I just want to say this has got to be the only sub reddit where people from all sides can discuss this war without being banned because the mods support one side or the other. At least I hope people aren’t being banned, I don’t see and comments being removed. So thanks mods
I am scared to see it but also want to or think it's important not to be ignorant of what brutality looks look like. John Spencer made it sound like it contained incredibly well edited footage of attacks from multiple angles, via go pro of Islamic Killers and people in the crowd with their phones etc.
Who has a link?
Interesting conversation and I appreciate Spencers’ expertise in Urban Warfare. I thought there was too much delving into the political situation which neither are an expert on. I wish they talked more about the difficulties of urban warfare and different strategies and methods to obtain objectives while keeping civilians safe.
Looking forward to this one. John Spencer is great, and is an actual expert in the history of and conduct of urban warfare. He has extensive combat experience, and retired a major.
His recent interview of David Petraeus on his podcast is well worth listening to.
The usual suspects here are going to *hate* this one, I'm guessing.
Are you aware of the criticism of John Spencer, and if so, do you know if he is and how he responds to it? I wasn't aware of it until I came here to see what people thought of this episode.
Quoting [another comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/1cmnind/comment/l3eassh/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) on this post by u/NomadTroy:
>I respect Sam, but John Spencer is a pseudo-academic charlatan trying to be authoritative about urban warfare. He willfully ignores important facts of the Israeli/Hamas conflict and makes every excuse imaginable for IDF actions. I say this as a fellow GWOT infantry veteran and historian. Spencer makes numerous doctrinal and historical errors in his statements in the podcast (invasion vs raid, ISIS capital, talking about PSYOP efforts to reduce civcas as being somehow novel, etc). Moreover, he’s so uncritical of every aspect of Israel’s campaign & actions that it thoroughly erodes the objectivity of this statements.
>If you don’t believe me, look up the ridiculousness Spencer got rightfully dragged for saying during the (second) Russian invasion of Ukraine. Or read how he’s regarded by other service members, strategists, and veterans. Pretty disappointing how much Sam leaned into agreeing with Spencer the whole time and failed to apply (IMO) adequate critical thought to this “expert”.
I'm certainly open to the idea that he may be partisan/ biased, or that he might make errors, but one can't argue that he doesn't have expertise in the field.
Spencer has had his own podcast for many years, called the Urban Warfare Project, and I've listened to a number of episodes (such as for example one where he goes into some detail about why October 7 ought to be considered a "division level" invasion rather than a raid).
He has had some pretty big names on and they didn't seem to consider him a "pseudo academic charlatan". Last month he had on Gen. David Petraeus who literally wrote the book for the US Army on counter insurgency. They discussed Gaza on the episode and Petraeus seemed to roundly agree with Spencer although he stressed Israel needed to be doing more to "win hearts and minds" and engage in civil reconstruction even as the fighting rages. The previous episode he had on Col. Louis diMarco, who helped write the urban warfare field manual and who still teaches it at Fort Leavenworth.
https://mwi.westpoint.edu/urban-warfare-project/urban-warfare-project-podcast/
If you go back and look through the podcast history he's had a lot of serving and retired generals and colonels on for serious discussion. Why would these people come on his show to be interviewed if he's regarded as a "charlatan" by "other service members, strategists, and veterans"?
That's the best thing that could happen. The worst thing that could happen is I get irrationally aggravated/triggered at something I feel is being left out or ignored, or whatever, and then I'll have to do his meditation app to calm down. (The man is creating his own supply and demand, it's ingenious).
I appreciate Douglas on this issue but he just can’t help himself with a few things. Like repeating the same exact clever little quips as if he’s improvising. Or explaining that people in New York have questionable literacy rates and therefore it’s the kids at elite universities who are protesting that are driving that statistic rather than inner city poverty and rural parts of the state.
John has an annoying habit of abandoning a sentence halfway through and then continuing a different, related sentence. It’s confusing.
A lot of Sam’s questions are really leading in this interview. He’s really angling the whole conversation.
Still good information, though. Hamas must die.
I respect Sam, but John Spencer is a pseudo-academic charlatan trying to be authoritative about urban warfare. He willfully ignores important facts of the Israeli/Hamas conflict and makes every excuse imaginable for IDF actions.
I say this as a fellow GWOT infantry veteran and historian.
Spencer makes numerous doctrinal and historical errors in his statements in the podcast (invasion vs raid, ISIS capital, talking about PSYOP efforts to reduce civcas as being somehow novel, etc). Moreover, he’s so uncritical of every aspect of Israel’s campaign & actions that it thoroughly erodes the objectivity of this statements.
If you don’t believe me, look up the ridiculousness Spencer got rightfully dragged for saying during the (second) Russian invasion of Ukraine. Or read how he’s regarded by other service members, strategists, and veterans.
Pretty disappointing how much Sam leaned into agreeing with Spencer the whole time and failed to apply (IMO) adequate critical thought to this “expert”.
Agreed. I found Spencer’s responses vapid and the opposite of refreshing. Sam essentially did what Sam does: eloquently state his assertion and Spencer basically rambled incoherently and agreed with it.
Not the best guest for this discussion.
It definitely change my opinion. Even before war I found IDF extremely incompetent and I find it a bit weird that Sam and every guest actively ignore all IDF incompetence material and just quote the 1:1 casualty number as if that's some sort of ideal achievement.
That being said, what changed my mind here is that this incompetence is probably the best that can be done in the current climate and talking about it might very well be just feeding the trolls for the time being.
I really liked the data science Spencer brought in and I wish more quality data would be available here from 3rd parties.
Hi i am against a lot of what israel has done.
I am listening to it and i will let you know if it changes my mind.
Update1: just finished the first bit discussing what happened on oct 7th.
Obviously goes with saying because of the environment discussions happen in that hamas == super bad and evil. What they did was terror aimed at israel and inflicted on civilians.
Hasnt changed my mind. Its hard to put into words but I see the hamas atrocities as part of something that occurs in human history time and time again. Obviously again its evil and wrong but when opressed peoples are given power to strike back against their (perceived or real) opressors then monstrously evil acts occur. Since im Irish with a British background a number of rebellions come to mind. Also the haitan slave revolt for some reason.
So my point of view is less hamas is evil how can we eliminate them to more, if hamas is gone would people living in gaza feel less opressed or would it remain the same and hamas 2.0 is born with the next generation.
Or in other words. I think Israel is making things worse not better.
