0:21

Welcome to the Making Sense podcast. This

0:24

is Sam Harris. Okay,

0:26

this is another PSA. Normally,

0:29

these podcasts are in

0:32

part behind a paywall. As

0:34

always, if you appreciate what we're doing here, the

0:37

way to support the podcast is to

0:39

subscribe at samharriss.org. There

0:43

are five myths about Israel and the

0:45

war in Gaza that I

0:47

would like to address. However,

0:49

there are two things I should say at the outset

0:51

that are important and easy to

0:54

lose sight of, with the

0:56

various pseudo-moral hallucinations being spread

0:58

everywhere, in particular on

1:00

social media. The first

1:03

point is that the problem that

1:05

Israel faces with Hamas, and eventually

1:07

Hezbollah, and ultimately Iran, while

1:10

it is existential for Israel and

1:12

dangerous and difficult in many specific

1:14

ways, is a variant of

1:17

a larger problem that has nothing in principle to

1:19

do with Israel, or Jews, or

1:22

American foreign policy. This is

1:24

a larger clash of cultures. I

1:26

hesitate to follow Samuel Huntington in calling it

1:28

a clash of civilizations, because

1:31

I think real civilization, what we mean by civilization

1:33

at this point in the 21st century, exists

1:36

on only one side of this

1:39

divide. And this clash is happening

1:41

in varying degrees in 100 countries. In

1:45

most places, it can be described as a

1:47

conflict between Islamic extremists, more

1:49

appropriately called jihadists, and

1:52

ordinary human beings struggling to maintain the

1:54

norms of open societies. So

1:57

while it might sound like I'm narrowly defending

1:59

Israel, here, against

2:01

propagandists for Hamas. I

2:04

would more or less have the same things

2:06

to say about any civilized society fighting jihadists.

2:09

I said the same things about American efforts to

2:11

eradicate the Islamic State, for instance, in

2:14

which case I was defending the Yazidis, who were

2:16

being starved en masse on the side of a

2:18

mountain, whose men were being

2:20

crucified and decapitated, and whose

2:23

women and girls were being taken by the

2:25

thousands as sex slaves, by

2:27

jihadists who had come from all over

2:29

the world to join the so-called caliphate

2:32

and to bask in the false dawn

2:34

of Islamic prophecy, seemingly on the brink

2:36

of fulfillment. And I

2:38

said the same things after 9-11, when

2:41

the United States was the target. You

2:43

can read my book, The End of Faith, on this

2:45

subject, and you will find

2:47

that there's very little mention of Israel there. I

2:50

think the word appears on maybe

2:52

a dozen pages. And I'll have

2:54

the same thing to say the next

2:57

time so-called terrorists murder innocent people in

2:59

London or Paris. Again,

3:02

this problem has nothing in principle

3:04

to do with Israel

3:07

or Jews. And I fully

3:09

expect that civilized people throughout the world,

3:11

non-Muslim and Muslim, will be fighting

3:14

jihadists for decades to come. If

3:17

I live to be a hundred, I do not expect

3:19

to live to see the end of this problem. Needless

3:23

to say, I hope I'm wrong. The

3:26

second point, and I fear this will be forgotten

3:28

almost immediately the moment I begin defending Israel, is that

3:30

there is no ethical or political argument that makes

3:32

sense of the sight of

3:36

lifeless children being pulled from rubble. With just a glimpse

3:38

of the imagery coming out of Gaza,

3:44

it's only natural to think that

3:46

any action that could produce such

3:48

carnage must be evil. It is

3:52

absolutely natural to feel that since

3:54

urban warfare guarantees that innocent children will die, violence

3:57

is not a can

4:00

not be the answer. So Israel

4:02

should just stop fighting. But

4:04

this is an illusion. However

4:07

horrific, even unthinkable,

4:10

sometimes war is necessary.

4:13

Of course, many of these strategic and

4:16

tactical decisions Israel has made in how

4:18

it wages this war are debatable. But

4:21

there is no way of waging it without a

4:23

massive loss of innocent life, as

4:25

I will discuss. As you doubt that,

4:28

what is the alternative to violence

4:31

for Israel in its current conflict

4:33

with Hamas? Given what

4:36

Hamas did on October 7th, and

4:38

given what it has vowed to do again at

4:41

any opportunity, pacifism?

4:44

Pacifism only works against a

4:46

morally sane adversary. It works

4:49

against the British in India. But

4:52

pacifism would not have worked against the

4:54

Nazis. Had the Allies decided

4:56

that war is just too awful and

4:59

they just couldn't stomach killing any more German

5:01

children, we would all be living

5:03

in the thousand-year Reich. And

5:05

if the Israelis practiced pacifism, Hamas

5:08

and Hezbollah and a fair number

5:10

of ordinary Palestinians would

5:12

simply murder them. This is

5:14

not an opinion. This is what

5:16

these groups have claimed openly for decades.

5:20

And if there were any doubt, and there

5:22

never was any doubt, October

5:24

7th has made it obscene to

5:27

doubt this now. What

5:29

more do you need? Hamas has

5:31

said that it will repeat the atrocities

5:33

of October 7th again and again.

