Despite the fact that the United States, the European Union, the U.K., and other countries designate Hamas as a terrorist organization, critics of Israel attempt to argue otherwise. In a recent debate between two Jewish professors, Jeffrey Lax, who teaches at Kingsborough Community College, asked Peter Beinart, who teaches at the Craig J. Newmark School of Journalism at CUNY, if he agreed that “Hamas is a terrorist group.” Beinart answered that he didn’t like the word terrorism because it only gets applied to Palestinians.
“I think that Hamas committed war crimes, I think Hamas’s history of targeting civilians is immoral and a violation of international law, and I oppose it with all of my being,” Beinart said in the debate. “The reason that I don’t like the word ‘terrorist’ is it only gets applied to what Palestinians do. I’ve seen so many Palestinians who’ve experienced terror.” He said the term has become racist because it is never applied to America, Israel, or its allies.
Lax cut him off, saying, “I’m not letting you get away with this,” and noted that Hamas murdered children in front of their parents.
“I was shocked, stunned, and disgusted, and it’s sad,” Lax told The Jewish Press, noting that Beinart was calm and cordial in the debate. “It’s not a small semantic game. There are legal implications in designating Hamas a terrorist group, which America has [done]. Do I really believe Peter Beinart believes Hamas is not a terrorist organization? No.”
Lax, who has appeared of Fox News and whose articles have appeared in the New York Post, said he was disappointed there was not more time to debate and felt Beinart at least partially “ducked a discussion about genocide,” though they did discuss charges of settler-colonialism and apartheid.
Beinart, an editor at large of Jewish Currents whose articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The Forward and who has appeared on CNN as a political commentator, responded via e-mail to questions from The Jewish Press.
“As I said to Jeffrey, and say at length in my book, I abhor any targeting of civilians. I’m glad the ICC is prosecuting Hamas leaders for war crimes,” he wrote. “If terrorism means purposefully targeting civilians for violence, then Hamas and other Palestinian factions committed terrorism on October 7. Indeed, as I told Jeffrey, Hamas committed an act of terrorism by targeting the bus filled with Israeli civilians that killed a college friend of mine in the 1990s. But in establishment Jewish and American discourse, the term ‘terrorism’ is not applied equally. It is far more often applied to Palestinian violence that targets civilians than Israeli, or for that matter American, violence. When Israel targets 19 villages in Masafer Yatta for demolition – villages populated by civilians who can’t get building permits because they are non-citizens under military law – that is also violence targeting civilians, and thus terrorism. Similarly, when Israel detains and tortures Palestinians doctors from Gaza, as documented by Physicians for Human Rights, that’s also violence targeting civilians, and thus terrorism.”
Beinart’s latest book is called Being Jewish After The Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning. In it, he writes: “The problem with our communal story is not that it acknowledges the crimes we have suffered. The problem is that it ignores the crimes we commit. We are forever Esther, and our detractors are forever Haman…By seeing a Jewish state as forever abused, never the abuser, we deny its capacity for evil.”
Beinart took a shot at synagogues who refuse to host him for lectures, saying: “One of the hardest things about this experience of writing this book is how difficult it is for me to speak in synagogues. The same kind of synagogues in which I pray are really not places that are genuinely open for me to make this critique. I would say to those folks: You know, if you’re confident in your defenses of what Israel has done in Gaza and the nature of the state, then your really have nothing to fear from these conversations.”
He added that institutions who pride themselves on “Talmudic discourse” should be able to debate. He said October 7 was one of the worst days of his life and he prayed for the release of the Israeli hostages every day. But he said it is crucial to not only know the names of Israelis killed – it is also important to know the names of Palestinians killed.
Beinart appeared to have a high bar for defining antisemitism, saying, “If you oppose the existence of Israel as a Jewish state, because you want [to] expel the Jews, kill the Jews, create an Islamic state in which they are subjugated, yes, I think that could constitute antisemitism.” He continued that if one opposes the Jewish state due to Jewish supremacy, it is not antisemitism.
In his book, Beinart writes that when people hear others use the phrase “from the river to the sea,” they should ask what they mean by the phrase rather than assume it means the person wishes no Israelis would live from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. He also writes that in the Second Intifada, “Palestinian fighters killed one thousand Israelis in suicide bombings and other attacks” and doesn’t use the word “terrorists.” In fact, that word appears only twice in his book, both times citing a quote from someone else.
In a 2014 appearance on CNN in which Beinart debated Ben Shapiro, Shapiro told Beinart: “Hamas celebrates every moment you’re on television.”
In the debate with Beinart, Lax said the charge of apartheid is wrong and that the status of those who live in what is called the West Bank is not based on race but on citizenship vs. non-citizenship.
The catalyst for the debate was an ad from Hunter College seeking an instructor for a course that would take a critical lens to “issues pertaining to Palestine but not limited to settler-colonialism, genocide, human rights, apartheid, migration,” and other elements. Lax said that while New York State Governor Kathy Hochul had removed the posting, as far as he knows the course is going forward.
Lax said he would welcome a second debate with Beinart “anytime, anyplace, anywhere.”
