I study and teach history, and specifically Jewish history. I have read accounts of slaughters, from Crusade to Chmielnicki to Hevron. A good Enlightenment Jew, I believe in progress, both technological and human, yet I know that a mere dozen years before my birth, Jews were still be slaughtered in a way that reflected technological perfection, of a type. My shocking revelation on October 7 is how ideologically unprepared I was for the brutality, joyous brutality of the slaughter. And the joyous brutality of those of the enlightened West who supported the slaughter.
To put it in your paradigm: we are confronted with people who simply have no abyss. There is nothing inside of them that is reflected by a mirror of humanity. I’m not saying they are not human. What I am saying is that I am shocked at myself for thinking, for believing with no supporting evidence, that humans like this could not actually exist in our day. Can one say another human being is soulless without losing one’s own soul? I think the answer to that is yes - and I believe that is a foundational idea of the Jewish people.
The issue then becomes how one does battle against the soulless. The American government seems to believe that they should be rewarded with a state. Kick the problem down the hill for a few years until the next slaughter and reprisal, some more dead Jews at the hands of the soulless ones, and some of them and their children will die too.
The strategy of Hamas is called Mukamawa. It means long-term low scale asymmetric warfare aimed at the moral attrition of one’s enemy. It is the “M” of the acronym of the organization called Hamas. Every time an episode like this erupts, we deal with it, but the cost over time will eventually undermine our country. I don’t know if that could happen, nor do I know if our country could survive the kind of steps that would need to be taken to distance this threat from our borders, even that led to a better life for both sides.
But we have to look and we have to see. We have to see, as you said, the cost of taking up arms to fight against this expression of inhumanity, a fight we neither asked for nor desire, but one from which we are adjured to press. We have to see that suffering Palestinian child and know she is suffering because her leaders see her more precious as dead rather than alive. And we can’t let that image stop us, weaken us, from fighting this war relentlessly, without quarter, because that is the only response I can reasonably take when I see the images of the butchered, maimed, slaughtered, and burnt of October 7. When I think of the hostages still held by the soulless.
It has nothing to do with the numbers. I don’t know why you left the path of talking about morality in our day and turned to numbers. We need clear moral sight much more than we need a scorecard. Proportionality says nothing about the rights and wrongs of a conflict, and we have to be clear-minded and (yes) responsible enough to be able to talk about rights and wrongs. Clear-minded and (yes) responsible enough to confront the relativism of the post-modernists and the false god of the victim narrative and the purportedly oppressed. If we can’t do that or are afraid to do that, we are lost.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. I agree with you that it is a moral issue and not a matter of numbers. But I chose to write about numbers in this post because that is the most common criticism of Israel in this war, and it needs to be made clear that Israel is nowhere near exceeding any of the acceptable bounds we have repeatedly set in previous conflicts. And let's not forget, this is all based on Hamas figures. If you have to bomb Dresden to defeat the Nazis, then you bomb Dresden. Another set of numbers that needs to made clear, as I discussed in the post, is the level of support for Hamas among Gazans, which is far higher than the level of support Germans had for the Nazi Party. Imagine if up to 80% of Dresden civilians had known all about the death camps, thought they were a brilliant idea, and the moment Hitler was dead and the Nazis wiped away, imagine they would have been all too eager to elect the next Nazi Party. Would we not call them Nazis too? Would we consider such people innocent? You have people today who call Trump a Nazi for dog-whistling to fascists but they will not call Palestinian nationalists Nazis, even though this political movement literally sided with Germany during World War II, even though their leader Amin al-Husseini sent Jews to death camps and joked about it, even though they dance like rabid animals when Jews are slaughtered or raped, and even though they chant about finishing the Holocaust or tell us Hitler had a point. So I think 80, as in the 80% of Gazans who support Hamas, is one of the most important numbers in this war, because if you want to see the Holocaust completed, then you might be a noncombatant, but you are not innocent.
