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Peter Beinart Thinks He Is a ‘Good Jew’ — The Truth Is Anything But

Peter Beinart. Photo: Joe Mabel via Wikimedia Commons.

In April 2024, Guardian columnist Naomi Klein said that Zionism is a “project that commits genocide in” the name of the world’s Jews. We argued at the time that this op-ed was one of the most despicable pieces published at the outlet in the 15 years we’ve been monitoring their content.

Last week, they published an essay by Peter Beinart (adapted from his new book) that arguably has the potential to incite even more hatred against Jews than Klein’s screed.

Beinart, a Guardian columnist, is a former “Liberal Zionist” turned anti-Zionist, and now fancies himself one of the few Jewish voices brave enough to speak out about what he claims is the moral corruption at the core of Zionism — which he’s characterized as “supremacism” — and the Jewish community more broadly.

He also largely blamed the Oct. 7th massacre on Israel’s long “denial of Palestinian freedom,” and began describing the IDF’s early response to Hamas’ pogrom, including even the relocation of Palestinian civilians to keep them out of harm’s way, as “monstrous crime” and another potential “Nakba,” before even the ground invasion began.

He focuses his Guardian essay on the “dark side” of Purim, which he likens with Jewish support for the “slaughter in Gaza.”

What’s the “dark side” of Purim to Beinart?

Writing as if he’s the only Jew who’s ever read the Megillah — and then serving the role of a Jewish informer, “revealing” to non-Jews the sinister truth about this seemingly joyous Jewish festival — Beinart chides the Jewish community for “forgetting” that the book of Esther doesn’t end with Haman’s execution after his plan to annihilate the Jews was thwarted.

Since the genocidal edict couldn’t be annulled, Beinart recounts, Jews were allowed to defend themselves by striking, “slaying and destroying” their “enemies with the sword.”

The Jews, he adds, “killed 75,000 people” and then declare the 14th “a day of feasting and merrymaking.”

He then writes that “with the blood of their foes barely dry, the Jews feast and make merry” — before warning, in a sentence that “Purim isn’t only about the danger Gentiles pose to us. It’s also about the danger we pose to them.”  [emphasis added]

The Book of Esther, however, couldn’t be clearer that the Jews’ enemies prepared a genocide, and Jews fought back and killed their enemies, preventing the genocide.

Though this is indeed cause for celebration, antisemites through the ages have distorted and weaponized the text, claiming it shows that Jews are vengeful, bloodthirsty, and even genocidal.

Beinart’s agenda here in using rhetoric redolent of the ancient blood libel, about the “blood-soaked massacre” celebrated during Purim, is clear, as he begins pivoting to Israeli sins, and, eventually, to the Gaza war, moralizing that “today, these blood-soaked verses should unsettle us.”

Why should we be “unsettled”?

Beinart answers that by chiding contemporary Jews for a “false innocence” when discussing Israel. He criticizes Israelis and Jews who (correctly!) point out that “the Palestinian refugee issue originated in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.” In Beinart’s telling, the attack by five Arab armies of the nascent Jewish State was justifiable — a war launched to protect the Palestinians from the Jews.

Turing to Gaza, he not only blames “establishment Jewish officials” for promoting what he suggests is a lie — or, at least, a huge exaggeration — that Hamas uses Palestinians civilians as human shields, which vastly increases the number of non-combatants killed, but seems to defend the terror group’s use of human shields, writing that this tactic is “typical of insurgent groups.”

Mocking those who would hold the terror group itself responsible for hiding fighters and weapons in homes, mosques, and hospitals, and using a tunnel system below civilian infrastructure, Beinart wonders what precisely Hamas should do, “put on brightly colored uniforms, walk into an open field, and take on a vastly more powerful conventional army?! ”

The answer is painfully obvious to all but the most extreme anti-Zionist ideologues: they shouldn’t have attacked Israel and slaughtered Jews in the first place.

To most Jews, Beinart continues in his complaint, the “human shield” argument is designed “to prove that Israel is always innocent“ — and that the state is never the author of Palestinian suffering. In this, we see the stunning moral obtuseness that informs his discourse on Judaism and Israel.

For anti-Zionist Jews like Beinart, it is Palestinians who are never assigned agency, but, instead, are infantilized, with their deep-seated antisemitic pathos framed as a legitimate grievance.

