The shock of Hamas’s brutal, inhuman October 7 attacks has not worn off, nor do we yet know how extensive Israel’s retaliation will turn out to be. We are still very much in the midst of the opening stages of what seems likely to be the most consequential open conflict between Hamas and Israel in many years. John, Coleman Hughes, and I had planned on discussing the controversy that has greeted Coleman’s TED Talk. While we spent the first part of our conversation on that topic, none of us felt like we could ignore what was happening in Israel, even if we were not sure exactly what to say.
Certainly, none of us has a solution. Hamas must be stopped. An organization with genocidal ambitions that savagely murders civilians in the streets cannot be allowed to operate with impunity. But with the long, complex history of the region and with the lives of still more innocent Palestinians and Israelis at risk, a more comprehensive analysis of the situation demands more than simple condemnation of bad actors. In this clip, you’ll see John, Coleman, and me attempting to find a way forward in a difficult conversation. More destruction will come with time, but perhaps so too will more clarity.
This is a clip from the episode that went out to paying subscribers on Monday. To get access to the full episode, as well as an ad-free podcast feed, Q&As, and other exclusive content and benefits, click below.
GLENN LOURY: We're here on October 14th, 2023, exactly one week after October 7th, which was the day, just a week ago, on which the Hamas terrorist organization launched a historically unprecedented massive assault against civilian targets in the south of Israel, killing many hundreds, kidnapping, mutilating, desecrating, slaughtering men, women, children, elderly, et cetera.
I could go on. I think everybody in earshot knows what I'm talking about. And I just feel like we probably ought to close our conversation out here today. None of us are necessarily experts on this particular topic, subject matter, and foreign policy. But we are citizens of this country and of the world with some commentary about these events.
JOHN MCWHORTER: The idea that Hamas was justified in the extent of what they did. Not just a few missiles, I hate to say not just a few people murdered, but this. That that was justifiable because they are the oppressed rather than the oppressor in this situation. What I see is a laziness among a certain kind of thinker on the hard left, and that's basically that the world is about white people and black people. White of various kinds and black of various kinds. And Hamas and the Palestinians, in this case, are seen as the black people and the Jews are seen as the white people. And the idea is that you can do anything, that anything is justified in order to get the “white person's” boots off of your neck, including what Hamas has done here.
And I completely understand that Israel has blood on its hands as well. But Hamas started this one, and in such an extreme way. And yet there are people who would actually sit there and applaud that kind of butchery, including people who Hamas themselves have nothing but disgust for and might even consider interfering with their being living people. For anybody who's gay to cheer on Hamas because they're coming from the left, for example. How long would they last in in Gaza? What kind of life would they have led? And that goes for a lot of other people, including people who are not men. Just the idea that they are heroes, I find it lazy.
I find it lazy as—Glenn, you'll get this one—cheering the rioters on in 2020 because people tearing down their own neighborhoods because of George Floyd, because they're black. It's okay to tear down your own neighborhood. And you see this sort of thing again and again, this idea that if the person is oppressed, then it's okay for them to do things that would chill you to your socks if you saw the oppressor doing it, even if the oppressor was doing it much, much less.
And it's disturbing because it's condescending. Basically, you're saying that Hamas, having no responsibility for their actions, oppression has made them less than fully human and beyond responsibility. And because Black Americans are seen that way so often in so many situations, it irritates me. The idea that an educated person in particular would look at what happened, would look at what happened even with the rave and think, “Yay! Hooray!” I'm utterly disgusted, because those people think they're ahead of the curve. They think that they're the enlightened ones. No, they're in the dark. It's awful.
COLEMAN HUGHES: Now this gets to one of the deepest and I think most important questions when you're looking at this conflict or any conflict, which is what are the actual end goals of each side? I was thinking about this the other day. When we think about World War Two, nobody says, “What a horrible war. I'm thinking about the innocent loss of life on both sides.”
And that would be an appropriate reaction, but it's not how we tend to think about World War Two. We tend to think, “Thank God the Allies beat the Nazis and prevented them from building a genocidal empire.” In other words, we think about the goals on each side of the conflict, knowing that waging war entails terrible, terrible things in general.
If you ask what really are the end goals of Hamas and what are the end goals of Israel, I think you come to two very different visions. I think that Hamas wants to do what it did on October 7th, ideally, to every Jew in Israel, eradicate them by any means necessary, and then establish a Palestinian Islamic state over the whole land.
JOHN MCWHORTER: And one clue that you're correct is that they say so.
COLEMAN HUGHES: Yes, they're quite explicit about that in their charter. It makes sense of all their behavior, including their behavior towards their own people.
Now, on the other hand, what does Israel want? I'm sure if you ask the settlers in the West Bank, they want something different and more religious-sounding than secular Israelis on the whole. We pretty much know what Israel wants, because they have the power in the situation. If they wanted what Hamas wanted, but in reverse, if they wanted to eliminate every Palestinian, every Arab, they could do that tomorrow.
