Pro-Boycott Writer Peter Beinart Faces BDS Backlash Over Tel Aviv University Event
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Sid Shniad
Nov 25, 2025, 7:33:35 PM (7 days ago) Nov 25
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Haaretz November 25 2025 Pro-Boycott Writer Peter Beinart Faces BDS Backlash Over Tel Aviv University Event
Despite saying he supports 'many forms' of boycott against Israel, Beinart defended his decision to speak at the event, emphasizing the importance of engaging with Israelis. He previously criticized BDS for attacking an Arab-Jewish anti-occupation group, advocating for open dialogue regardless of identity.
Jewish American political commentator and journalist, Peter Beinart.
Haaretz November 25 2025
Despite saying he supports 'many forms' of boycott against Israel, Beinart defended his decision to speak at the event, emphasizing the importance of engaging with Israelis. He previously criticized BDS for attacking an Arab-Jewish anti-occupation group, advocating for open dialogue regardless of identity.
Jewish American political commentator and journalist, Peter Beinart.
Credit: Ohad Kav
Linda Dayan
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."
The organization is now making a public plea that he cancel the "unethical, unjustifiable engagement that, regardless of its content, can only be used to whitewash the unspeakable crimes committed by Israel and its institutions, including TAU, against Indigenous Palestinians."
Preempting the criticism, Beinart released a statement on his social media, saying that despite supporting "many forms of boycott" against Israel and Israeli institutions, he believes "there is value in speaking to Israelis about Israel's crimes."
"I have spent much of my adult life speaking to Jews about Israel's treatment of Palestinians," he continued, "In that effort, I have conducted public discussions with many people whose views I consider immoral and spoken at many institutions that are based on principles with which I profoundly disagree. These include institutions like Tel Aviv University that are in various ways complicit in Israeli oppression."
"I don't have many opportunities to speak to Israelis. As it is, right-wing Israeli organizations have pressured Tel Aviv University to cancel my talk. I felt I should take advantage of this opportunity to say in Israel what I've been saying elsewhere for the last two years," he said, adding, "I know many people I admire will disagree with this logic. But it stems from my desire to challenge Jewish supremacy and see the end of Israel's oppression of the Palestinian people."
Last year, Beinart condemned PACBI and BDS' attack on Standing Together, an Arab-Jewish grassroots anti-occupation movement. PACBI labeled Standing Together as an "intellectually dishonest" normalization organization that "seeks to whitewash Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza."
On his Substack, Beinart noted that PACBI did not use any quotes by the organization in their condemnation or cite Standing Together's own statements, "which just seems to me like intellectual dishonesty 101." He added that the BDS movement conflated "language about the way in which oppression dehumanizes the oppressor and the oppressed" alike with the normalization of injustice.
He says that some ask why he has the right to question the BDS movement, to which he replies, "The reason I am really resistant to that kind of thinking is precisely because of my own experience in the Jewish community. I don't like the idea that people, because of their identity position, don't have the right to say openly what they believe," saying that this is something that occurs in the mainstream Jewish community when it comes to defining antisemitism.
In response to a Haaretz inquiry, Tel Aviv University said that the event will be held as planned.
The international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel released a formal condemnation of the American columnist Peter Beinart due to his scheduled speaking engagement at Tel Aviv University on Tuesday.
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."
The organization is now making a public plea that he cancel the "unethical, unjustifiable engagement that, regardless of its content, can only be used to whitewash the unspeakable crimes committed by Israel and its institutions, including TAU, against Indigenous Palestinians."
The statement reiterated that "Speaking engagements, such as Beinart's, explicitly violate PACBI's academic boycott guidelines, as do all academic events, whether held in Israel or abroad, that are convened or sponsored by complicit Israeli institutions. Many universities worldwide have cut ties with TAU and other Israeli universities over their proven complicity in Israel's crimes."
Tel Aviv University. Credit: Moti Milrod
Beinart is due to speak at an event called "Trump, Israel and the Future of American Democracy," billed as a conversation with the columnist moderated by Dr. Yoav Fromer of the university's English and American Studies department.
Beinart is due to speak at an event called "Trump, Israel and the Future of American Democracy," billed as a conversation with the columnist moderated by Dr. Yoav Fromer of the university's English and American Studies department.
Preempting the criticism, Beinart released a statement on his social media, saying that despite supporting "many forms of boycott" against Israel and Israeli institutions, he believes "there is value in speaking to Israelis about Israel's crimes."
"I have spent much of my adult life speaking to Jews about Israel's treatment of Palestinians," he continued, "In that effort, I have conducted public discussions with many people whose views I consider immoral and spoken at many institutions that are based on principles with which I profoundly disagree. These include institutions like Tel Aviv University that are in various ways complicit in Israeli oppression."
"I don't have many opportunities to speak to Israelis. As it is, right-wing Israeli organizations have pressured Tel Aviv University to cancel my talk. I felt I should take advantage of this opportunity to say in Israel what I've been saying elsewhere for the last two years," he said, adding, "I know many people I admire will disagree with this logic. But it stems from my desire to challenge Jewish supremacy and see the end of Israel's oppression of the Palestinian people."
Last year, Beinart condemned PACBI and BDS' attack on Standing Together, an Arab-Jewish grassroots anti-occupation movement. PACBI labeled Standing Together as an "intellectually dishonest" normalization organization that "seeks to whitewash Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza."
On his Substack, Beinart noted that PACBI did not use any quotes by the organization in their condemnation or cite Standing Together's own statements, "which just seems to me like intellectual dishonesty 101." He added that the BDS movement conflated "language about the way in which oppression dehumanizes the oppressor and the oppressed" alike with the normalization of injustice.
He says that some ask why he has the right to question the BDS movement, to which he replies, "The reason I am really resistant to that kind of thinking is precisely because of my own experience in the Jewish community. I don't like the idea that people, because of their identity position, don't have the right to say openly what they believe," saying that this is something that occurs in the mainstream Jewish community when it comes to defining antisemitism.
In response to a Haaretz inquiry, Tel Aviv University said that the event will be held as planned.
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