This article leaves a bad taste in my mouth. "Moral illusion" my ass. He says these things as if, in a world without Israel, Palestinian children might just explode at random, or Gaza might just...
This article leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
This is where most critics of Israel appear to be stuck. They see these images, and they blame Israel for killing and maiming babies. They see the occupation, and they blame Israel for making Gaza a prison camp. I would argue that this is a kind of moral illusion
"Moral illusion" my ass. He says these things as if, in a world without Israel, Palestinian children might just explode at random, or Gaza might just happen to be blockaded. He has this spineless stance where he admits Israel did, and continues to do, terrible atrocities, and then absolves them of blame.
He declares that it's probably an accident that Israel keeps murdering children. That's an inane opinion, quite frankly. I don't think even Israelis think they're doing it by accident.
He spends a while arguing how Palestine would be terrible, and kill all the Israelis in his hypothetical, all while denying the very real genocide being carried out by Israel. The horrific mass displacement, murder, mistreatment and oppression that Israel has done to Palestinians over the past 75 years or so is very much in line with the definition of genocide. But that doesn't matter to Sam - it's all an "accident".
His argument relies on the hypothetical "what might happen" that ignores the reality of the current situation. What might happen concerns me far less than what is actually happening.
Israeli soldiers have occasionally put Palestinian civilians in front of them as they’ve advanced into dangerous areas. That’s not the use of human shields we’re talking about.
He talks about the use of human shields, and how Israel doesn't use them. Which is strange, because in the middle of the segment he acknowledges they have used human shields! Every time he discusses something terrible that Hamas does, he admits that Israel does it too, just that he prefers one side to the other. I'm unclear why. Possibly it is a love of the status quo, or a hatred of Muslims (which he has apparently gotten a lot of flack for in the past).
You have one side which if it really could accomplish its aims would simply live peacefully with its neighbors, and you have another side which is seeking to implement a seventh century theocracy in the Holy Land.
Without the context of the article, I'd assume that his meaning was swapped. Israel has not lived peacefully with it's neighbours at any point in its history. Why Sam thinks that it'd start as soon as Palestinians quit rebelling against their colonial overlords is beyond me.
Parts of this have changed since it was written. I would like to note that Hamas' constitution was changed in 2017 to remove the genocidal section he refers to. But overall, this is a pretty poor take on the situation, that just ignores reality in favour of an imaginary future.
Some of the quotes you've taken here are out of context. While I appreciate this is surely done in good faith to shorten a long comment (which contains many good points I do not wish to dismiss),...
Some of the quotes you've taken here are out of context. While I appreciate this is surely done in good faith to shorten a long comment (which contains many good points I do not wish to dismiss), I think in due fairness to Mr. Harris they should be examined in their wider context.
Quote one
>And there is no question that the Palestinians have suffered terribly for decades under the [Israeli] occupation. This is where most critics of Israel appear to be stuck. They see these images, and they blame Israel for killing and maiming babies. They see the occupation, and they blame Israel for making Gaza a prison camp. I would argue that this is a kind of moral illusion, borne of a failure to look at the actual causes of this conflict, as well as of a failure to understand the intentions of the people on either side of it. [Note: I was not saying that the horror of slain children is a moral illusion; nor was I minimizing the suffering of the Palestinians under the occupation. I was claiming that Israel is not primarily to blame for all this suffering.]
Quote two
>There are reports that Israeli soldiers have occasionally put Palestinian civilians in front of them as they’ve advanced into dangerous areas. That’s not the use of human shields we’re talking about. It’s egregious behavior. No doubt it constitutes a war crime. But Imagine the Israelis holding up their own women and children as human shields. Of course, that would be ridiculous.
Quote three
>You have one side which if it really could accomplish its aims would simply live peacefully with its neighbors, and you have another side which is seeking to implement a seventh century theocracy in the Holy Land. There’s no peace to be found between those incompatible ideas. That doesn’t mean you can’t condemn specific actions on the part of the Israelis. And, of course, acknowledging the moral disparity between Israel and her enemies doesn’t give us any solution to the problem of Israel’s existence in the Middle East. [Note: I was not suggesting that Israel’s actions are above criticism or that their recent incursion into Gaza was necessarily justified. Nor was I saying that the status quo, wherein the Palestinians remain stateless, should be maintained. And I certainly wasn’t expressing support for the building of settlements on contested land (as I made clear below). By “siding with Israel,” I am simply recognizing that they are not the primary aggressors in this conflict. They are, rather, responding to aggression—and at a terrible cost.]
And that's where the crux of his arguement is wrong. Israel (and the USA) are the creators and perpetual perpetrators of this violence. There have been retalitory strikes, yes. But considering the...
I was claiming that Israel is not primarily to blame for all this suffering
And that's where the crux of his arguement is wrong. Israel (and the USA) are the creators and perpetual perpetrators of this violence.
There have been retalitory strikes, yes. But considering the technological and monetary backing of the two sides in the neverending conflict, Palestine (and Hamas) are more akin to protestors throwing rocks at soldiers weilding machine guns.