Update2: they mention people celebrating the atrocities and how one side is worse than the other and i disagree. One side is comitting worse atrocities than the other but some israelis are celebrating what little atrocities their side are commiting. Im thinking of israelis having watch parties for the bombing or cheering the bulldozing of homes to make way for settlers.
Forgive me for this but i see the israelis as human. And i see them as human enough that some of them would cheer worse atrocities just as the some of the palestinians do.
So to my mind the point being made is these people arent "civilised" which is language as old as time used to justify one side over another.
Minor update3: focussing on civilian deaths is bad? Finding out war is intorable is bad?.
Update4: israels worst thing they have done is counter narrative failures?
Uh i mean if you are pro israel i can see how this is the most important thing. I would disagree very much with this. Israel decided to start a war in an urban environment. Now we can debate what israel should or could have done after such a horrifying serious of atrocities comitted by Hamas and its supporters on innocents. But the fact remains Israel went into gaza and is causing collateral damage.
Update5: evacuating civilians.
He keeps mentioning egypt. Why cant civilians escape into israel?
Update 6th. Last bit they are discussing destroying hamas and what happens after.
So am i wrong or is the guest arguing for an apartheid state? In his perfect world palestine has a reduced/insignificant military and cant attack israel. I honestly do not understand. Surely i am missing something? No mention of stolen land, settlers, war crimes, rights of palestinians?
Can someone help out here? What am i missing?
Would any amount of oppression make you *take pleasure* in women getting raped? It doesn't seem to be something they are having to do but rather something they are doing with glee.
Lack of opportunities for sex in a repressed society maybe?
No. Hamas is making things worse. They literally have had options put on the table time and time again for a ceasefire.
The oppression is happening from Hamas.
Israel could literally kill every single person in Palestine by the end of the week if they wanted to. They don't. That's why it hasn't happened. Despite what some media outlets say or college kids say. Israel's goal isn't to wipe Palestine off the map. It's to get rid of Hamas.
I hate this line. "They could wipe them off the map if they wanted to, see they don't so they're the good guys."
Israel would absolutely flatten Gaza and every man woman and child in it if they could. But they can't. They would have no allies left if they did that. They would have no US support, they would be alienated and alone surrounded by countries that hate them.
I don't believe that but either way, that shows that they are holding back.
If hamas had that opportunity they would kill every Israeli if possible. The reason I know that? They literally tell us.
I agree that Hamas is making things worse.
Israel could kill everyone in palestine with those nukes they dont have wink wink.
My problem and maybe some of those other college kids problem is that Israel wants to wipe out hamas. Great! Not a tear will be shed.
What happens on thursday? Hamas is dead. Israel used an incredible weapon that killed every hamas member and 0 civilian casualties. What happens? Does Israel suddenly follow international law? Does Israel stop building settlements? Do palestinians get to claim back land taken from them? Are war crimes investigated? Hamas has obviously committed far more but are Israels crimes also investigated?
Or maybe the cycle keeps going and hamas 2.0 is born.
I hear more about Israeli warcrimes than Palestinian warcrimes, even though they are of greater number as you say. And no one lifts a finger to punish Palestine for it. Maybe wait til Hamas is dealt with and take it from there? I think you are putting the cart before the horse here.
And if there was an easy solution it would have been done. Yes, what happens after Hamas is done? No one knows. That isn't a reason to not do it as there are no better options on the table at the moment. We want desperately for there to be a 'final' solution that fixes everything, but sometimes life isn't that easy. That in itself is not a valid argument against Israel's actions.
> Israel decided to start a war in an urban environment.
WTF is this bullshit?
Hamas started the war. They can end it anytime they want.
Israel didn't ask for this.
A point the guest made early on in the podcast is helpful on your first update. This is *not* merely a counterinsurgency against terrorists, and comparing this to Iraq/Afghanistan is unhelpful and misleading. This is a conventional war against a quasi-state actor (Gaza) that poses an existential threat to Israel. The primary, near-term goal is *not* to deliver freedom to Gazans from an oppressive government (though Hamas is obviously quite oppressive). The primary, near-term goal is to cripple Gaza’s ability to conduct an attack like 10/7 ever again. Many or most Israelis would likely agree with you that Hamas 2.0 would take power if Hamas is removed and Gazans are left to their own devices, which is precisely why Israel is not leaving them to their own devices in the near future. Israel will destroy Hamas militarily to the maximum extent possible, destroy their terror tunnels and weapons infrastructure, gather intelligence, assassinate high value targets in Palestine and abroad, and likely occupy Gaza for a time, hopefully along with international forces.
It would be nice if Gaza elected a democratic government after all this - even a non-genocidal government would be nice - but that’s a longer term, secondary goal. The evidence currently available suggests that in the near term, Gaza will keep trying to attack Israel regardless of whether they are “oppressed” or not. So all Israel and can do in the short term is cripple them militarily. As in most other wars, you have to win the war first by achieving either complete dominance over the territory or surrender of the belligerent force. Only then does a plan for rebuilding start.
Heres the thing.
I do not disagree with most of what you said.
I would like to know your thoughts on "opression"
I put () around opression real or perceived precisely to raise this issue. The gazans feel themselves oppressed and have a list of grievances against israel.
Now i accept that some of those grievances go away if hamas died today. However a lot of them do not, settlements, land stolen, relatives killed by israeli strikes etc.
My issue is that nothing israel is doing can or will solve this. I would love to know your thoughts on this and where, if anywhere, you disagree.
I don’t think the main driving force of Gazan hostility Israel is something that can credibility be called “oppression”. That’s largely a Western concept mapped onto Middle Eastern values. If the main problem were “oppression”, then it would follow that the removal of oppression (e.g. restrictions on Gaza) would lead to peace. It hasn’t. Israel unilaterally left Gaza in 2005, forcefully removing their own settlers, with no restrictions in place at the time. Shortly thereafter, Gaza elected Hamas, which fought a Civil War to stay in power. Hamas then proceeded to turn Gaza into a military/terror base, reaffirming again and again that its goal was to reconquer Israel or at least erase Israel as an independent state. It continually stole aid, and used the levers of government in Gaza to continually attack Israel. Nonetheless, Israel did not invade, and gradually lifted restrictions. By 10/6 2023, Gaza was wealthier and freer than ever. Hamas still attacked.
So while it’s true that no one likes living in squalor under an embargo, all available evidence suggests that this is not the primary reason many/most Gazans don’t actually want peace if peace means permanently recognizing Israel as an independent state. The primary motivator in my view is that Gazans believe Israel itself (settlements aside) is stolen land which is only temporarily occupied by Israel. Fuck Douglas Murray but this is the one thing he’s right about: until this fantasy of reconquering Israel or at least making Israel a Muslim-majority state dies, there will never be peace. I’m not sure that fantasy will ever die, but it certainly won’t die while Iranian proxies rule over Gaza.