5:36

And recent polls

5:38

indicate that 80% of Palestinians

5:41

approve of what they did. You

5:44

might worry that Palestinians can't afford to

5:46

answer such polls honestly for

5:48

fear of Hamas. But support

5:50

for Hamas is around 40% in

5:53

recent polls. Support for what

5:55

Hamas did on October 7th is double

5:57

that. So Many of those

5:59

who. The courage to say they

6:01

don't support a moss Still approve

6:04

of what Hamas did on October

6:06

seventh. The. Problem for

6:08

Israel and for the whole world. Is.

6:10

That jihadism is more dangerous.

6:12

The Nazis him. To

6:15

harness are like nazis for

6:17

of paradise. They. Are Nazis

6:19

who are eager to die and have their

6:21

children die. Because. They actually

6:23

believes in martyrdom. They.

6:25

Don't just sort of believe in it. They

6:28

don't merely hope that it's true. They.

6:30

Absolutely believe that dying

6:32

while attempting to kill infidels

6:35

or apostates. Or jews

6:37

leads directly to paradise. I

6:40

understand that the sounds like

6:43

dehumanizing wartime propaganda. But.

6:46

It isn't. This. Is fundamentalist

6:48

religion in his worst form? We're.

6:51

Dealing with religious fanatics. Who.

6:53

Have had most rational human

6:56

goals and considerations scraped from

6:58

their minds by a lunatic

7:00

ideology. And while there

7:02

are differences among jihadi groups and they can

7:04

sometimes be sound murdering one another, They're.

7:07

All part of the same death cult. Of

7:10

course, I'm not saying that

7:12

ordinary nationalism and tribalism. Aren't.

7:15

Also part of the problem. They.

7:17

Are. There. Many contributors to

7:19

every conflict. I'm

7:21

talking about what makes these

7:24

particular conflicts worse than those

7:26

born of ordinary nationalism or

7:28

tribalism or competition for resources.

7:30

Or. Any other earthly motive. The.

7:33

Aims of jihad us really are

7:35

antithetical to everything that civilized people

7:37

value and a right to value.

7:40

In the Twenty first century. And

7:43

the fact that we have on our

7:45

own side rich educated people. Who.

7:47

Are concerned about gay rights and trans

7:49

rights and women's rights For want to

7:52

fight climate change and save the whales.

7:54

Taking. The side of Hamas. In

7:57

the aftermath of the atrocities they

7:59

committed. on October 7th, just

8:02

reveals how confused and

8:04

decadent and morally vulnerable

8:06

our civilization has become. We

8:09

have to confront the facts that are

8:11

staring us in the face. And

8:13

most importantly, the majority of

8:16

Muslims everywhere need to face these

8:18

facts and be honest

8:20

about what jihadism actually is and

8:23

where a sincere belief in

8:25

martyrdom actually leads. And there are

8:27

some hopeful signs that this is happening, at

8:30

least among the rulers of the Gulf states. But

8:33

a disavowal of jihadism needs

8:35

to become the majority opinion among

8:38

two billion Muslims worldwide. Until

8:41

this happens, there will be no exit from

8:43

these sorts of conflicts. Myth

8:46

number one. Israel

8:49

is guilty of genocide in Gaza.

8:52

The term genocide has a clear meaning. It's

8:55

the destruction or attempted destruction of a whole

8:57

people. According to the 1948 International

9:01

Genocide Convention, genocide constitutes

9:04

acts committed with the intent to destroy in

9:06

whole or in part a

9:08

national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.

9:12

To claim that Israel has perpetrated a

9:14

genocide in Gaza or that it

9:16

has attempted genocide anywhere is

9:19

patently false. There were around

9:21

250,000 people in Gaza in 1948. There are now more than

9:26

two million. This rate of

9:28

growth is triple the world average. So

9:32

if Israel has perpetrated a genocide in

9:34

Gaza, it is the most

9:36

inept genocide in history. And

9:39

yet this false charge has been made

9:41

against Israel for years. It's

9:43

telling that the most recent allegations of genocide

9:46

could be heard before Israel had dropped a

9:48

single bomb in response to October 7th. Really?

