those concerns alone out of curiosity once The Toxic Avenger arrives in theaters in August.
Peter Dinklage’s highly anticipated reboot of the ’80s cult classic film has finally landed a release date after a two-year delay. The film, which has received a remarkable 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, is set to hit theaters on October 15th.
Fans have been eagerly awaiting the release of this film, which stars Dinklage in the lead role and promises to bring a fresh and exciting take on the beloved classic. The delay may have been frustrating for some, but if the critical acclaim is anything to go by, it will have been well worth the wait.
Dinklage’s performance has been praised as a standout, with his unique charm and talent shining through in every scene. The film’s updated storyline and modern twists have also been praised for breathing new life into the beloved original.
With the release date finally set, fans can start counting down the days until they can experience this exciting reboot for themselves. Make sure to mark your calendars for October 15th and get ready for a cinematic experience you won’t soon forget.
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Earlier this month, Jacob L. Nelson wrote in a piece for CJR about how the American Jewish press has interpreted changes within the community precipitated by Hamas attacking Israel on October 7, 2023, and Israel’s bombardment of Gaza that followed. He described a period of fragmentation, with American Jews critical of Israel moving decisively away from a mainstream establishment that no longer felt like their political home. Meanwhile, some Jewish groups previously aligned with progressive coalitions have found themselves feeling betrayed by former allies who refused to denounce the murder of civilians on October 7. The war in Gaza, Nelson wrote, “did not create a rift so much as intensify an existing one.”
Over the past fifteen months, Peter Beinart has found himself struggling to bridge this very divide. Beinart, a former editor of the New Republic who has written for the New York Times, The Atlantic, and Israel’s Haaretz (among many other publications),currently teaches journalism and political science at the City University of New York and serves as editor at large for Jewish Currents, which describes itself as “a magazine committed to the rich tradition of thought, activism, and culture of the Jewish left.” After undergoing a political transformation of his own, Beinart has become known in recent years for his critique of Israel’s ongoing military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and of the politics of Jewish supremacy. My introduction to his work was a 2021 article in Jewish Currents in which he argued against de jure Jewish statehood and in favor of a binational, one-state solution in Palestine and Israel.
Beinart is also a strictly observant Jew. As the war in Gaza unfolded, he told me, “it was surreal to feel just horrified day after day by what I was seeing and then to see the organized Jewish community reacting with support.” Beinart saw something deeply wrong with the emphasis on Jewish victimhood and with the idea that the incursion into Gaza was an act of Jewish self-defense: “It struck me as having the effect of giving people a set of rhetorical strategies to allow them not to feel, and to allow them not to see,” he said. And so he wrote a book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning, which came out yesterday. In it, he argues that Jewish safety should not—indeed, cannot—come at the expense of Palestinian dignity. “We must now tell a new story,” he writes in the book’s prologue. “Its central element should be this: We are not history’s permanent virtuous victims.” Beinart and I spoke in advance of the release of the book about the politics of word choice, writing for a skeptical audience, and the Palestinian texts that have shaped his thinking. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
YRG: Over the past fifteen months, the media has struggled with the fact that, when it comes to contested narratives, even the use of certain words can be loaded—for example, “terrorist” versus “militant” versus “fighter.” How did you navigate that in writing this book?
PB: I try to avoid words that are going to lose people, [where] the particular definition isn’t necessarily that important, but they signal you are anti-Israel and therefore I don’t trust you and I’m not going to listen any further, whether that term is “apartheid” or “settler colonialism” or “genocide.” I would actually defend particular definitions of all of those terms for certain things that Israel does, but I avoid them generally because I think it’s more effective to lay out the facts as I see them: in the West Bank, Jews and Palestinians live alongside one another, but Israeli Jews have citizenship and the right to vote in the state that controls that area; they live under civil law and they have freedom of movement. Palestinians don’t have those things. I think that constitutes apartheid, but I think it’s more effective to say, You can call that what you want, but do you think that’s an equal legal system? Similarly, on the question of genocide: we know that [in Gaza] Israel has destroyed most of the hospitals, most of the schools, most of the agriculture, most of the buildings; that people have been displaced multiple times and that the number of people, including the number of children, who have died, is well in excess of many of what we would consider the most horrifying conflicts of the twenty-first century. If you don’t want to call that genocide, don’t call it genocide. But what do you think of that state of affairs?
In the book you talk a lot about the strength that comes from ordering your life around community, but you also describe the dangers of the kind of defensive tribalism that the Jewish community has, in many ways, assumed. Has the press, both Jewish and otherwise, contributed to this dynamic? Have you seen this change at all over time?