Whether we’re discussing the Palestinian leadership’s alliance with Hitler, their opposition to the 1947 UN Partition Plan, decades of terrorism, including the Second Intifada, which was launched during the peak of the peace process, or the rejection of several Israeli offers of Palestinian statehood, bad Palestinian decisions are inevitably framed in a way exculpating Palestinians, while imputing an Israeli root cause.

At his core, Beinart refuses to hold Palestinians morally culpable for participating in, supporting, or providing succor to, the death cult whose bloody pogromists murdered, raped, tortured and mutilated Jews with glee — and whose leaders knew full well that the response to their unprovoked attack would bring untold suffering to civilians.

Moreover, no lessons were learned by the pro-Palestinian movement on that dark Shabbat day. Instead of anything resembling self-reflection, most, as Beinart’s reaction in the days and months following the massacre showed, actually doubled down on their beliefs, intensifying their denunciations of Israel.

“Western activists for Palestinians,” Shany Mor wrote, “are dedicated to two nearly theological precepts: that Israel is evil, and that no Palestinian action is ever connected to any Palestinian outcome”. Hamas’s gruesome attack, he concluded, “poses a threat to this worldview, and the only way to resolve it is by heightening Israel’s imagined malevolence. The terrorist atrocities don’t trigger a recoiling from the cause in whose name they were carried out; they lead to an even greater revulsion at the victim.”

Finally, Peter Beinart is not a self-hating Jew.

Rather, he fancies himself a better Jew — in fact, one of the very few genuinely “good Jews.” In his book, Trials of the Diaspora, Anthony Julius calls Jews like Beinart “scourges” — a term which relates to their self-anointed role as prophets, whipping the wayward Jewish people into line. By indicting most Jews, and the Jewish State, he puts himself on the “right” side of the moral divide, proclaiming his own superiority to the ruck of his sinful fellow Jews.

What Beinart now peddles, Haviv Rettig Gur observed, “is an ideologically updated version of the same claim of deep-seated and defining criminality in the Jews” as Theobald of Cambridge, a Jewish convert to Christianity who leveled the first known accusation that Jews ritually murder Christian children. Beinart, a convert to anti-Zionism, confirms “to our tormentors that [Jews’] criminality is the distillation and apotheosis of the great evils of our age”.

The fact The Guardian employed Peter Beinart’s services as a Jewish informer, a modern-day Theobold, should surprise nobody.

Adam Levick serves as co-editor of CAMERA UK – an affiliate of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), where a different version of this article appeared.

The post Peter Beinart Thinks He Is a ‘Good Jew’ — The Truth Is Anything But first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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The BBC Documentary That Paints Every Israeli as an Extremist

The Jewish community of Beit El in Judea and Samaria. Photo: Yaakov via Wikimedia Commons.

Louis Theroux first visited the West Bank in 2011 to film a documentary titled Louis and the Ultra-Zionists, part of his long-running series for the BBC. Back then, he at least seemed to possess a trace of journalistic curiosity. Even the title signaled a degree of editorial caution — framing his subjects as a small, ideological fringe rather than representative of Israeli society as a whole.

At the time, Theroux made an effort to clarify that he was profiling a narrow segment of Israelis. He showed legally purchased Jewish homes (sold by Arab landowners, no less) and acknowledged the regular — and at times deadly — terror attacks faced by Israeli civilians living in the area, often requiring military protection. There was condescension, certainly. But there was also context.

Fast-forward to 2024, and the curiosity is gone — though the bemused, slightly smug expression remains. His new BBC documentary, Louis and the Settlers, drops even the soft qualifiers. No “ultra.” No nuance. Just “settlers.” And with that, Theroux makes it clear: half a million Israelis living in the West Bank are one and the same — extremists who, we’re told, want every last Palestinian removed from the land.

This time, the documentary doesn’t begin with questions. It begins with conclusions. And Theroux uses a brief, unrepresentative snapshot of life in the West Bank to draw sweeping indictments of the entire Israeli state.

The message is unmistakable: Israel is the problem. Settlers are the villains. And Palestinians are passive, blameless victims of a colonial project.

Within the opening minutes, Theroux plants his ideological flag. He refers to the West Bank as “Palestinian territory” and describes every Israeli community within it as illegal under international law — a sharp departure from his more qualified approach 14 years earlier.

And while his personal views seep in throughout the film, they become crystal clear during one exchange at a checkpoint, where an Israeli soldier casually refers to their location as “Israel.” Theroux shoots back: “We’re not in Israel, are we?”

And just like that, the BBC and Louis Theroux have redrawn Israel’s borders. No Knesset debate needed.