David, I don’t disagree with you either on fact or on principle. You could have added as well that it is hard to accuse Israel of genocide when it provide 80% of Gaza’s electricity, a significant amount of its water, allows humanitarian aid into Gaza even including some supplies that undoubtedly help Hamas support its underground bases, and does not engage in large scale indiscriminate massacres of the civilian population. I read an article in Mosaic today by Shany Mor that analyzes the hypocritical use of language and legality when talking of Israel that seems to have as its objective the overt identification of Israel with Nazi Germany. Modern replacement theology! This becomes all the more ludicrous in light of Sol Stern’s article in Unherd reviewing Jeff Herf’s research into the Nazi roots of Palestinian nationalism.
It’s just that….I don’t know, David. Is this all just preaching to the choir?
I don’t mean to sound hopeless. Part of my frustration has to do with the policies of the American government as articulated by Anthony Blinken. Unable to garner any international cooperation for addressing the problem of Gaza and unable to come up with any creative ideas of their own, they choose the one path that will inevitably lead to disaster and pose a direct threat to Israel’s existence. Any time the Palestinians have been given complete control over territory, they use that territory to launch terror attacks on Israel. And then there is the underlying premise that if one gives legitimacy, money, responsibility, and power to people who have a history of radicalism and violence, that somehow this will make them responsible and moderate rather than give greater reach to their desire to destroy and conquer. As you say - 80%. Not hard to see where that leads.
I know, I know, but look what happened with Germany. And Japan. Cultures can and have changed. The question is, what will be required of Palestinian culture to achieve such change? At the very least, I would say, is reeducation, which will probably have to begin by ripping the genocidal how-to garbage out of their UN textbooks. But truthfully, any real solution will probably look a lot like colonization. That's a dirty word, but I think running their elections for a decade until democracy takes root and civil liberties allow the people to flourish actually would work. You'd be forcing it on them, yes, but polling tells us what they really want is genocide so your options are to allow the genocide, fight the forever war until a genocide accumulates, or force peace on them for the sake of your kids and theirs. They can thank you later. But let's not forget, even among Palestinians you have free thinkers. I interviewed one this week and will post the interview soon. Or maybe we just bribe Egypt to manage the place. That aside, I try not to lose faith in having the discussion even though people are getting drunk on the antisemitic Kool-Aid all around us. You do have third-party observers in life and on social media, which is one of the reasons I continue to write on the subject, because you never know when someone on the fence will read an essay and have a change of heart. If you're interested, I had a fascinating conversation with a Jewish scientist name Talia. The podcast interview is called Woke and Back Again. She described being about as far left as you could be, and how exposure to rational debate online between public intellectuals was one of the most powerful factors in her awakening, as it were. I found this incredibly uplifting. At a time when it seems everyone is siloed off in their echo chambers, here was a story of how rational discourse had prevailed. And if my writing can have an analogous effect on someone or get anyone to reconsider their antisemitic assumptions, ברוך השם.
By the way, do you write a blog at the Times of Israel?
guilty as charged, but I don't think anyone reads it, except maybe my students.
I'll think about what you wrote - it's true that there are precedents. Also in reaching people - there are precedents, like Einat Wilf, for instance. I'll look up that podcast. You have lifted my spirits some before Shabbat, and I thank you for that.
I’ve been working through your kind and patient message last Friday, where you gave some hope about a future living in peace with the Palestinians. You gave the example of the Japanese and the Germans after WWII, and how reconciliation, at one time perhaps inconceivable, eventually was achieved. I was heartened.
Then I began to think of the differences. Both Japan and Germany unconditionally surrendered. They knew they were defeated, and for the sake of their populations, admitted it. Hamas will never admit defeat. As Sam Nara pointed out - everything, all the destruction, the deaths, the suffering of Gazans, all of this is accounted by the Hamas leadership as victory. They will build on this and rebuild. They are not looking for a singular military victory; they are committed to the way of Mukawama. It might take 50 or 500 years, but they would rather suffer for 500 years than accept a Jewish state (this is a paraphrase from a conversation Ben Gurion had with a Arab Palestinian leader in the 1930s. Ninety years of what we would call failure are for them only the first steps in a long term campaign). Individual suffering is meaningless, children with no future is meaningless, poverty, humiliation, disease, ignorance…. all can be borne if the end is kept in sight.