It’s no surprise that Palestinians have not had much of a voice in the American discourse about Israel and Palestine. It was in 1982 that Edward Said famously said Palestinians lack permission to narrate; I think in the mainstream American press, to a large degree, they still lack permission to narrate. I think what has changed is that the press is fragmented, with the rise of social media, and that there is now a wing of Americans—younger, more on the left—who do hear Palestinian voices more because Palestinians have used social and alternative media.
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Establishment Jewish perspectives are well represented in mainstream American public discourse. There’s often a centering of Jewish and Israeli humanity, which I don’t want to take for granted; I’m aware that that hasn’t always been the case, and that Jews have suffered a great deal from dehumanization. What’s bittersweet to me is the way in which empathy for our experience and our story comes at the expense of Palestinians. [When speaking about the Holocaust, many people, Jews and non-Jews, say] We will never allow this to happen to Jews again, and We support the state of Israel, and We support Jews being safe. I feel, on the one hand, grateful to live in a country that centers that narrative. It’s part of the reason I feel so comfortable as an American, even in comparison to other liberal democracies like in Europe, where I think that story may not be as central. On the other hand, it’s so clear to me that the effect of that story is to decenter a narrative in which Palestinians have been dehumanized, for which the people in power in media and government don’t feel that same sense of obligation. Or the conversation about anti-Semitism: I’m glad there is a sensitivity in American discourse to anti-Semitism. And yet I’m also appalled by the degree to which anti-Palestinian racism is simply the air that we breathe, without recognition that that should also be considered an unacceptable bigotry. I think the organized American Jewish community weaponizes that language of concern and empathy in cynical ways, and uses it as a tool to try to shut down a conversation about the rights and dignity of Palestinians.
When you write something that you anticipate might touch a nerve within your community, how do you prepare for the pushback?
Sometimes I’ll send things to friends whose politics are not mine, just to kind of get a preview of what they’re going to dislike. It can help me avoid a kind of unforced error in which I said something that didn’t come across the way I wanted it to or I didn’t anticipate some counterargument. For instance, I sent this book to a friend who said to me, You know, Peter, you’re not taking enough account of the fact that there are people who, at the end of the day, support the war, but are still deeply, deeply pained by what they see in Gaza. I thought that was a really helpful point to make, that I then tried to emphasize more. I think the other thing I do is I try in difficult moments to just sit quietly a little bit and ask, to the degree that I can, whether I think that I’m doing what God wants me to do. It doesn’t mean I can control the reaction. It just means I’m willing to accept the response.
The history of persecution has made it so there is a strong cultural taboo against speaking or writing publicly about things that are challenging within the Jewish community—as you and I are doing now. How do you respond to that critique?
The critique that essentially I’m airing dirty laundry—making Jews look bad and giving aid to people who hate Jews? I do hear that a lot. It seems to me we have a tradition of speaking really openly and often quite harshly about ourselves because we believe that actually we have a moral responsibility to try to do better in living up to the obligations of the mitzvot—commandments—however one interprets that. The other thing is that I’ve never met a Palestinian or a pro-Palestinian activist who has said to me, Gosh, I really didn’t know Israel was doing these bad things; I wasn’t really upset about it until I read you. People are seeing these things all the time, and frankly they’re often seeing them in much more unvarnished, harsher terms than I’m expressing them in. In fact, some of what I’ve heard repeatedly from Palestinian or Arab Muslim interlocutors is along the lines of: When Jews stand up for Palestinian human rights, they effectively counter anti-Semitic narratives in the Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim world because essentially they make it harder for people to conflate Israel as a state with all Jews. They send a message that this is not a tribal struggle; it’s a struggle about certain principles.
In an announcement about your book, you wrote that you hope that your readers will also seek out Palestinian authors. Can you recommend a couple of books in particular?
One book—an old book, but a classic—that had a really big impact on me is Said’s The Question of Palestine. The book helped to get Western readers to see Zionism from what Said calls “the standpoint of its victims,” which is still something that is relatively rare. The other thing that really affected me in all of Said’s writing is the ethical humanism of his perspective. He has the extraordinary capacity to critique Zionism and also understand why Zionism had an appeal to so many Jews; to understand the Jewish experience that would have led some people to embrace Zionism and also to accept the depth of the Jewish connection to what Jews call the land of Israel. I think that takes a tremendous amount of empathy: Said is writing as a Palestinian who is from a family that was dispossessed, as part of a people who are not only dispossessed, but whose dispossession is not acknowledged.
Another book that had an impact on me was Ali Abunimah’s One Country. What impacted me was his effort to argue that [Palestine and Israel] could be a place of collective liberation. I think it’s so alien to mainstream Jewish discourse to imagine that a Palestinian writer would care about Jews living and thriving [with Palestinians] in one equal country. The spirit behind it was one that was helpful to me as I made a move that was scary for me, away from the idea of partition toward the idea of equality in a shared space.