I think it is intellectual laziness to unilaterally attribute all wrongs in a conflict that is as nuanced and historically complex as this to one side. This kneejerk reaction of calling a regime...
I think it is intellectual laziness to unilaterally attribute all wrongs in a conflict that is as nuanced and historically complex as this to one side. This kneejerk reaction of calling a regime who just deliberately murdered civilians women and children and kidnapped children out of their homes "throwing rocks" does not serve to further any discussion here. As someone who is very critical of what Israel is doing, I can tell you that there are no black and whites in this and you're not going to convince anyone by reducing it to this. I suggest you read some of the complex history of this conflict before you form an opinion.
I see a view along these lines any time this comes up and I’m never quite sure what to make of it. Because yeah there is a power disparity, but what’s the alternative? The weaker faction here...
Palestine (and Hamas) are more akin to protestors throwing rocks at soldiers weilding machine guns.
I see a view along these lines any time this comes up and I’m never quite sure what to make of it. Because yeah there is a power disparity, but what’s the alternative? The weaker faction here still has an eliminationist agenda. They’re forced to advance it by throwing rocks or asymmetric warfare tactics, but we’d generally say it’s a good thing that their bad agenda is constrained in terms of effectiveness and sophistication. Would it somehow make the situation more acceptable if Israel was simply less effective at protecting its interests and suffered more heavily in the conflicts?
This claim seems so obviously incorrect to me. My understanding is that modern Israel did not exist until after the Holocaust when Europeans partitioned out Palestine to give to Jews to force...
[Israel] are not the primary aggressors in this conflict. They are, rather, responding to aggression
This claim seems so obviously incorrect to me. My understanding is that modern Israel did not exist until after the Holocaust when Europeans partitioned out Palestine to give to Jews to force Israel back into being. How is that not supposed to be seen as the primary aggression in this situation?
It wasn’t “Palestinian” territory. The Levant was a plural society comprised of Christians, Jews, and Muslims living alongside each other. The importation of European-style ethnonationalism is...
It wasn’t “Palestinian” territory. The Levant was a plural society comprised of Christians, Jews, and Muslims living alongside each other. The importation of European-style ethnonationalism is what created this paroxysm of violence, but the Jewish nationalists weren’t alone in doing that. The Jewish ones just happened to be more successful, in part because the British took their side when they broke out the map and straight edge and the Muslim ones remain hostile to them about it. But to blame Israelis for that would be like blaming only Pakistan or India for violence in South Asia. Partition is bad and messy, but it is what it is. Continuing to relitigate things with violence is just pointless and ineffective.
They used to be a composite culture, but modern nationalist ideologies including pan-Arabism and Islamism, as well as Zionism. Have made them incapable of living alongside each other like they used to. You see this in asinine, ahistorical arguments Arabs and Israelis have over things like who invented hummus.
I don't think Sam Harris's opinion is worth two cents when he advocates for glassing the middle east: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Harris#Accusations_of_Islamophobia
I don't think Sam Harris's opinion is worth two cents when he advocates for glassing the middle east:
Chris Hedges accused Harris of "advancing neoconservative agendas" and of advocating a nuclear first strike policy on Muslims if an Islamist regime ever obtained nuclear weapons, quoting from The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Harris that "in such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own."[118][119][120] In 2018, Nathan J. Robinson also criticized Harris for promoting the possibility of a nuclear first strike on an Islamist regime.[121]
In a hypothetical where the Taliban has nuclear weapons, and a nuclear strike is the only effective way to prevent them from building more and using them, would you seriously be against nuking...
In a hypothetical where the Taliban has nuclear weapons, and a nuclear strike is the only effective way to prevent them from building more and using them, would you seriously be against nuking them?
MAD only works to prevent the other side from using nukes when they care about not being destroyed.
That's the only interpretation of his comment that makes sense, unless you think he was advocating for a nuclear strike on Pakistan. It only makes sense if he is referring to extremists, either...
That's the only interpretation of his comment that makes sense, unless you think he was advocating for a nuclear strike on Pakistan. It only makes sense if he is referring to extremists, either the Taliban or similar regimes.
Pakistan doesn't have long-range nuclear weaponry capable of reaching the US. Also, I think you're giving Sam Harris too much credit - if Pakistan does get ICBMs, this quote would be advocating...
Pakistan doesn't have long-range nuclear weaponry capable of reaching the US. Also, I think you're giving Sam Harris too much credit - if Pakistan does get ICBMs, this quote would be advocating for a nuclear first-strike on Pakistan.
No, Sam Harris does not advocate for glassing the middle east. 1) Considering a hypothetical scenario does not equal advocating for that scenario (I might consider the possible consequences of...
No, Sam Harris does not advocate for glassing the middle east. 1) Considering a hypothetical scenario does not equal advocating for that scenario (I might consider the possible consequences of potential Russian victory in Ukraine - that does not mean I am advocating for it... why do so many people seem to have trouble distinguishing those?) and 2) that hypothetical scenario was about a fanatical Islamist regime, something akin to ISIS... you are misrepresenting this as if Sam Harris was talking about the Middle East in general.
He wasn't just considering a hypothetical - he was advocating for it. Here is longer quote with the advocacy in bold: Do you have evidence that he was talking about ISIS? The quote seems to just...
