3 December 2025
In an effort to explain to Israeli faculty and students their responsibility for the genocide in Gaza, Perter Beinart accepted an invitation to speak at an Israeli university. His motive was unexceptionable, but he now regrets his decision. Here’s why.
By speaking earlier this week at Tel Aviv University, I made a serious mistake.
In the past, when formulating my views about Israel-Palestine, I’ve sought out Palestinian friends and interlocutors and listened carefully to their views. In this case, I did not.
I really wanted to speak to Israelis. In the US, I’ve cultivated conversations with Jews with whom I strongly disagree, both to listen and in hopes of changing their minds. Over the horrifying last two years, I’ve hoped for more conversations with Israelis, to explain why I believe Israel has committed genocide in Gaza and why I believe Jewish supremacy is fundamentally wrong.
My motivation for giving the talk wasn’t financial; I didn’t receive an honorarium. I wanted to say certain things to an Israeli audience. Speaking at Tel Aviv University seemed to offer that chance.
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. As Noura Erakat and others have pointed out, there are ways for me to talk to Israelis without violating BDS guidelines and undermining a collective effort against oppression. I could have had the exchange I desired while respecting a non-violent movement based on human rights and international law.
Had I listened more to Palestinians, I would have realized that earlier. It’s embarrassing to admit such a serious mistake. I dearly wish I had not made this one, which has caused particular harm because international pressure is crucial to ensuring Palestinian freedom. This was a failure of judgment. I am sorry.
10:18 PM · Nov 26, 2025
Haaretz daily briefing: News & analysis
On Tuesday, the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel released a formal condemnation of the American columnist, saying that his participation “can only be used to whitewash the unspeakable crimes committed by Israel and its institutions, including TAU, against Indigenous Palestinians.”
The BDS movement advocates for a strict boycott against Israeli educational institutions, including Tel Aviv University, citing ties between universities and the Israeli government, including through defense think tanks and research, as well as its scholarships for IDF soldiers.
It cites the presence of military and weapons contractors at job fairs as serving the nation’s military industrial complex.
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), the academic and cultural arm of the BDS movement, said that it had spoken to Beinart in private and urged him to reconsider the engagement.
Since the outbreak of the 2023 Gaza war, Beinart, an outspoken Jewish voice for Palestinian rights, has evolved into a fierce critic of Israel and has distanced himself from the liberal Zionist camp, which the movement called in its statement “a desperate attempt to make Israel’s Zionist regime of settler-colonialism, dehumanization, and elimination of the Palestinian natives seem palatable.”