Editor’s note: On Monday, Ali Abunimah, the journalist mentioned above and executive director of the online publication Electronic Intifada, was deported from Switzerland after several days in administrative detention. He had traveled to the country to give a talk. According to Reuters, Swiss police cited an entry ban as the pretext for Abunimah’s detention. He said on X after his release that he had not been presented with any charges, adding that he was questioned by Swiss defense ministry intelligence agents without a lawyer present; he suggested that he was targeted for being a journalist who has written about genocide in Palestine. Two high-profile representatives of the United Nations said that Abunimah’s detention raised serious concerns about freedom of expression.
Other notable stories:
Yesterday, Karoline Leavitt, the new White House press secretary, hosted her first formal press briefing and indicated a desire to shake up the way such events typically work, assigning seats for representatives of the “new media”—the first questions went not to the Associated Press, as is traditional, but high-profile journalists from Axios and Breitbart—and repeatedly encouraging podcasters and online content creators to apply for credentials. (Leavitt also pledged to restore hundreds of credentials that she said were “wrongly revoked” by the Biden administration.) The briefing “reaffirmed a truism about the Trump White House: His aides perform for an ‘audience of one,’” CNN’s Brian Stelter writes (referring to Trump himself). “Leavitt seems instantly well-suited to the task,” “expertly channeling” Trump and using “many of the same rhetorical tendencies.”
Last week, eight state senators in Hawaiʻi sponsored legislation that would create a state-run Journalistic Ethics Commission with the power to investigate complaints against members of the press and impose punishments on those found to have violated ethical standards. The bill quickly set off alarm bells among journalists in Hawaiʻi, and this week, the Society of Professional Journalists—whose code of ethics is cited in the bill—came out strongly against it, describing it as “patently unconstitutional” and noting that the SPJ code is “guidance for journalists rather than rules requiring compliance.”
Has America ever needed a media defender more than now? Help us by joining CJR today.
Yona TR Golding was a CJR fellow.
In a recent interview, Peter Beinart discussed his vision for a ‘New Story’ for Jews and Palestinians. Here are some highlights from the conversation:
Q: What inspired you to explore a new narrative for Jews and Palestinians?
A: I have long been troubled by the lack of progress in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the suffering it has caused for both peoples. I believe that a new narrative, one that recognizes the shared humanity and dignity of all involved, is crucial for moving towards a just and lasting peace.
Q: What are the key elements of this ‘New Story’?
A: The ‘New Story’ emphasizes the need for mutual recognition, empathy, and understanding between Jews and Palestinians. It rejects the idea of a zero-sum game and instead seeks to build bridges and foster cooperation between the two communities.
Q: How can individuals contribute to this new narrative?
A: Individuals can contribute by educating themselves about the history and complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, engaging in dialogue with people from both communities, and advocating for policies that promote equality and justice for all.
Q: What are some practical steps that can be taken to advance this ‘New Story’?
A: Some practical steps include supporting grassroots peace initiatives, promoting economic cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians, and advocating for a two-state solution that respects the rights and aspirations of both peoples.
Overall, Peter Beinart’s vision for a ‘New Story’ offers a hopeful and constructive path forward for Jews and Palestinians, one that is rooted in empathy, understanding, and a shared commitment to peace.
Peter Beinart’s purpose in writing Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning is encapsulated in its title.
In a foreword, he explains to someone he describes as a “former friend” (former, because they have diverged so sharply in their views) why he rejected the idea of calling his book “Being Jewish after October 7”. It was not, he writes, because he minimizes the horror of that day. He chose his title, he explains, “because I worry you don’t grapple sufficiently with the terror of the days that followed, and preceded it as well.” In short, he believes mainstream Israeli opinion is unbalanced as regards the rights and wrongs of the Gaza conflict, and his aim is to redress the perspective he sees as mistaken.
Beinart is a prominent left-wing American columnist, journalist, and political commentator. Born and raised in an Orthodox Jewish family, Beinart began as an ardent liberal Zionist but slowly moved toward an increasingly extreme left-wing position. Finally, in July 2020, in an article in The New York Times, he renounced Zionism entirely and declared himself in favor of a unitary Arab-Jewish state in place of Israel.
In this new book, he writes, “When I enter a synagogue I am no longer sure who will extend their hand and who will look away.” He sounds genuinely mystified, if perhaps somewhat disingenuous when he writes: “How does someone like me, who still considers himself a Jewish loyalist, end up being cursed on the street?”
