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The Right to Exist
Peter Beinart. Photo: Joe Mabel via Wikimedia Commons.
JNS.org – Liberal and left-wing adversaries of Israel indulge in an abiding fantasy that one day the Jewish state, which they falsely regard as an ethnostate built upon an ideology of Jewish supremacy, will be replaced by a single state of Palestine. They fancifully believe that it will be a multiethnic democracy granting equal rights to all its citizens, regardless of religion or national origin.
As fantasies go, this one has enjoyed a good deal of mileage, surfacing every few years at times of tension in the Middle East and gripping the attention of a handful of intellectuals. More than 20 years ago, as the Second Intifada raged in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the late historian Tony Judt caused waves with a New York Review of Books essay titled, “Israel: The Alternative,” which depicted the Israeli polity as a nationalist anachronism that needed to be dismantled. This week, Peter Beinart, one of the more cloying Jewish adversaries of the Jewish state, did much the same with a New York Times piece titled “States don’t have a right to exist. People do,” treading on similar ground.
As depressing as it is to admit, it’s important to push back against these arguments—not because they hold any intrinsic worth but because they provide, at least on the surface, a framework for anti-Zionist arguments to be articulated by those who are too embarrassed to scream “Go Back to Poland!” at Jews waving Israeli flags, yet who essentially sympathize with that sentiment.
Beinart, who excels at presenting commonplace ideas as his own unique insights, argues that states have no innate worth, but that the people who live under their rule certainly do. The origins of this idea of the state lie with the thinkers of the classical liberal tradition—from Immanuel Kant to John Stuart Mill to Isaiah Berlin, who countered the emphasis on human beings as servile to the state found in the writings of thinkers like the 17th-century English philosopher Hobbes and the 19th- century German philosopher Hegel.
While the goal of a minimal, legally accountable state is a laudable one, like most ideas, it can evolve in bizarre directions unanticipated by its formative thinkers; in this case, that out of more than 200 states in the international system, the existence of only one of them—the State of Israel—is up for debate.
Beinart is vexed by the consensus among US politicians that the right of the State of Israel to exist needs to be unashamedly upheld. He cites China and Iran as examples of states whose forms of government—Communist and Islamist—are regularly attacked by Americans. If it’s legitimate to advocate for the dismantling of these regimes, then why doesn’t the same principle apply to a state run by a regime that stresses Jewishness over everything else?
The comparison is a false one.
There is a key distinction between the concept of a “state” and that of a “nation,” but the two are often conflated because the independent, sovereign state has been the most enduring aim of advocates of national self-determination. The Soviet Union disappeared, but its constituent nations did not (Russian President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to crush Ukraine notwithstanding), while much-welcome regime change in China and Iran would not result in the elimination of those nations either. It also implies a knuckleheaded moral symmetry between a country like China, which incarcerates its Muslim Uyghur minority in concentration camps, forcing them to eat pork and drink alcohol, and Israel, where core human and civil rights are guaranteed under the law for all citizens, Jewish or not.
In the formula that Beinart recommends, however, there is no guarantee that the Jews of Israel would survive as a national group once the name “Israel,” which for Beinart and other anti-Zionists is the ultimate symbol of Jewish supremacy, was wiped from the map. Indeed, it’s far more likely that Israeli Jews would confront mass expulsion and genocide at the hands of Hamas and its allied factions than be welcome participants in a multinational “Palestine.”
Beinart fails to grasp that the Oct. 7, 2023 pogrom by Hamas, which he writes about in a creepily dissociative manner, remarking merely that “Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters killed about 1,200 people in Israel and abducted about 240 others,” is regarded by the vast majority of Israelis as a sign of what the terrorists have in store for all of them. The recent scenes in Gaza, where baying, hysterical Palestinian mobs have surrounded women hostages being released from Hamas captivity under the current ceasefire deal are a testament to that.
Beinart argues that the question of whether Israel has a right to exist is irrelevant. It is more appropriate to ask, “Does Israel, as a Jewish state, adequately protect the rights of all the individuals under its dominion?” Actually, the more pertinent question is this: Can Palestinians, nurtured on a diet of dehumanizing antisemitic hatred that expressed itself with perfect horror on Oct. 7, agree to a living arrangement with Israelis—one state, two states, a federation, some other model of governance—that is secure and sustainable? Or is some kind of deprogramming, akin to the denazification of Germany after World War II, a necessary first step?
It’s instructive that as Beinart’s essay was being published, Donald Trump raised the idea of resettling Gaza residents in other countries, a solution that right now is more palatable to Israelis than trading more land for a non-existent peace. There are, of course, an equal mix of advantages and problems associated with such a radical move, but if the Palestinians want to remove it from the table, then they need to focus on subjecting their own society to fundamental reform. Because that’s another aspect that Beinart is unable to grasp; patience is at an end, despair is rising, and measures previously beyond the pale now look feasible and, dare I say so, desirable on many levels.