Which leads to another difference: the sole meaning of Palestinian nationalism lies in the destruction of the Jewish state. I know that sounds like an extreme declaration, but even a former student who works in a peace and co-existence group that brings Palestinians and Israelis together admitted to me that this indeed is the case. Micha Goodman admitted as much in his hopeless/hopeful book Catch ’67. The Palestinian people was created to fulfill this task, and decades of education and narrative indoctrination has forged a nation out of hatred.
America sought the help of Germans after WWII to confront the Soviets in the Cold War. Germans wanted to regain a measure of respectability in the eyes of the West and played ball, mostly. The Palestinians are not concerned about gaining acceptance in the eyes of Israel or the West. They are on a mission from Allah to destroy the Jews and reclaim the lands from the river to the sea for the nation of Islam. There are some Muslims who disagree with them in private, but the masses are with them. A poll I saw today said the two thirds of Mid-Eastern Arabs thought the horrors of October 7 were justified. I imagine that the Arabs polled were probably the wealthier city dwellers who are more accessible, so that the actual percentage could be much higher. The Palestinians (or at least their war against the Jews) enjoy strong support in the Arab world. The most radical elements enjoy strong support among their Palestinian brethren.
You are so right when you say that must be someone aside from Israel who is running things in Gaza after the war. My candidate(s) are Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The have the money to rebuild the place, they would benefit from international opprobrium, and they can also display the necessary cruelty to chop off a few heads and hands as needed.
So i hold no great hopes for reconciliation with the Palestinians. Extending the Avraham accords to more Arab nations will help, but not solve the basic issue: they live to kill us.
And also keep in one's mind the images of beheaded Israeli babies, bodies burnt beyond recognition, women gang-raped, murdered and mutilated - and realize that Israel is fighting for them as well as for - not against - that suffering child in Gaza. It is easy to be seduced by power, by ideology, by the evil of one's enemies. Not all Israeli or Israeli soldiers are immune to such seduction, but over time we do see that the Israeli army as an institution adopts policies to restrain the beast within, and the soldiers who lose themselves inside the abyss are rare. One policy aimed at restraining the beast is to make sure that Israeli soldiers get home to the civilizing influence of their families and communities, sometimes just for a day or a shabbat. While I always thought that the wrenching shift from war to warmth to war again might result in numerous AWOL soldiers, in fact it motivates while also renewing belief in things that are good and warm. I am wary of the trust in power that our army seems to embrace, I think the army and government has shown that we remain faithful to the values that make Israel a Jewish state, while our enemies have shown that our acquisition and use of power is unfortunate, but justified.
How do we elevate David’s writing when we’re up against Max Blumenthal on The Hill nitpicking whether women were raped to death or merely set on fire, accusing Israel of making things up to justify a genocide, and insisting that the women Hamas captured thought kindly of their captors? We’re up against Finkelstein flaunting how cool he is by bragging that he hung out with Hamas back in his day on Breaking Points and do convincing people that since Israel is committing genocide we don’t have to consider their views at all. We have AJ+ showing the military occupation in the West Bank, portraying it as life for Palestinians in Israel itself, with hundred of comments “now I understand why Hamas attacked” and “I would never have known this unless Hamas attacked” - apparently oblivious that no one from the West Bank attacked. How do we get you a bigger audience, David?
You are very kind. And I agree with your frustration over these other characters you list. Also, good question. It could be that there are readers with skill sets that could help here but so far my strategy has been fairly simple. Produce good content, interview interesting people, and try to be interviewed by people of significant stature. Beyond that, admittedly, is not my area of expertise. Maybe I need an agent. Or time.
You do need a larger readership, certainly. Maybe Bari Weiss has hit upon a model that could be emulated by others. She's certainly made a footprint. Half a million subscribers is hardly a blip compared to the NYT, but it compares well to the LATimes.
Her success is astounding—and entirely deserved. Part of that included being far more well-known than me before going solo. The Free Press also has an amazing team (I'm currently working on my third piece with them) whereas I'm just one dude. Then again, I only need 2,000 paid subscribers and I'm golden.
