Liberal Democratic Values - not a suicide pact

Following his 5000 word indictment of US Jewish elites in the New York Times Review of Books, The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment , Peter Beinart  appeared at Los Angeles 's Temple Beth Am in an event organized by the Jewish Journal at the end of last month. (Click here for a video recording).

Martin Sherman attended the event and felt compelled to respond – also in 5000 words (see the PDF attachment below)



For anyone with a modicum of knowledge of Israeli society, the lecture was an astonishing display of ignorance and arrogance, during which Beinart displayed unflinching resolve to advance and to defend his liberal-democratic values – down to the last Israeli.

His tirade of distortions, inaccuracies and untruths proved him to be either woefully misinformed or willfully misleading. 

Before dismissing this criticism as excessively harsh and unsubstantial denigration of the speaker, please examine the analysis of some of Beinarts statements, which potrays only a small sample of how fact and fiction were blatantly blurred and the real and the surreal blithely blended throughout his talk - and his article

In the attachment Prof Sherman deal's with Beinart's pronouncements on the following topics:

· The "Radical Settlers":

· The Eviction of  Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah Quarter in East Jerusalem
·  Pikuch Nefesh and Reverence for Life Over Land.
· Double Standards – and Why They Should Not Be Applied
·  Double Standards – and Why They Should Be Applied
· Israel's Right to Defend Itself
·  Blockades and Balance (or Lack Thereof)
· The Ascendancy of Lieberman
· The Sentiments of Israeli Arab – Sincere Affinity or Sinister Aspirations?
· The Nuclear Threat
·  The Real Failure of the American Jewish Establishment

It must be remembered that commitment to liberal democratic values is not a suicide pact.

To expect Israel to conduct itself in a manner totally divorced from the exigencies of its environment and totally detached from the nature of its adversaries and their manifest goals – as reflected both in their declarations and in their deeds –is a position that reflects neither moral merit nor political prudence

It is this that the American Jewish Establishment – including its liberal democratic members - needs to understand and to address accordingly – before great tragedy overtakes the Jewish people again.