9:51

People were shrieking genocide on

9:54

October 8th. What does that

9:56

tell you? This is just a new blood

9:58

libel. Of course,

10:00

it's true that the Israeli Defense Forces

10:02

have killed a lot of innocent people

10:04

in Gaza. However,

10:06

it's also true that if the

10:09

IDF wanted to kill every person

10:11

in Gaza next week, that is,

10:13

actually commit genocide, it could. But

10:16

of course, it doesn't want to do that, and has never

10:18

wanted to do that. In fact,

10:20

the Israeli army routinely drops leaflets

10:22

and broadcasts on the radio and

10:25

calls cell phones to alert Palestinian

10:27

civilians when specific areas will be

10:29

bombed. They did this for weeks

10:31

in advance of their most recent invasion of

10:33

Gaza. Conversely, Hamas is

10:35

using its own population as human

10:38

shields. It built its

10:40

headquarters under a hospital and built

10:42

hundreds of miles of tunnels under

10:44

civilian apartments and schools and mosques,

10:47

and it fires its rockets from populated areas

10:49

and often prevents people from evacuating, all

10:52

in a conscious attempt to maximize the loss of

10:54

innocent life. These

10:56

are war crimes. Of course,

10:59

the IDF makes terrible mistakes, and

11:01

this is inevitable in war. The

11:05

IDF recently killed Israeli hostages

11:07

who were mere moments away from being

11:09

rescued. There are tragic

11:12

accidents and errors of judgment in

11:14

every war. However,

11:16

any conflict with jihadists is made

11:18

immeasurably worse by the tactics they

11:21

use. Why can't Israeli

11:23

soldiers simply trust people who appear unarmed

11:25

and want to surrender or move to

11:27

safety? Because they are

11:29

confronting a culture of religious fanatics that

11:32

has produced an endless supply of suicide

11:34

bombers over the last 50 years. Just

11:37

take a moment to contemplate how the

11:39

tactic of suicide bombing changes

11:41

everything. Nothing

11:44

and no one can be taken at face

11:46

value. I mean, normally, if someone is

11:48

driving a car or a truck, you

11:50

can be confident that he hasn't rigged

11:52

it to explode. Most

11:55

people aren't eager to die. We

11:57

rely on the near-universality of that

11:59

action. attitude in all kinds of

12:01

ways. But here

12:03

we are talking about people who

12:05

have literally rigged children to explode.

12:09

This has happened in a dozen different

12:11

conflicts with jihadists across the world, many

12:13

of which had nothing to do with Israel

12:15

or the West or even non-Muslims. How

12:19

do you expect an army or

12:21

a police force or any other organization

12:24

to deal with this possibility in a

12:26

compassionate and civilized way? One

12:28

that is recognized to be compassionate and

12:30

civilized by all the innocent people who

12:33

are subjected to it day after

12:35

day and year after year at

12:37

checkpoints and in other places where they

12:39

have to be treated like they too

12:42

might be suicide bombers. I

12:44

mean, just imagine what

12:46

it is like to have to wonder

12:48

whether a child is

12:51

actually a bomb. And

12:54

just think for a moment about

12:56

a culture that has normalized this

12:58

nihilistic behavior, a culture

13:00

that literally teaches the love of

13:02

martyrdom to six-year-olds in school. This

13:05

has nothing to do with Israel

13:07

or Jews or the

13:10

Palestinians even. This is

13:12

just jihadism. For instance,

13:14

Boko Haram routinely uses children as

13:16

suicide bombers in Nigeria and elsewhere

13:18

in Africa. Most

13:21

members of Boko Haram have never

13:23

met anyone who has ever met anyone who

13:25

has met a Jew. This

13:27

nihilism falls directly out of the

13:30

doctrines around martyrdom and jihad, which

13:32

are unique to Islam. Again,

13:35

I'm not saying that nationalism and ordinary grievances

13:37

never play a role. They do.

13:40

I'm talking about the religious layer of

13:42

these conflicts that make them so much

13:44

worse than other types of conflict. I'm

13:48

going to take a little detour here just to hammer

13:50

this point home, because

13:52

in my experience secular people find it impossible

13:54

to understand what's going on here. This

13:57

is from the New York Times on February 12th.

