0:01

I

0:05

want

0:21

to say a few things about recent events

0:24

in Israel. I'm sure I'll do future

0:26

podcasts about this and speak with a wide

0:28

range of relevant experts. For

0:30

the moment, I'd like to say something brief that

0:33

stands a chance of being useful as

0:36

we watch the initial expressions of support for

0:38

Israel begin to decay, as

0:41

it wages war in Gaza and perhaps beyond.

0:44

As many of you know, I've spent years talking

0:46

about the clash, as I see it, between

0:48

Western civilization and Islam.

0:52

Specifically, I've spoken and written about the connection

0:54

between the actual doctrines of Islam

0:57

and jihadist violence. Of

0:59

course, this violence has fallen out of the news in

1:01

recent years, especially since the collapse

1:03

of the Islamic State. Even

1:06

I've stopped thinking much about it. But

1:08

I've been under no illusion that the problem

1:10

has gone away. Those

1:12

of you who have been following my work for 20 years

1:15

know that I've said everything I have to say on

1:18

this topic ad nauseum. And

1:20

I'm sure I'll just periodically repeat myself for

1:23

the rest of my life, because eruptions

1:25

of jihadist violence and the attendant

1:28

secular moral confusion about it will

1:30

be with us for generations. However,

1:33

I don't want to rehash any of my criticism

1:35

of Islam here. I'll just

1:37

briefly remind you of what I believe, which

1:40

is that there is no possibility of

1:42

living in peace with jihadists.

1:45

So, whether we want to admit it or not, we are

1:47

perpetually at war with them. And

1:51

we must win a wider war of ideas with

1:53

everyone both within the Muslim world and

1:56

outside it who is confused about

1:58

that. And there are legions of

2:00

the confused. And there's

2:03

no place on earth where the truth

2:05

about jihadism is more obvious

2:08

or excruciating and the moral

2:10

confusion about it more reprehensible

2:13

than Israel today. But

2:16

leaving all of that to one side, for

2:18

the moment I'd like to make a very simple point

2:21

that really shouldn't be at all controversial,

2:24

because it doesn't prejudge any of the questions

2:26

that people might disagree about. You

2:28

don't have to agree with me about Islam or

2:30

about the role that it plays in an inspiring conflict.

2:34

The point I'm making now says nothing about the causes

2:36

of the recent violence in Israel. And

2:39

yet it cuts through all the arguments

2:41

and pseudo-arguments that attempt to

2:43

paint some moral equivalence between Israel

2:46

and its enemies, or to justify

2:48

the actions of Hamas as though they were

2:50

a response to Israeli provocations,

2:53

to the growth of settlements, or the daily

2:55

humiliation of living under occupation. Incidentally,

2:58

there was no occupation in Gaza. There

3:01

hasn't been an occupation there since 2005, when

3:04

Israel withdrew from the territory unilaterally,

3:07

forcibly removing 9,000 of its own

3:09

citizens, and literally digging

3:11

up Jewish graves. The Israelis

3:13

have been out of Gaza for nearly 20 years,

3:16

and yet they have been attacked from Gaza

3:18

ever since. But even a statement

3:20

like that wades too far

3:22

into controversy. I want us to

3:24

step back. Whatever you

3:27

think about the origins of this conflict, whatever

3:29

you believe about the role that religion plays here,

3:32

or doesn't play, whatever you think

3:34

about colonialism, or globalism,

3:37

or any otherism, whether you're a

3:39

fan of Noam Chomsky or Samuel

3:41

Huntington, you should be able to

3:43

acknowledge the following claims to

3:46

be both descriptively true and

3:49

ethically important. At

3:51

this moment in history, there are

3:53

people and cultures that harbor

3:55

very different attitudes about violence

3:58

and the value of human life. There

4:00

are people and cultures that rejoice, positively

4:04

rejoice, dancing in

4:06

the streets rejoicing over

4:08

the massacre of innocent civilians. Conversely,

4:11

there are people and cultures that seek to avoid

4:13

killing innocent civilians and deeply

4:16

regret it when they do, and they occasionally

4:18

prosecute and imprison their own soldiers

4:21

when they violate this modern norm of combat.