I study and teach history, and specifically Jewish history. I have read accounts of slaughters, from Crusade to Chmielnicki to Hevron. A good Enlightenment Jew, I believe in progress, both technological and human, yet I know that a mere dozen years before my birth, Jews were still be slaughtered in a way that reflected technological perfection, of a type. My shocking revelation on October 7 is how ideologically unprepared I was for the brutality, joyous brutality of the slaughter. And the joyous brutality of those of the enlightened West who supported the slaughter.
To put it in your paradigm: we are confronted with people who simply have no abyss. There is nothing inside of them that is reflected by a mirror of humanity. I’m not saying they are not human. What I am saying is that I am shocked at myself for thinking, for believing with no supporting evidence, that humans like this could not actually exist in our day. Can one say another human being is soulless without losing one’s own soul? I think the answer to that is yes - and I believe that is a foundational idea of the Jewish people.
The issue then becomes how one does battle against the soulless. The American government seems to believe that they should be rewarded with a state. Kick the problem down the hill for a few years until the next slaughter and reprisal, some more dead Jews at the hands of the soulless ones, and some of them and their children will die too.
The strategy of Hamas is called Mukamawa. It means long-term low scale asymmetric warfare aimed at the moral attrition of one’s enemy. It is the “M” of the acronym of the organization called Hamas. Every time an episode like this erupts, we deal with it, but the cost over time will eventually undermine our country. I don’t know if that could happen, nor do I know if our country could survive the kind of steps that would need to be taken to distance this threat from our borders, even that led to a better life for both sides.
But we have to look and we have to see. We have to see, as you said, the cost of taking up arms to fight against this expression of inhumanity, a fight we neither asked for nor desire, but one from which we are adjured to press. We have to see that suffering Palestinian child and know she is suffering because her leaders see her more precious as dead rather than alive. And we can’t let that image stop us, weaken us, from fighting this war relentlessly, without quarter, because that is the only response I can reasonably take when I see the images of the butchered, maimed, slaughtered, and burnt of October 7. When I think of the hostages still held by the soulless.
It has nothing to do with the numbers. I don’t know why you left the path of talking about morality in our day and turned to numbers. We need clear moral sight much more than we need a scorecard. Proportionality says nothing about the rights and wrongs of a conflict, and we have to be clear-minded and (yes) responsible enough to be able to talk about rights and wrongs. Clear-minded and (yes) responsible enough to confront the relativism of the post-modernists and the false god of the victim narrative and the purportedly oppressed. If we can’t do that or are afraid to do that, we are lost.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. I agree with you that it is a moral issue and not a matter of numbers. But I chose to write about numbers in this post because that is the most common criticism of Israel in this war, and it needs to be made clear that Israel is nowhere near exceeding any of the acceptable bounds we have repeatedly set in previous conflicts. And let's not forget, this is all based on Hamas figures. If you have to bomb Dresden to defeat the Nazis, then you bomb Dresden. Another set of numbers that needs to made clear, as I discussed in the post, is the level of support for Hamas among Gazans, which is far higher than the level of support Germans had for the Nazi Party. Imagine if up to 80% of Dresden civilians had known all about the death camps, thought they were a brilliant idea, and the moment Hitler was dead and the Nazis wiped away, imagine they would have been all too eager to elect the next Nazi Party. Would we not call them Nazis too? Would we consider such people innocent? You have people today who call Trump a Nazi for dog-whistling to fascists but they will not call Palestinian nationalists Nazis, even though this political movement literally sided with Germany during World War II, even though their leader Amin al-Husseini sent Jews to death camps and joked about it, even though they dance like rabid animals when Jews are slaughtered or raped, and even though they chant about finishing the Holocaust or tell us Hitler had a point. So I think 80, as in the 80% of Gazans who support Hamas, is one of the most important numbers in this war, because if you want to see the Holocaust completed, then you might be a noncombatant, but you are not innocent.