14:02

1984, almost exactly 40 years ago. It's

14:04

reported by Terence Smith, who

14:06

was at the time a former foreign correspondent

14:08

and the chief White House correspondent for The

14:10

New York Times. I'm

14:12

going to read from the start of an article about

14:15

the war between Iran and Iraq. This

14:17

article is being reported from the Iranian side. It's

14:20

about their routine use of children

14:22

on suicide missions. Again, this

14:24

is from The New York Times 40 years ago. Their

14:28

ticket to paradise is the blood-red headband

14:30

and a small metal key that they

14:32

wear into battle. Sar'ala, Warriors

14:35

of God, some of the headbands

14:37

read in Farsi script, identifying

14:40

the wearers as divinely designated

14:42

martyrs who will use their

14:44

keys to go directly to heaven if

14:46

killed in the holy war against Iraq,

14:48

declared by their leader, the

14:51

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The

14:53

headbands and the keys are worn by young boys,

14:55

age 12 to 17. I should note that

14:58

younger ages have been reported elsewhere. I've read

15:00

about children as young as nine, used

15:03

this way. The headbands and

15:05

the keys are worn by young boys

15:07

who are recruited by local clergy, or

15:09

simply rounded up in the villages of

15:12

Iran, given an intensive indoctrination into the

15:14

Shiite tradition of martyrdom, and

15:16

then sent weaponless into battle

15:18

against Iraqi armor. Often

15:20

bound together in groups of 20 by

15:23

ropes to prevent the faint-hearted from

15:25

deserting, they hurl themselves on

15:28

barbed wire or march into Iraqi

15:30

minefields in the face of withering

15:32

machine-gun fire to clear the

15:35

way for Iranian tanks. Got

15:37

another interjection from me here. Just

15:40

picture this from the Iraqi side. You're

15:42

an Iraqi tank commander, and

15:45

you see groups of children coming

15:47

at you across a minefield, tied

15:50

together with rope, clearing

15:53

the mines and barbed wire with

15:56

their lives. Back

15:58

to the text. Across the

16:00

back of their khaki-colored shirts is stenciled the

16:02

slogan, I have the special permission of the

16:04

Imam, that's the maniac, Khomeini,

16:07

to enter heaven. In dozens

16:10

of interviews conducted by this reporter in

16:12

recent weeks with Iranian exiles, academics, and

16:14

government and intelligence officials in the United

16:17

States and Europe, the blind

16:19

faith of these teenage martyrs was frequently

16:21

cited as symbolic of the fanaticism that

16:23

is part of life today in the

16:25

Islamic Republic of Iran. An

16:28

East European journalist who witnessed one of

16:30

these human wave assaults, in

16:32

which tens of thousands of young

16:34

Iranians have gone willingly to their

16:36

deaths, could hardly believe what

16:38

he was seeing, as first one

16:41

boy and then another detonated

16:43

a mine and was hurled into

16:45

the air by the explosion. We

16:47

have so few tanks, an Iranian

16:50

officer explained to the journalist, without

16:52

apology. Okay, well

16:54

a few things should be clear. Again,

16:57

this madness has nothing to do with

16:59

Israel. Here we're talking

17:01

about the war between Iran and Iraq 40 years

17:04

ago. These were Muslims

17:06

fighting other Muslims, and

17:08

it was a zombie movie. This

17:11

belief in martyrdom is

17:13

cancer for the mind. Until

17:16

the Muslim world outgrows it, anathemizes

17:19

it, vomits over

17:21

it, can't believe it

17:23

ever indulged it, the

17:25

potential for the most insane

17:27

violence will never go away.

17:30

And this is why nuclear weapons in

17:32

the hands of jihadists cannot be tolerated.

17:35

I mean, as bad as nuclear proliferation is in

17:37

every other context, I mean, just

17:40

think how bonkers things are with North Korea. North

17:43

Korea has nuclear weapons, and

17:45

they've also built ICBMs, though their accuracy

17:47

is still debatable, and

17:49

they have threatened to bomb the United States. As

17:53

bad as that is, one

17:55

thing makes it tolerable. We

17:58

don't believe it, Kim Jong-un. is eager

18:00

to die. The guy loves

18:02

basketball. He has a hundred

18:04

cars, and a harem, and a

18:07

private island. If

18:09

a fanatical belief in martyrdom

18:11

were endemic to North Korea and

18:14

obvious among its leaders, that

18:16

would make the situation incalculably worse.

18:20

The entire world, and the Muslim

18:22

world in particular, needs

18:24

to recognize that Jihadism

18:26

is the one ism that

18:28

can no longer be tolerated. As

18:31

for genocide, the intentions of

18:34

Hamas, as declared in their founding charter,

18:37

and if they have reiterated numerous times

18:39

since October 7th, are

18:41

explicit. They aspire to

18:43

commit an actual genocide. This

18:46

is something they proudly claim to want to do.

18:50

And the worst part is that they

18:52

don't ultimately care about their own survival. Again,

18:55

a belief in martyrdom changes everything.

18:58

Members of Hamas, like

19:00

Jihadists everywhere, routinely chant, We

19:03

love death more than the Jews or the

19:05

Infidels or the Americans love life. And

19:08

while this might sound like posturing, and

19:11

it may be posturing for any specific

19:13

person who lacks real faith, in

19:16

general, it is an honest

19:18

expression of their religious worldview. They

19:21

are a death cult, and

19:23

Hamas is a death cult that happens

19:25

to be very popular among Palestinians. Even

19:28

though Hamas is engineered a situation in which

19:31

to fight them effectively requires

19:33

that Palestinian civilians also die.

19:37

Again, they are consciously using their

19:39

own population as human shields. They

19:41

have built hundreds of miles of tunnels

19:43

under Gaza, more extensive

19:46

than the London Underground, with

19:48

thousands of entrances that

19:50

use hospitals and mosques and schools

19:52

and apartment buildings and other civilian

19:54

infrastructure as cover. Hamas

19:57

fighters are hiding in these tunnels.

20:00

right now, and using the

20:02

innocent civilians they kidnapped from Israel as

20:04

an additional layer of human shields. Crucially,

20:08

these tunnels are not being used

20:10

as bomb shelters for the civilian

20:12

population. On the contrary,

20:15

the civilian population is

20:17

being sacrificed to protect the tunnels.