4:24

There are people and cultures who revel in the anguish

4:26

of hostages and prisoners of war, who

4:29

will parade them before cheering mobs

4:32

and often allow them to be assaulted, or raped,

4:35

or even murdered. They will desecrate

4:37

their bodies in public, and all

4:39

of this carnage is a cause for

4:42

jubilation. Conversely,

4:44

there are people and cultures who find such barbarism

4:47

revolting, and again, would be

4:49

inclined to prosecute anyone on

4:51

their own side who took part in it. In

4:54

short, there are people and cultures who

4:57

revel in war crimes and

4:59

who do not hide these crimes or their

5:01

celebration of them, but rather proudly

5:04

broadcast their savagery for all the world

5:06

to see. Conversely, there are people

5:09

and cultures who have given us the very concept

5:11

of a war crime as a sacred prohibition

5:15

and as a safeguard in the ongoing project

5:17

of maintaining the moral progress of civilization.

5:20

At one point to concede, and

5:22

this will absorb all the nuance

5:25

and nonsense that may be percolating

5:28

in the brains of many listeners, it

5:31

is of course true that we in

5:33

the West have been on the wrong side of these dichotomies

5:36

in the past. Most Western armies,

5:38

including Israel's, have at one time

5:40

or another been guilty of war crimes, and

5:43

if you go back far enough, all of human

5:45

conflict was just a litany

5:47

of war crimes. And you don't have to go

5:50

back all that far, in fact, to

5:52

find large pockets of Western culture

5:54

that were morally indistinguishable from

5:57

what we now see in much of the Muslim world. If

6:00

you have any doubt about this, study the photos

6:02

of white mobs celebrating

6:04

the lynchings that occurred in the American South in

6:07

the first half of the 20th century. Where

6:09

seemingly whole towns, thousands

6:12

of men, women, and children, turned

6:14

out as though for a carnival to

6:16

watch some young man or woman be tortured to

6:18

death and then strung up on a tree

6:21

or lamppost for all to see. Seeing

6:23

the pictures of these people in their Sunday best,

6:26

having arranged themselves for a postcard

6:28

photo, under a dangling and lacerated

6:31

and often partially cremated person,

6:34

that's one thing.

6:35

But realize that these genteel barbarians,

6:38

who consider themselves good Christians,

6:41

often took souvenirs of the body

6:43

home to show their friends. Teeth,

6:46

ears,

6:47

fingers, kneecaps, internal

6:50

organs, and sometimes displayed

6:52

them in their places of business. So

6:54

I'm not claiming that there are permanent

6:57

differences between groups of people. I'm

6:59

talking about the power of ideas that

7:02

happen to be ascendant at any given time

7:04

and place. I'm talking about

7:06

beliefs and whole worldviews

7:08

that come into being in one culture

7:11

and have yet to come into being in others.

7:14

The point, of course, is that if

7:16

we recognize the monstrosities of

7:18

the past, we should recognize

7:20

the monstrosities of the present and

7:23

acknowledge that at this moment in human

7:25

history, not every group

7:27

has the same ethical norms governing

7:29

its use of violence.

7:31

For whatever reason,

7:33

perhaps religion has nothing to do with it.

7:35

Consider just one

7:37

of these norms. Whenever an armed

7:39

conflict breaks out, some

7:41

groups will use human shields and

7:44

others will be deterred to one degree or

7:46

another by their use. To

7:49

be clear, I'm not talking about the taking of hostages

7:51

from the opposing side for the purpose

7:53

of using them as human shields. This

7:56

is appalling and it is now happening

7:58

in Gaza.

7:59

separate crime.

8:01

I'm talking about something far more inscrutable.

8:04

It's astounding, really, that it happens

8:06

at all. I'm talking about people

8:09

who will strategically put their own

8:11

non-combatants, their own women

8:13

and children, into the line of fire

8:16

so that they can inflict further violence upon

8:18

their enemies, knowing that their

8:20

enemies have a more civilized

8:23

moral code that will render them reluctant

8:25

to shoot back for fear of killing

8:27

or maiming innocent non-combatants. If

8:30

anywhere in this universe, cynicism

8:33

and nihilism can be found together

8:35

in their most perfect forms, it

8:37

is here. Jihadists

8:40

use their own people as human shields

8:42

routinely. Hamas fires

8:45

rockets from hospitals and mosques

8:48

and schools and other sites calculated

8:50

to create carnage if the Israelis

8:52

return fire. There were cases

8:54

in the war in Iraq where jihadists

8:57

literally rested the barrels of their guns

9:00

on the shoulders of children. They

9:02

blew up crowds of their own children

9:05

in order to kill U.S. soldiers who

9:08

were passing out candy to them. And

9:11

conversely, the Israeli army routinely

9:14

warns people to evacuate

9:16

buildings before it bombs them.

