Peter Beinart’s Wrong Again – There Isn’t Any “Occupation”   

In his late January essay for the New York Times, Peter Beinart claims that “Palestinians in the West Bank (sic) … live as permanent noncitizens, without basic rights, under Israeli rule.” This assertion is grossly misleading. The reality is that the Palestinian Authority (PA), not Israel, governs the vast majority of Palestinians in the West Bank. Since the signing of the Oslo II Accord in 1995, Israel withdrew from Palestinian population centers, and no Israeli troops or citizens reside in areas under the PA administration.

How could Beinart not know this? The Palestinian Authority runs the courts, the police, the schools, the labor unions, the economy, the media, and the elections—on the rare occasions when Mahmoud Abbas allows elections. Abbas, the Palestinian Authority chairman, is now in the 20th year of what was originally to be a four-year term. It is Mahmoud Abbas and his security forces—not the Israelis—who rule the Palestinian Authority’s residents. Yet Beinart fails to acknowledge this basic truth. If it were committed to accurate reporting, the New York Times would at least recognize the PA’s governing role and perhaps even use the historically accurate names for the region: Judea and Samaria.

Beinart’s bias is even more glaring in his discussion of Gaza. He writes: “Gaza’s destruction serves as a horrifying illustration of Israel’s failure to protect the lives and dignity of all the people who fall under its authority.” What is he talking about? As of October 7, no Israeli troops were in Gaza. Israel unilaterally withdrew from the territory in 2005 under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan. For 19 years, Gazans had full control of their territory—until Hamas launched its barbaric massacre of over 1,200 Israelis. Gazans were not under Israel’s “authority” before October 7, as the attack tragically showed. Nor were Palestinian Arabs in Gaza under Israel’s “authority” after the attack.

Returning to Beinart’s complaints about Judea and Samaria and Israel, let’s be clear: Israel has already relinquished control of over 23,000 square miles of land captured in 1967, despite the fact that Israel itself is only 8,000 square miles. Israel has made enormous territorial sacrifices in pursuit of peace, only to be met with relentless Palestinian Arab terrorism. It should not be forgotten that many of the Jewish families expelled from Gaza in 2005 had already been uprooted once before when Israel gave up the Sinai Peninsula in 1982 as part of the Camp David Accords with Egypt.

If Beinart was truly concerned about the lives of Arabs in Judea and Samaria he should criticize Abbas and the PA. He fails to mention Abbas or his Palestinian Authority even once in his over 1,800-word tirade. If Abbas truly sought peace—as Beinart, J Street, and the Washington Post claim—why doesn’t he adhere to the promises he made under the Oslo Accords?

Yasser Arafat, Abbas, and their henchman pledged in the 1993 Oslo Accords to renounce terrorism, arrest terrorists, and stop inciting hatred in schools. Instead, the PA continues to pay salaries to convicted terrorists and provide refuge to fugitives so Israel cannot capture them. Yet Beinart refuses to acknowledge that the Palestinians have systematically violated their Oslo commitments from day one.

On January 25, Abbas personally called to congratulate Yasser Abu Bakr, a convicted Palestinian Arab terrorist freed by Israel as part of the ceasefire deal with Hamas. This disturbing act underscores the PA’s ongoing embrace of terrorism rather than combating it. Why doesn’t Beinart ever protest Abbas’s open support for terrorists?

Peter Beinart knows that Israel withdrew from Palestinian cities in 1995 and from Gaza in 2005. He knows that the PA and Hamas, not Israel, govern the vast majority of Palestinians. And yet, he continues to push a false narrative that blames Israel for Palestinian suffering while absolving Palestinian leadership of all responsibility.

This is not just intellectual dishonesty—it is a calculated effort to manipulate public perception. By refusing to acknowledge Palestinian leadership’s role in perpetuating violence, corruption, and broken agreements, Beinart shields those truly responsible for the ongoing conflict.

Caroline Glick identified this strategy back in April 2011 writing: “Over the past year or so, American Jewish opponents of Israel like writer and activist Peter Beinart have sought to intimidate and demoralize Israelis by telling us that American Jews either no longer support us or will stop supporting us if we don’t give  in to all the Arabs’ demands.” Nothing has changed since Glick wrote those words.

If Beinart were truly committed to peace, he would demand that the Palestinian Authority uphold its Oslo commitments, end its financial support for terrorism, and stop anti-Israel propaganda. Instead, he engages in a cynical campaign that emboldens extremists and undermines the very prospects for peace he claims to support.

The real question isn’t what Beinart hopes to accomplish—but why anyone still takes him seriously.

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Moshe Phillips is national chairman of Americans For A Safe Israel (www.AFSI.org), a leading pro-Israel advocacy and education organization.