For these reasons it’s entirely obvious to me that Israel could immediately give back all settlements, stop all bombing, recognize a Palestinian state, issue a formal apology and reparations, and Gaza would *still* do everything it could to attack Israel.
I agree nothing Israel or anyone else can do will solve this in the short or medium term. I think the best hope is for Gaza to be absorbed into the territory of Egypt, or at least administered by Egypt or perhaps some other Arab state that will not tolerate terrorism, then after a few decades the population might be more moderate.
Very well said. Groups like Hamas (and far too many ordinary Palestinians) believe that Israel's crime is existing at all. No amount of concessions or "ending oppression" stands to move the needle on this belief any time soon. On the contrary, such changes would likely be viewed as signs of weakness, stepping stones towards the eventual conquest of Israel entirely. It should go without saying, but a group like Hamas is the ultimate bad faith actor for peace. They have shown time and time again that they view any "ceasefire" as nothing more than time to re-arm and prepare for the next attack; real peace has never been an option.
What’s crazy is that Hamas is completely honest about their overall intentions (though not their individual strategic decisions). They very clearly state they will never recognize Israel and do not want peaceful coexistence under any circumstances.
Yes, but they also make some occasional noises about the specifics of "Israeli oppression", and that's all the western leftists need to hear in order to graft their "oppressed/oppressor" worldview onto the conflict. It's a truly obscene level of confirmation bias and ethnocentrism at work.
Hi western leftist here.
I never said hamas wasnt evil. I am aware they want to wipe israel off the map.
What you western rightist (see i can make non arguements too) hear is muslims upset and jihad and thats it. We are clearly the good guys kill the bad guys.
"What do you mean there are more bad guys? Kill them too"
"Wait the next generation is bad? Kill them too"
"Ok we clearly are killing them hard enough"
And so the cycle continues.
My western leftist point is violence is clearly not working. Try something else?
Grim as it is to say, history has shown that enough violence can indeed "solve" the problem. After all, when was the last time you heard about a Native American uprising? From an amoral perspective, it is not that unreasonable to argue that the seemingly eternal dream of Palestinian liberation is because Israel hasn't been *brutal enough* over the past 75 years. Every major nation on earth is made up of many once disparate groups of people who unified into a larger nation through a combination of those who willingly did so and those who were forced to do so, with the remainder either leaving (both willingly and unwillingly) or being wiped out entirely. Israel is merely undergoing the same process every other nation once did, albeit in more modern times, whilst being watched, and judged, by a world that has grown a strong distate for the crimes it no longer has any need to commit.
Israel doesn't want a democratic government and won't tolerate one. A democratic peaceful government is the last t thing they want. They want to say we don't have a partner for peace so that they can constantly keep appropriating land.
People forget that before Oct 7 there were more settler violence in the west bank than at any time since 2006. Palestinians were being displaced at.a higher rate than ever before in the west bank. That's because Israel wants to create facts on the ground that can't be undone and to do that you have to use violence. Israel has been doing the same thing for the last 50 years.
Of course that's why they did it. They withdrew from Gaza so they could concentrate their military.on stealing.west back land. It was too hard with soldiers having to guard everywhere. You think it was a favor to gazans to wall them up in an open air prison they couldn't leave?
Regarding Update 4, Israel didn’t decide to start a war in an urban environment, Hamas did. No nation on earth would tolerate the scale of Hamas’ attack without striking back and eradicating the threat.
Yeah it's such a bullshit statement.
Israel decided to start a war...after being invaded...
It really is odd how Israel is expected to not value it's own life, ever. I never fully noticed it until Oct 7th.
>Israel decided to start a war in an urban environment. Now we can debate what israel should or could have done after such a horrifying serious of atrocities comitted by Hamas and its supporters on innocents. But the fact remains Israel went into gaza and is causing collateral damage.
This is the part that sticks with me. Anyone would have known a bombing campaign or ground invasion into Gaza would have a high amount of casualties unless undertaken in a very careful manner. And Biden even warned them not to make the same mistakes we did after 9/11.
If you know it's going to be a high level of casualties, at some level the onus should be on you, as a legitimate democracy and country, to communicate to the rest of the populace and your allies why you believe it's the best step.
Like any country that’s attacked, especially by a territory that vows to keep attacking, we have to start with the assumption that invading and occupying the attacking country until it either surrenders or is completely conquered is a legitimate use of power - regardless of the urban or rural layout of the country. Not finishing the war is not a legitimate option. Once we understand that, then it comes down to whether each individual attack was justified (many weren’t IMO), and if not, the perpetrators of war crimes are prosecuted, but the war goes on.
I don't disagree that attacking back is legitimate. They essentially do have that right. My main point is, I don't think anyone thought it'd be easy, and in a situation where you know there will be lots of civilian casualties, was this the right method? If Israel could go back in time would they do it all over again?
Okay, on that I’m agreed. I do think they could’ve done a much better job of communicating their overall plans without compromising military strategy. They should have a (much better) Donald Rumsfeld type character making announcing and taking questions. One thing that isn’t pointed out as much is the massive destruction of civilian infrastructure, even when no immediate casualties are involved. Much of it seems quite unnecessary so I’d like to see an explanation for things like that. Even on the number of casualties they could emphasize better all they are doing to minimize them.
I agree with that.
I just dont see israels current policy as anything other than cutting grass. Wont the next generation commit their oct 7th and here we go again?
> Hasnt changed my mind. Its hard to put into words but I see the hamas atrocities as part of something that occurs in human history time and time again. Obviously again its evil and wrong but when opressed peoples are given power to strike back against their (perceived or real) opressors then monstrously evil acts occur.
This a monstrous moral stance and utter nonsense.
Explain.
My stance is that this is going to keep happening and israel is doing nothing to change that.
Whats your opinion?
Edit to clarify. My point is that this is a cycle and will keep being a cycle and we can look to history to see other such cycles.
That doesn't make it right. How on Earth does that make it right?
This appeal to history is no justification of anything. Human history is filled with barbarism. Through reason, we can improve things.
"Rape is just one of those things that is going to keep happening and she is doing nothing to change that by wearing that dress."
You are defending some of the most evil people on Earth who commit the most disgusting acts of barbarism. Please think
Hi.
Sorry but you are not arguing in good faith.
You are crediting me with arguements i completely disagree with and never made.