20:20

Again, that was the whole plan. They

20:23

have spent billions of dollars over the course

20:25

of 17 years building

20:27

these tunnels. The

20:29

Palestinians in Gaza have received more

20:31

international aid than almost any community

20:33

on Earth. They could

20:35

have built a Singapore on the Mediterranean. In

20:38

fact, if they were pacifists, they would

20:40

already have a state. Pacifism

20:43

would actually work if practiced by the

20:45

Palestinians against Israel. There

20:48

is no way that Israel could resist

20:50

a Gandhian-style campaign of nonviolence in support

20:53

of a two-state solution. The

20:55

Palestinians would absolutely win a moral contest like

20:57

that, and could have won it 50 years

20:59

ago. But generally

21:01

speaking, they are a culture of

21:04

religious fanatics, ruled

21:06

by absolute fanatics, who

21:09

are willing to sacrifice everything for

21:11

martyrdom. As a top

21:13

Hamas official said in response to all the destruction

21:15

in Gaza, we are called a

21:17

nation of martyrs, and we are proud

21:19

to sacrifice martyrs. That

21:21

is the problem that Israel is dealing with. What

21:25

Hamas is doing is not in any

21:27

sense normal human

21:29

behavior in a time of war, but

21:32

it is normal for jihadists. What

21:35

Israel is doing, in a

21:37

desperate attempt to eradicate Hamas while

21:39

minimizing civilian death, is

21:42

not in any sense an act of

21:44

genocide. But again, nothing

21:46

that I just said, even while

21:48

true, makes sense when you see

21:50

the bodies of dead children being pulled

21:52

out of rubble. The only

21:55

thing that provides moral clarity here is

21:58

the recognition that this whole catastrophe is

22:01

Hamas's fault and that

22:03

there can be no peaceful response to

22:05

jihadism. Anyone calling for a

22:08

ceasefire at this point needs to

22:10

ask themselves, why aren't

22:12

you calling for Hamas to release the

22:14

hostages? And why don't you

22:16

remember that there was a ceasefire on October

22:18

6? The truth

22:21

that we cannot lose sight of is

22:24

that Hamas has deliberately engineered

22:26

the chaos on both sides

22:28

of the Gaza border. Myth

22:31

number two, international

22:34

humanitarian law requires

22:36

that Israel's response to Palestinian

22:38

aggression be, quote, proportional.

22:42

Well, the term proportional is being

22:44

widely misunderstood when talking about the war

22:46

in Gaza. To be

22:48

truly proportional, in a way that

22:50

many people imagine this word is used, Israeli

22:53

soldiers would need to rape, torture,

22:55

and murder the same number of

22:57

Palestinian non-combatants as Hamas raped, tortured,

23:00

and murdered in Israel on October

23:02

7. But

23:04

of course, no one believes that

23:06

such reciprocal savagery would constitute

23:08

a sane or ethical response to

23:11

Hamas's violence. In fact,

23:13

the concept of proportionality doesn't refer to

23:15

the numbers of casualties on either side

23:17

of a conflict, much less insist

23:20

that they be equal. It's simply

23:22

asked that we weigh the military importance

23:24

of an action against the

23:26

resulting destruction of civilian life and property.

23:29

International law allows Israel

23:31

to utterly destroy Hamas,

23:34

given what happened on October 7, and

23:36

given the fact that they continue to fire rockets

23:39

into Israeli cities, intentionally targeting

23:42

civilians. As I've said,

23:44

there is no way for Israel to

23:46

fight Hamas without a massive loss of

23:48

innocent life, because again, Hamas

23:50

has embedded itself in the civilian

23:52

population on purpose to

23:55

cause as much civilian death as possible.

23:58

Jihadism aside, In

24:00

this age of social media, it seems

24:02

that many people are discovering for the first time what

24:05

modern warfare is actually like. Quite

24:08

independent of the rightness or the wrongness

24:10

of any cause, enormous

24:12

numbers of innocent people die. The

24:16

Allies killed hundreds of thousands of German

24:18

civilians in World War II and

24:20

hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians along with

24:22

them. How would that

24:25

have looked on Tuktuk? And

24:27

more recent wars are no exception. Around

24:30

2,300 US soldiers died in the war

24:32

in Afghanistan. And yet we killed over 50,000

24:35

members of the Taliban and other opposing

24:37

forces. And around 50,000

24:39

Afghan civilians died too. So

24:41

there was around a 40 to 1 disparity in

24:44

the number of deaths between the two sides.

24:47

In the war in Iraq, we suffered twice the fatalities,

24:49

around 4,600, and we caused something like

24:53

40,000 military deaths, so

24:55

a 9 to 1 ratio. But

24:57

there were somewhere around 200,000 civilians killed

24:59

in that war. Of course,

25:01

many of those deaths were due to the sectarian

25:03

conflict between the Sunni and Shia in Iraq, for

25:06

which we also get blamed. Accepting that

25:08

blame yields a fatality ratio once again of over

25:10

40 to 1. My

25:13

point isn't to defend any of our

25:15

tactics in past wars or

25:17

the wars themselves. My point

25:19

isn't even to defend specific choices that Israel

25:21

has made in waging this war. Frankly,

25:24

I don't consider myself informed enough to know what they

25:26

should be doing. My

25:28

point is that Israel is being held to

25:30

a level of scrutiny in how it conducts

25:32

this war that has never been

25:34

applied to the United States or

25:37

the UK or France or

25:39

any other country in a time of conflict.

25:42

And unlike our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,

25:45

Israel's war against Hamas is

25:47

genuinely existential. And

25:50

again, they are fighting jihadists who

25:52

have built hundreds of miles of tunnels

25:55

under a civilian population for

25:57

the purpose of maximizing the loss of innocent

25:59

life. It's an

26:01

impossible situation. Of

26:04

course, the loss of civilian life in

26:06

Gaza is absolutely tragic, and

26:09

nothing I'm saying here is meant to minimize the

26:11

horror of it. I'm repeating

26:13

myself on this point for a reason, because

26:15

it's very difficult to maintain moral

26:17

clarity in the presence of

26:20

dead and injured children. Our

26:22

hearts tell us to

26:24

rescue children by whatever

26:26

means possible, and it's a

26:28

good thing that we have that response. But

26:31

we can't lose sight of the fact that all

26:33

this tragedy and horror has

26:35

been consciously engineered by

26:37

Hamas for reasons

26:39

that make perfect sense

26:41

to jihadists, but which

26:44

no normal army has ever

26:46

contemplated or would ever contemplate.