THE ANSWER lies partly in the pages of his new book, where one of his most contentious claims is a call to reimagine Zionism. He believes the movement is at odds with democratic principles and Jewish ethics. He suggests that it perpetuates injustice by prioritizing Jewish self-determination over Palestinian rights.
Palestinian Hamas militants take part in an anti-Israel rally in Gaza City May 22, 2021 (credit: REUTERS/MOHAMMED SALEM)
This blinkered understanding of the movement pays no regard to the absolute need for Zionism in the early 20th century as a response to millennia of statelessness and the continued persecution of the Jewish people. So urgent did the need for a Jewish homeland become that at one point Theodor Herzl and other Zionist leaders toyed with the idea of siting it in Africa, Argentina, anywhere – a short-lived diversion from Zionism’s historic purpose, perhaps, but it demonstrates that at the time the alleviation of Jewish suffering outweighed any other consideration.
In short, Beinart entirely fails to appreciate that the establishment of Israel was not a political demonstration of Jewish colonial arrogance but a lifeline for Jews fleeing constant pogroms, widespread discrimination, and finally the aftermath of the Holocaust. For many Jews, Zionism represents the affirmation of their right to exist in a hostile world and determine their own future.
Beinart, who believes that the State of Israel should be absorbed into some democratic Arab-Jewish entity, also disregards the historical validation for Israel’s existence.
A Jewish homeland in the region then known as Palestine was affirmed in a unanimous vote by the League of Nations in 1922, recommended by the Peel Commission in 1937, and further endorsed by the UN in 1947. In acknowledging that it was rejected by Arab leaders, Beinart ascribes the most nefarious motives to David Ben-Gurion and the Israeli leadership at the time of the Declaration of Independence, going so far as to suggest that Israel pre-planned a mass ethnic cleansing to ensure that the State of Israel, when founded, had at least 80% Jewish population.
His central thesis is that Jewish support for Israel’s military actions in Gaza is based on flawed ideas lodged within the Jewish narrative – the twin concepts of Jewish victimhood and Jewish supremacy. While Jewish history does indeed include episodes of both persecution and resilience, they are the lived experiences of a people who have faced repeated existential threats. He fails to appreciate that these experiences have a reality that far outweighs their being used as instruments to justify Israeli policies.
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BEINART HAS, for example, nothing to say about the Hebron massacre in 1929, master-minded by Haj Amin al-Husseini, the then-mufti of Jerusalem. An ardent Nazi, Husseini spent much of World War II in Berlin where he liaised with Hitler about extending his Final Solution to the Middle East.
For the author to dismiss the fears of Jewish communities as outdated or exaggerated undermines their lived reality. In Israel, October 7 and the random suicide bombings and civilian deaths during the two Intifadas are only too vividly remembered. Worldwide, Jews are currently acutely aware of rising antisemitism and threats to their safety.
He gives full weight to the suffering of Gazans, which is undeniable and tragic, but in writing about Israel’s actions in relation to it, he minimizes or omits the context that makes them valid.
For instance, he says little about the malign role of Hamas, whose brutal pogrom and seizure of hostages on October 7 were in themselves international crimes.
He even goes so far as to justify Hamas’s strategy of embedding itself within the civilian structure of the Gazan population, rejecting the claim that this is using them as human shields. “Under international law,” he writes, “using civilians as human shields… doesn’t mean fighting in an area that just happens to have civilians around [which] Hamas certainly does… It fights from within Gaza’s population and thus puts civilians at risk. But that’s typical of insurgent groups.”
BEINART IS strangely silent about Hamas using hospitals, schools, and mosques as military command centers, and has nothing to say about the vast tunnel network constructed beneath Gaza that is larger than the London Underground.
Nor does he mention the misuse of the billions of humanitarian dollars donated by nations and global organizations that Hamas used to construct it, nor the corruption that enabled Hamas leaders to amass huge fortunes and live in luxury in Qatar and elsewhere.
Beinart’s moral critique of Israel would be more compelling if it acknowledged the challenges posed by an adversary that rejects Israel’s very existence and openly seeks its destruction. He says nothing about the steps the IDF took to warn civilians about forthcoming attacks. By failing to address these, and other relevant realities adequately, Beinart’s narrative places the onus of blame for the Gazan tragedy entirely on Israel.
Beinart’s family came to the States from South Africa, and in the book he compares the Palestinian experience to South African apartheid, and also to other historical struggles for justice. While rhetorically powerful, such comparisons fail to capture the unique nature of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Unlike South Africa, where a single governing entity oppressed a disenfranchised majority, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict involves two national movements with competing claims to the same land. The historical, religious, and political dimensions of this conflict make simplistic analogies unhelpful and potentially misleading.
Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza is a provocative work that raises questions about Jewish morality and identity and the future of Jewish-Palestinian relations. However, its arguments fall short of addressing the complexities and challenges inherent in the situation.
A political journey that leads to reinterpretation
BEINART’S POLITICAL journey has led him to a place where everything he learned in his youth about Judaism, Zionism, and the Jewish people seems false, or at least in need of reinterpretation. He clearly feels an urgent need to reassess everything, and in his first chapter, he takes this right back to the Exodus. He challenges Jewish history at every single step from that point, including the festivals. It is a long catalog.
In his reworked vision of Jewish morality, Beinart glosses over the hard realities that have shaped the history of his people, and continue to define the struggle for peace in the Middle East.
For readers seeking a nuanced and balanced exploration of these issues, Peter Beinart is not the author of first choice. Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza is a handbook filled with skewed anti-Israel, anti-Jewish arguments that demand to be challenged by upholders of truth and justice.
The writer is the Middle East correspondent for Eurasia Review. His latest book is: Trump and the Holy Land: 2016-2020. Follow him at: www.a-mid-east-journal.blogspot.com.
Book Review: ‘Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza’ by Peter Beinart
In his latest book, Peter Beinart delves into the complex and often contentious issue of being Jewish in the aftermath of the destruction of Gaza. Drawing on his own personal experiences and extensive research, Beinart paints a nuanced picture of the challenges and dilemmas facing Jewish individuals and communities in the wake of this devastating event.
One of the key strengths of Beinart’s book is his ability to provide a balanced and thoughtful analysis of the various perspectives within the Jewish community. He explores the range of reactions to the destruction of Gaza, from those who support the Israeli government’s actions to those who condemn them as unjust and inhumane. Through interviews with a diverse array of Jewish voices, Beinart highlights the complexity of the issue and the deep divisions that exist within the community.
Furthermore, Beinart does not shy away from addressing the difficult questions and uncomfortable truths that arise in the aftermath of such a traumatic event. He tackles head-on issues of morality, ethics, and justice, challenging his readers to confront the realities of the situation and consider the implications for their own beliefs and values.
Overall, ‘Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza’ is a thought-provoking and insightful exploration of a timely and important topic. Whether you are a member of the Jewish community or simply interested in understanding the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this book is sure to provide valuable insights and spark meaningful conversations.
Have you read ‘Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza’ by Peter Beinart? What are your thoughts on the book? Share your opinions in the comments below!
Author Peter Beinart speaks at an event in Atlanta in 2012. Photograph: David Goldman/AP
Peter Beinart has spent a lifetime talking about Palestine and Israel. In the early 2000s he was regarded as among Israel’s most prominent American defenders. He has since broken with just about every tenet commonly associated with Zionism – from rejecting the argument that Israel can be simultaneously democratic and Jewish to arguing that Palestinian refugees must be allowed to return to historic Palestine. Few people have moved as far in so short a time.
A professor of journalism and political science at the City University of New York, Beinart once edited the New Republic and is now an editor-at-large at Jewish Currents and a contributing opinion columnist for the New York Times. He has built a reputation for being an incisive writer and public intellectual, with a knack for admitting when he’s wrong – on Israel, his early support for the Iraq war and what he has described as his previous complicity in tolerating workplace sexual harassment.
In Beinart’s latest book,he appeals to his fellow Jews to grapple with the morality of their defense of Israel. The book, titled Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning, begins with a “note to my former friend”, with whom he has broken over the issue. “By reading these words, you have agreed to walk with me,” he writes. “I hope to lure you beyond established boundaries.”
Beinart relies on Jewish texts and draws lessons from South Africa, where his family is from, to confront Zionism and what he sees as complicity from the American Jewish establishment in Palestinian oppression. He argues for a Jewish tradition that has no use for Jewish supremacy and treats human equality as a core value.
I spoke with Beinart before the declaration of a ceasefire earlier this month. I followed up to ask his view on the development.
Ahmed Moor: Hi, Peter. We’ve all been casting about for resources and things to help us understand how the world has changed after Gaza. Your book aims to address some of that but, as the title states, it’s also about “being Jewish”. So who is the audience for the book?
PB: First and foremost, I suppose it’s written for my community, my friends and even my family. I live inside a pretty traditional Jewish world. And I feel like there is a kind of pathology that exists in many Jewish spaces, among people who in other aspects of their lives are humane and thoughtful. Yet when it comes to the question of Gaza, and more generally the question of Palestinians and their right to be free, a certain set of blinders come down.
My hope is that I can get them to see that something has gone very profoundly wrong in the way we think about what it means to be Jewish. I felt like I needed for my own sanity to write something which addressed this moral catastrophe in the hopes that maybe I will change some people’s minds. Maybe there is also a whole group of younger Jews who are themselves profoundly alienated and bewildered and deeply angry. There’s a kind of moral, cultural, even theological wreckage that Jews now have to face. I want to help them think about how they rebuild.
