editorials
P resident Biden’s announcement last month that
the Department of Education would cancel up
to $10,000 in student loan debt (and up to $20,000
for Pell Grant recipients) for each borrower earning
less than $125,000 has stirred mixed reactions.

Some worry that such massive debt forgive-
ness — estimated to be as high as $24 billion
per year for the next 10 years — would further
enfl ame still-raging infl ation and force the raising
of taxes. Others argue that the debt forgiveness
just isn’t fair — particularly to those who paid
off their loans or arranged alternative fi nancing
for their education other than through a federal
program. Similar “fairness” questions were raised regard-
ing people who didn’t attend college at all —
either because they couldn’t aff ord it or because
they chose not to. And, most basically, critics ask
why should Uncle Sam favor college-educated
elites and force hardworking men and women to
pay off other people’s higher education debts?
While we recognize the legitimacy of many of
the questions raised regarding Biden’s student
debt plan, we applaud it. We do so because we
believe the plan can help transform the lives of
millions of young Americans who are burdened
with college debt by giving them a chance to pay
down their loans, buy homes for their families and
Joe Biden
one day send their own children to college.

Critics harp on the image of the struggling
American worker being forced to subsidize the
college debt of a household making six fi gures.

While there will be some wealthier benefi ciaries of
the program, the overwhelming majority are not.

More importantly, that’s what being part of an
orderly society is all about. Some people pay
more in taxes, others pay less. But we all get our
mail delivered the same way, every neighborhood
gets its trash collected on the same schedule,
and myriad other government programs and
services are made available to all, irrespective of
how much each person pays in taxes.

And we pay for those services even if we don’t
use them. Thus, for example, revenue from your
federal gas taxes may go to improve an interstate
highway in a distant state, and you are obligated
to pay property taxes even if you don’t have chil-
dren in the public schools and have no occasion
to use other tax-funded government services.

The point here is that neither tax payments nor
government programs are a zero-sum game. We
support a “social compact” designed to achieve
a greater good. Orderly society needs eff ective
police and fi re protection, well-maintained roads
and quality public schools. And we also need
eff orts to remedy elements of wealth inequality
that are particularly burdensome on lower-income
and minority families.

The president’s student debt forgiveness plan
will alleviate some student debt, but not all of it.

The plan strikes a good balance, even as critics on
the left argue that far greater amounts should be
forgiven. Unfortunately, the plan does not address
the ongoing, crushing cost of higher education
and its lasting impact. That is a serious problem
that needs to be addressed. JE
Beinart Blathers On
W e expect a public intellectual to take sides,
frame arguments, articulate thoughtful
analyses and help shape our thinking.

Liberal journalist Peter Beinart is a public intel-
lectual who fi lls very few of those expectations.

Instead, he has shown himself to be overly focused
on arguing against Israel as a Jewish state. His
periodic provocative pronouncements keep main-
stream Jewish organizations awake at night.

Last month saw the publication in The New York
Times of Beinart’s op-ed “Has the Fight Against
Antisemitism Lost Its Way?” Beinart’s answer is a
disturbing “yes,” based upon a fl awed argument.

Beinart maintains that the expanded defi nition
of ‘antisemitism’ to include attempts to delegiti-
mize the state of Israel has led to use of the fi ght
against antisemitism as “a vehicle not for defend-
ing human rights but for denying them.”
Here’s Bienart’s reasoning: Israel denies human
rights to the Palestinian nation. If every criticism of
Israel is viewed as antisemitic, then the shield of
antisemitism is being used to promote deprivation
of human rights. And that, he says, is what orga-
12 SEPTEMBER 8, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
nizations like American Jewish Committee are
doing when they criticize Human Rights Watch for
accusing Israel of “crimes of apartheid and per-
secution,” and calling the accusations antisemitic.

But he doesn’t stop there. He also accuses AJC
and others of not just denying Israel’s repression
of Palestinians, but of stifl ing human rights around
the world.

Similarly, Beinart is critical of U.S. support for
Israel’s eff orts to expand the Abraham Accords.

Beinart claims that there is some kind of agree-
ment between American Jewish organizations and
the U.S. government to ignore human rights viola-
tions in Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates,
for example, and to reward those countries for
their bad behavior because it benefi ts Israel.

Thus, he argues: “As relations have warmed
between Israel and the monarchies of the Persian
Gulf, American offi cials have begun using the
struggle against antisemitism to shield those
regimes from human rights pressure.” And just to
be sure that you get his point, Beinart tweeted:
“The fi ght against ‘antisemitism’ as waged by the
American Jewish establishment and the US gov-
ernment, has become a threat to human rights.”
Beinart’s paranoia is disturbing. His accusations
are outrageous.

No one denies that the Persian Gulf states have
horrendous human rights records. That has been
the focus of much commentary and discussion as
eff orts to bring those states closer to Israel and
the West have been pursued. No one is accepting
of those violations. No one is encouraging those
violations. And it is naïve or worse to believe that
violations of human rights are being tolerated in
the Middle East and around the world in order to
benefi t the state of Israel. As the old joke goes:
We wish Israel had that much power and infl u-
ence. While we can ignore Beinart, we worry that his
tortured imaginings give cover to those who are
trying to separate antisemitism from anti-Zionism
and hammer the Jewish state. Beinart is Jewish.

But that doesn’t give him license to invoke and
promote hateful antisemitic tropes. His ramblings
jeopardize Jewish lives. JE
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Student Debt Forgiveness