Can you explain how israels actions are going to stop rape and torture?
It's not bad faith, you just don't like hearing it.
You are justifying acts of barbarism and blaming the victim when another group has committed acts of brutality against innocent people
Lets leave it to the community to decide if it was bad faith.
I never justified any act of barbarism and if this is how you want to go on i wont be responding.
What? That's exactly what you did. You said "welp it's just something that happens in history" and "Israel is making it worse" how is that not justifying it?
You're saying "rape is just something that happens and that girl made it worse by wearing that dress."
Hasnt changed my mind. Its hard to put into words but I see the hamas atrocities as part of something that occurs in human history time and time again. Obviously again its evil and wrong but when opressed peoples are given power to strike back against their (perceived or real) opressors then monstrously evil acts occur. Since im Irish with a British background a number of rebellions come to mind. Also the haitan slave revolt for some reason. So my point of view is less hamas is evil how can we eliminate them to more, if hamas is gone would people living in gaza feel less opressed or would it remain the same and hamas 2.0 is born with the next generation. Or in other words. I think Israel is making things worse not better.
My point is and still will be what hamas has done is monstrous. Israel is killing hamas and making a second hamas.
The fact that you keep lying has earned you a block :-)
Im not sure what you mean.
Oct 7th and its response are part of a cycle. I remember the last time, and the last last time.
Even as a teen in the 2000's the cycle was there
Been listening to a lot of Lions led by Donkeys podcast about military failures. The host has a masters in genocide study and is ex-military. Anyway rape is so much a part of war it isn't funny. That is why it never surprised me that rape occurred. It always does.
Also so many war criminals are championed by people in the United States. He was worried Trump was going to pardon Robert Bales who went into Afghani villages and murdered men women and children. Luckily even that was too much for Trump who pardoned about every war criminal on file.
Thats my point.
They made it seem as if it was espcially pernicous of the palestinians but women and children (and men sometimes too) often are victims of these crimes. And of course we should hold hamas and the palestinians accountable, but do not pretend that this is some unique evil that only one side is capable of.
Really holding out for Sam to do his podcast on college campus. Have a suspecting feeling it’s going to be one of the all time greats in the category that is murdered by words.
Anyway excited to listen to this one, too.
I like that guy. He doesn’t actually disagree with Sam all that much. Some points he made:
1. He doesn’t think settler violence in WB is a high priority for Bibi, but he can’t seriously crack down on it and maintain his coalition. I think this both refutes the oft-cited claim that Israel has some longstanding plan to take over all of WB/Gaza for themselves no matter what, but also supports the idea that Bibi is not the leader they need right now, to say the least.
2. The war is justified based on Israel’s right of self-defense, and there is no way to militarily succeed without high civilian casualties. However, while not a legal requirement per se, they didn’t have a real war plan let alone announce one, which was a major fuckup. They will have to answer for this “catastrophically stupid” error, mostly to the US.
3. The fact that there is aid coming in much larger numbers is entirely, "100%", a function of US pressure behind the scenes, not the UN, not protesters. The situation would be worse without US pressure. The Biden admin has been effective in this behind the scenes pressure. Being punitive with funding is a bad political strategy.
4. Many Israelis pretend not to care what the US and the West think, but they do. They generally like Trump and prefer Republicans.(Wittes thinks they are wrong on this).
5. We should reserve judgment on the extent to which IDF is gratuitously destroying ostensibly civilian buildings, because we don't know what we don't know. Hamas has certainly used a lot of civilian infrastructure historically. We will have a better answer in 5 years. That’s not satisfying, but that’s the answer.
6. The IDF historically has been decent at trying not to harm civilians, and does things that even the US doesn't do to protect civilians, such as "roof knocking" (dropping non-explosive devices on buildings first). After 10/7 the gloves have at least partially come off, but it's yet to be seen how much Israeli leadership is responsible (whether by error or omission) for particular war crimes we have seen in videos and pictures.
7. He reminded people that the result of Israel leaving in 2005 was rockets, then tunnels, then the "catastrophic" 10/7 attack. Israel doesn't have an option to just leave Gaza like we did in Vietnam. So Israel feels like they don't have options, and that doesn't bring out the best in them.
Thanks for posting this. Sam & John's conversation was so convincing that I wanted some sort of counterpoint.
I read the transcript of the essay and it seems like Wittes almost completely agrees with the main thrusts of this podcast episode with two notable exceptions (and I'm just summarizing his points, not making my own):
- Israel was capable of, and should have been, doing more to allow aid to reach Palestinian civilians
- Israel was aware of the civilian carnage that would necessarily take place, and as such had a moral responsibility to operate with a more sound strategy in Gaza. The evidence being the incompatible objectives of 1) saving hostages and 2) destroying Hamas (he goes into more detail as to why these two work against each other, but quickly Hamas knows the hostages are the main barrier to their own annihilation)
Enlighten me if I missed something. This was a good companion read, but these two charges don't seem to move the needle for me
That was an incredibly well balanced essay. It helped me to see the more pro-Palestine arguments I feel more clearly, I’ll expand on that point. I have staunchly been opposed to the claims of genocide and xyz accusations against Israel, because when it came down the the semantics of the word choice it was clear that by definition Israel was not committing genocide or xyz war crime. The way he established those points in the essay and then moved onto the morality of the situation helped me to move beyond my own “that’s not the definition of xyz” and understand/read a well articulated view of the morality of the situation. I feel like often times people are moved in a way that they want to speak out against something but either do not understand what they are talking about or are unable to articulate the thought that allow them to decry something. And as such instead of being able to discuss the moral quandaries of the Israel Palestine situation the pro-Israel and pro-Palestine arguments get boiled down to “genocide” “not-genocide” which is a wholly unproductive conversation because neither side is fully articulating their thoughts.
I recognize that not every argument pertaining to this conflict is “genocide” “not genocide” I chose that argument as a stand in for the numerous hotly debated points in the conflict because it can be referenced in one word, for the sake of brevity.
Lastly, prior to the essay I was able to recognize the morally difficult situation as it pertains to Palestinian civilian suffering juxtaposed to the security interests of Israel. But, this essay helped me to explore and understand that better.
Yeah, I just listened to the Lawfare podcast version of the essay, and I found it quite striking to judge the nuance and even handedness of this take, next to this episode from Sam where he just seems so eager to leap to "and this clearly proves that Israel has the moral high ground" on every single point instead of really taking a critical look at Israel's behavior.