Erasing History to Blame the Massacre

The timing of this return trip is no accident. The film comes in the shadow of the October 7 Hamas massacres — the day 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered, families were burned alive in their homes, and children were dragged into Gaza. And yet, Theroux barely mentions it.

The few passing references to October 7 serve not to inform the audience — but to imply that Israel may be exploiting its own dead to justify further expansion. It’s not an investigation. It’s an accusation. And it allows him to skip over thousands of years of Jewish history in order to frame the current war in Gaza as a convenient cover story for Israeli “aggression.”

Take Hebron, for example. Theroux tells viewers that “in 1968, the year after [the West Bank] was occupied by Israel, a community of Jewish settlers moved in illegally. They now number some 700.” He fails to mention that in 1895 — decades before the modern state of Israel existed — Hebron had a Jewish population of 1,429.

Jews have lived in Hebron since antiquity — it’s where, according to Jewish tradition, Abraham purchased the Cave of the Patriarchs. Modern records date the community back centuries, despite discrimination under Ottoman rule and bans on Jewish prayer at holy sites. In 1929, Arab rioters carried out a massacre, wiping out Hebron’s Jewish population. Dozens were murdered; the rest were expelled. Under Jordanian rule from 1948 to 1967, Jews were banned from the city entirely. When they returned after the Six-Day War — not as colonists, but as a displaced community coming home — Theroux picks up the story there and calls it “illegal.”

On the Six-Day War itself, Theroux offers no context. No mention of the Arab armies preparing to destroy Israel. No mention of Israel’s preemptive strike against an existential threat.

According to The Settlers, Israel simply “occupied” — full stop.

Palestinian Terrorism? Not Even a Footnote.

Theroux visits Evyatar, a small Jewish community near the Palestinian town of Beita, and uses it as a stand-in for the entire West Bank. Beita is depicted as a symbol of peaceful resistance: a proud, ancient Palestinian village standing firm against violent settlers backed by IDF soldiers.

It’s a neat story. Too neat. Because missing from the story are years of organized, violent riots from Beita — complete with Molotov cocktails, burning Stars of David, and Nazi swastikas. All carefully omitted to preserve the narrative: Palestinians peaceful, settlers aggressive. Facts that don’t fit? Left on the cutting room floor.

Meanwhile, Israeli nationalism is treated as something sinister and unsettling — a moral aberration to be examined. The notion that Jews might want sovereignty or security is met with thinly veiled suspicion. Yet Hamas’ goal of a Jew-free Palestine, explicitly laid out in its charter, is never mentioned. Nor is the Palestinian Authority’s “pay-for-slay” policy, which literally incentivizes terrorism by rewarding those who murder Israelis — including women and children.

These aren’t fringe details. They’re central to understanding the region. And Theroux knows it. He just doesn’t care.

The BBC’s Complicity

That The Settlers aired on the BBC — a publicly funded broadcaster once seen as a gold standard of global journalism — says plenty. Not just about Louis Theroux’s agenda, but about the institutional direction of the BBC itself. This wasn’t a rogue filmmaker sneaking bias past the editors. This was bias built into the foundation — signed off, packaged, and broadcast under the banner of credibility.

There is, of course, no problem with scrutinizing Israeli policy, and no issue with questioning the settlement enterprise or highlighting the tensions in the West Bank. But journalism — real journalism — demands context. It demands precision. It demands at least a passing familiarity with the full scope of the story.

Theroux offers none of that. He arrives with a predetermined script and casts his roles accordingly: Hero. Villain. Victim. Oppressor. And when reality refuses to cooperate? It’s left out.

Louis Theroux didn’t return to Israel to understand it. He returned to flatten it. To reduce its complexity to a morality play — and to ensure everyone knows the antagonist is.

The Settlers isn’t a documentary. It’s a hit piece. And the BBC handed him the camera — then applauded the performance.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

The post The BBC Documentary That Paints Every Israeli as an Extremist first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Indian Army Kills Islamist Terrorist Linked to 2002 Murder of Jewish-American Journalist Daniel Pearl

Jewish-American Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by Islamist terrorists in Pakistan in 2002. Photo: Screenshot

The Indian government announced on Thursday that its military forces had killed “Pakistan’s most wanted terrorist,” who was connected to the 2002 murder of Jewish-American Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl.

On Wednesday, India launched “Operation Sindoor,” which the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) claims is targeted at dismantling “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

The operation came after Pakistani terrorists killed 26 Hindu tourists in Kashmir last month amid escalating tensions between the two countries.

