Peter Beinart

Peter Alexander Beinart (/ˈbaɪnərt/; born 1971) is an American columnist, journalist, and political commentator. A former editor of The New Republic, he has written for Time, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books among other periodicals, and is the author of three books. He is a professor of journalism and political science at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. He is an editor-at-large at Jewish Currents, a contributor to The Atlantic, and a political commentator for CNN.

Peter Beinart
Beinart in June 2010
Born
Peter Alexander Beinart

1971
Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
EducationYale University (BA)
University College, Oxford (MPhil)
Spouse(s)Diana Robin Hartstein (m. 2003; 2 children)[1]
FamilyRobert Brustein (step-father)

Early life and education

Beinart was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1971. His parents were Jewish immigrants from South Africa (his maternal grandfather was from Russia, and his maternal grandmother, who was Sephardic, was from Egypt).[2][3][4] His father's parents were from Lithuania.[5] His mother, Doreen (née Pienaar), is a former director of the Harvard's Human Rights film series at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and his father, Julian Beinart, is a former professor of architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[1] His stepfather is theatre critic and playwright Robert Brustein.[6] Beinart attended Buckingham Browne and Nichols School in Cambridge. He then studied history and political science at Yale University, where he was a member of the Yale Political Union, and graduated in 1993. He was a Rhodes Scholar at University College, Oxford University, where he earned an M.Phil. in international relations in 1995.[7]

Career

Beinart worked at The New Republic as the managing editor from 1995 to 1997, then as senior editor till 1999, and as the magazine's editor from 1999 to 2006. For much of that time he also wrote The New Republic's "TRB" column, which was reprinted in the New York Post and other newspapers. From 2007 till 2009 he was a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Beinart is a Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the City University of New York. He has written for Time, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, and other periodicals. Beinart has appeared on various TV news discussion programs, and is a political commentator for CNN.[7] His editor-in-chief at the Forward called him a "wunderkind".[8][9] In March 2012, Beinart launched a new blog, "Open Zion", at Newsweek/The Daily Beast.[10] He was also a senior political writer for The Daily Beast. In 2012, Beinart was included on Foreign Policy magazine's list of 100 top global thinkers.[11]

On November 4, 2013, Haaretz announced that Beinart would be hired as a columnist beginning January 1, 2014.[12] The same day, the Atlantic Media Company said he would join National Journal and write for The Atlantic's website beginning in January. Beinart would cease operating his blog at The Daily Beast.[13] At the beginning of 2020, Beinart left Haaretz and joined Jewish Currents as an editor-at-large.

In August 2018, Beinart said he was detained by Shin Bet at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport and questioned about his presence at West Bank protests and outspoken criticism of the Israeli government's policies toward the Palestinians. Beinart called his experience "trivial" when compared to the experiences of others, particularly Palestinians and Palestinian Americans who travel through Israel's main airport.[14][15] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with Israeli security forces and was told that Beinart's detention was an administrative mistake, and that the country "welcomes all—critics and supporters alike."[16]

Works and views

Beinart is the author of the 2006 book The Good Fight. Drawing upon the work of the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, Beinart argues that, paradoxically, the only way for America to distinguish itself from the predatory imperial powers of the past is to acknowledge its own capacity for evil.

Beinart was a vocal supporter of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, but by 2006, as he published his first book, he "had concluded that it had been a tragic mistake". His second book, The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris, published in 2010, "look[ed] back at the past hundred years of U.S. foreign policy in the baleful light of recent events [and found] the ground littered with ... the remnants of large ideas and unearned confidence [as demonstrable in] a study of three needless wars", World War I, the Vietnam War, and the Iraq War.[8]

In his 2010 essay "The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment" in the New York Review of Books,[17] Beinart argued that the tensions between liberalism and Zionism in the U.S. may tear the two concepts apart. He argued that by abetting Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories, American Jewish leaders risk alienating generations of younger American Jews who find the occupation morally wrong and incompatible with their liberal politics.[2] He expanded on this argument in his 2012 book The Crisis of Zionism.

In 2016 Beinart said that greater military engagement against ISIS could be detrimental to America.[18]

In a 2018 essay in The Atlantic, Beinart wrote that Trump voters care more about murder by illegal immigrants than about the cover-up of the Trump's affairs.[19] He also wrote in 2018 that there is rising authoritarian nationalism in many countries with diverse situations. The conditions include both booming and poor economies, with only some concerned about immigration. He said the true common thread among right-wing autocrats is both a hostility to liberal democracy and the desire to subordinate women.[20][21]

In a 2020 essay, Beinart repudiated his former belief in the two-state solution,[22] and in an explanatory essay in Jewish Currents, he argued that the two-state model might have become untenable and that its practical eventual outcome would be the wholesale removal of Palestinians from the territory currently occupied by Israel and Palestine. Israel and Palestine, Beinart wrote, should instead work toward creating a fully democratic binational state representing both Jewish and Palestinian identity.[23] Beinart followed this essay with a shorter opinion piece for the New York Times, "I no longer believe in a Jewish state." Subsequent commentary in the media ranged from outright praise of the essay[24] to allegations of dishonesty:[25][26][27] author Daniel Gordis wrote, “Beinart strings together an astonishing array of sleights of hand and misrepresentations ... little more than a screed that is an insult to the intelligence of his readers."[28]