As the philosopher Karl Popper—another advocate of the minimal state bound by the rule of law—put it: “Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. We must therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate intolerance.”
The post The Right to Exist first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Dutch Nurse Under Police Investigation for Alleged Threats Against Israeli Patients
Pro-Hamas demonstrators march in the Dutch city of Nijmegen. Photo: Reuters/Romy Arroyo Fernandez
A Muslim nurse in the Netherlands is under police investigation after allegedly threatening to administer lethal injections to Israeli patients — an incident that has sparked public outrage and intensified fears over rising antisemitism and patient safety in Europe’s health-care systems.
The comments were widely circulated by Israeli influencer Max Veifer, who also exposed a recent case in Australia where two nurses were suspended for two years over antisemitic threats and remarks.
In a video shared on social media, Veifer denounced Dutch-Muslim nurse Batisma Chayat Sa’id’s remarks as a serious violation of medical ethics.
“Someone like that should be prosecuted and barred from treating patients. Imagine your grandparents being cared for by someone so hateful,” the Israeli influencer said.
Zorgwekkende dreiging op Instagram: Nederlandse verpleegkundige is bereid om “zionisten een extra spuitje te geven” en bereid “zionisten te laten sterven binnen de gezondheidszorg.” pic.twitter.com/xTnXNi1wH5
— CIDI
(@CIDI_nieuws) July 29, 2025
The incident was sparked when an Israeli-Dutch woman living in the Netherlands commented on a social media post by far-right politician Geert Wilders, who cautioned about what he called the country’s looming radical Islamization by 2050.
A social media account belonging to the Muslim nurse also commented on the post, claiming it would happen by 2027, to which the Israeli woman responded, “Your dream is our nightmare. But people wake up from nightmares. Our Netherlands, our Israel.”
“Nothing belongs to you! My grandparents built the Netherlands. I was born and raised here, and I will do everything in my power to help this country get rid of the Zionist cancer,” the nurse further replied.
“You know what I’m doing with Zionists — giving an extra injection as a nurse specialist. Letting them go to heaven!” Sa’id continued.
When the Israeli woman threatened to report her, Sa’id replied: “Haha, try your best! I don’t have a boss — I’m the boss! All Zionists can die, inside healthcare and beyond, and I’m happy to help with that!”
Shortly after her posts gained widespread attention, Sa’id deleted all her social media accounts, insisting that her identity had been stolen and that she was not responsible for such comments.
On Wednesday, local police detained Sa’id for questioning, but she denied the allegations, asserting that someone had impersonated her online.
“It seems someone is pretending to be me, posting false and defamatory statements,” the nurse said. “I want to make it clear — I hold no hatred toward Jews or any people, race, religion, or identity.”
Even after announcing plans to file an identity theft complaint, she faces skepticism from authorities, who have assigned a digital forensics expert to scrutinize her online accounts.
Last year, an account under her name also posted threatening messages aimed at Jewish people, including “Your time will come — don’t spare anyone,” and another in which she described the burial of Israelis in Gaza as “a dream come true.”
Earlier this year, two Australian nurses — Ahmad Rashad Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdeh — gained international attention after they were seen in an online video posing as doctors and making inflammatory statements during a night-shift conversation with Veifer.
The widely circulated footage, which sparked international outrage and condemnation, showed Abu Lebdeh declaring she would refuse to treat Israeli patients and instead kill them, while Nadir made a throat-slitting gesture and claimed he had already killed many.
Following the incident, New South Wales authorities in Australia suspended their nursing registrations and banned them from working as nurses nationwide.
They were also charged with federal offenses, including threatening violence against a group and using a carriage service to threaten, menace, and harass. If convicted, they face up to 22 years in prison.
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French Authorities Halt Gaza Evacuations After Palestinian Student Expelled Over Viral Antisemitic Posts
Anti-Israel demonstration supporting the BDS movement, Paris France, June 8, 2024. Photo: Claire Serie / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect
French authorities have halted evacuations from Gaza after a Palestinian student was expelled from the prestigious Sciences Po Lille and placed under investigation, following the viral circulation of hundreds of antisemitic posts praising Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and calling for the murder of Jews.
The incident drew widespread condemnation and public outrage, prompting French ministers to demand answers and call for an investigation into how the Gazan student was allowed into the country in the first place.
On Friday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot announced that all further evacuations from Gaza would be suspended pending the completion of the investigation into the student’s background.
After receiving a scholarship, 25-year-old Nour Atalla, a Palestinian from Gaza, arrived in the country in early July to begin her master’s degree in law and communications this fall at the Institute of Political Science in Lille, northern France.
Barrot confirmed that discussions are ongoing about the student’s possible return to Gaza, making clear that she must leave the country pending the investigation’s outcome.