Considering a hypothetical scenario does not equal advocating for that scenario (I might consider the possible consequences of potential Russian victory in Ukraine - that does not mean I am advocating for it... why do so many people seem to have trouble distinguishing those?)
He wasn't just considering a hypothetical - he was advocating for it. Here is longer quote with the advocacy in bold:
What will we do if an Islamist regime, which grows dewy-eyed at the mere mention of paradise, ever acquires long-range nuclear weaponry? If history is any guide, we will not be sure about where the offending warheads are or what their state of readiness is, and so we will be unable to rely on targeted, conventional weapons to destroy them. In such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own. Needless to say, this would be an unthinkable crime—as it would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in a single day—but it may be the only course of action available to us, given what Islamists believe. How would such an unconscionable act of self-defense be perceived by the rest of the Muslim world? It would likely be seen as the first incursion of a genocidal crusade. The horrible irony here is that seeing could make it so: this very perception could plunge us into a state of hot war with any Muslim state that had the capacity to pose a nuclear threat of its own. All of this is perfectly insane, of course: I have just described a plausible scenario in which much of the world’s population could be annihilated on account of religious ideas that belong on the same shelf with Batman, the philosopher’s stone, and unicorns.
that hypothetical scenario was about a fanatical Islamist regime, something akin to ISIS... you are misrepresenting this as if Sam Harris was talking about the Middle East in general.
Do you have evidence that he was talking about ISIS? The quote seems to just refer to an Islamist regime, which is basically any Muslim regime.
Clearly, I was describing a case in which a hostile regime that is avowedly suicidal acquires long-range nuclear weaponry (i.e. they can hit distant targets like Paris, London, New York, Los Angeles, etc.). Of course, not every Muslim regime would fit this description. For instance, Pakistan already has nuclear weapons, but they have yet to develop long-range rockets, and there is every reason to believe that the people currently in control of these bombs are more pragmatic and less certain of paradise than the Taliban are. The same could be said of Iran, if it acquires nuclear weapons in the near term (though not, perhaps, from the perspective of Israel, for whom any Iranian bomb will pose an existential threat). But the civilized world (including all the pragmatic Muslims living within it) must finally come to terms with what the ideology of groups like the Taliban, al Qaeda, ISIS, etc., means—because it destroys the logic of deterrence. There are a significant number of people in the Muslim world for whom the slogan “We love death more than the infidel loves life” appears to be an honest statement of psychological fact, and we must do everything in our power to prevent them from getting long-range nuclear weapons.
He could caveat the quote from his book with online articles after controversy all he wants but that doesn't change what he originally wrote. And his response in the article is incoherent. Why are...
He could caveat the quote from his book with online articles after controversy all he wants but that doesn't change what he originally wrote.
And his response in the article is incoherent. Why are the people of Pakistan less certain of paradise than the Taliban? Why didn't he mention pragmatism in his book? How is he measuring pragmatism? What level of pragmatism is needed before a nuclear first-strike is off the table? All of this is just hand-waved away, which is why he didn't bother mentioning it in his book.
Given that he isn't advocating for an immediate declaration of war on Pakistan (which is a Muslim country armed with nuclear weapons), I think its fairly obvious that he is talking about radical...
Given that he isn't advocating for an immediate declaration of war on Pakistan (which is a Muslim country armed with nuclear weapons), I think its fairly obvious that he is talking about radical Islamists, not just any Muslim lead government.
Pakistan doesn't have long-range nuclear weaponry capable of reaching the US. Also, I think you're giving Sam Harris too much credit - if Pakistan does get ICBMs, this quote would be advocating...
Pakistan doesn't have long-range nuclear weaponry capable of reaching the US. Also, I think you're giving Sam Harris too much credit - if Pakistan does get ICBMs, this quote would be advocating for a nuclear first-strike on Pakistan.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. No he didn't say that verbatim. He is saying if an Islamist regime gains the capability to strike the US, they should be striked first. Pakistan's lack...
Is he quoted as saying "If an Islamist regime gets nuclear weapons and develops the capability to build and reliably launch rockets, as well as a MIRV warhead to prevent interception, then we should nuke them"?
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. No he didn't say that verbatim.
No? Then why is the state of Pakistan's rocket/ICBM program relevant?
He is saying if an Islamist regime gains the capability to strike the US, they should be striked first. Pakistan's lack of ICBMs is relevant because even though it's an Islamist regime, it doesn't have the capability to strike the US.
Muslims =/= Islamists. That would be like saying all Christians are Dominionists. Even Pakistan isn’t an Islamist country, they just have Islamist elements in their government but they’re...
Muslims =/= Islamists. That would be like saying all Christians are Dominionists. Even Pakistan isn’t an Islamist country, they just have Islamist elements in their government but they’re constantly fighting off being taken over by them.
That's true but it also means Sam Harris is non-credible and he doesn't need to be debunked because of the bullshit asymmetry principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law
I’m not a Sam Harris fan but that’s an incorrect reading of what he’s saying. Harris is describing what happens when the cold logic of MAD breaks down. MAD works on the basis of rational actors...