Personal life

Since 2003, Beinart has been married to Diana Robin Hartstein, a lawyer. They live with their two children in New York City.[7] He keeps kosher,[2] regularly attends an Orthodox synagogue, and sends his children to a Jewish school.[29]

Publications
  • The Crisis of Zionism. New York, NY: Times Books. 2012. ISBN 978-0-8050-9412-1.
  • The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris. New York, NY: HarperCollins. 2010. ISBN 978-0-06-145646-6.
  • Peter Beinart (June 10, 2010). "The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment". The New York Review of Books.
  • The Good Fight: Why Liberals—and Only Liberals—Can Win the War on Terror. New York, NY: HarperCollins. 2006. ISBN 978-0-06-084161-4.
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References
  1. "Weddings and Celebrations; Diana Hartstein, Peter Beinart". The New York Times. October 26, 2003. Retrieved March 29, 2012.
  2. Allison Hoffman (March 22, 2012). "Lightning Rod". Tablet Magazine. Retrieved March 24, 2012.
  3. "Rebecca Goldberg, the Northeast Regional Director USD/Hagshama (University Student Division) of the World Zionist Organization". www.angelfire.com.
  4. Beinart, Peter (28 March 2012). "Rethinking Zionism".
  5. Beinart, Peter (December 16, 2016). "The Day My Father Lost His Country". The Atlantic. Retrieved December 17, 2016.
  6. "Weddings and Celebrations; Jean Beinart and Craig Stern". The New York Times. June 12, 2005. Retrieved March 29, 2012.
  7. "Peter Beinart profile". The New America Foundation. Retrieved March 29, 2012.
  8. George Packer (June 28, 2010). "Air America: Peter Beinart's The Icarus Syndrome ..." The New Yorker. Retrieved March 25, 2012.
  9. Jane Eisner (March 28, 2012). "Peter Beinart's problematic 'Zionist BDS' proposal". The Guardian. Retrieved March 29, 2012.
  10. Marc Tracy (March 9, 2012). "Beinart Launches Daily Beast Blog. 'Zion Square' touts Israeli, Palestinian, U.S. perspectives on the Mideast". Tablet Magazine. Retrieved March 29, 2012.
  11. "The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers". Foreign Policy. 28 November 2012. Archived from the original on 30 November 2012. Retrieved 28 November 2012.
  12. "Peter Beinart to join Haaretz as senior columnist". Haaretz. November 4, 2013. Retrieved November 5, 2013.
  13. Byers, Dylan (November 4, 2013). "Peter Beinart leaving Daily Beast for The Atlantic Media Company, Haaretz". Politico. Retrieved November 5, 2013.
  14. "Israel questions prominent Jewish-American critic at airport". Associated Press. August 13, 2018. Retrieved August 13, 2018.
  15. Beinart, Peter (August 13, 2018). "Peter Beinart: I Was Detained At Ben Gurion Airport Because Of My Beliefs". The Forward. Retrieved August 13, 2018.
  16. Weber Rosen, Jonathan (August 14, 2018). "LEFT-WING COLUMNIST PETER BEINART DETAINED AT BEN-GURION AIRPORT". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved August 14, 2018.
  17. Peter Beinart (June 10, 2010). "The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved March 29, 2012.
  18. Beinart, Peter. "Attacking ISIS Won't Make Americans Safer".
  19. Beinart, Peter. "Why Trump Supporters Believe He Is Not Corrupt".
  20. Beinart, Peter (2018-12-12). "The New Authoritarians Are Waging War on Women". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2018-12-24.
  21. Palmer, Anna; Sherman, Jake; Lippman, Daniel. "POLITICO Playbook: Zinke is out, and Mulvaney will be the next chief". POLITICO. Retrieved 2018-12-24.
  22. Peter Beinart, 'I No Longer Believe in a Jewish State,' New York Times 8 July 2020
  23. Peter Beinart (July 7, 2020). "Yavne: A Jewish Case for Equality in Israel-Palestine". Jewish Currents. Retrieved July 8, 2020.
  24. @brhodes (8 July 2020). "Peter Beinart is brave, thoughtful, and capable of evolving views. Which is why we should read this carefully and remember that most of Peter's critics are working off talking points that are dishonest and decades old" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  25. Marquardt-Bigman, Petra (July 9, 2020). "The Increasing Radicalism of Peter Beinart Must Be Confronted". Algemeiner. Retrieved July 9, 2020.
  26. Rogan, Tom (8 July 2020). "A one-state solution would be catastrophic for Israel". Washington Examiner. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
  27. @DanielBShapiro (July 9, 2020). "1. With all due respect to @PeterBeinart, calling for one state for Israelis and Palestinians is neither original, nor a remotely viable solution to this long-running conflict. It's a disaster in the making for Israelis, the Jewish people, Palestinians, and US interests" (Tweet). Retrieved July 17, 2020 – via Twitter.
  28. Gordis, Daniel (July 8, 2020). "End the Jewish State? Let's try some honesty, first". The Times of Israel. Retrieved July 17, 2020.
  29. Peter Beinart (March 18, 2012). "To Save Israel, Boycott the Settlements". The New York Times. Retrieved March 24, 2012.
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