Sam Harris is at it again, courting controversy with an alarmingly titled piece: "Why I don't criticise Israel", in which, he does actually criticise Israel (a bit at least, although not enough for me and not nearly enough for many I expect).
I actually do take issue with much of Harris' article. Harris does have some strange opinions, notably on guns and racial profiling, and here, but he always makes you think by offering some of the better arguments for that position. Likewise here, he offers some strong considerations. The whole situation with Israel/Palestine is a mess and there's seemingly no simple answer to all the problems. It does annoy me though when people's views are so polarized.
Here are some other interesting perspectives, which also seem to be a bit biased towards the Israeli side
For a slightly more pro-Gaza slant, see the following 2 podcasts:
I will take a look at some of Harris' thoughts in more detail. In his article, he says:
"And there are millions of Jews, literally millions among the few million who exist, for whom Judaism is very important, and yet they are atheists. They don’t believe in God at all. This is actually a position you can hold in Judaism, but it’s a total non sequitur in Islam or Christianity.
So, when we’re talking about the consequences of irrational beliefs based on scripture, the Jews are the least of the least offenders... It’s simply a fact that most Jews and most Israelis are not guided by scripture—and that’s a very good thing.
Of course, there are some who are. There are religious extremists among Jews. Now, I consider these people to be truly dangerous, and their religious beliefs are as divisive and as unwarranted as the beliefs of devout Muslims. But there are far fewer such people."
Whilst I might agree that the average Israeli per se is not heavily influenced by the stcrict orthodox doctrine of the Jewish faith, I do find it an unwarranted leap overall to say that their atheism is an actual tangible thing - as it is chiefly kept in check by what I would regard as a heavy sense of national and / or cultural duty to the Jewish people's traditional faith.
And even if I concede (which I don't) that so many Israelis (or Jews) were effectively atheists, this says nothing about their ability to possess sensible or sustainable political views.
There is some evidence to suggest that either Harris is wrong, or that if he's right it's irrelevant anyway. There is no significant political or social movement in Israel to oppose the IDF's advances or the political and economic will behind it (although this does exist to larger degrees externally, including in the UK). Maybe this is because of local factors pressurising people into supporting the war.
Note that, like America, Israel has a large and profitable economy built around military technology and production - a "Military Industrial Complex". If you have any doubts, check out pages like this and note the links to other locally based armaments manufacturers.
Companies like this actively profit from the ongoing conflict in Gaza and we shouldn't forget to include this in our assessment of the situation.
Let's not forget that theoretically, all the world's Muslims could beat Israel back to wherever they wanted , if they just formed an alliance of sufficient military might. The fact that this never happens should tell you a bit about how divided their faith is, and the animosity that exists between Middle Eastern nations on a geopolitical scale.*
Another point I have is a critique of Harris' defence of the Iraeli military's use of force against civilians, and how their forces could actually be badly compromised even if Israel has the official position, and follows that position, that collateral damage is unacceptable.
Harris says:
"Whatever terrible things the Israelis have done, it is also true to say that they have used more restraint in their fighting against the Palestinians than we—the Americans, or Western Europeans—have used in any of our wars. They have endured more worldwide public scrutiny than any other society has ever had to while defending itself against aggressors. The Israelis simply are held to a different standard. And the condemnation leveled at them by the rest of the world is completely out of proportion to what they have actually done...
"Now, is it possible that some Israeli soldiers go berserk under pressure and wind up shooting into crowds of rock-throwing children? Of course. You will always find some soldiers acting this way in the middle of a war. But we know that this isn’t the general intent of Israel. We know the Israelis do not want to kill non-combatants, because they could kill as many as they want, and they’re not doing it."
Firstly, they couldn't kill as many as they want, if their intention is to avoid heavy international censure and sanctions. Although I suspect Harris may be right on this point, I've not seen evidence to show that there aren't Zionist elements within the system that have much less interest in reducing casualties. This may not be an intentional consequence of Israel's policies, but it is a distinct possibility in my view, because Harris forgets to mention one thing that would counter his point : the Israeli military draft.
Miltary drafts are stupid, let's make no mistake.They militarise the population and put pressure on the financial and educational aspirations of a nation's brightest citizens. One large criticism of Israel I have is that they should have gone to the UN or other Western powers for help before instituting a draft. Drafts negatively affect the administration's ability to effectively vet who they allow into the armed forces. This is simple logic: you can't increase your uptake of soldiers from the population beyond normal recruitment without sacrificing something in terms of selectivity. At some point it stops becoming about how effective a soldier you will be and more about how much of a "patriot" you are and whether you can fire a gun. This is where the problems start. I'm not saying it's intentional, just almost impossible to avoid once processes like drafts become involved.