I’m not a Sam Harris fan but that’s an incorrect reading of what he’s saying.
Harris is describing what happens when the cold logic of MAD breaks down. MAD works on the basis of rational actors and shared reality, when either or both of those things no longer apply, it ceases to work. In such a hypothetical where you are sure it no longer applies, a first strike is probably the best option if it’s even on the table. It’s conceivable that a hardline religious group would result in a breakdown of these barriers. I don’t think acknowledging that is advocating for anything at all.
Yea what he’s saying would be unimaginably evil, he even acknowledges that — but that is the nuclear world we live in, like it or not.
2014 for me is a pivotal year in world politics, it is the year Russia invaded Ukraine and a year where I heard this podcast from Sam Harris about Israel. Just like a lot of articles from back...
2014 for me is a pivotal year in world politics, it is the year Russia invaded Ukraine and a year where I heard this podcast from Sam Harris about Israel. Just like a lot of articles from back then have been resurfacing about Ukraine, including books like Winter is Coming by Gary Kasparov (Okay, it was published in 2015 but close enough)... this article came back for me with the atrocities carried out by Hamas. This really could be Israel's 9/11.
This excerpt is what I always keep in mind when thinking of the perpetual conflict:
The truth is that there is an obvious, undeniable, and hugely consequential moral difference between Israel and her enemies. The Israelis are surrounded by people who have explicitly genocidal intentions towards them. The charter of Hamas is explicitly genocidal. It looks forward to a time, based on Koranic prophesy, when the earth itself will cry out for Jewish blood, where the trees and the stones will say “O Muslim, there’s a Jew hiding behind me. Come and kill him.” This is a political document. We are talking about a government that was voted into power by a majority of Palestinians. [Note: Yes, I know that not every Palestinian supports Hamas, but enough do to have brought them to power. Hamas is not a fringe group.]
The discourse in the Muslim world about Jews is utterly shocking. Not only is there Holocaust denial—there’s Holocaust denial that then asserts that we will do it for real if given the chance. The only thing more obnoxious than denying the Holocaust is to say that it should have happened; it didn’t happen, but if we get the chance, we will accomplish it. There are children’s shows in the Palestinian territories and elsewhere that teach five-year-olds about the glories of martyrdom and about the necessity of killing Jews.
And this gets to the heart of the moral difference between Israel and her enemies. And this is something I discussed in The End of Faith. To see this moral difference, you have to ask what each side would do if they had the power to do it.
Well, given that the Israelis aren't trying to simply clear Gaza of all life (the fact that it isn't covered in napalm should be proof enough of this), the Israeli goal has to be something other...
Well, given that the Israelis aren't trying to simply clear Gaza of all life (the fact that it isn't covered in napalm should be proof enough of this), the Israeli goal has to be something other than just killing everyone in Gaza, let alone killing all of the Palestinians in general.
Obviously the Israelis could be doing a lot of things better, but it shouldn't be a question which side is better.
Edit: should've known better than to talk on this fucking website lol
I like how you dismiss nearly a century of military occupation as something Israelis could be doing better. It's like saying the Americans could've did chattel slavery better. The wording is...
I like how you dismiss nearly a century of military occupation as something Israelis could be doing better. It's like saying the Americans could've did chattel slavery better. The wording is absurd and minimizes Israeli crimes to paint Israel as the victim.
They're slowly advancing their goal of completely conquering Palestinian territory. Burning the West Bank to the ground wouldn't help here because it draws too much attention to themselves. Israel...
They're slowly advancing their goal of completely conquering Palestinian territory.
Burning the West Bank to the ground wouldn't help here because it draws too much attention to themselves.
Israel slowly pushes and pushes Palestinians and when they fight back they go "See! They want to kill us all!".
The settlements are in the West Bank, not Gaza. Well, they used to be in Gaza, but then the Israelis pulled out. Kind of a strange thing to pull out of an area as the first step in a big secret...
The settlements are in the West Bank, not Gaza. Well, they used to be in Gaza, but then the Israelis pulled out.
Kind of a strange thing to pull out of an area as the first step in a big secret plan to invade it, don't you think?
Hmm, what were they doing in Gaza to begin with and why are there settlements in the West Bank? Edit: The way you comment on Israel pulling out of Gaza is as though this is a totally normal thing...
Hmm, what were they doing in Gaza to begin with and why are there settlements in the West Bank?
Edit: The way you comment on Israel pulling out of Gaza is as though this is a totally normal thing and not a breach of internationally agreed upon Palestinian territories.
They had no right to be there in the first place.
Those lands are not part of Israel.
They wouldn't have been there if the Palestinians hadn't kept trying to invade Israel. Its a fairly normal thing for the losing side of a war to lose some territory as well. And certainly after...
They wouldn't have been there if the Palestinians hadn't kept trying to invade Israel. Its a fairly normal thing for the losing side of a war to lose some territory as well. And certainly after this war is over Israel is going to have a much increased presence in whatever is left of Gaza.
There is no question which side is better. Israel have conquered and abused the people of Palestine for decades. Fighting a brutal colonial regime isn't something condemnable.