In a post on X, the BJP confirmed that during this week’s operation, the Indian army killed Islamist terrorist Abdul Rauf Azhar, who was involved in numerous terrorism plots, including the 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight, the 2001 terror attack on the Indian Parliament, and the 2016 Pathankot Air Force base attack.

Azhar’s involvement in the 1999 hijacking led to the release of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British-born al-Qaeda member with close ties to Pakistan’s intelligence services, who later was involved in the kidnapping and subsequent murder of 38-year-old Pearl, who was covering the war on terror as a journalist when he was abducted.

In a statement on X, Pearl’s father, Judea, addressed initial reports regarding Azhar’s death and his connection to his son’s murder.

“I want to clarify: Azhar was a Pakistani extremist and leader of the terrorist organization Jaish-e-Mohammed. While his group was not directly involved in the plot to abduct Danny, it was indirectly responsible. Azhar orchestrated the hijacking that led to the release of Omar Sheikh — the man who lured Danny into captivity,” he said.

In 2002, the Jewish-American journalist was abducted and killed by a group of Islamist terrorists connected to Azhar’s militant network, which had ties to al-Qaeda and Jaish-e-Mohammed, a terror group aiming to separate Kashmir from India and incorporate it into Pakistan.

On Jan. 27, 2002, an email was sent to several Pakistani and US media organizations, which included several photos, stating that Pearl was being held in “inhumane” conditions to protest the US treatment of Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners in Cuba. Photo: Screenshot

Originally stationed in New Delhi as the South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, Pearl later moved to Pakistan to investigate terrorism following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City.

After kidnapping Pearl at a restaurant in Karachi, southern Pakistan, the Islamist terrorists, who identified themselves as the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty, accused him of being an Israeli spy and sent the United States a list of demands for his release.

However, Washington did not meet their demands, and Pearl was ultimately executed after being held captive for five weeks.

His wife, Mariane Pearl, gave birth to a baby boy, Adam D. Pearl, in Paris later that year. On the Daniel Pearl Foundation website, she said, “Adam’s birth rekindles the joy, love, and humanity that Danny radiated wherever he went.”

The post Indian Army Kills Islamist Terrorist Linked to 2002 Murder of Jewish-American Journalist Daniel Pearl first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Jewish Jewelry Shop Owners Brutally Assaulted in Tunisia Days Before Annual Pilgrimage

A Jewish jewelry shop owner in Djerba, Tunisia, was brutally attacked by a man wielding a machete. Photo: Screenshot

A Jewish jewelry shop owner in Djerba, Tunisia, was brutally attacked by a man wielding a machete just days before the Tunisian island was set to host its annual Jewish pilgrimage, which is expected to draw thousands of visitors.

On Wednesday morning, two Jewish men — owners of a jewelry shop in the center of the island, located off Tunisia’s southeast coast — were physically assaulted by a man carrying a large knife.

Although the attack was halted when one of them screamed — alerting members of the local Jewish community who subdued the assailant — one of them was left severely injured.

According to local media reports, the attacker had surveyed the island the day before, visiting several stores to identify those owned by Jews. Local police arrested him shortly following the assault.

After the attack, one of the owners was admitted to the hospital with severe injuries. The 50-year-old Jewish man had his fingers severed during the assault and underwent surgery to reattach them.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar condemned the attack and expressed his wishes for a swift recovery to the victims.

“This attack comes two years after the previous deadly assault that claimed Jewish lives and the lives of security personnel during the Lag BaOmer celebration,” the top Israeli diplomat wrote in a post on X.

“I call on the Tunisian authorities to take all necessary measures to protect the Jewish community,” Saar continued.

Djerba is home to the majority of Tunisia’s Jewish community, numbering about 2,000 people, and is also where the renowned El Ghriba Synagogue, one of North Africa’s oldest synagogues, is located.

The attack comes just a week before Jewish pilgrims are expected to arrive on the island for the Lag B’Omer holiday, when thousands gather annually for three days of festivities. The annual pilgrimage to El Ghriba Synagogue, scheduled for May 15 and 16 this year, draws visitors from around the world.

The synagogue has been targeted in multiple terrorist attacks over the years, including in 1985, 2002, and 2023.

Two years ago, a shooting at the synagogue claimed the lives of two Jewish cousins and three police officers. Aviel Hadad, a 30-year-old Israeli goldsmith, and Ben Hadad, a 42-year-old Frenchman who had traveled to join the festivities, were among the victims.

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