26:49

Yes, this conflict has many of the

26:52

features of ordinary guerrilla warfare. But

26:55

guerrilla warfare plus certainty of

26:57

paradise is much worse.

27:00

There is simply no good way to fight an enemy of

27:03

this kind. When you are

27:05

fighting jihadists, your own

27:07

scruples, the shame and horror you

27:09

feel at killing non-combatants become

27:12

another weapon in their hands. Jihadists

27:14

are very clever. They know that

27:17

by our own moral code, the

27:20

images of innocent civilians being killed in

27:22

Gaza are totally unacceptable.

27:25

They know that we can only tolerate so much of

27:27

that, lest we become unrecognizable

27:29

to ourselves, lest we

27:32

become monsters. But these

27:34

people are already monsters. Hamas

27:37

simply doesn't care about Palestinian

27:39

children, and they are

27:41

committed to murdering Israeli children whenever they

27:43

can. That is why

27:46

they have to be destroyed. There

27:48

are only terrible and more terrible

27:50

options here. And again, the

27:52

problem is deeper than Israel and the

27:54

Palestinians. Eventually Muslim

27:57

societies need to understand.

28:00

religious beliefs, specifically the

28:02

doctrines about jihad and martyrdom, make

28:05

any conflict of this kind far more pointlessly

28:07

horrible than it needs to be. That

28:10

is their fault, and it

28:12

will remain their fault, no

28:14

matter how many children die in Gaza.

28:18

Again, modern, democratic,

28:20

largely secular societies

28:22

must wake up to the reality of

28:25

the situation. We have

28:27

a sadistically insane terrorist

28:30

organization, raping,

28:32

torturing, and murdering

28:34

non-combatants, and taking

28:36

hostages, including children,

28:40

and then using their own children

28:42

as human shields so

28:44

that they cannot be effectively fought by

28:47

civilized people. They know

28:49

that eventually civilized people

28:51

become a little less civilized

28:53

in situations like this. And

28:56

can care only so much about collateral

28:58

damage. So Israel can be

29:00

expected to slip off the

29:02

moral high ground by killing enormous

29:04

numbers of non-combatants, and even commit

29:06

its own war crimes eventually. And

29:09

civilized people the world over,

29:12

who imagine themselves unimplicated in

29:14

this conflict, will become

29:16

hysterical and put pressure on Israel to

29:18

stop fighting, as they

29:20

did even before Israel started fighting.

29:23

The crucial distinction, which

29:25

almost no one can keep in view, is that

29:28

there are now two types of people in

29:30

this world. Those who intentionally

29:32

torture and kill children and

29:35

other non-combatants to maximize horror,

29:38

and those who seek to avoid doing so,

29:41

however imperfectly, while defending

29:43

themselves against the first sort of people. The

29:46

gulf between these two groups could

29:49

not be wider, and everything we

29:51

care about, literally everything,

29:53

exists on one side of it. Myth

29:57

number three. The Jews

29:59

are colonized. and the

30:01

Palestinians are indigenous people. There

30:04

has been a continuous presence of Jews in the

30:06

land of Israel for thousands of years. The

30:09

Jews, therefore, are among the indigenous people

30:11

of the region. They

30:13

were also indigenous to Egypt and

30:16

Syria and Yemen and Turkey and

30:18

Iran and other Muslim

30:20

countries, before being driven out of those countries

30:23

by Muslims. And curiously,

30:25

no one at the UN is worried about

30:27

the Jews' so-called right of return. Is

30:31

anyone pressuring Muslim countries to give

30:33

Jews their homes back? These

30:38

are the sorts of asymmetries one should notice.

30:41

In any case, Israel is not unique

30:43

among states in having been created by

30:45

outside powers, just drawing lines

30:47

on maps in the aftermath of World War II.

30:51

Everyone was born in the same year and in the

30:53

same way, and yet no one questions

30:55

its right to exist. Nearly

30:57

every nation on Earth has emerged

30:59

from a chaotic history of conquest and

31:02

the displacement of people. There

31:05

are now 22 official Muslim states and

31:08

over 50 Muslim-majority countries. This

31:10

is the result of centuries of Muslim conquest.

31:13

There is exactly one Jewish state, and

31:16

yet only Israel must continually

31:18

confront charges of its illegitimacy. Only

31:21

Israel must continually advocate for its

31:23

right to exist. There

31:26

are nearly 200 member states of the

31:28

UN, and Israel has been

31:30

sanctioned by that body more than

31:32

all the countries in the world combined.

31:35

Does that mean that Israel has behaved especially

31:37

badly? No. There

31:40

are countries like North Korea that has

31:43

turned its entire society into a prison

31:45

camp. There are countries like

31:47

Sudan that have perpetrated

31:49

actual genocides. There

31:51

are countries like Egypt and Somalia, where

31:54

nearly 100% of girls are subjected to genital

31:57

mutilation. There are countries like

31:59

Syria. Syria that have killed

32:01

orders of magnitude more Muslim non-combatants.