There is no question which side is better. Israel have conquered and abused the people of Palestine for decades. Fighting a brutal colonial regime isn't something condemnable.
At this point, I'd say the colonial argument is done. There's been generations of people who have known that location are they're home their entire life. Yes it was stupid to steal a bunch of land...
At this point, I'd say the colonial argument is done. There's been generations of people who have known that location are they're home their entire life. Yes it was stupid to steal a bunch of land and give it away to the Jewish. But at this point, you've got millions of people who call it home. At this point it's either find a way to live peacefully or relocate millions of people to who the hell knows where because no nation is going to want to take in another nations entire population.
Every nation, every land has a story about how they stole it from the people before. There comes a time when what's done is done and trying to "restore the past" will only cause greater suffering.
The colonial argument will be relevant as long as Israelis continue to benefit from their colonialism and Palestinians still suffer from it. It's not in the distant past either. Israel's formation...
The colonial argument will be relevant as long as Israelis continue to benefit from their colonialism and Palestinians still suffer from it.
It's not in the distant past either. Israel's formation is within living memory. The war of 1967 is more recent still. And this is ongoing colonialism. Israel is still forcefully demolishes homes of Palestinians.
You're not going to find my opinion very agreeable, but I think the only institution stopping genocide from occurring is military. I do not say that this is good or something to strive towards,...
You're not going to find my opinion very agreeable, but I think the only institution stopping genocide from occurring is military. I do not say that this is good or something to strive towards, but it is a tool humans have always had. Israel's use of military force is not the same as Hamas. Ukraine's use of military force is not the same as Russia. The USA's use of military force is not the same as the Taliban. It does not make the use of military force, be it occupation or apartheid good in any way. But I do think it is better to have it this way with attempts at diplomatic solutions rather than the genocidal alternative. So I guess that can be called a moral difference, if I understand your question correctly.
The problem with that line of thinking is that it becomes quite easy to justify behaviours around "Well, that military was better/stronger/more effective... so they were right." I'm not saying...
The problem with that line of thinking is that it becomes quite easy to justify behaviours around "Well, that military was better/stronger/more effective... so they were right." I'm not saying you're doing that, but it's an easy line of reasoning to fall into.
The Israel-Palestine conflict is just sorrow on every side from military to civilian and Isreali to Palestinian. The causes and reasons are known, but do any of them justify the pain that gets dolled out by each side (on whatever balance or whatever level we choose to say it at?) The answer is always going to be 'no' and the Middle East is as broken as it is because of abritrary borders and demands made by European nations over the past 200 years, whilst Europe bares responsibility to at least do something... it chooses not to do so (I'm a Brit for reference) for whatever 'reasons' we tell ourselves.
There's not even a table these two can get close to because they both want to burn said table and have it out because of all the pain inflicted on both sides.
This will get worse before it gets better, for everyone involved. It sucks.
I think it can be said that both Israel and the militant players in Palestine are disinterested in a stable peace around a two-state solution. The issue is that Israel, as a nation with security...
I think it can be said that both Israel and the militant players in Palestine are disinterested in a stable peace around a two-state solution. The issue is that Israel, as a nation with security and a functioning government, should be expected to take the higher ground and work with likeminded Palestinians to achieve a two-state solution. Instead, it seems to be the explicit goal of the Israeli right to inflame the issue by expanding settlements and being openly divisive and vitriolic against Palestinians, so that they can work things closer to a one-state solution (or Netanyahu's defacto one-state solution of Palestine having control over its basic governance and Israel controlling its defense and foreign relations). Palestinian support for a two-state solution has fluctuated over the years; once upon a time, most Palestinians supported a two-state solution. Unsurprisingly, most are against it now since they have little reason to believe that Israel operates in good faith. And more unsurprisingly, militant players in Palestine can take advantage of this.
Some thoughts on culture and mutual understanding: It worries me how deeply Western-centric Israel's worldview often is, especially as a nation that is in middle of the Middle East, whose cultural foundations are much closer to Arab culture than Western European culture, and as a people who have historically found much more peace and understanding in the Islamic world than in Christendom. After watching Netanyahu's interview with Lex Fridman, it also struck me how American centric his understanding of the world and politics was. Instead of looking to even classical Enlightenment thinkers in Europe to inform and convey his understanding of politics, he looked to their American counterparts. Given that America is on the other side of the world and that as a result these parts of the world are understood at a very low-resolution, grand-history kind of way, I think it would be much better if he were at least Euro-centric. Also, Palestinians, like most of their (Muslim and non-Muslim) Mediterranean counterparts, are a very proud people who value dignity and autonomy over identity often over life itself. Pushing them to the brink will only lead to more violence.
This article leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
"Moral illusion" my ass. He says these things as if, in a world without Israel, Palestinian children might just explode at random, or Gaza might just happen to be blockaded. He has this spineless stance where he admits Israel did, and continues to do, terrible atrocities, and then absolves them of blame.
He declares that it's probably an accident that Israel keeps murdering children. That's an inane opinion, quite frankly. I don't think even Israelis think they're doing it by accident.
