Peter Beinart, a prominent anti-Israel writer, being interviewed in January 2025. Photo: Screenshot

One of the most notorious anti-Israel activists in the US has castigated prominent Jewish writer Peter Beinart, a strident critic of Israel himself, for describing antisemitism as a “real” phenomenon rather than a political tool. 

The fracas began on Nov. 5, when Nerdeen Kiswani, the founder of the radical anti-Israel organization Within Our Lifetime (WOL), attacked New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, another anti-Israel activist, on social media, posting that Mamdani’s condemnation of swastika graffiti spray-painted outside a Jewish school in Brooklyn the day after his election victory. In his tweet, Mamdani called the vandalism “disgusting and heartbreaking” and said he will “always stand steadfast with our Jewish neighbors to root the scourge of antisemitism out of our city.”

Kiswani took issue with Mamdani’s statement, despite the mayor-elect’s fierce opposition to the Jewish state.

Swastikas were found painted on the exterior walls of Magen David Yeshiva, a Jewish school in Brooklyn, in the early morning on Nov. 5, in what police are investigating as a hate crime. Surveillance footage reportedly shows a man on a bicycle scrawling the antisemitic symbols before fleeing the scene. The incident came just hours after Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City, prompting renewed concern over rising antisemitic acts across the city.

Beinart chided Kiswani, asserting that antisemitism is in fact a “real social phenomenon” that needs to be countered. He pointed to the growing popularity of antisemitic streamer Nick Fuentes as evidence of societal antisemitism on the rise.

“Your response to a swastika at a yeshiva is to condemn the mayor for condemning it? Because that might imply that antisemitism is a ‘real social phenomenon?'” Beinart wrote. “Yes, like other bigotries, it’s a ‘real social phenomenon.’ If you don’t believe me, ask the 1 million people who follow Nick Fuentes on this platform.”

In her retort, Kiswani clarified that while she found the swastika graffiti “reprehensible,” she took issue with Mamdani asserting that antisemitism is a “problem in NYC.” She argued that Jews weaponize antisemitism to silence critics of Israel and accused Beinart of using the plight of Palestinians to sell books. 

In his new book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning, Beinart writes that Jewish texts, history, and language have been “deployed to justify mass slaughter and starvation [of the population of Gaza].”

“I took issue with the implication that there’s an antisemitism problem in NYC and cited Norman Finkelstein on the idea that it’s not a social phenomenon. He talks about it in the context of the US, I referenced NYC,” Kiswani wrote, referencing another prominent anti-Zionist.

You really have some nerve, grifting and writing books about “after” the genocide of my people as it’s still ongoing, to completely reframe what I was saying. I never condemned his condemnation of the graffiti, I explicitly called it reprehensible myself. I took issue with the… https://t.co/Gx52RnGsyx

— Nerdeen Kiswani (@NerdeenKiswani) November 7, 2025

New York City has experienced a surge in anti-Jewish hate crimes since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.

“There’s no structural disadvantage to being Jewish like there is to being Palestinian, and you know that. You’re being purposely obtuse. You can pander to the anti-genocide line but you’re still a liberal zionist [sic],” she continued, further attacking the Jewish academic.

“Peter Beinart calling Palestinians antisemites while claiming to ‘recognize our suffering’ shows what liberal Zionism really is: a project to save Zionism’s legitimacy, not dismantle its violence. It’s the rebranding of supremacy into something palatable, the illusion of moral balance while genocide continues,” Kiswani added. 

Kiswani has called for the expulsion of Zionists from all public spaces and for Israel to be “wiped off the map.” Leadership for WOL has repeatedly expressed support for terrorist groups such as Hamas and for violence against Israel, defending Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israeli communities. Previously, Kiswani reprimanded US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), one of the foremost critics of Israel in the US Congress, as a “genocide apologist” for honoring the victims of the Nova Music Festival, where hundreds of Israelis were murdered and dozens were kidnapped by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists during the Oct. 7 atrocities.

Beinart, meanwhile, has established himself as one of the most prominent anti-Zionist public intellectuals in the US in recent years. As a contributing opinion columnist for the New York Times, he penned an op-ed for the newspaper disavowing his previous support for Israel, claiming that he “no longer believes in a Jewish state.” He has accused Israel of oppressing Palestinians and erecting an “apartheid” state built on the notion of ethnic supremacy. 

Though Beinart has condemned the Hamas-led massacre, he has also compared the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust to the Haitian Slave Revolt and Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, arguing that Israel’s alleged “oppression” of Palestinians led to the Oct. 7 invasion. He has also accused Israel of perpetrating a “genocide” in Gaza.

Some observers noted on social media that Kiswani’s attacks against Beinart were an example that “for those who object to Jewish peoplehood to begin with, no Jew will ever be anti-Zionist enough.”