AM: I’m on the outside, but from where I sit it appears that Jews are quite divided, both politically and religiously. Yet in the book you write as though you’re speaking to a single community. What are the values that anchor that community – and what happens when Israel enters the mix?
PB: That’s a big question. What’s complicated about Judaism is that it is a religion with a universal kind of message like Christianity or Islam, but also embedded within Judaism is the metaphor of family. In the book of Genesis, you have the story of a family that in the book of Exodus becomes a people or a nation. In some ways, being Jewish can be analogous to being both Catholic and Italian, in the sense that proudly atheistic Jews still feel very intensely Jewish.
People walk past the rubble of the Al-Hassan Benna mosque on Friday in Gaza City. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
It’s one thing for Jews to feel these bonds of communal solidarity outside of the state framework, when they often had to depend on one another while living in states that were dangerous to them. But when you take a very powerful state and you inject that with this notion of uncritical solidarity, it leads to a series of rationalizations as that state commits what I think can be rightly called a genocide. Something terrible has gone wrong because Judaism also has a moral message. I feel like that gets lost in all of this.
I think more relevant to the book is the question of how we tell a story about what it means to be Jewish that recognizes our obligations to one another, but also never loses sight of the fact that the first people created according to Torah are not Jews. All human beings are created in the image of God, and that precedes the Jewish story.
What Israel has done in Gaza is the most profound desecration of the central idea of the absolute and infinite worth of every human being. And yet the organized American Jewish community acts as if Palestinians in Gaza have essentially no value. Their deaths are dismissed on the flimsiest of pretexts. These people are basically saying that the state has absolute value, but the human beings who live in this state, if they have the misfortune of being Palestinian, don’t have value.
AM: One of the major themes of the book is complicity. How do you perceive complicity with what Israel is doing, and has been doing for decades, within American Jewish life?
PB: I think the organized American Jewish community, especially since 1967, has been built around unconditional support for Israel as a central feature of what it means to live a Jewish life. You support the basic structure of the state even though the state is fundamentally unequal and fundamentally oppressive when it comes to Palestinians. It comes in many forms. It can come in participation in a group like Aipac, which is pressuring the government to maintain unconditional US support. It can come in more symbolic ways, like a prayer for the Israel Defense Forces which is common in many American synagogues. It also comes through the unwillingness to engage with Palestinians.
Most American Jewish institutions – schools, synagogues, camps, whatever – don’t bring Palestinian speakers in to actually give people a genuine understanding of what Zionism looks like from the standpoint of its victims. These are all forms of complicity.
AM: I’ve been reading your work since at least 2008. I wrote for you in 2012 at the Daily Beast when you were still recognized as a prominent liberal Zionist voice. Over the years, you’ve shown a willingness to change your mind and to do it publicly. Not a lot of people are willing to publicly admit they were wrong. Why do you think that is?
PB: I always feel a little embarrassed when people ask me about these changes in a way that allows me to look good. The truth is that there were a lot of people who knew things much earlier that I took a long time to learn. Obviously many of them are Palestinians from whom I’ve learned, but there are also Jews and others.
My learning process has been slow partly because of fear. I think perhaps that I was too comfortable living in an environment where I was not really exposed to many things, a relatively privileged and cloistered existence. But I’ve also always been afraid of what the consequences would be, career-wise and interpersonally, if I became too radically out of step with people around me. It’s still something I worry about all the time.
For me, there was a process of unpeeling, like an onion, that began when I first went to the West Bank more than 20 years ago. It’s one thing to know in an abstract way that it’s not great for Israel to be occupying people. And I kind of knew that, and I supported two states, but there was always a notion of wanting to give Israel the benefit of the doubt. But the more one looked, the more that was just unsustainable.
The Shuafat refugee camp is seen behind a section of Israel’s separation barrier in Jerusalem. Photograph: Oded Balilty/AP
I was also forced to confront the degree to which I had dehumanized Palestinians. I didn’t think of myself as someone who did that. But I realized that I wasn’t engaging with Palestinians as human beings. I was engaging with Palestinians as a kind of an abstract group of people about whom I was making various judgments.
There was a real shock that came with engagement with ordinary people and the realization that these were human beings who were enduring these things that I and the people around me would never be willing to tolerate. I was able to shed the preconceptions that I was raised with, that so many Jews are raised with, about Palestinians, that they have a tendency towards violence. I was able to unlearn those things. So that has been for me an experience of liberation.