He spends a while arguing how Palestine would be terrible, and kill all the Israelis in his hypothetical, all while denying the very real genocide being carried out by Israel. The horrific mass displacement, murder, mistreatment and oppression that Israel has done to Palestinians over the past 75 years or so is very much in line with the definition of genocide. But that doesn't matter to Sam - it's all an "accident".
His argument relies on the hypothetical "what might happen" that ignores the reality of the current situation. What might happen concerns me far less than what is actually happening.
He talks about the use of human shields, and how Israel doesn't use them. Which is strange, because in the middle of the segment he acknowledges they have used human shields! Every time he discusses something terrible that Hamas does, he admits that Israel does it too, just that he prefers one side to the other. I'm unclear why. Possibly it is a love of the status quo, or a hatred of Muslims (which he has apparently gotten a lot of flack for in the past).
Without the context of the article, I'd assume that his meaning was swapped. Israel has not lived peacefully with it's neighbours at any point in its history. Why Sam thinks that it'd start as soon as Palestinians quit rebelling against their colonial overlords is beyond me.
Parts of this have changed since it was written. I would like to note that Hamas' constitution was changed in 2017 to remove the genocidal section he refers to. But overall, this is a pretty poor take on the situation, that just ignores reality in favour of an imaginary future.
Some of the quotes you've taken here are out of context. While I appreciate this is surely done in good faith to shorten a long comment (which contains many good points I do not wish to dismiss), I think in due fairness to Mr. Harris they should be examined in their wider context.
Quote one
>And there is no question that the Palestinians have suffered terribly for decades under the [Israeli] occupation. This is where most critics of Israel appear to be stuck. They see these images, and they blame Israel for killing and maiming babies. They see the occupation, and they blame Israel for making Gaza a prison camp. I would argue that this is a kind of moral illusion, borne of a failure to look at the actual causes of this conflict, as well as of a failure to understand the intentions of the people on either side of it. [Note: I was not saying that the horror of slain children is a moral illusion; nor was I minimizing the suffering of the Palestinians under the occupation. I was claiming that Israel is not primarily to blame for all this suffering.]Quote two
>There are reports that Israeli soldiers have occasionally put Palestinian civilians in front of them as they’ve advanced into dangerous areas. That’s not the use of human shields we’re talking about. It’s egregious behavior. No doubt it constitutes a war crime. But Imagine the Israelis holding up their own women and children as human shields. Of course, that would be ridiculous.Quote three
>You have one side which if it really could accomplish its aims would simply live peacefully with its neighbors, and you have another side which is seeking to implement a seventh century theocracy in the Holy Land. There’s no peace to be found between those incompatible ideas. That doesn’t mean you can’t condemn specific actions on the part of the Israelis. And, of course, acknowledging the moral disparity between Israel and her enemies doesn’t give us any solution to the problem of Israel’s existence in the Middle East. [Note: I was not suggesting that Israel’s actions are above criticism or that their recent incursion into Gaza was necessarily justified. Nor was I saying that the status quo, wherein the Palestinians remain stateless, should be maintained. And I certainly wasn’t expressing support for the building of settlements on contested land (as I made clear below). By “siding with Israel,” I am simply recognizing that they are not the primary aggressors in this conflict. They are, rather, responding to aggression—and at a terrible cost.]And that's where the crux of his arguement is wrong. Israel (and the USA) are the creators and perpetual perpetrators of this violence.
There have been retalitory strikes, yes. But considering the technological and monetary backing of the two sides in the neverending conflict, Palestine (and Hamas) are more akin to protestors throwing rocks at soldiers weilding machine guns.
I think it is intellectual laziness to unilaterally attribute all wrongs in a conflict that is as nuanced and historically complex as this to one side. This kneejerk reaction of calling a regime who just deliberately murdered civilians women and children and kidnapped children out of their homes "throwing rocks" does not serve to further any discussion here. As someone who is very critical of what Israel is doing, I can tell you that there are no black and whites in this and you're not going to convince anyone by reducing it to this. I suggest you read some of the complex history of this conflict before you form an opinion.
I see a view along these lines any time this comes up and I’m never quite sure what to make of it. Because yeah there is a power disparity, but what’s the alternative? The weaker faction here still has an eliminationist agenda. They’re forced to advance it by throwing rocks or asymmetric warfare tactics, but we’d generally say it’s a good thing that their bad agenda is constrained in terms of effectiveness and sophistication. Would it somehow make the situation more acceptable if Israel was simply less effective at protecting its interests and suffered more heavily in the conflicts?
This claim seems so obviously incorrect to me. My understanding is that modern Israel did not exist until after the Holocaust when Europeans partitioned out Palestine to give to Jews to force Israel back into being. How is that not supposed to be seen as the primary aggression in this situation?
It wasn’t “Palestinian” territory. The Levant was a plural society comprised of Christians, Jews, and Muslims living alongside each other. The importation of European-style ethnonationalism is what created this paroxysm of violence, but the Jewish nationalists weren’t alone in doing that. The Jewish ones just happened to be more successful, in part because the British took their side when they broke out the map and straight edge and the Muslim ones remain hostile to them about it. But to blame Israelis for that would be like blaming only Pakistan or India for violence in South Asia. Partition is bad and messy, but it is what it is. Continuing to relitigate things with violence is just pointless and ineffective.
