Goldblog vs. Peter Beinart, Part III: Zionism Reloaded - The Atlantic

 

Jeffrey Goldberg - Jeffrey Goldberg is a national correspondent for The Atlantic. Author of the book Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror, he has reported from the Middle East and Africa. He also writes the magazine's advice column. Bio | All Posts | Email Goldberg | Books

In 2001, Goldberg was appointed the Syrkin Fellow in Letters of the Jerusalem Foundation and was appointed in 2002 to be a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.

May 21 2010, 12:03 PM ET

It's been a mixed week for the Jews; on the one hand, we have excellent news out of the Major Leagues: Ryan Braun, Ike Davis, Kevin Youkilis, and Ian Kinsler all homered on the first night of Shavuot, raising the Jewish home run total this year to 20 (Gabe Kapler also had a good night). On the other hand, American Jewish support for Israel has collapsed completely, at least according to the Internets. This collapse, which has been brought about by a single Peter Beinart essay in the New York Review of Books, has led AIPAC to shut down operations completely (the furniture sale is next Tuesday, I've been told).

Peter and I, after a strategic pause to celebrate the receipt of the Torah on Sinai, continued our e-mail conversation about his article last night, and here are excerpts. Peter, by the way, is the author of the forthcoming book, The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris, which I sincerely hope is all wrong.

I'm leaving for the Perfidious Zionist Entity shortly, with some side trips planned to various countries also despised by al Qaeda, so our dialogue might be interrupted by travel, but I'm having fun talking to Peter about his interpretation of this moment in Jewish history, and as you know, the theme of Goldblog is "fun."

Jeffrey Goldberg: It's been said this week that you are brave for writing what you wrote. I think you're aware that I never consider criticism of Israel to be brave -- after all, it's the thing to do. But ignore my bias for a moment: Is there something inherently brave about criticizing Israel (and AIPAC) that I'm missing? I imagine you yourself reject the idea that what you did was brave, by the way.

Peter Beinart: Let's put this in context. We live in the U.S., not Iran or Zimbabwe. There's very little threat of physical--let alone state-sponsored--violence for anything you say politically. So in a global context, it's hard to say anyone in the U.S. is really brave no matter how unpopular their views. With that caveat, I think there is something a little brave for a member of Congress or an administration official to criticize AIPAC or criticize Israel harshly because it could end their political career. Let's just imagine that a Senator or Cabinet Member said what Barak and Olmert have said about Israel being on its way to being an apartheid state if it doesn't give back the West Bank. That would be a serious career-threatener. For a journalist/pundit, however, it's completely different. In the press, criticism--even harsh criticism--of Israel is common, and in fact, I think in the blogosphere it is almost becoming the norm. In all honesty, the thing I worried about most was the reaction of some of our friends, because a lot of the people whose friendship I really value are significantly to my right, which isn't surprising at an Orthodox synagogue. But I mostly worried for nothing. There's been a lot of disagreement, but nothing the least bit malicious. It's made me realize how remarkable and unusual a community we live in, in fact. I think I may even have smoked out one or two hidden doves.

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Copernicus—Faith and Scientific Inquiry (Harper's Magazine)

Jan Matejko, The Astronomer Copernicus (1872)

 

Neque enim ita mihi mea placent, ut no perpendam, quid alii de illis iudicaturi sint. Et quamuis sciam, hominis philosophi cogitationes esse remotas a iudicio uulgi, propterea quod illius studium sit veritatem omnibus in rebus, quatenus id a Deo rationi humane permissum est, inquirere, tamen alienas prorsus a rectitudine opiniones fugiendas censeo. Itaque cumecum ipse cogitatem, quam absurdum existimaturi essent illi, qui multorum seculorum iudiciis hanc opinione confirmatam norut, quod terra immobilis in medio coeli, tan quam centrum illius posita sit, si ego contra assererem terram moueri, diu mecum haesi, an meos comentrios in eius motus demonstrationem conscriptos in lucem darem…

For I am not so enamored of my own opinions that I disregard what others may think of them. I am aware that a philosopher’s ideas are not subject to the judgment of ordinary persons, because it is his endeavor to seek the truth in all things, to the extent permitted to human reason by God. Yet I hold that completely erroneous views should be shunned. Those who know that the consensus of many centuries has sanctioned the conception that the earth remains at rest in the middle of the heaven as its center would, I reflected, regard it as an insane pronouncement if I made the opposite assertion that the earth moves.

–Nicholas Copernicus, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, dedicatory letter to Pope Paul III (1543)

Copernicus—Faith and Scientific Inquiry (Harper's Magazine)

The Outsiders: Afghanistan's Hazaras

The Hazaras cherish education and hard work, but their Shiite Muslim faith and Asian features have long made them a target. Will they find a better life in the post-Taliban era?