That’s part of what the book is about: I want other Jews to have that experience of liberation because first of all it means that we can stop being complicit in these horrors, but also we don’t have to carry the burden of this fear based on dehumanizing and often racist views.
AM: This is a really thorny topic, but a lot of people see overt displays of traditionally Jewish symbols as signifiers of Zionism, which is militaristic and chauvinistic in my lived experience as a Palestinian who has spent time in both Gaza and the West Bank. For example, there was that infamous story of Israeli soldiers branding the Star of David on to a detainee’s face. So how do you unwind the association of Zionism with Judaism?
PB: Zionism has this very strange relationship with Judaism. In one way it was a rebellion against Judaism. Normative notions of Jewish law said that Jews pray for the Messiah to come and once the Messiah comes, Jews will return to what we call the land of Israel. But then, in an era of nationalism and imperialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Zionist movement said: “We are going to have our own nationalist project.” In the beginning the vast majority of Jewish religious authorities were hostile to Zionism. But then Zionism also plays on these traditional notions in Jewish texts of a connection to this place called the land of Israel.
But now, Zionism in the form of Jewish ethnonationalism risks swallowing Judaism or becoming so enmeshed with it that the two cannot be distinguished. The Israeli flag is designed to look like a tallit, the prayer shawl that Jews wear when they pray. It has the star of David, a traditional Jewish symbol. The menorah is also used in Israeli symbols.
Jews want opponents of Zionism to make this distinction – I don’t want people to go up to a Jew on the street who is wearing a kippah or some Jewish symbol and make that person responsible for what the state of Israel does.
Yet at the same time, Jewish leaders in America are constantly conflating these two things by saying Zionism is inherent in Judaism. On the one hand, they say, supporting the state of Israel is inherent in being Jewish. On the other, they’re asking the anti-Zionist or pro-Palestine activist to live up to a standard that they themself violate.
Many American Jews will decide they want to be Zionists. They will decide they want to support the state of Israel. I may argue with them. They have the right to make that choice. But it is not an inherent part of being Jewish.
AM: You write: “Hostility to Israel has become so pervasive in progressive circles that Zionist students sometimes feel like ideological pariahs.” How should the Palestinian rights movement interact with Zionist students, especially since the overwhelming weight of institutional opprobrium is directed at anti-Zionist students?
PB: I wrestled with how to write that chapter a lot. I think some Jewish students arrive at college from an environment in which Zionism and support for the state of Israel is normative. It’s what they have experienced, what they have learned. They’ve probably had almost no interaction with Palestinians – no understanding of what Zionism looks like from the standpoint of its victims. So then the question is: how do you engage with those students?
I think there is a great opportunity for education. Engaging with those students, talking to them, trying to create environments where they hear Palestinians and they hear scholarly work on Israel/Palestine is a better path than the path of exclusion. I don’t think the path of exclusion – basically saying you’re the equivalent of a white supremacist, we will not talk to you – is antisemitism. But I don’t think it is the most effective way of bringing about the change that we want.
I think I can understand that it’s not easy for a Palestinian to sit down with a Jewish student and explain to the Jewish student why they are fully human and why they’re fully deserving of equality. In the same way that I think Black Americans often don’t really appreciate having to do that with white Americans. I understand that not everyone is going to want to play that role, but at the very least I don’t think people should shut down those spaces.
A book by Beinart under the chair of an audience member as Beinart speaks in at Atlanta in 2012. Photograph: David Goldman/AP
It’s a strategic argument. I don’t think that exclusion is the best way to bring about the change that we want.
AM: Since we first spoke, a tenuous ceasefire has come into effect. How do you interpret its terms and how it came about?
PB: To me the ceasefire shows that US pressure works. I’m glad that some hostages will be released and that Palestinians in Gaza will get some reprieve from the bombing and some additional aid. But even though Israel destroyed Gaza, Hamas will remain there, because the Palestinian problem is a political problem, not a military one. Israel never had a strategy, and will likely go back to destroying Gaza.
AM: In your book, you end on a hopeful note, writing that Jews can contribute to humanity by “liberating ourselves from supremacy so, as partners with Palestinians, we can help liberate the world”. Do you really draw hope at this time?
PB: I don’t think that hope is something one draws from material circumstances. Optimism is something you look for evidence for. I have none of that. I see Israel moving towards an American-style solution to the Palestinian question. In the 19th century, the American solution to the Native population was to destroy their societies so that they couldn’t function as a political entity.
But hope comes from wherever it comes from. It’s just something that human beings need. Like we need oxygen. For me, maybe it comes from belief in God. I don’t know. I have glimpsed, myself, little episodes of this potential liberation as a child of South Africans. Imagine if this story of Palestine and Israel, which is now a story of unbelievable horror, of genocide, of apartheid – if it were instead a story of collective liberation. I do really believe in my soul that Israeli Jews and Palestinians could live together in full equality with a true process of reconciliation and full refugee return and historical justice that would unleash things that would be miraculous for people around the world.