They used to be a composite culture, but modern nationalist ideologies including pan-Arabism and Islamism, as well as Zionism. Have made them incapable of living alongside each other like they used to. You see this in asinine, ahistorical arguments Arabs and Israelis have over things like who invented hummus.
Thanks, I've removed "Palestinian territory" from my comment.
That's fair. I probably should have done that, but I find highlighting text on my phone to be quite awkward, so I just copied what I could.
I don't think Sam Harris's opinion is worth two cents when he advocates for glassing the middle east:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Harris#Accusations_of_Islamophobia
In a hypothetical where the Taliban has nuclear weapons, and a nuclear strike is the only effective way to prevent them from building more and using them, would you seriously be against nuking them?
MAD only works to prevent the other side from using nukes when they care about not being destroyed.
Do you have any evidence that he was referring to the Taliban?
That's the only interpretation of his comment that makes sense, unless you think he was advocating for a nuclear strike on Pakistan. It only makes sense if he is referring to extremists, either the Taliban or similar regimes.
Pakistan doesn't have long-range nuclear weaponry capable of reaching the US. Also, I think you're giving Sam Harris too much credit - if Pakistan does get ICBMs, this quote would be advocating for a nuclear first-strike on Pakistan.
No, Sam Harris does not advocate for glassing the middle east. 1) Considering a hypothetical scenario does not equal advocating for that scenario (I might consider the possible consequences of potential Russian victory in Ukraine - that does not mean I am advocating for it... why do so many people seem to have trouble distinguishing those?) and 2) that hypothetical scenario was about a fanatical Islamist regime, something akin to ISIS... you are misrepresenting this as if Sam Harris was talking about the Middle East in general.
He wasn't just considering a hypothetical - he was advocating for it. Here is longer quote with the advocacy in bold:
Do you have evidence that he was talking about ISIS? The quote seems to just refer to an Islamist regime, which is basically any Muslim regime.
In Mr. Harris's response he clarifies / defends his view with the following:
He could caveat the quote from his book with online articles after controversy all he wants but that doesn't change what he originally wrote.
And his response in the article is incoherent. Why are the people of Pakistan less certain of paradise than the Taliban? Why didn't he mention pragmatism in his book? How is he measuring pragmatism? What level of pragmatism is needed before a nuclear first-strike is off the table? All of this is just hand-waved away, which is why he didn't bother mentioning it in his book.
Given that he isn't advocating for an immediate declaration of war on Pakistan (which is a Muslim country armed with nuclear weapons), I think its fairly obvious that he is talking about radical Islamists, not just any Muslim lead government.
Pakistan doesn't have long-range nuclear weaponry capable of reaching the US. Also, I think you're giving Sam Harris too much credit - if Pakistan does get ICBMs, this quote would be advocating for a nuclear first-strike on Pakistan.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. No he didn't say that verbatim.
He is saying if an Islamist regime gains the capability to strike the US, they should be striked first. Pakistan's lack of ICBMs is relevant because even though it's an Islamist regime, it doesn't have the capability to strike the US.
Muslims =/= Islamists. That would be like saying all Christians are Dominionists. Even Pakistan isn’t an Islamist country, they just have Islamist elements in their government but they’re constantly fighting off being taken over by them.
I'm wrong on multiple counts but that doesn't mean everything I say is invalidated.
That's true but it also means Sam Harris is non-credible and he doesn't need to be debunked because of the bullshit asymmetry principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law
I’m not a Sam Harris fan but that’s an incorrect reading of what he’s saying.
Harris is describing what happens when the cold logic of MAD breaks down. MAD works on the basis of rational actors and shared reality, when either or both of those things no longer apply, it ceases to work. In such a hypothetical where you are sure it no longer applies, a first strike is probably the best option if it’s even on the table. It’s conceivable that a hardline religious group would result in a breakdown of these barriers. I don’t think acknowledging that is advocating for anything at all.
Yea what he’s saying would be unimaginably evil, he even acknowledges that — but that is the nuclear world we live in, like it or not.
2014 for me is a pivotal year in world politics, it is the year Russia invaded Ukraine and a year where I heard this podcast from Sam Harris about Israel. Just like a lot of articles from back then have been resurfacing about Ukraine, including books like Winter is Coming by Gary Kasparov (Okay, it was published in 2015 but close enough)... this article came back for me with the atrocities carried out by Hamas. This really could be Israel's 9/11.
This excerpt is what I always keep in mind when thinking of the perpetual conflict:
And what about Israel's military occupation and apartheid regime? Is there any moral difference there?
Well, given that the Israelis aren't trying to simply clear Gaza of all life (the fact that it isn't covered in napalm should be proof enough of this), the Israeli goal has to be something other than just killing everyone in Gaza, let alone killing all of the Palestinians in general.
Obviously the Israelis could be doing a lot of things better, but it shouldn't be a question which side is better.
Edit: should've known better than to talk on this fucking website lol
I like how you dismiss nearly a century of military occupation as something Israelis could be doing better. It's like saying the Americans could've did chattel slavery better. The wording is absurd and minimizes Israeli crimes to paint Israel as the victim.