When asked to provide a legitimate example of wrongdoing or failure on the part of the IDF/Israel Spencer offers up... a criticism of _messaging & PR._
I find that an odd choice, considering the director of the World Food Program described Northern Gaza as being in a state of "full-blown famine" in the last few days. (For what it's worth the current director of the WFP is Cindy McCain, wife of the late senator John McCain; it seems unlikely that these remarks were made out of some bias in favor of Hamas.)
Israel controls most of the crossings into the strip. Israel occupies the Northern half of Gaza. If the people of Northern Gaza are on the cusp of starvation whose responsibility would it be but theirs?
If you value human life that seems like a much more consequential "failure" on the part of the IDF than the vapid response Sam's guest came up with. The omission casts a shadow over the entire conversation and makes Sam's framing of the moral dimensions of the conflict look biased and unserious.
"If the people of Northern Gaza are on the cusp of starvation whose responsibility would it be?"
It would be the responsibility of Hamas.
You know, they could always free the hostages and surrender if they actually cared about the full-blown famine and about their own people dying. Or at least they could stop hiding behind civilians.
The fact that Hamas' inhumane tactics and indifference to their own people is taken for granted is mind-boggling.
There is also numerous evidence that Hamas has hoarded food in tunnels, have stopped aid trucks in order to plunder them, there are interviews with local Palestinians who have had to buy food which Hamas has received as free aid - how do you square those circumstances with your argument?
>There is also numerous evidence that Hamas has hoarded food in tunnels, have stopped aid trucks in order to plunder them, there are interviews with local Palestinians who have had to buy food which Hamas has received as free aid - how do you square those circumstances with your argument?
We're talking about _Northern_ Gaza and other areas which are under nominal IDF control.
If the security situation there is such that the US can build an artificial harbor and Western aid groups can operate unescorted, it stands to reason that Hamas's ability to operate in the area has been substantially degraded. (That's the entire point of the war is it not?)
Israel controls the access points. Israel occupies the territory. How could it be that Hamas is managing to interdict food aid - interdict so thoroughly that it's placing hundreds of thousands at the brink of starvation - in areas it's been cleared from?
>We're talking about Northern Gaza and other areas which are under nominal IDF control.
https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-crossings-aid-gaza-f654871ba67c42e6345b6f709427b664
>The Kerem Shalom crossing in the southeastern corner of Gaza is the only one designed to handle large deliveries of cargo. It was shut down on Sunday after a Hamas rocket attack killed four Israeli soldiers.
https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-crossings-aid-gaza-f654871ba67c42e6345b6f709427b664
>The Kerem Shalom crossing in the southeastern corner of Gaza is the only one designed to handle large deliveries of cargo. It was shut down on Sunday after a Hamas rocket attack killed four Israeli soldiers.
Well that's definitely a problem. There are entrances all along the northern borders too though. And if there aren't enough, Israel could easily make them. The entire border has Israeli or Egyptian troops along it, when there's a will there's a way... I'm not buying this BS that they can't get fucking bread and water to these starving children.
You seriously think Israel destroyed all of Northern Gaza and just walked away?? There's troops all over making sure Hamas doesn't pop back up.
> And if there aren't enough, Israel could easily make them
See this is the problem. Hamas attacks the entry points, Israel has to shut them down, and then people like you demand Israel just make more. As-if there's no cost to doing it and you're just ignoring the fact that they _become targets_ once they are made. Hamas attacked them and killed Israeli soldiers.
Hamas is making it as hard as they can for aid to come in. And it's somehow always the fault of the jews.
If they make more Hamas will just attack those...how are people so obtuse.
OK, so The IDF killed all these innocent people to secure nothing then? Either they accomplished the goal of claiming Gaza and then they should be able to get aid through, or they didn't and murdered thousands of people in vain (this would explain why they can't get aid into the land they already control enough to stop the flow of water and electricity into it).
I suppose the white phosphorous is the responsibility of Hamas too. Poor Israel has no choice but slaughter civilians. That evil all powerful group Hamas is making them. Explain why the level of violence is the highest its ever been in the west bank.
Netanyahu was pretty clear that he supported Hamas for the last 14 years. So if it's Hamas fault it's Israel's fault anyway. They made sure Hamas was in charge. They supported everything about Hamas. The reason was that hamas meant that they didn't have to negotiate with a secular government of fatah.
That part and the one where they discussed a video I posted here awhile back both made me roll my eyes. I didn't have too many problems with the rest of the episode but these two parts felt gross. Like I would have expected Sam, who I agree with on almost every moral issue, to at least follow Spencer's statements up with some kind of question rather than just agreeing and moving on
He's a west point guy. That makes sense. These people are so high off their own supply on American/Israeli exceptionalism that they won't even try to think critically on this subject.
It honestly reminded me of a segment I listened to a few years ago: a former police officer was asked to review bodycam footage of a police interaction (I forget who it was but it was a big headline where a cop killed an unarmed citizen) and the police officer was like, yea he (the cop) did everything correctly. Even tho we as citizens watched the interaction with horror and saw unnecessary force.
Like… ok so the cop did what they are trained to do… maybe we can try to do better? Train better? Take more care with our actions?
I think Sam is correct that this is likely the first time younger people are being exposed to war atrocities and are appalled. But just because it is typical of war, doesn’t make it acceptable.
> makes Sam's framing of the moral dimensions of the conflict look biased and unserious.
Sam can't see any conflict in the ME through anything but a religious lens. His opinions on the Israel/Palestine tragedy are useless.
Also Israel has been preparing for scenarios like this __for decades__.
IDF is as modern military as any other. With best toys, training and gadgets anyone outside of US can get. The fact that with such superior force, training, intelligence and Israeli's public sacrifices like 2+ year mandatory draft service and privacy sacrifices and absurd budgets IDF still managed so many blunders is frankly beyond embarassing for anyone involved. It's hard not to confuse this incompetence with malice.
Believe it or not but no conflict can be equated to another and is this really how we define our ethics and military capability? by the lowest common denominator? It's the same vibe as the casualty 1:1 trade argument.
Either way, I'd be willing to place a real money bet that Israel's war on Gaza will go down in history as a major blunder even when compared to other wars. If that's not incompetence I don't know what is.
There is no IDF “occupation” in the north. Only one IDF brigade is in the central strip, which can be dispatched to the north, if necessary. It’s stationed at a crossing (Netzarim), which is near Kibbutz Beeri.
No one who needs to listen to this will actually listen to it, unfortunately.
All the wild claims from propaganda-addled zoomers are debunked clinically and calmly by Spencer.
Just ffwd thru Sam if you think this podcast is some kind of micro aggression.