Will I see it? I have no idea. But that’s the dream.
Ahmed Moor is a writer and fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace. He is a plaintiff in a lawsuit that charges the US state department with circumventing the law to fund Israeli military units accused of human rights abuses
Peter Beinart is editor-at-large of Jewish Currents and professor of journalism and political science at City University of New York. Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning is out on 28 January
In his recent article, Peter Beinart delves into the moral complexities of being Jewish in the aftermath of the destruction in Gaza during the Israel-Gaza war. He grapples with the internal conflict of feeling a deep connection to his Jewish identity while also feeling immense sorrow and guilt over the devastation caused by the conflict.
Beinart highlights the importance of facing the harsh realities of the situation, urging the Jewish community to confront the moral wreckage that has been left in the wake of the war. He emphasizes the need for introspection and self-reflection, acknowledging the pain and suffering that has been inflicted on both sides of the conflict.
As a prominent voice in the Jewish community, Beinart’s words carry weight and significance. His call for accountability and empathy serves as a powerful reminder of the ethical responsibilities that come with being Jewish, especially in times of conflict and crisis.
Ultimately, Beinart’s thoughtful and thought-provoking analysis challenges us to confront the moral complexities of our identities and to strive for a more just and compassionate world, even in the face of destruction and devastation.
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
A US start-up whose backers include tech billionaires Sam Altman and Peter Thiel has raised $425mn to keep it on track to achieve its target of producing electricity from nuclear fusion in 2028.
Helion has the most ambitious timeline among start-ups racing to develop nuclear fusion, a long sought-after technology that combines hydrogen atoms to form helium atoms and release a significant amount of energy.
Venture capital firm Lightspeed and SoftBank’s second Vision Fund are the investors joining OpenAI boss Altman, Thiel’s Mithril Capital and steel company Nucor in backing Helion. The start-up has now raised more than $1bn and has a valuation of $5.4bn, including the latest fundraising round.
Nuclear fusion is carbon-free and creates no long-lived radioactive waste, but scientists have only been able to sustain a reaction for short periods of time. Earlier this month, Chinese scientists set a new record of 1,066 seconds in a reactor in Hefei, according to state media.
Helion has a contract to start supplying Microsoft with electricity produced from its fusion system in 2028, and the new funds would put it “on course” to achieve the goal, said chief executive David Kirtley. The company also has an agreement to build a 500MW power plant for Nucor.
Kirtley said the money would be spent on manufacturing pulse capacitors, an important component of its Polaris reactor in the US.
He said: “The capacitor is where about a third of the cost of the whole system goes, and about 85 per cent of Polaris’ capacitors were built overseas. We bought them and waited several years to get them in-house.”
Kirtley added: “We are now the first US manufacturer of large-scale pulse capacitors in decades, and we are going to expand that. So rather than waiting three years, we could get them in a year or less.”
He said Polaris, the company’s seventh-generation reactor, was “in operation” but declined to share details about its results.
“We have a technology that can be built, built quickly and iterated upon, especially relative to other fusion,” he said, adding that Helion’s design was “smaller, cheaper, easier to build and with less concrete”.
The remaining challenges for the start-up lie on the regulatory side, where Helion needs state permits to deploy power plants, and on squeezing more efficiency from its engineering, he said.
Kirtley added that “it would not change anything” if the development of AI, a vital driver for investment into energy companies, turns out to be less power intensive than estimated.
“There is a huge need [for baseload power] even more than we thought before. So if that extra need is a little bit less, that is OK too,” he said.
Exciting News: US Nuclear Fusion Start-up Raises $425mn with Support from Sam Altman and Peter Thiel
In a groundbreaking development for the energy sector, a US-based nuclear fusion start-up has secured a whopping $425 million in funding, with prominent investors Sam Altman and Peter Thiel backing the initiative. This significant investment is a testament to the potential of nuclear fusion as a clean and sustainable energy source for the future.
Nuclear fusion, often dubbed as the “holy grail” of energy production, holds the promise of unlimited, carbon-free energy generation. By replicating the process that powers the sun, nuclear fusion has the potential to revolutionize the way we produce electricity and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.
With the support of seasoned investors like Sam Altman and Peter Thiel, this nuclear fusion start-up is poised to accelerate its research and development efforts, bringing us one step closer to harnessing the power of the stars here on Earth. Stay tuned for more updates on this exciting journey towards a cleaner and greener future. #NuclearFusion #CleanEnergy #Innovation #SustainableFuture
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