FACING MORAL WRECKAGE
For decades, many Jews believed they could reconcile liberal values with unwavering support for the State of Israel. That consensus is now at risk of being undermined as Jews confront questions once considered unthinkable: What does solidarity mean in the face of mass civilian suffering? And what happens when a government enacts policies that violate ethical ideals that lie at the core of a people’s identity?
Journalist Beinart explores the crisis tearing through Jewish identity – with its wider implications for liberalism and the moral imagination of the West. He argues that the debate over the actions of the Netanyahu government and its allies, in the occupied territories of Palestine and in its wars in Gaza and further abroad, is no longer just a question of geopolitics. It touches on matters spiritual, generational and existential – not least for Jewish people around the world.
Peter Beinart [USA]
Peter Beinart is Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the Newmark School of Journalism at the City University of New York. His fourth book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza, which was published by Knopf in 2025, won the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction. He is a contributing opinion writer at The New York Times, Editor-at-Large of Jewish Currents, an MSNOW political commentator and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace. He writes the Beinart Notebook newsletter on Substack.
We acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation - the custodians of the country on which we meet - and acknowledge their Elders, past and present.
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