Whenever you speak with an American Jew about Israel, you always end up at the same point. The conversation starts with Israel, but rarely ends there. It almost always ends with “them.” So begins “The American Jewish Cocoon,” a lengthy article by Peter Beinart published Sept. 4 in The New York Review of Books.

“Them,” of course, refers to the Palestinians. “They” are that same monolithic entity, faceless and devoid of a clear identity, that provides the wranglers with the ultimate response to any criticism of Israel: “They” teach their children to hate and kill; “they” don’t accept Israel’s right to exist; and why don’t “they” criticize their own society as Israelis criticize their own?

The experienced Beinart has stopped answering claims and questions related to “them.” Instead, he suggests to his interlocutors that they would do well to refer their complaints to the Palestinians themselves. He knows that usually, this will be the end of the conversation. American Jews don’t know any Palestinians and aren’t interested in dialogue with real individuals from among this imaginary mass.

The rules of the Jewish student organization Hillel make it hard to invite Palestinian lecturers to speak on US campuses. The 350,000 youths who have visited the Holy Land on Taglit (Birthright) programs have not toured Palestinian towns in the West Bank. The Jewish media is almost completely off-limits to Palestinian writers. Among the more than 200 speakers who took part in the various panel discussions at the last annual AIPAC conference in the United States, only two were Palestinians.