Jewish Academics Promote ‘Binationalism’ In Place Of Israel

On Dec. 19, the annual convention of the prestigious Association for Jewish Studies to be held in Chicago will feature a panel titled “Binationalism Revisited‒Palestinian, Zionist and Jewish-American Perspectives.”

How do we know it will be an attempt to glorify and legitimize binationalism, rather than an impartial scholarly analysis? Well, start with the panelists’ own glowing description:

“The binational solution to the political problem of Jewish and Arab coexistence in a shared land has ignited the imagination of various Jewish thinkers since the early days of Zionism. Binationalism … appeared to negotiate the moral demands of Jewish tradition with the political precepts of modern nationalism, enabling a Jewish political realization that would not come at the expense of the local Arab population.”

Take a look at who will be speaking on the panel. Every one of them has a record of extreme criticism of Israel. Thus, there is every reason to assume that they will portray binationalism in a positive light and present it as a desirable alternative to the Jewish State of Israel.

The chair of the panel will be Professor Claire Sufrin of Northwestern University. She was one of the signatories on a June 2020 open letter that accused Israel of “state violence”; charged that Israel was intent on “creating apartheid conditions in Israel and Palestine”; and declared that “all Jewish settlements in occupied territories captured in 1967,” which includes many neighborhoods of Jerusalem, are “illegal.”

Another speaker is Professor Samuel Hayim Brody of the University of Kansas. He, too, signed that letter slandering Israel for “apartheid” and “state violence.” In a 2016 essay, Brody deceptively referred to binationalism as “bi-nationalist Zionism.” That’s an oxymoron if there ever was one.

It’s a crude and blatant attempt to legitimize binationalism by pretending that it’s just a different form of Zionism. But that’s false. An ideology that rejects Jewish statehood and would deny Jews majority status in their own homeland cannot be described as Zionism.

Also on the panel: David Barak-Gorodetsky, a Reform rabbi who teaches at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School. He is the author of a recent book glorifying Judah Magnes as a “prophet.” Don’t expect Barak-Gorodetsky to offer an objective, scholarly analysis of binationalism at the conference. In fact, don’t expect him to say a single critical word about the political schemes conceived by his hero.