32:05

As I already pointed out, there are

32:07

countries like Iran that have used

32:09

child soldiers by the tens of

32:11

thousands in suicide operations. And

32:14

yet the UN sits in perpetual

32:16

judgment of the one democracy in

32:18

the Middle East that is fighting

32:20

for its actual survival against

32:23

a death cult that revels

32:25

in atrocities and in the

32:27

martyrdom of its own civilians. I

32:30

mean, I know the UN sounds like it

32:33

still has some gravitas. It's

32:35

the United Nations, after all. But

32:38

on this and several other points, it

32:41

has become a morally bankrupt

32:43

institution. There are even

32:45

reports that employees of UNRWA, the United

32:47

Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian

32:50

Refugees, took part in the

32:52

massacre of October 7th. As

32:54

insane as that sounds. And

32:56

the United States has actually paused funding

32:58

to this organization because of this. The

33:02

US alone gives UNRWA around

33:04

$300 million a year and

33:06

has been widely reported UN-funded schools

33:09

teach Palestinian kids to hate Jews

33:11

and aspire to martyrdom. The

33:14

word corruption doesn't quite encompass

33:16

the problems here. Myth

33:19

number four. The atrocities

33:22

committed by Hamas, along with over

33:24

1,000 Palestinian civilians, on

33:26

October 7th were a

33:28

legitimate response to oppression. While

33:31

Israel left Gaza in 2005, forcibly

33:35

removing thousands of its own citizens,

33:37

then billions of dollars in international

33:39

aid have since been spent there.

33:42

So the quote oppression of the

33:44

Palestinians in Gaza by Israel is

33:47

at least debatable. But

33:50

Israel has sought to maintain a secure border

33:52

with Gaza all those years. So

33:54

has Egypt. And yet no one

33:57

blames Egypt for making Gaza a quote

33:59

open-air prison. However, even

34:01

if we accept the charge of oppression, it

34:04

must be said that not all

34:06

oppressed people respond by raping and

34:08

torturing and murdering non-combatants.

34:12

The Tibetans have been truly oppressed

34:14

by the Chinese for many decades,

34:16

and yet they have never committed atrocities

34:19

against Chinese civilians. When

34:21

the Jews of Germany were herded into

34:23

ghettos by the Nazis, those

34:25

who escaped didn't rape and

34:28

mutilate German teenagers or

34:30

burn German babies alive in

34:32

reprisal. There are

34:34

countless historical examples of real

34:36

oppression, and yet very few

34:38

cultures have produced a

34:41

bottomless supply of suicidal terrorists. Of

34:44

course, there may be many societal factors

34:46

that explain these differences, but

34:49

one is surely the Islamic doctrines

34:51

around martyrdom and jihad. Those

34:54

religious beliefs really are motivating.

34:57

We can see this with fundamentalist Christianity in

34:59

the West. The fundamentals

35:01

of religion matter when you're

35:03

a fundamentalist, and it matters

35:06

that the fundamentals of our various religions are

35:08

different. Mere religious

35:10

tribalism is always a potential

35:12

source of intolerance and violence, but

35:15

it is much worse when there

35:17

are specific doctrines that advocate intolerance

35:19

and violence. Again, we

35:22

need the world's two billion Muslims to

35:24

honestly acknowledge this problem and

35:27

find some way of moderating their faith, specifically

35:30

around the doctrines of martyrdom and

35:32

jihad and apostasy and

35:35

blasphemy, which put their

35:37

faith in perpetual conflict with the modern

35:39

world. Myth

35:41

number five. The two

35:44

sides in this conflict are

35:46

equally civilized, equally entitled

35:48

to respect, and equally

35:50

worth protecting. Well,

35:52

again, if we're talking about children dying

35:54

on either side of this conflict, then

35:57

yes, a human life is a human life. But

36:00

jihadist organizations like Hamas

36:02

and the wider cultures that support them don't

36:05

value human life the way we do.

36:08

Again, while this might sound like

36:10

wartime propaganda, it's a simple

36:12

statement of fact about how religious

36:15

beliefs motivate people and

36:17

constrain their thinking. There

36:20

is a difference between religious

36:22

fanatics who punish women with

36:24

beatings or worse for showing

36:26

their hair in public, or

36:29

who commit honor killings against them for

36:31

the crime of getting raped, or

36:33

who throw acid in their faces

36:35

for a perceived slight, or

36:38

even in a place like Afghanistan for

36:40

the crime of going to school. There

36:43

is a difference between this

36:45

vicious lunacy and a

36:47

modern society that treats women as equals

36:49

to men. There's

36:52

a difference between a society that murders

36:54

gays, that literally has a

36:56

policy of throwing them off

36:58

of rooftops headfirst, and

37:00

one that fully embraces them. There

37:03

is a difference between religious fanatics

37:06

who care only about paradise, and

37:09

most other people who take their

37:11

religious beliefs much less seriously, or

37:14

who have different beliefs that allow

37:16

them to appropriately value life in

37:18

this world. Have

37:20

you seen the crowds in Gaza that

37:22

cheered the capture of Israeli hostages, and

37:25

the mutilation of Jewish dead?

