"An Agenda Dressed Up in Violins?" - Debating Peter Beinart on the Right of Return and Other Matters

"An Agenda Dressed Up in Violins?" - Debating Peter Beinart on the Right of Return and Other Matters

July 16, 2026 · 1h 25m

About this episode

Peter Beinart joins hosts Noam Dworman and Dan Naturman for a heated discussion on the Israel-Palestine debate, exploring themes like the right of return and Jewish ethics.

CHAPTERS 0:00 Intro - four nice things about Peter Beinart 4:50 Will God punish Israel? Jeremiah, tradition, and belief 13:20 The critical-mass hypothetical: a 49% Hasidic America 22:03 Quebec, Czechoslovakia, South Africa - why not divorce? 41:35 The right of return: "You can cherry-pick anything" 54:24 1948: They were closer to the Holocaust than we are to COVID 63:40 Day one of a one-state solution: the list 79:53 "An agenda dressed up in violins" Claude Says: Peter Beinart - editor-at-large of Jewish Currents, New York Times opinion writer, and author of "Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza" - joins Noam Dworman and Dan Naturman for an honest, occasionally heated conversation about the questions underneath the Israel-Palestine debate. Does Jewish tradition teach that Israel's survival depends on its ethics - and does Beinart, an observant Jew, mean that literally? Is there such a thing as demographic critical mass? Why is secession the answer everywhere from Quebec to Czechoslovakia, but one shared state the answer here? Is the Palestinian right of return a sacred principle, a practical question, or - as Noam puts it - "an agenda dressed up in violins"? Plus: South…

People in this episode

Hosts: Noam Dworman, Dan Naturman

Guest: Peter Beinart

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Jewish Currents, New York Times

Books & works: Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza

Places: Israel, Palestine, Quebec, Czechoslovakia, South Africa

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