David, I don’t disagree with you either on fact or on principle. You could have added as well that it is hard to accuse Israel of genocide when it provide 80% of Gaza’s electricity, a significant amount of its water, allows humanitarian aid into Gaza even including some supplies that undoubtedly help Hamas support its underground bases, and does not engage in large scale indiscriminate massacres of the civilian population. I read an article in Mosaic today by Shany Mor that analyzes the hypocritical use of language and legality when talking of Israel that seems to have as its objective the overt identification of Israel with Nazi Germany. Modern replacement theology! This becomes all the more ludicrous in light of Sol Stern’s article in Unherd reviewing Jeff Herf’s research into the Nazi roots of Palestinian nationalism.
It’s just that….I don’t know, David. Is this all just preaching to the choir?
I don’t mean to sound hopeless. Part of my frustration has to do with the policies of the American government as articulated by Anthony Blinken. Unable to garner any international cooperation for addressing the problem of Gaza and unable to come up with any creative ideas of their own, they choose the one path that will inevitably lead to disaster and pose a direct threat to Israel’s existence. Any time the Palestinians have been given complete control over territory, they use that territory to launch terror attacks on Israel. And then there is the underlying premise that if one gives legitimacy, money, responsibility, and power to people who have a history of radicalism and violence, that somehow this will make them responsible and moderate rather than give greater reach to their desire to destroy and conquer. As you say - 80%. Not hard to see where that leads.
And I don’t know what to do with that.
I know, I know, but look what happened with Germany. And Japan. Cultures can and have changed. The question is, what will be required of Palestinian culture to achieve such change? At the very least, I would say, is reeducation, which will probably have to begin by ripping the genocidal how-to garbage out of their UN textbooks. But truthfully, any real solution will probably look a lot like colonization. That's a dirty word, but I think running their elections for a decade until democracy takes root and civil liberties allow the people to flourish actually would work. You'd be forcing it on them, yes, but polling tells us what they really want is genocide so your options are to allow the genocide, fight the forever war until a genocide accumulates, or force peace on them for the sake of your kids and theirs. They can thank you later. But let's not forget, even among Palestinians you have free thinkers. I interviewed one this week and will post the interview soon. Or maybe we just bribe Egypt to manage the place. That aside, I try not to lose faith in having the discussion even though people are getting drunk on the antisemitic Kool-Aid all around us. You do have third-party observers in life and on social media, which is one of the reasons I continue to write on the subject, because you never know when someone on the fence will read an essay and have a change of heart. If you're interested, I had a fascinating conversation with a Jewish scientist name Talia. The podcast interview is called Woke and Back Again. She described being about as far left as you could be, and how exposure to rational debate online between public intellectuals was one of the most powerful factors in her awakening, as it were. I found this incredibly uplifting. At a time when it seems everyone is siloed off in their echo chambers, here was a story of how rational discourse had prevailed. And if my writing can have an analogous effect on someone or get anyone to reconsider their antisemitic assumptions, ברוך השם.
By the way, do you write a blog at the Times of Israel?
guilty as charged, but I don't think anyone reads it, except maybe my students.
I'll think about what you wrote - it's true that there are precedents. Also in reaching people - there are precedents, like Einat Wilf, for instance. I'll look up that podcast. You have lifted my spirits some before Shabbat, and I thank you for that.
I've read several of your posts and very much enjoyed every one. Shabbat shalom!
Shalom David,
I’ve been working through your kind and patient message last Friday, where you gave some hope about a future living in peace with the Palestinians. You gave the example of the Japanese and the Germans after WWII, and how reconciliation, at one time perhaps inconceivable, eventually was achieved. I was heartened.
Then I began to think of the differences. Both Japan and Germany unconditionally surrendered. They knew they were defeated, and for the sake of their populations, admitted it. Hamas will never admit defeat. As Sam Nara pointed out - everything, all the destruction, the deaths, the suffering of Gazans, all of this is accounted by the Hamas leadership as victory. They will build on this and rebuild. They are not looking for a singular military victory; they are committed to the way of Mukawama. It might take 50 or 500 years, but they would rather suffer for 500 years than accept a Jewish state (this is a paraphrase from a conversation Ben Gurion had with a Arab Palestinian leader in the 1930s. Ninety years of what we would call failure are for them only the first steps in a long term campaign). Individual suffering is meaningless, children with no future is meaningless, poverty, humiliation, disease, ignorance…. all can be borne if the end is kept in sight.