37:28

Have you watched those videos? Did

37:30

these people look like they have the slightest

37:32

interest in avoiding war crimes? These

37:34

are the types of behaviors we see

37:37

all around the world in an Islamic

37:39

context, even when the fighting

37:41

has nothing to do with Jews or the US.

37:44

Is it only Islamic? No. But

37:48

Islam has more than its fair share of

37:50

this kind of barbarity. We

37:52

have to be honest about that. To

37:55

Be clear, I'm not advocating

37:57

collective punishment against the Palestinians.

38:00

For been backward. I. Must

38:02

in a Palestinian civilians who

38:04

support Hamas. Deserve. To

38:06

Die. I. Am saying however,

38:08

that we shouldn't lie to ourselves about

38:11

the state of public opinion throughout the

38:13

Muslim world. We. Should

38:15

understand what people believe and

38:17

how these beliefs affect behavior.

38:21

And we have to figure out

38:23

how to get two billion Muslims

38:26

to truly moderate the religious extremism.

38:28

And. Tribalism. We. See

38:31

throughout the Muslim World. It's.

38:33

An enormous problem. Recent.

38:36

Polling among Palestinians. This.

38:38

Was done by the Palestinian Centre for Policy

38:40

Survey and Research. Shows widespread

38:42

support for Hamas and more support

38:44

for the attacks of October Seventh.

38:47

As as and many of those who don't like

38:49

Hamas. For. One reason or another. Still,

38:52

Like what Hamas did on October

38:54

seventh. This. Recent

38:56

poll shows that, while only forty

38:58

percent of Palestinian support Hamas, Double

39:01

that. Support. The atrocities of

39:03

October Seventh. The. Deliberate torture and

39:05

murder of non combatants, the taking

39:08

of children. And. Even incense

39:10

as hostages. And

39:13

the justification in their minds

39:15

is explicitly religious. He. Was

39:17

in defense of the Al Aqsa Mosque

39:19

in Jerusalem. Which. They imagine

39:21

has been desecrated by the Netanyahu

39:24

government. Of. Course, the

39:26

Palestinian community and the Muslim

39:28

world generally is so riddled

39:30

with lies and conspiracy theories.

39:33

We might reasonably wonder what percentage

39:35

of ordinary Muslims even believes that

39:37

any Jewish civilians were killed on

39:40

October Seventh. Many. Believe

39:42

the holocaust never happened. After

39:44

September eleventh we had the impossible

39:46

spectacle. Of. Muslims alleging that was

39:49

a Jewish plot because supposedly four thousand

39:51

Jews didn't show up to work on

39:53

Nine Eleven. While. Simultaneously celebrating

39:55

it as a great jihad is

39:57

victory. By. Al Qaeda, There

40:00

is no reconciling these beliefs. In

40:04

general, we are not talking about people

40:06

who are part of the reality-based community.

40:10

But if we're going to maintain basic

40:12

moral sanity at this moment in history,

40:15

we have to acknowledge that

40:17

there is a difference between

40:19

those who intentionally kill non-combatants,

40:22

often in the most gruesome ways possible, and

40:25

those who inadvertently kill them when

40:27

dropping bombs, having taken

40:29

considerable pains to avoid killing them.

40:32

There is a difference

40:34

between a society that

40:36

parades tortured hostages before

40:38

jeering crowds, and

40:41

one that gives even its most

40:43

dangerous prisoners life-saving medical care. Most

40:46

people don't realize that the current head

40:48

of Hamas, Senwar, was cured

40:50

of brain cancer while in an Israeli

40:52

prison. The actual

40:54

mastermind behind the October 7th

40:57

attacks was someone whose life

40:59

had been saved by a

41:01

Jewish oncologist. It's

41:03

pretty hard to overstate the disparity here.

41:06

You understand how much

41:08

this difference matters and

41:11

how it touches everything. There

41:13

simply is a difference between

41:15

people who are attempting to spread a cult

41:17

of death to the ends of the earth

41:20

and those who are struggling to prevent this

41:23

from happening while also struggling

41:25

to maintain the norms of an

41:27

open society. And it

41:29

is impossible to understand these differences if

41:32

one merely counts the number of dead

41:34

and wounded in this or any other

41:36

conflict. And this

41:39

is why intentions matter. Actions

41:41

matter, of course, but the

41:44

reasons behind the actions also

41:46

matter. What sort

41:48

of world are we trying to build? What

41:51

would any given person or group do if

41:53

they had the power to do it? There

41:56

are vast differences in what various groups

41:58

are aspiring to do. to accomplish at

42:01

this moment in history. And

42:03

the future of civilization depends on

42:05

our being able to minimize these

42:07

differences, and where they

42:09

remain significant to minimize them further through

42:12

diplomacy and economic incentives

42:14

and other forms of pressure short

42:17

of violence. But there

42:19

are certain groups of people that have

42:21

kicked themselves loose of the earth, and

42:24

they cannot be reasoned with or

42:26

incentivized. And this is where the

42:28

use of force becomes necessary.

42:31

Let's hope that it becomes less and less true in

42:34

the years to come. Thanks

42:36

for listening.