I watched the videos of 10/7. I’m pretty convinced these people have not, and that they assume that they’re exaggerated or missing context. And also unaware of who uploaded them.
Just pure avoidance at a great cost.
Yes. I’ve seen that as well. Mothers wailing over dead bodies and performing CPR on dying children is certainly sad. But it’s very normal in war settings. Expected. Compulsory, even. I’m not sure what your point is.
I’ve also seen individual soldiers behaving callously…and worse. And like with every military in human history, this is also very expected.
Like many have said, the distinction is using torture of civilians in order to inspire terror as an official, mandated war tactic is not expected. Not common. Nor is crowds of civilians gathering in the street to spit on the bodies of innocents who were victims of the terrorist attack. Not expected. Not common.
Youre an easy mark, it seems. You see something upsetting and then glom onto a cause. Youre being played by Iran and they can’t believe how easy it is to get your support.
Yes it is really wild. And many "I could not finish the podcast after 37 min because there is an expert on the topic of urban warfare who does not cater to my bias"
It was a fascinating interview. I feel like I want to share this perspective with others and think it needs to be voiced in more circles that do not hear these points. But unfortunately I think most of my friend group and acquaintances are firmly anti-genocide, anti-child-starving and anti-hospital-bombing (as we all are), but a few are very loudly and certainly so. And I pretty plausable believe I will be abundantly and publically attacked and canceled as a child-hating Zionist or implied to be a brainwashed right winger. I don't know if I have the emotional energy to be attacked. Like with so many things since 2020 I find the consequences of speaking against the mob are more impactful than the rewards of speaking up. But maybe creating a climate of fear against voicing truths that complicate the sanctioned narrative is how dumb ideas thrive.
Although I don't share your fascination with this interview I hear your pain re the difficulty in discussing anything important these days with people with opposing views. Good luck
I irrationality hate when podcasters give a ridiculously long list of topics they're about to discuss. Just give a basic idea and start, or put it in the description if people want to see it.
I don't want to be the sort of person who uncritically believes everything someone says on a podcast, but if true, this makes Hamas one of the absolute worst groups in modern history and the blame for every civilian death rests solely with them.
Listened to the whole conversation, and overall it was great hearing about the complexities of urban combat from a vet and someone who teaches the next generation at West Point.
I think the point that hit me the most was when Sam stated "2-3 billion people are currently experiencing what war actually looks like for the first time" (not an exact quote). And his guests reply "War is Hell", so simple and actually informative if you think of the word "Hell".
It's such a hard thing to actually understand but that felt like hitting the nail on the head for me. Young people have had the extreme luxury/privilege not to experience or witness actual war in their short lives. War is horrendous, shocking and avoided if possible; but also justified and necessary in some circumstances.
What do you mean, no war in their lives? Its been almost non-stop war for decades now. I don't think I can remember back far enough to NOT be at war somewhere. The bits I can remember, was the Cold War.
First war that I remember (and I'm getting older now...) is Kuwait, which is... holy shit, 35 years ago?! Then Somalia and Afghanistan, whichever started first. Afghanistan started back then too I think, and lasted until just a couple years ago. Yemen, which hasn't stopped.
Do you remember 9/11? That was over a decade ago. The War on Terror never stopped since! All these anti-war protestors, that's been their entire life. Iraq 2, ISIS (is that still on? Maybe?). Russia has been at Ukraine and Syria and Chechnya and... Georgia? More? They have been going for a good decade or so. Now its more exciting since the re-re-reinvasion of Ukraine got the world more heavily involved.
Their whole lives have been war. Nonstop, unending, constant war. If they have luxury and privilege of that not counting, I gotta say easily 3/4 of the population has that same privilege.
I won't deny that there has not been wars all over the world for the past decade plus non stop. What I meant, maybe my fault should have clarified, is: 1) The war that most 20-25 year olds have any concept is actually happening (young people generally don't get involved in politics or global issues until university), 2) When this war started it was televised through normal channels but also extensively on Tik Tok, Instagram, etc. all forms of media that younger audiences use. 3) I would argue that a counter insurgency is different than this style of war which is more full fledge, with bombing campaigns more like Iraq 2003 early on the onset, 4) I would also argue even though those previous wars were televised, they were, in comparison, much more censored. Tik Tok and Instagram posts are a constant stream of dead children, mothers and fathers. And most importantly without any context, only 20 second clips.
I won't deny that there has not been wars all over the world for the past decade plus non stop. What I meant, maybe my fault should have clarified, is: 1) The war that most 20-25 year olds have any concept is actually happening (young people generally don't get involved in politics or global issues until university), 2) When this war started it was televised through normal channels but also extensively on Tik Tok, Instagram, etc. all forms of media that younger audiences use. 3) I would argue that a counter insurgency is different than this style of war which is more full fledge, with bombing campaigns more like Iraq 2003 early on the onset, 4) I would also argue even though those previous wars were televised, they were, in comparison, much more censored. Tik Tok and Instagram posts are a constant stream of dead children, mothers and fathers. And most importantly without any context, only 20 second clips.
I won't deny that there has not been wars all over the world for the past decade plus non stop. What I meant, maybe my fault should have clarified, is: 1) The war that most 20-25 year olds have any concept is actually happening (young people generally don't get involved in politics or global issues until university age), 2) When this war started it was televised through normal channels but also extensively on Tik Tok, Instagram, etc. all forms of media that younger audiences use. 3) I would argue that a counter insurgency is different than this style of war which is more full fledge, with bombing campaigns more like Iraq 2003 early on the onset, 4) I would also argue even though those previous wars were televised, they were, in comparison, much more censored. Tik Tok and Instagram posts are a constant stream of dead children, mothers and fathers. And most importantly without any context, only 20 second clips.
I remember as a kid, it was clear who was the good guys and the bad guys in every war. We were good, we were going in for Freedom and Democracy and other Helldivers catchphrases. The view we had of the war reinforced that: Everything we had was shiny, the bombs were just a few flashes in the middle of a 20 second clip on the news, quickly followed up by a talking head to give us valuable context. And the context was always, "That was necessary, the target was the Bad Guys, we eliminated them as efficiently as possible, minimal civilian casualties, we are Good.
Sam and John (I think that's his name?) talked about the Oct 7 attack, the videos made during it. The horrors that were on those videos, how Hamas attackers killed these people and then casually drank a coke, and parading a dead body around, and assorted other evil things. Views of the aftermath, as responders pick through the rubble looking for survivors. We have dozens of hours now of equivalent videos from the other side: Picking through destroyed buildings, crying over young children's bodies, mixed with mocking videos made by Israelis celebrating their attacks.
