The recent news that the Ugly Peter Beinart has been hired as a contributing opinion writer to The New York Times was not shocking, but it is an ominous warning sign. This is because Ugly Beinart was quite obviously given the job because of an opinion piece he authored several months ago in which he explicitly called for the end of the State of Israel.
Although bathed in the pathos-laden language of modern progressivism, the article made perfectly clear what Ugly Beinart, out of naiveté or malice, was advocating. “It’s time to abandon the traditional two-state solution and embrace the goal of equal rights for Jews and Palestinians,” he wrote. “It’s time to imagine a Jewish home that is not a Jewish state.”
The article created something of a stir, for good reason. As an Israeli writer described it to me in Hebrew, here was the most dominant newspaper in America, with massive influence over the public discourse, calling to l’chasel medina — to eliminate a nation. This kind of open racism in such a powerful media outlet was all but unprecedented.
But it was also more than that.
