The Jewish Left Is Trying to Hold Two Thoughts at Once
About this episode
National-security reporter Spencer Ackerman and CUNY professor Peter Beinart discuss Hamas's possible aims and miscalculations on October 7, Israeli and Jewish trauma in its aftermath, and the dangers of collective punishment, mass displacement, and rhetoric echoing the Nakba. Drawing explicit parallels to America's post-9/11 response, they argue that overwhelming military force tends to empower more extreme actors rather than eliminate them, and that nonviolent Palestinian strategies have repeatedly been suppressed or criminalized. They examine American responsibility for the crisis, the Biden administration's approach, the role of settlements, and what alternative Israeli-Palestinian political coalitions genuinely committed to equality and coexistence might look like.