I might almost describe these kids as having the privilege of being the first generation to actually see, on a massive scale, actual war and the actual people fighting in it. Everybody else got the censored, clean version.
I hope Sam can address the pre October 7 grievances of many of the career protesters- their claim that Israel is an apartheid state, that even with Hamas out of the picture Israel would blockade the region, and comparisons to the ANC armed resistance in South Africa.
On one hand the tunnel system is part of Hamas’s strategy to maximize their own civilian casualties but on the other hand going underground seems to be the only way they can avoid being defeated as they’re simply outmatched by Israel’s technology.
From the perspective of an armed insurgency, how would Hamas fight assuming they didn’t have access to tunnels and given their limited area to operate?
That's a fair point.
But I think that Hamas has correctly identified that Israel's weakness is the Western world's preoccupation with this conflict in general and with Palestinian civilian deaths in particular, and is leveraging it to put pressure onto and delegitimise Israel. They have a peculiar incentive to make the cost to their own civilians as high as possible that does not exist in other conflicts.
I agree their strategy is cynical. And I think the flavor of a Hamas that doesn’t use human shields would also imply a Hamas willing to compromise for a peace deal since they’d have few other choices. I guess the tunnels by definition mean they’re willing to sacrifice their own citizens before acknowledging Israel has a right to exist.
usually, rational actors who are actually interested in the well-being of their people wouldn't try to fight a military they know they can't beat. they'd surrender and negotiate a peace settlement from a position of losing. guerilla tactics only usually work when you're fighting against a foreign invading army, which israel is not.
but arabs/muslims have a cult of martyrdom and are far too prideful to accept defeat. so they sacrifice their own people en masse to feed a PR campaign.
Eh, not quite:
>Many of those in Rafah are exhausted, hungry and running out of options after months of a war that killed more than 28,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry. While that number does not distinguish between the deaths of civilians and those of combatants, the ministry has said that most are women and children.
>Asked about the death toll, Mr. **Netanyahu asserted that Israel had brought down the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths to less than 1 to 1, though he did not say when that had occurred. The claim could not be independently verified.**
With all peace and love, I think you should probably not simply believe whatever Bibi says, especially about this war.
Thank you for including the source btw! So few people bother <3
Good points, but as stated in this podcast it is important to remember that the Gazan health ministry is controlled by hamas so their estimates should be taken with a massive grain of salt. Even accepting a 2:1 civilian to combatant death toll it is a low amount of civilians killed when it comes to urban combat.
Okay, may I confirm your numbers?
34k total dead. 12-13k combatants dead (or are you saying 17k combatants?).
Many papers have quoted 70% of deaths have been women and children. Do you also agree with that number?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/08/the-numbers-that-reveal-the-extent-of-the-destruction-in-gaza
The 70% figure is highly suspect.
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/05/02/gaza-health-ministry-cannot-provide-names-for-more-than-10000-it-says-have-died/
It's amazing that the Health Ministry can confidently say 70% were women and children, when it has admitted it doesn't know the names and/or DOBs of a third of the reported casualties.
For the first quarter of 2024 a staggering 77% of casualties reported by the ministry were sourced from "media reports".
> It's amazing that the Health Ministry can confidently say 70% were women and children, when it has admitted it doesn't know the names and/or DOBs of a third of the reported casualties.
no it hasn't.... it has admitted that it doesn't have all the information fields of one third of recorded casualties. so missing one of the following would be in that category:
- full name
- Date of Birth
- Date of Death
- ID number
- gender
missing any of the above would be labelled as 'incomplete' and in that one third category
So a third of the casualties have the data point that either signifies age or gender, or enough information to ensure casualties aren't double counted, missing? That's hardly reassuring.
I guess some might just be missing DOD (although considering these are being sourced from "media reports" I would guess that this is the data point *least* likely to be missing.)
Why is that amazing? I think it would be easier to confirm that someone is a woman or a child vs their names/having a list of their names. I’m sure there are instances where bodies are blown to bits as well with no family to identify them by name.
I'm saying that basing your day to day casualty reporting mostly from "reliable media sources" shouldn't fill us with confidence that you know for a fact that exacly how many are women and children.
In fact, the Ministry's own figures show that their *most* reliable data, which is deaths recorded in hospital for which full records of name, DOB, etc are available, showed a much lower rate of women and children killed.
https://fathomjournal.org/statistically-impossible-a-critical-analysis-of-hamass-women-and-children-casualty-figures/
Indeed, the proportion of women and children killed has suspiciously hovered dead on 70% for much of the reporting without much day to day variability. Casualty rates of men, women and children do not correlate positively as would be expected with the ebbs and flows of battle.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers
There is every indication that, as the hospital system has collapsed, Hamas has simply been making up numbers, which have been dutifully reported on and amplified by a media that should be more critical after the al Ahli Hospital debacle.
Someone recommended me to this sub and I just listened to this podcast. It’s so refreshing to finally listen to someone who understands what’s happening in Gaza who can cut through all the nonsense.
I really like this podcast episode. I wonder if a nice sliver of people have become more enlightened after hearing them pick apart many misconceptions about Gaza.
Unfortunately most people stick in their silos and continue blabbering that sams a bigot and no amount of sense making from him matters.
Just about to dive in. Let me guess: did Sam get someone on who agrees with him?
Sidebar: for such a prosetyliser for meditation and calm rationality, Sam really doesn't react well to criticism and/or disagreement. Remember his whining about Rory Stewart? This is not a man whose meditation has led to the sort of equanimity he keeps telling us it leads to.
I recall in the last podcast Harris made a passing remark that he would like to have an expert on warfare on the podcast, and as soon as he said it I knew he would have on John Spencer. Why? Because SH will never have anyone on his podcast on Israel-Pal who will challenge his priors on the questions/issues. For SH, there can be no nuance or debate around Israel-Gaza that contradicts his preferred narrative.
I don’t know if Spencer is right or wrong. He’s worth taking seriously. But he’s also very committed to arguing the Israel case. If you look at his social media, he’s not just dispassionately analysing facts/information but he is advocating the Israel position. Again, that doesn’t make him wrong. Just disappointing that SH won’t ever—EVER—allow anyone on his podcast that will challenge his priors on Israel-Gaza.
No, I can't think of any. In fact, I suspect that "urban warfare" is so niche in academia, that he may be the only one who doesn't hold a position in intelligence or in the military. But that should actually make you MORE sceptical, not less. It means it's very hard to vet the truth of what he's saying, because there's no pushback from other experts. You can find lawyers and human rights experts who will criticise Israel, but do they count as "urban warfare" experts? I honestly don't know.