Another misleading argument Harris provides goes as follows:
"And this gets to the heart of the moral difference between Israel and her enemies...To see this moral difference, you have to ask what each side would do if they had the power to do it.
What would the Jews do to the Palestinians if they could do anything they wanted? Well, we know the answer to that question, because they can do more or less anything they want. The Israeli army could kill everyone in Gaza tomorrow. So what does that mean? Well, it means that, when they drop a bomb on a beach and kill four Palestinian children, as happened last week, this is almost certainly an accident. They’re not targeting children. They could target as many children as they want. Every time a Palestinian child dies, Israel edges ever closer to becoming an international pariah."
Here he has clearly contradicted his own position. Firstly, we have "Israel can do anything it wants, but chooses not to" and then "Every time a Palestinian child dies, Israel gets closer to international pariah status". If that were true, then they wouldn't actually be able to do what they wanted without severe economic and possibly military sanctions. Of course the truth is largely that western powers have become Israeli bedfellows, due to extensive political lobbying, especially in the US. Therefore, Israel can go much further than many other countries before those in power would consider doing anything about it. I don't regard any of this as particularly strong evidence of Israeli compassion or mercy.
And for the Palestinians:
"What do we know of the Palestinians? What would the Palestinians do to the Jews in Israel if the power imbalance were reversed? Well, they have told us what they would do. For some reason, Israel’s critics just don’t want to believe the worst about a group like Hamas, even when it declares the worst of itself. We’ve already had a Holocaust and several other genocides in the 20th century. People are capable of committing genocide. When they tell us they intend to commit genocide, we should listen. There is every reason to believe that the Palestinians would kill all the Jews in Israel if they could."
I'm not disputing his reasoning, just whether there is ever any realistic chance of that ever coming to fruition. It would require Israel losing all its power (something no-one is suggesting), or some sort of union of Middle Eastern states to unite as one and oppose them (* which as I've already suggested is unrealistic). If it ever did look likely, I suggest western powers would jump into action pretty quickly (as indeed they should).
Regardless of what the charter of Hamas says, if it never obtains the means of carrying that out, then it's largely irrelevant.
"A rabid dog, straining at its leash" perhaps?
Straining is the operative word. Intentions matter, but they don't make reality. You can't argue with the fact that Israel is currently the country which is killing more people, and that it has no such avowed killing charter. My point is, charters may display theorectical intentions, but in reality, those may actually never be realised. And again I reiterate, even if they could, all we need to do is look out for it and intervene.
If an angry child vows to kill his brother, we don't condone the brother beating him up badly even though he doesn't INTEND to kill him in return. Actual consequences matter. Isn't it strange that one week, I'm arguing against all-encompassing consequentialism, and the next, reminding people that intentions count for little unless they can realistically potentially be brought about?
This all goes back to the problem of the misleading media coverage in the west. How do we know that the world is focused so much on all Israel's actions? I hadn't realised plenty of extremely dubious activities they've been involved in. Some great points are brought up in the recent double episode of Atheistically Speaking.
I mostly agree with Harris in his concluding paragraph, unlike some other commentators I've read. He says:
"This is the great story of our time. For the rest of our lives, and the lives of our children, we are going to be confronted by people who don’t want to live peacefully in a secular, pluralistic world, because they are desperate to get to Paradise, and they are willing to destroy the very possibility of human happiness along the way. The truth is, we are all living in Israel. It’s just that some of us haven’t realized it yet."
I don't think Harris means that people outside Israel are literally living there, nor does he mean to equate all their geopolitical problems with anyone else's.
This is simply a reflection of the ultimate confrontation that will eventually ensue if fundamentalist Islamism is allowed to spread out into the West: an acknowledegement that it is completely incompatible with any form of tolerant secularism, in a most basic way.
Harris's critics (of which I regard myself as one, at least some of the time) would do well to note that. By changing one word in this statement though, we can also refute any ideas that Judaism is either somewhat less intrinsically harmful, or effectively less harmful today (which I gather may be akin to Harris' position).
I can also say that:
"We are all living in Israel" is simply a reflection of the ultimate confrontation that will ensue if fundamentalist Judaism (Zionism) is allowed to spread out into the West (more thoroughly than it already has): an acknowledegement that it is completely incompatible with any form of tolerant secularism, in a most basic way."
Harris is making it all about the delusions of Hamas, and frightening though those might be, the treatment of Palestinians by Israel "being able to do what they want" due to internal fundamentalist politics, and US vetos at the UN etc. has long been an international outrage.
And we can do something about it. We can stop supporting them, for a start. Condemnations of the killings are all well and good but when you could take positive actions but don't, it reveals a bit about how much you actually care about what is going on. Whilst Harris would like to make out that Israel is in the more intellectually secure position, I am less convinced of that.
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