I am Jewish...

Yesterday I volunteered at the elections in Las Vegas. I checked in voters. I smiled. I did my job. Then a woman walked in wearing a white shawl draped over her shoulders — red and green stripes, very deliberate, very visible. Gaza colors. Hamas colors. And I had to check her in, smile, and send her off to vote. I was born in Israel. I came to this country in 1985 at 15 years old with nothing but hope for a better life. I love America. That's why I was standing there volunteering my time — because I believe in this country. But here's what that woman didn't know. My family doesn't just live in Israel — they are woven into its very existence. My father was born there in 1940. My mother in 1944. They were born under British rule, before the State of Israel even existed. They lived through its founding. They built their lives there. My aunts and uncles did the same. I have 13 cousins, most married, all with children of their own. My brother is there. His son. His wife. In Israel, military service isn't a choice. Every man and every woman enters the IDF at 18. My parents' generation served. My aunts and uncles served. Every single one of my cousins has served. Some are active right now. Some are in the reserves, one phone call away from being deployed. So when she walked in wearing those colors, she wasn't just making a fashion statement. To me, that scarf represents rockets, tunnels, and massacres. It represents October 7th. It represents people who want my entire family wiped off the map. I couldn't say a word. I was on duty. So I just watched. And then I come home and find out a man with a Nazi tattoo just won an election somewhere in the USA. I still believe in democracy/people. I do. But today it cost me something to stand there in silence while my heart was 7,000 miles away. I just needed to say that out loud.

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This is not a debate. It's a shutdown.

For many years, I took barbs for refusing to call Israel's policy in East Jerusalem "ethnic cleansing". After all, there were 60,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem in 1967, and 400,000 today. Occupation sucked, and included war crimes, but it wasn't ethnic cleansing. That has changed now. There are 3 Palestinian neighborhoods, all of whose residents are being or are about to be displaced: Batan al-Hawa and al-Bustan in Silwan, and Um Haroun in Sheik Jarrah. The latter two are being razed, or will be razed in the near future. And immediately to the east, the Bedouin hamlet of Khan al-Akmar, adjacent to E-1, is about to be expelled, part of an attempt to "cleanse" Area C between East Jerusalem and the Jordan River valley of its Palestinian residents. Regrettably, I can think of no other term to use other than "ethnic cleansing".

Beinart’s defenders are attacking me but avoid the central issue: he has called for the end of Israel as a Jewish state. He advocates a “one-state solution” without acknowledging it could trigger bloodshed on a scale of the Lebanese Civil War, the Yugoslav Wars, the Syrian Civil War or the Iraqi Civil Wars (that resulted from the Iraq War that Beinart advocated for). This could lead to the deaths of tens of thousands of Jews and Arabs. That position mirrors the vision long promoted by Iran’s late supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, who spoke of a “referendum” where demographics would spell the end of Israel. He simultaneously built nuclear capabilities, ballistic missiles, and terror proxies to help bring about the end of Israel by force. I haven’t seen Beinart make the case to eliminate Israel by force though he often excuses Palestinian terrorism. You can debate the difference in tactics between Beinart and these other Israel eliminationists (including his counterparts on the right like Tucker Carlson). But the objective, the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state, is the same.