Which leads to another difference: the sole meaning of Palestinian nationalism lies in the destruction of the Jewish state. I know that sounds like an extreme declaration, but even a former student who works in a peace and co-existence group that brings Palestinians and Israelis together admitted to me that this indeed is the case. Micha Goodman admitted as much in his hopeless/hopeful book Catch ’67. The Palestinian people was created to fulfill this task, and decades of education and narrative indoctrination has forged a nation out of hatred.
America sought the help of Germans after WWII to confront the Soviets in the Cold War. Germans wanted to regain a measure of respectability in the eyes of the West and played ball, mostly. The Palestinians are not concerned about gaining acceptance in the eyes of Israel or the West. They are on a mission from Allah to destroy the Jews and reclaim the lands from the river to the sea for the nation of Islam. There are some Muslims who disagree with them in private, but the masses are with them. A poll I saw today said the two thirds of Mid-Eastern Arabs thought the horrors of October 7 were justified. I imagine that the Arabs polled were probably the wealthier city dwellers who are more accessible, so that the actual percentage could be much higher. The Palestinians (or at least their war against the Jews) enjoy strong support in the Arab world. The most radical elements enjoy strong support among their Palestinian brethren.
You are so right when you say that must be someone aside from Israel who is running things in Gaza after the war. My candidate(s) are Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The have the money to rebuild the place, they would benefit from international opprobrium, and they can also display the necessary cruelty to chop off a few heads and hands as needed.
So i hold no great hopes for reconciliation with the Palestinians. Extending the Avraham accords to more Arab nations will help, but not solve the basic issue: they live to kill us.
And also keep in one's mind the images of beheaded Israeli babies, bodies burnt beyond recognition, women gang-raped, murdered and mutilated - and realize that Israel is fighting for them as well as for - not against - that suffering child in Gaza. It is easy to be seduced by power, by ideology, by the evil of one's enemies. Not all Israeli or Israeli soldiers are immune to such seduction, but over time we do see that the Israeli army as an institution adopts policies to restrain the beast within, and the soldiers who lose themselves inside the abyss are rare. One policy aimed at restraining the beast is to make sure that Israeli soldiers get home to the civilizing influence of their families and communities, sometimes just for a day or a shabbat. While I always thought that the wrenching shift from war to warmth to war again might result in numerous AWOL soldiers, in fact it motivates while also renewing belief in things that are good and warm. I am wary of the trust in power that our army seems to embrace, I think the army and government has shown that we remain faithful to the values that make Israel a Jewish state, while our enemies have shown that our acquisition and use of power is unfortunate, but justified.
How do we elevate David’s writing when we’re up against Max Blumenthal on The Hill nitpicking whether women were raped to death or merely set on fire, accusing Israel of making things up to justify a genocide, and insisting that the women Hamas captured thought kindly of their captors? We’re up against Finkelstein flaunting how cool he is by bragging that he hung out with Hamas back in his day on Breaking Points and do convincing people that since Israel is committing genocide we don’t have to consider their views at all. We have AJ+ showing the military occupation in the West Bank, portraying it as life for Palestinians in Israel itself, with hundred of comments “now I understand why Hamas attacked” and “I would never have known this unless Hamas attacked” - apparently oblivious that no one from the West Bank attacked. How do we get you a bigger audience, David?
You are very kind. And I agree with your frustration over these other characters you list. Also, good question. It could be that there are readers with skill sets that could help here but so far my strategy has been fairly simple. Produce good content, interview interesting people, and try to be interviewed by people of significant stature. Beyond that, admittedly, is not my area of expertise. Maybe I need an agent. Or time.
You do need a larger readership, certainly. Maybe Bari Weiss has hit upon a model that could be emulated by others. She's certainly made a footprint. Half a million subscribers is hardly a blip compared to the NYT, but it compares well to the LATimes.
Her success is astounding—and entirely deserved. Part of that included being far more well-known than me before going solo. The Free Press also has an amazing team (I'm currently working on my third piece with them) whereas I'm just one dude. Then again, I only need 2,000 paid subscribers and I'm golden.