“I Thought I Had Been Alone”

Rick Perlstein reads Peter Beinart:

As for Israel, I don't think of it much. Even in a career as a political writer given to disputation, the sheer viciousness (which you'll see from the hate mail this piece produces: I plan to publish it) faced by those who criticize not merely Israel, but certain specific de rigeur formulations about Israel, turned me off the entire subject. Instead, and I've never admitted this publicly before, the deeply saturated irrationalism surrounding it as I was growing up was what made me fascinated with political irrationalism as such – and helps explain why I ended up a scholar of the American far-right.

That reflexive intimidation, in the end, is what most fascinates me about The Crisis of Zionism.

I'd heard great things from friends about the book — but read almost nothing admiring about it in the public prints. People are cowed at the thought of taking on the shrieking Israel absolutists, the ones who imagine themselves every day saving six million lives and their critics as hastening the slaughter. Apropos: In one stunning story Beinart tells in his book, a group of young Jewish leaders declined to stand together at a Jewish gathering and sing the national anthem, but also declined to join a public resolution opposing settlement growth: "In the organized Jewish world, left-leaning young Jews often rely on establishment Jewish institutions for financial support. And publicly criticism is an excellent way to endanger that support."

That is indeed one of the most powerful lessons of the book – that a single generation, obsessed with permanent victimhood, has relentlessly bullied (and there is no other word for it than bullied) anyone who dared to question their paranoia and premises. Reading The Crisis Of Zionism is to stand up to the bullies and thugs of the AIPAC lobby – and the deranged mindset they represent.

You can buy it here.