“She has no place at Sciences Po, nor in France,” the top French diplomat said.
On Thursday, local authorities reported that a criminal investigation is underway into Atalla, with the public prosecutor in Lille confirming the case was opened for “apology of terrorism, apology of crimes against humanity using an online public communication service.”
Barrot admitted lapses in the screening process that allowed her entry and has mandated a comprehensive review of everyone evacuated from Gaza to France.
“The security checks, carried out by the French services and Israeli authorities, did not detect the antisemitic content,” the French diplomat said.
Atalla is one of 292 Gazans admitted to the country following a court ruling that opened the door for Gazans to seek refugee status based on their nationality.
She was offered a place at Sciences Po Lille University based on “academic excellence” and following a recommendation by the French consulate in Jerusalem.
On Wednesday, the university announced it had revoked Atalla’s enrollment after hundreds of her past antisemitic and violent social media posts went viral, sparking widespread condemnation from political leaders and members of the local Jewish community.
In several of these posts, she glorified Hitler, praised Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, called for the execution of Israeli hostages and the killing of Jews, and expressed support for terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
In one post, Atalla shared a video of Hitler giving a speech about Jews, writing, “Kill their young and their old. Show them no mercy … And kill them everywhere.”
In another post shared on Oct. 7, 2023, the day of the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, she wrote, “We must do everything we can to match the bloodshed — as much as possible.”
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Florida State University Student Suspended for Allegedly Assaulting Jewish Classmate at Gym
Female student at Florida State University, believed to be graduate student Eden Deckerhoff, who allegedly assaulted male Jewish classmate at gym on campus. Photo: Screenshot/StopAntisemitism
Florida State University has suspended a female student who allegedly assaulted a Jewish male classmate at the Leach Student Recreation Center on Thursday after noticing his wearing apparel issued by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
“F—k Israel, Free Palestine. Put it [the video] on Barstool FSU. I really don’t give a f—k,” the woman said before shoving the man, according to video taken by the victim, who filmed the encounter. “You’re an ignorant son of a b—h.”
According to StopAntisemitism, a Jewish civil rights advocacy group, the assailant is graduate student Eden Deckerhoff. Florida State University (FSU) reportedly employs her mother, Rosalyn Deckerhoff, as a teaching professor in its College of Social Work.
“The matter is being reviewed for potential criminal charges and for charges under the FSU Student Code of Conduct,” the university said in a statement on Tuesday. “While this process is underway, the student shown prominently in the video has been prohibited from returning to campus. Our commitment to swiftly and effectively responding to incidents of hate is unwavering. We appreciate the prompt report of this incident, which allowed us to address this instance of antisemitism without delay.”
It continued, “Florida State University strongly condemns antisemitism in all forms and follows Florida law, which protects Jewish students and employees from discrimination motivated by antisemitism, harassment, intimidation, and violence.”
The incident is a surprise occurrence at FSU, which has not come under the same scrutiny as many other US universities for allegedly allowing antisemitism to fester on campus.
In 2024, as a tide of antisemitic discrimination swept across the US, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) directed the state university system to streamline the transfer process for Jewish students seeking to leave a school where they have a “well-founded fear of antisemitic persecution.”
Under the new policy, the State University System of Florida and the Florida College System may waive certain transfer application requirements that would “unnecessarily” delay transferring from one school to the next. The policy also affords Jewish students more time to submit their applications and relieves them of minimum credit requirements that would also prevent or delay their matriculating at a new campus.
“With leaders of so-called elite universities enabling antisemitic activities rather than protecting their students from threats and harassment, it is understandable that many Jewish students are looking for alternatives and looking to Florida,” DeSantis, who was seeking the 2024 Republican nomination for president of the United States at the time, said in a press release. “Throughout my tenure as governor, we have implemented measures to safeguard our Jewish communities from hatred in the K-20 school system, and with this announcement, we want to again make it clear that Jewish students are welcome to live and learn in Florida, where they will be respected and not persecuted due to their faith.”
DeSantis had previously enacted policies to curb extreme anti-Zionist activity on higher education campuses in Florida.
Following the Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the state’s university system, working in consultation with the governor, directed public universities to “deactivate” chapters of the national group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) for defending Hamas following the Palestinian terrorist group’s invasion of the Jewish state earlier that month. In a memo, State University System of Florida chancellor Ray Rodrigues referenced how, following Hamas’s onslaught, the National Students for Justice in Palestine organization called for a “Day of Resistance” on college campuses across the US, distributing propaganda aimed at demonizing Israel and seemingly defending Hamas.
In December 2021, DeSantis’ office issued a statement advising Florida State University not to allow the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), with which it was an institutional partner, from operating a boycott of Israel on its campus. The association had just moved towards — and ultimately arrived at — an endorsement of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.