Peter Beinart speaking at J Street. Photo: J Street.

Pundit and Israel critic Peter Beinart is urging American Jews to employ “tough love” against the Jewish State. The steps Beinart recommends, however, sound more like hate than love. George Orwell would have been impressed.

Writing in the left-wing Israeli newspaper Haaretz on March 19, Beinart – a CNN commentator and professor of journalism – implored America Jews to “love Israel more than ever,” but with a “tough love” that will consist of:

— “backing Palestinian bids at the United Nations”

— “boycotting settlement goods” (and since Beinart doesn’t exclude Jerusalem, that means boycotting goods produced in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, as well as central Jerusalem neighborhoods such as French Hill and Ramot)

— “joining and amplifying nonviolent Palestinian protest in the West Bank”

— “denying visas to, and freezing the assets of, Naftali Bennet and other pro-settler leaders”

— “protesting outside…every time Benjamin Netanyahu and the members of his cabinet walk into a Jewish event outside Israel.”

In Beinart’s game plan, there is not a scintilla of genuine concern or sympathy for besieged Israelis. There is not a word about preventing Iran from nuking Tel Aviv, or pressing the  Palestinian Arabs to stop bombing, stabbing, and running over innocent Jews. Israeli widows and orphans are not on his agenda.

If this is “love,” one must assume that Beinart has derived much inspiration from George Orwell’s famous dystopian novel, “1984.” In that world, the regime of Big Brother created a language, Newspeak, in which familiar terms were turned upside down.

“Rectify” was how the government described revising historical accounts to make them coincide with current government policies.

“Joycamps” were the name of Big Brother’s slave labor camps.

Published statements made by government officials that didn’t come out the way the regime preferred were defined as “misprints.”

Entire government agencies functioned under names that were the opposite of what they really did. In the Ministry of Love, Big Brother’s secret police tortured dissidents. The Ministry of Peace was devoted to making war. The task of the Ministry of Truth was to propagate falsehoods that served the governments needs. And the purpose of the Ministry of Plenty was to keep the general population impoverished and malnourished.

The three slogans of Big Brother’s party said it all:  “War is Peace,” “Freedom is Slavery,” and “Ignorance is Strength.”

In Peter Beinart’s version of utopia there is one more: “Hating Israel is Loving Israel.”

Moshe Phillips is president and Benyamin Korn is chairman of the Religious Zionists of America, Philadelphia, and both are candidates on the Religious Zionist slate (www.VoteTorah.org) in the World Zionist Congress elections.