JOHN MCWHORTER: If Israel goes in there and levels the whole northern half of Gaza, which it looks like, as we record this, that's what they're thinking about doing—telling people to leave, and then they're just going to run it down flat—it's painfully clear that what that's going to create is another generation of bored, angry, undereducated young men who hate Israel and keep on doing the same sort of thing. I don't see how it could be different, and I wonder if Israel could consider not doing that because I'm not sure what would be gained, except for a temporary reprieve, by bulldozing where most people in Gaza live and also inevitably killing a whole lot of people while they're doing it. I certainly understand the emotional appeal, but I don't see why that is a useful tactic. And I'm afraid that's what is coming up. Israel needs to talk about having the power. I wish they could exhibit a certain forbearance, which is maybe too much to ask. I'm not running Israel, but still.
One thing that occurs to me right away is Hamas is not the Palestinian people. It is Hamas. It's a terror organization. It's an Islamist organization. It is what it is. Those people here in the United States who have sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians--and I'm one of them--need to be very clear about the nature of that organization and the moral clarity to be able to see barbarism and terror for what it is, need not come at the expense of being able to sympathize with the historical disaster for Palestinian Arabs, which the creation of the state of Israel for many of them has led to. It seems to me, no need to choose between those two things.
And here, let me go one step further. Civilization versus barbarism. The West—order, enlightenment, human rights, abolition, freedom—versus the Dark Ages. Are we seeing, graphically being played out before our eyes, the necessity to make a choice? Where do you stand? Do you stand with the forces who would undermine and tear down the achievements of the last 300 years, where Israel stands with those achievements? Or do you take your postmodern, post-critical theory, postcolonial, ideological views to the point of being able to look askance at the murder of hundreds of people in the name of fascist ideas? You choose.
JOHN MCWHORTER: The barbarism point, Glenn. See, there's so many people among us who would say that the barbarism is okay if it's the oppressed, that there's nothing else they could do, and at least the barbarism is striking against the colonization coming from a whiteness that needs to be questioned. And so for them, it's that paradigm. So it's not barbarism, it's a necessary kind of authenticity and a punch against predatory imperial whiteness. For them, that's the paradigm, and so they would choose the barbarism. And you know, they say things, they cluck cluck, “You know, well, it's unfortunate,” etc. For them, it's almost a Hegelian thing, I get the feeling. That's the way history has to proceed.
That's a hard thing to cut through. I mean, maybe I'm just getting too upset about a certain kind of person who is in the commentariat. What really matters is the lives of the people on that little piece of land.
The Gulag Archipelago: Stalin. Kampuchea: Pol Pot. How many starved to death in China? I mean, liberal values actually have something going for them in terms of the creation of political circumstances that allow for human flourishing. And the opposite of liberal values have consequences that can be measured in millions of lives. This is not nothing. This is, as they say, a moment of truth.
COLEMAN HUGHES: And the last thing I'll say is I think the direction Israeli politics is going in, more and more to the right, not just because of this incident but prior to it, partly as a result of just the demographics of the country. The ultra-Orthodox used to be a tiny minority, and now it's like a third of Israeli children under a certain age are ultra-Orthodox, tend to be pro settling the West Bank, pro expanding those settlements for religious reasons.
It appears to be a very, very grim situation to me because a huge opportunity was missed in 2000. That's the closest they ever came to a two-state solution. The Israeli public has only gone more to the right since then. The Palestinian public has been rejectionist throughout. And so I think the opportunities for a real durable political solution, it's possible that they've just they've just passed us by permanently. And this is something that will only be resolved through violence for the foreseeable future. It could get worse. Sad to contemplate.
I'll make myself scarce again... (I havent commented here in ages...)
Peace. Out.
What Is at Stake in Israel?
Also, What Is at Stake in Gaza?
Watch this from CNN
It's a good, short piece showing Gazan children impacted by this war. Guess we gotta kill them, their parents, siblings, et al. to finally get rid of Hamas because they killed Israeli children, parents, siblings on Oct 7th. We will bomb them flat, bomb them as we have for 15 days ... 15 days and they say they havent started yet!
https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2023/10/12/exp-gaza-children-pkg-fst-101203pseg2-cnni-world.cnn
CNN
Ive recently returned to CNN for its pretty decent (mainstream) Israel War coverage, esp during wee hrs of the night (Brits mostly host it, report on the ground too). It does seem more sober, more balanced (eg, Ive seen reporters get ripped by a bullying IDF spokeman and an incensed West Bank protester, both accusing them of bias). It seems more journalistic, more "European" in its coverage than it was in its insufferable Trump Era phase - all that useless garbage they were encouraged to toss out to the TDSed viewer - smug, opinionated anti Trump rants, palace intrigue, Trump-Russia obsession, clubby table talk... (like MSNBC)
May it only get better...