This photograph, which appeared in the New York Times and Haaretz yesterday, is why Peter Beinart is closing Open Zion.

Because liberal Zionism is screwed.

Because Yair Lapid– whom the liberal Zionists embraced as their great rising star in the elections last January– is pinching the cheek of a nascent/latent/patent fascist (who was disgraced but has bounced back).

Because this is what Zionism has produced, and any smart intellectual knows that this is where the road goes.

Because the wind is at the back of the anti-Zionists, just as Jeffrey Goldberg said.

Because Goldberg and Beinart have found, just as I found, and many thousands of privileged Israelis have too, that life and career mean a lot more here in the liberal diverse US, than the unseemly prospect of being teamed with religious nationalist idiots, including Yair Lapid who sees Arabs as an “internal threat”.

PS. Here’s what Jeffrey Goldberg wrote 2-1/2 years ago, decrying the settlements as a corruption of Zionism’s nature, but fearing that my side, which sees expansion and ethnic cleansing as inherent to Zionism, was winning the argument. He was right then, and of course my side has only gained strength:

The official position of this blog (yes, we have official positions here) is that the settlements should be fought as if there was no such thing as anti-Zionism, and anti-Zionism should be fought as if there were no such thing as the settlements. This, I think, reflects the centrist position. A centrist on the question of Israel believes that the settlements represent a corruption of Jewish ideals, but that Israel remains the physical manifestation of a righteous cause. The right, of course, believes that settlements are an expression, not a corruption, of that cause. The left, on the other hand, believes that settlements are a manifestation of Zionism’s true nature. I disagree with that argument strenuously. But I will say this, though: The left position on this question has the wind at its back.

P.S. Here is Ethan Bronner of the NYT, who I’m told is/was a liberal Zionist, saying last month that the Israeli government began sending out settlers within seconds of the end of the ’67 war and that there are now 600,000 Jews east of the Green Line, and “I dont see any government in Israel being willing to move them from their homes… If the Zionist movement means anything, it means you build.”