Reversing course, Peter Beinart apologizes for speaking appearance at Tel Aviv U
Beinart defended his appearances, saying there is ‘value in speaking to Israelis about Israel’s crimes’
Peter Beinart speaks at a rally to release Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil on March 20, 2025, at Foley Square in New York City. Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images
Progressive Jewish author Peter Beinart apologized Wednesday for speaking at an event hosted by Tel Aviv University, calling it a “serious mistake.”
Beinart, an outspoken critic of Israel and a journalism professor at the City University of New York, spoke Tuesday evening in Tel Aviv with Yoav Fromer, a senior faculty member at TAU’s English department, in an event titled “Trump, Israel and the Future of American Democracy.”
He had drawn a volley of criticism from the boycott Israel movement as well as a right-wing Israeli group over the appearance, but made the speech anyway, he said, because he wanted to reach Israelis he disagreed with.
After the speech — for which Beinart said he was not paid — he reversed course, saying in a post on X that he could have reached them without violating the guidelines of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
“I let my desire for that conversation override my solidarity with Palestinians, who in the face of ethnic cleansing, apartheid and genocide have asked the world boycott Israeli institutions that are complicit in their oppression,” Beinart wrote.
In a press release, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel — the BDS movement’s cultural arm — accused the university of being “deeply complicit in enabling and trying to whitewash Israel’s US-armed and funded genocide as well as its decades old regime of settler-colonialism, military occupation and apartheid.”
Beinart declined to comment to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. But he responded to the criticism on social media, where said he supports a boycott of Israeli academic institutions as well as a right of return for Palestinians and an end to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank — all principles of the BDS movement to which he has long subscribed.
At the same time, he said, while he supports “many forms of boycott, divestment and sanction against Israel and Israeli institutions,” he believes there is “value in speaking to Israelis about Israel’s crimes” by speaking at universities.
“I do so because I want to reach Jews who disagree with me—because I believe that by trying to convince Jews to rethink their support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians, I can contribute, in some very small way, to the struggle for freedom and justice,” Beinart wrote.
The author of several books including “Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza,” published earlier this year, Beinart is also scheduled to speak at Hebrew University later this week, according to Haaretz.
Beinart also wrote that “right-wing Israeli organizations have pressured Tel Aviv University to cancel my talk,” adding that he felt he should “take advantage of this opportunity to say in Israel what I’ve been saying elsewhere for the last two years.”
Matan Jerafi, the CEO of the right-wing Israeli activist group Im Tirtzu, sent a letter to Tel Aviv University’s president, Ariel Porat, on Tuesday urging him to cancel the event, according to Israel National News.
“Why is he hosting someone on his campus who does not recognize the State of Israel and calls for sanctions against Israel?” wrote Jerafi. “We call on Mr. Porat to cancel this absurd event. Stop tarnishing the reputation of Israeli academia. This is not Columbia University.”
Reporting was contributed by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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