9:19

Of course, during times of war, it

9:21

is common to dehumanize one's enemy, to

9:24

describe them as barbarous and

9:26

evil, and it's natural for ethical

9:29

and educated people to distrust

9:31

such politically charged language. But

9:34

pay attention. I'm describing

9:36

concrete behaviors, behaviors

9:39

that occur on only one side of

9:41

this conflict. We

9:43

just consider how absurd

9:45

it would be to reverse the logic

9:48

of human shields in this case. Imagine

9:51

the Israelis using their own

9:53

women and children as human

9:55

shields against Hamas. Recognize

9:59

how unfurled unthinkable

10:01

this would be.

10:02

Not just for the Israelis to treat their own civilians

10:04

in this way, but for them to expect

10:07

that their enemies could be deterred

10:09

by such a tactic, given who their

10:11

enemies actually are. Again,

10:14

it's easy to lose sight of the moral distance

10:16

here, which is strange. It's

10:19

like losing sight of the Grand Canyon when

10:21

you are standing right on its edge. Take

10:24

a moment to actually do the cognitive work.

10:28

Imagine the Jews of Israel using

10:30

their own women and children as

10:33

human shields, and then imagine

10:36

how Hamas or Hezbollah

10:39

or Al-Qaeda or ISIS

10:42

or any other jihadist group would

10:44

respond. The image

10:46

you should now have in your mind is

10:49

a masterpiece of moral surrealism.

10:52

It is preposterous. It is

10:54

a Monty Python sketch where

10:57

all the Jews die. Do

10:59

you see what this asymmetry means?

11:02

Can you see how deep it runs? Do

11:05

you see what it tells you about

11:07

the ethical difference between

11:09

these two cultures? I

11:12

mean, there are not many bright lines that

11:14

divide good and evil in our world, but

11:17

this is one of them. Of

11:19

course, there's much more to talk about when considering

11:21

the ethics of war and violence, and

11:24

there's much more to be confused about. For

11:26

instance, as this war proceeds, many

11:28

people will consider the deaths of non-combatants

11:31

on the Palestinian side to be morally

11:33

equivalent to the kids who were tortured

11:36

and murdered at the peace concert by Hamas,

11:39

or to the hostages who may yet be murdered

11:42

and their murders broadcast on social media.

11:45

But they're not. There

11:47

is a difference between collateral

11:49

damage, which is, of course, a euphemism

11:52

for innocent people killed in war, and

11:55

the intentional massacre of

11:57

civilians for the purpose of maximizing

11:59

the war.

11:59

horror.

12:01

Simply counting the number of dead bodies

12:03

is not a way of judging the moral

12:06

balance here. Intentions

12:08

matter. It matters what

12:11

kind of world people are

12:13

attempting to build. If Israel

12:15

wanted to perpetrate a genocide of

12:17

the Palestinians, it could do that

12:20

easily,

12:21

tomorrow. But

12:22

that isn't what it wants.

12:24

And the truth is, the Jews of Israel

12:27

would live in peace with their neighbors if

12:30

their neighbors weren't enthralled to

12:32

genocidal fanatics. In

12:35

the West, we have advanced to the point where

12:37

the killing of non-combatants, however

12:40

unavoidable it becomes once wars start,

12:42

is inadvertent and unwanted

12:45

and regrettable and even scandalous.

12:49

Yes, there are still war crimes. And

12:51

I won't be surprised if some Israelis commit war

12:54

crimes in Gaza now. But

12:56

if they do, these will be exceptions

12:59

that prove the rule, which is that Israel

13:01

remains a lonely outpost

13:04

of civilized ethics in the

13:06

absolute moral wasteland that

13:08

is the Middle East. To deny

13:11

that the government of Israel, with all

13:13

of its flaws, is better than Hamas.

13:16

To deny that Israeli culture, with

13:19

all of its flaws, is better

13:21

than the Palestinian culture in its

13:23

attitude toward violence. Is to

13:25

deny that moral progress itself

13:28

is possible. If most

13:30

Americans are better than their slaveholding

13:32

ancestors, if most Germans

13:35

today are better than the people who herded

13:37

Jews into gas chambers, if

13:39

the students protesting this war on your college

13:42

campus who are so conscientious

13:44

that they lose sleep over crimes like cultural

13:46

appropriation and using the wrong

13:49

pronouns, if they are better than

13:51

the racists and the religious lunatics

13:53

that inevitably lurk somewhere in their family

13:55

trees, then we have to recognize

13:58

that there is no moral Now, between

14:01

Israel

14:02

and her enemies.