They're slowly advancing their goal of completely conquering Palestinian territory.
Burning the West Bank to the ground wouldn't help here because it draws too much attention to themselves.
Israel slowly pushes and pushes Palestinians and when they fight back they go "See! They want to kill us all!".
The settlements are in the West Bank, not Gaza. Well, they used to be in Gaza, but then the Israelis pulled out.
Kind of a strange thing to pull out of an area as the first step in a big secret plan to invade it, don't you think?
Hmm, what were they doing in Gaza to begin with and why are there settlements in the West Bank?
Edit: The way you comment on Israel pulling out of Gaza is as though this is a totally normal thing and not a breach of internationally agreed upon Palestinian territories.
They had no right to be there in the first place.
Those lands are not part of Israel.
They wouldn't have been there if the Palestinians hadn't kept trying to invade Israel. Its a fairly normal thing for the losing side of a war to lose some territory as well. And certainly after this war is over Israel is going to have a much increased presence in whatever is left of Gaza.
Yeah we both agree that the state of Israel will continue to steal more and more land away from the Palestinians.
There is no question which side is better. Israel have conquered and abused the people of Palestine for decades. Fighting a brutal colonial regime isn't something condemnable.
At this point, I'd say the colonial argument is done. There's been generations of people who have known that location are they're home their entire life. Yes it was stupid to steal a bunch of land and give it away to the Jewish. But at this point, you've got millions of people who call it home. At this point it's either find a way to live peacefully or relocate millions of people to who the hell knows where because no nation is going to want to take in another nations entire population.
Every nation, every land has a story about how they stole it from the people before. There comes a time when what's done is done and trying to "restore the past" will only cause greater suffering.
The colonial argument will be relevant as long as Israelis continue to benefit from their colonialism and Palestinians still suffer from it.
It's not in the distant past either. Israel's formation is within living memory. The war of 1967 is more recent still. And this is ongoing colonialism. Israel is still forcefully demolishes homes of Palestinians.
You're not going to find my opinion very agreeable, but I think the only institution stopping genocide from occurring is military. I do not say that this is good or something to strive towards, but it is a tool humans have always had. Israel's use of military force is not the same as Hamas. Ukraine's use of military force is not the same as Russia. The USA's use of military force is not the same as the Taliban. It does not make the use of military force, be it occupation or apartheid good in any way. But I do think it is better to have it this way with attempts at diplomatic solutions rather than the genocidal alternative. So I guess that can be called a moral difference, if I understand your question correctly.
The problem with that line of thinking is that it becomes quite easy to justify behaviours around "Well, that military was better/stronger/more effective... so they were right." I'm not saying you're doing that, but it's an easy line of reasoning to fall into.
The Israel-Palestine conflict is just sorrow on every side from military to civilian and Isreali to Palestinian. The causes and reasons are known, but do any of them justify the pain that gets dolled out by each side (on whatever balance or whatever level we choose to say it at?) The answer is always going to be 'no' and the Middle East is as broken as it is because of abritrary borders and demands made by European nations over the past 200 years, whilst Europe bares responsibility to at least do something... it chooses not to do so (I'm a Brit for reference) for whatever 'reasons' we tell ourselves.
There's not even a table these two can get close to because they both want to burn said table and have it out because of all the pain inflicted on both sides.
This will get worse before it gets better, for everyone involved. It sucks.
I think it can be said that both Israel and the militant players in Palestine are disinterested in a stable peace around a two-state solution. The issue is that Israel, as a nation with security and a functioning government, should be expected to take the higher ground and work with likeminded Palestinians to achieve a two-state solution. Instead, it seems to be the explicit goal of the Israeli right to inflame the issue by expanding settlements and being openly divisive and vitriolic against Palestinians, so that they can work things closer to a one-state solution (or Netanyahu's defacto one-state solution of Palestine having control over its basic governance and Israel controlling its defense and foreign relations). Palestinian support for a two-state solution has fluctuated over the years; once upon a time, most Palestinians supported a two-state solution. Unsurprisingly, most are against it now since they have little reason to believe that Israel operates in good faith. And more unsurprisingly, militant players in Palestine can take advantage of this.
Some thoughts on culture and mutual understanding: It worries me how deeply Western-centric Israel's worldview often is, especially as a nation that is in middle of the Middle East, whose cultural foundations are much closer to Arab culture than Western European culture, and as a people who have historically found much more peace and understanding in the Islamic world than in Christendom. After watching Netanyahu's interview with Lex Fridman, it also struck me how American centric his understanding of the world and politics was. Instead of looking to even classical Enlightenment thinkers in Europe to inform and convey his understanding of politics, he looked to their American counterparts. Given that America is on the other side of the world and that as a result these parts of the world are understood at a very low-resolution, grand-history kind of way, I think it would be much better if he were at least Euro-centric. Also, Palestinians, like most of their (Muslim and non-Muslim) Mediterranean counterparts, are a very proud people who value dignity and autonomy over identity often over life itself. Pushing them to the brink will only lead to more violence.