Phil Zabriskie in National Geographic:

At the heart of Afghanistan is an empty space, a striking absence, where the larger of the colossal Bamian Buddhas once stood. In March 2001 the Taliban fired rockets at the statues for days on end, then planted and detonated explosives inside them. The Buddhas had looked out over Bamian for some 1,500 years. Silk Road traders and missionaries of several faiths came and went. Emissaries of empires passed through—Mongols, Safavids, Moguls, British, Soviets—often leaving bloody footprints. A country called Afghanistan took shape. Regimes rose and collapsed or were overthrown. The statues stood through it all. But the Taliban saw the Buddhas simply as non-Islamic idols, heresies carved in stone. They did not mind being thought brutish. They did not fear further isolation. Destroying the statues was a pious assertion of their brand of faith over history and culture.

It was also a projection of power over the people living under the Buddhas' gaze: the Hazaras, residents of an isolated region in Afghanistan's central highlands known as Hazarajat—their heartland, if not entirely by choice. Accounting for up to one-fifth of Afghanistan's population, Hazaras have long been branded outsiders. They are largely Shiite Muslims in an overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim country. They have a reputation for industriousness yet work the least desirable jobs. Their Asian features—narrow eyes, flat noses, broad cheeks—have set them apart in a de facto lower caste, reminded so often of their inferiority that some accept it as truth.

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The World’s Fastest-Growing Religions

Posted May 2007

From Muslims in Europe to evangelical Christians in Africa, it is religious believers who are shaping the early 21st Century. Charismatic movements are sweeping throughout the Southern Hemisphere, while high birth rates among immigrants are provoking soul-seeking in the historically Christian West. For this week's List, FP looks at the fast-growing faiths that are upending the old world order. QASSEM ZEIN/AFP/Getty Images Islam Growth rate*: 1.84 percent Adherents: 1.3 billion Behind the trend: High birthrates in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe Areas to watch: The world’s largest Muslim populations are in fast-growing countries such as Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Egypt, and Iran. Islam also happens to be the fastest growing religion in Europe, where an influx of Muslim immigrants from North Africa, Turkey, and South Asia has sent shock waves into a mostly Christian and secular population whose birthrates have stagnated. The “Muslim question” has empowered anti-immigrant parties in France, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany, while sparking a fierce debate over the place of women in Islam and symbols of faith like the Muslim head scarf. Moshe Milner/GPO/Newsmakers Bahaism Growth rate: 1.70 percent Adherents: 7.7 million Behind the trend: High birthrates in India Areas to watch: Bahais are spread throughout the world, but a good chunk—around 1.8 million—live in India. The Bahai faith, an offshoot of Islam, was founded in 1863 in Iran by Bahá’u’lláh, who claimed to be the latest in a line of prophets stretching from Abraham to Jesus Christ to Mohammed. Today, Bahais often suffer persecution in the Middle East; it probably doesn’t help matters that the world headquarters of the Bahai faith are in Haifa, Israel. RAVEENDRAN/AFP/Getty Images Sikhism Growth rate: 1.62 percent Adherents: 25.8 million Behind the trend: High birthrates in India Areas to watch: Thousands of Sikhs were killed during the bloody partition between Pakistan and India in 1947, and at least 3,000 Sikhs were killed by Hindu mobs in New Delhi following the assassination of Indira Gandhi by a pair of Sikh extremists in 1984. Today, Sikhs are prospering. The prime minister of India, Manmohan Singh, is Sikh. Over 90 percent of the world’s Sikhs live in India; of those, a large majority are concentrated in the northern Indian state of Punjab. Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States host growing Sikh minorities of several hundred thousand people each. In several isolated incidents after 9/11, turban-wearing Sikh men in Britain and the United States were mistaken for Muslims and attacked. AFP/Getty Images Jainism Growth rate: 1.57 percent Adherents: 5.9 million Behind the trend: High birthrates in India Areas to watch: Jains are a small but relatively powerful minority in India, making up about half of one percent of the population. They tend to be concentrated in Rajasthan and Gujarat. Outside of India, some of the largest concentrations of Jains are in Leicester, UK; Mombasa, Kenya; and major cities in the United States. Mario Tama/Getty Images Hinduism Growth rate: 1.52 percent Adherents: 870 million Behind the trend: Surprise! High birthrates in India Areas to watch: Most of the world’s Hindus live in India, and, to a lesser extent, Bangladesh, and Nepal. Significant Hindu minorities also live in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Malaysia. Since the 1960s, Hindus have become a growing presence in the United States, with as many as 1.5 million generally well-off adherents spread across the continent and prevalent in Texas, New Jersey, and Ohio. There are also several hundred thousand Hindus in the United Kingdom and South Africa, and there is a small Hindu minority in Russia, where its presence has aroused controversy in the Russian Orthodox Church. PIUS UTOMI EKPEI/AFP/Getty Images Christianity Growth rate: 1.38 percent Adherents: 2.2 billion Behind the trend: High birthrates and conversions in the global South Areas to watch: Pentecostal movements in Latin America, Africa, China, and India. The fastest-growing individual church in the world is Misión Carismática Internacional in Colombia; the Pentecostal denomination began in 1983 in Bogotá and now boasts 150,000 members. Then there’s Orissa Baptist Evangelical Crusade in India, which reports some 670,000 adherents. And in China, tens of millions of Christians practice their faith under the watchful eye of a very suspicious—and often hostile—Chinese government. *Growth rates over the period from 2000 to 2005; all figures from the nondenominational World Christian Database, a project of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.