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Why the New York Times Audience, and Its Editors, Find Peter Beinart so Appealing
Thousands of anti-Israel demonstrators from the Midwest gather in support of Palestinians and hold a rally and march through the Loop in Chicago on Oct. 21, 2023. Photo: Alexandra Buxbaum/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Since the Hamas terror group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, the New York Times has relied on a journalism professor at the City University of New York, Peter Beinart, as its most prominent opinion page voice on the war.
Sure, the Times has highlighted other voices writing about the topic on its opinion pages, including Bret Stephens, Thomas Friedman, and Nicholas Kristof. But it’s Beinart whose work gets showcased with huge play on the front of the Sunday Opinion section, as it was on Sunday, Oct. 15, and as it was again this past Sunday, March 24.
Unfortunately for the Times and its readers, Beinart is an unreliable guide to the issue. He cherry-picks data and overstates his case. He piles up a mountain of misleading half-truths in the services of a giant lie, his false claim in his latest piece that Zionism and “liberalism” are irreconcilable.
To begin with, it’s not even accurate that “liberalism” has “for more than half a century … defined American Jewish identity,” as Beinart claims. In an article that occupies two broadsheet interior pages plus a graphic-only entire front cover of the Sunday opinion section, Beinart never defines what he means by “liberalism.” He nods at “movements for civil, women’s, labor, and gay rights,” but he doesn’t explain how backing the Hamas side of the war against Israel is consistent with liberalism, given Hamas’ subjugation of women, use of sexual assault, and killing of gay people. He doesn’t make clear if he means classical liberalism or liberalism-as-progressivism or something else. Nor does he really address any serious tensions, other than Zionism, between Judaism and liberalism-as-however-he-means-it. There might be some, as there are with Christianity, too.
Beinart devotes a lot of time to a sort of guilt by association and argument-by-endorsement. He links Israel with Elise Stefanik, Elon Musk, and Viktor Orban, and Israel’s critics with the United Automobile Workers, Human Rights Watch, and Ta-Nehesi Coates. Yet Beinart doesn’t mention that Israel has plenty of totally unsavory enemies on both the left and the right, and plenty of durable allies on the left, too—Ritchie Torres, John Fetterman, Alma Hernandez, Brad Schneider, Steny Hoyer.
Beinart saying you can’t be liberal and support Israel is the mirror-image of former President Trump saying you can’t be pro-Israel and vote for Democrats; it’s an opinion, but Beinart hypes up his own wishful thinking as if he’s empirically describing a break that is actually underway: “the rupture,” “an ideological tremor,” “an earthquake.”
A substantial section of Beinart’s piece is devoted to the false accusation that pro-Israel Jews oppose free speech. Actually, as Dara Horn memorably explained, “the problem was not that Jewish students on American university campuses didn’t want free speech, or that they didn’t want to hear criticism of Israel. Instead, they didn’t want people vandalizing Jewish student organizations’ buildings, or breaking or urinating on the buildings’ windows. They didn’t want people tearing their mezuzahs down from their dorm-room doors. They didn’t want their college instructors spouting antisemitic lies and humiliating them in class. They didn’t want their posters defaced with Hitler caricatures … They didn’t want people punching them in the face, or beating them with a stick.”
To the extent that “speech” has anything to do with it, it’s more the stunning double standard between zero campus tolerance of speech that makes some groups uncomfortable and free-speech-absolutism for cheering on Jew-killing terrorist groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
It’s all not even a surprise: Beinart has been publicly bashing Israel in the pages of the New York Times since at least 2012, when, under the headline, “To Save Israel, Boycott the Settlements,” he claimed, again falsely, “Through its pro-settler policies, Israel is forging one political entity between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea — an entity of dubious democratic legitimacy, given that millions of West Bank Palestinians are barred from citizenship and the right to vote in the state that controls their lives.” In 2020, Beinart declared in the Times, “I no longer believe in a Jewish state.”
Given the lack of intellectual rigor, given the inaccuracies, both small-scale and big-picture, given the sloppiness of the arguments, given the utter predictability, you have to wonder, why does the Times run so much of this stuff?
I have a couple of theories.
The first is personality driven. The upper ranks of Times opinion editing have gotten taken over by individuals — editorial director Allison Benedikt, Sunday opinion editor Max Strasser — who are generally in sympathy, substantively, with Beinart in terms of their hostility to Israel.
The second is customer driven. Some portion of the Times online readership — alienated graduate students and other young, college educated liberals, along with increasing numbers of non-Americans — are looking for someone to give them a pass to hate Israel, basically to excuse their antisemitism. Beinart serves that function.
One day a few weeks after Oct. 7, I showed up to observe one of the anti-Israel rallies at Harvard, and I was surprised to see it begin with some woman who identified herself as a Jew telling everyone in attendance to remember her, their “Jewish friend,” if they felt worried that anything they were doing during the rest of the event was antisemitic. For Times readers, Beinart is the equivalent of that person — a permission-giver. When Beinart asserts “there’s nothing antisemitic” about wanting to wipe Israel, as a Jewish state, off the map, the Times readers experience it as liberating.
Beinart writes that “for an American Jewish establishment that equates anti-Zionism with antisemitism, those anti-Zionist Jews are inconvenient.” But the Times‘ audience, and Beinart’s, isn’t the American Jewish establishment. That establishment is solidly behind Israel. The Times audience is Israel-haters. For them, the equation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism is inconvenient, and the existence of Beinart offers a way to hate Israel while avoiding the guilt that might otherwise accompany discrimination against Jews.
Beinart pats the liberal Times readers on the back, reassuring them that not only is there no conflict between liberalism and hating Israel, it’s actually their responsibility as good liberals to hate Israel. That the Times can find a commercial audience for the enablement of Israel-hate doesn’t make the core message any less of a lie.
Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.
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Israel Says Missile Launched by Yemen’s Houthis ‘Most Likely’ Intercepted

Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi addresses followers via a video link at the al-Shaab Mosque, formerly al-Saleh Mosque, in Sanaa, Yemen, Feb. 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
The Israeli army said on Saturday that a missile fired from Yemen towards Israeli territory had been “most likely successfully intercepted,” while Yemen’s Houthi forces claimed responsibility for the launch.
Israel has threatened Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement – which has been attacking Israel in what it says is solidarity with Gaza – with a naval and air blockade if its attacks on Israel persist.
The Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the group was responsible for Saturday’s attack, adding that it fired a missile towards the southern Israeli city of Beersheba.
Since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023, the Houthis, who control most of Yemen, have been firing at Israel and at shipping in the Red Sea, disrupting global trade.
Most of the dozens of missiles and drones they have launched have been intercepted or fallen short. Israel has carried out a series of retaliatory strikes.
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Iran Holds Funeral for Commanders and Scientists Killed in War with Israel

People attend the funeral procession of Iranian military commanders, nuclear scientists and others killed in Israeli strikes, in Tehran, Iran, June 28, 2025. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Large crowds of mourners dressed in black lined streets in Iran’s capital Tehran as the country held a funeral on Saturday for top military commanders, nuclear scientists and some of the civilians killed during this month’s aerial war with Israel.
At least 16 scientists and 10 senior commanders were among those mourned at the funeral, according to state media, including armed forces chief Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Revolutionary Guards commander General Hossein Salami, and Guards Aerospace Force chief General Amir Ali Hajizadeh.
Their coffins were driven into Tehran’s Azadi Square adorned with their photos and national flags, as crowds waved flags and some reached out to touch the caskets and throw rose petals onto them. State-run Press TV showed an image of ballistic missiles on display.
Mass prayers were later held in the square.
State TV said the funeral, dubbed the “procession of the Martyrs of Power,” was held for a total of 60 people killed in the war, including four women and four children.
In attendance were President Masoud Pezeshkian and other senior figures including Ali Shamkhani, who was seriously wounded during the conflict and is an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as Khamenei’s son Mojtaba.
“Today, Iranians, through heroic resistance against two regimes armed with nuclear weapons, protected their honor and dignity, and look to the future prouder, more dignified, and more resolute than ever,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, who also attended the funeral, said in a Telegram post.
There was no immediate statement from Khamenei, who has not appeared publicly since the conflict began. In past funerals, he led prayers over the coffins of senior commanders ahead of public ceremonies broadcast on state television.
Israel launched the air war on June 13, attacking Iranian nuclear facilities and killing top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
TRUMP THREAT
Israel, the only Middle Eastern country widely believed to have nuclear weapons, said it aimed to prevent Tehran from developing its own nuclear weapons.
Iran denies having a nuclear weapons program. The U.N. nuclear watchdog has said it has “no credible indication” of an active, coordinated weapons program in Iran.
Bagheri, Salami and Hajizadeh were killed on June 13, the first day of the war. Bagheri was being buried at the Behesht Zahra cemetery outside Tehran mid-afternoon on Saturday. Salami and Hajizadeh were due to be buried on Sunday.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that he would consider bombing Iran again, while Khamenei, who has appeared in two pre-recorded video messages since the start of the war, has said Iran would respond to any future US attack by striking US military bases in the Middle East.
A senior Israeli military official said on Friday that Israel had delivered a “major blow” to Iran’s nuclear project. On Saturday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said in a statement that Israel and the US “failed to achieve their stated objectives” in the war.
According to Iranian health ministry figures, 610 people were killed on the Iranian side in the war before a ceasefire went into effect on Tuesday. More than 4,700 were injured.
Activist news agency HRANA put the number of killed at 974, including 387 civilians.
Israel’s health ministry said 28 were killed in Israel and 3,238 injured.
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Pro-Palestinian Rapper Leads ‘Death to the IDF’ Chant at English Music festival

Revellers dance as Avril Lavigne performs on the Other Stage during the Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm, in Pilton, Somerset, Britain, June 30, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Dylan Martinez
i24 News – Chants of “death to the IDF” were heard during the English Glastonbury music festival on Saturday ahead of the appearance of the pro-Palestinian Irish rappers Kneecap.
One half of punk duo based Bob Vylan (who both use aliases to protect their privacy) shouted out during a section of their show “Death to the IDF” – the Israeli military. Videos posted on X (formerly Twitter) show the crowd responding to and repeating the cheer.
This comes after officials had petitioned the music festival to drop the band. The rap duo also expressed support for the following act, Kneecap, who the BCC refused to show live after one of its members, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh – better known by stage name Mo Chara – was charged with a terror offense.
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