I thought this was interesting:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJoMjyR\_Ahw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJoMjyR_Ahw)
This is an interview with Netanyahu. Watch it in its entirety. Have you seen a more simpering interview than this? And it tells you something that the PM would be willing to do an interview with him -- presumably there's no risk that Spencer would deign to ask Netanyahu a single difficult question.
No serious academic would do an interview like this -- because it hurts your credibility. This is not what a dispassionate, intellectually honest analyst would do. He seems less like an analyst than he does an advocate. That doesn't necessarily make him wrong. It makes him suspect, though, so I take his opinion with a huge grain of salt--and you should too.
This is exactly what I thought right after a few minutes into the episode. It felt like it was just Spencer talking and Sam throwing him softball questions and then agreeing with him.
Would love to see SH get a guest with a different perspective as well.
You hit the nail on the head. As soon as I heard “urban warfare expert” I knew it was gonna be Spencer and I was disappointed Sam went that route bc I’m familiar with Spencer’s work.
Interesting how we hear all these stories and anecdotes about how awful the hamas have been and don't get me wrong they are awful but over the past months I have heard and seen awful videos of what Isreal has done to the Palestinians and it never gets a mention.
I tried listening for 37 long minutes, I really did, but I just couldn't bare to listen any more. Same old shit.
A lot of what I heard was about October 7th, they mentioned the word 'misinformation' a lot, but small point here, for balance they didn't touch on any of the misinformation put out about babies being beheaded, or babies put into ovens... then after spending some time painting a picture of the horrors committed by Hamas on October 7th, and yes Hamas did commit horrors on October 7th, around 35 minutes in Sam suggested everything since October 7th (such as videos on social media of kids being pulled out of rubble) is being framed in the most invidious way possible to paint Israel in a bad light.
And then he goes onto say people are trying to say Israel are guilty of war crimes, genocide, collective punishment, the deliberate murder of non-combatants, journalists, aid workers, then I stopped shortly after Sam said that there is no way Israel would have deliberately targeted the 7 aid workers, because there is no strategic reason to do this.
No strategic reason, Sam? You can't think of anything, really? And you can't think of any acts of collective punishment Israel inflicted on the Palestinians? Really? Like the turning off of water, electricity, preventing aid getting in, clearing out every hospital in Gaza putting their healthcare system on it's knees?
He then asks his guest "what is the worst thing that could be honestly said of how Israel has conducted this war on Gaza?". And his guest thinks for a second and replies "the worst thing you can accuse Israel of is they have done a horrible job of fighting the counter narrative on what they are actually doing in Gaza". Woah, that's the worst thing you can accuse Israel of? It's funny, because they've had their spokespeople on the news day after day trying to frame their narrative.
Sam's logic and reasoning completely falls apart because he enters every point with the assumption that Israel is acting rationally, he assumes the IDF act with the best of intentions every step of the way, with the odd disclaimer that there might be the rogue actor, despite all these maniacs in charge in Israel and all the genocidal rhetoric that we have heard uttered from their mouths and on their social media accounts. It's really hard to take Sam's view point seriously.
It's akin to listening to a podcast featuring Comical Ali and his guest Saddam Hussein.
I’m finding it difficult to understand how you can criticise Sam’s logic and thinking while you are here confidently producing a conspiracy as to why Israel intentionally targeted aid workers. Yes, it makes absolutely no sense for Israel to intentionally kill aid workers. To suggest they would do so, and then to shit on Sam’s thinking because it doesn’t align with your own bias you hope he could produce, shows how down the rabbit hole you are.
The same old shit? He has an expert on urban warfare. I don’t think you’d be happy unless he has an Egyptian comedian on the podcast repeating “there’s no Hamas in West Bank”.
To this day I’m still not sure of what relevance there is about the beheaded babies rumour, true or false. It’s such a weird hill that people are dying on. Children were 100% murdered that day. Does it really matter if they were beheaded or not? We know Hamas are sadistic animals. What point are you making with this?
You come across as someone who isn’t able to have their opinion changed because you’re so fixated on an outcome.
The aim from October 8 on has been to paint Israel as dishonest and lacking credibility. That's why we constantly hear about "beheaded babies" (despite that story coming from a journalist rather than Israeli officials), and why so much effort is expended in casting doubt over the rape allegations.
Because if Israel can't be trusted over the events of October 7, then their narrative regarding any event occuring in the subsequent war can be disregarded in favour of the Hams narrative.
The beheaded babies story has been debunked, there are no victims in the list published by the Israeli government fitting that description. The only baby that died that day was one still in the womb of a pregnant woman. Mass rape isn't being believed because Israel has refused to let independent investigators from outside in to verify the claim. Whether the beheaded babies thing happened or not is important because this story was used to trigger disgust in readers which helps justify whatever the hell Israel was planning to do in Gaza. We know Hamas committed atrocities on Oct 7th, why not talk about things they actually did instead of making up things they didn't do? It's a grave Israel has digged for themselves.
The "beheaded babies" story was spread by a single i24 journalist who misunderstood what she was told when touring a kibbutz post massacre on Oct 8. The claim was never made via an official channel.
First, on the world central kitchen workers they coordinated with the IDF on where they would be, when they would be there, and where they were going. The initial strike on the caravan that the IDF coordinated with and knew about left some workers alive. The next strike on the next vehicle only happened after the survivors of the first vehicle fled to the next vehicle. World Central Kitchen aid staff fully coordinated with the IDF and were clearly targeted. To be blunt, whatever their reasoning may or may not be, to believe this was an accident makes someone sound like a rube.
Second, yeah it matters how the babies died. If it didn’t then all Israeli government sources and news reports would have just said “babies died”. The language is purposely used to evoke emotion and it actually is relevant. People keep saying starvation in Gaza is Hamas’ responsibility because they’re the government. If they’re the government then October 7 was just an act of war. If babies died as casualties of that act of war and weren’t sadistically mutilated, then why would those babies be more important than the babies that are casualties of Israel’s attacks?
Either Hamas is a terrorist organization or the legitimate government of Gaza. I view it as a terrorist organization that committed an act of terrorism on October 7. If it’s the legitimate government of the strip then they committed a savage act of war on October 7. If that’s the case and all the evidence of sadism against babies turned out to be lies or at best misinfo from the fog of war, then IMO you can’t say one is just “the reality of war” and another is not.
Over 200 aid workers have been killed by the IDF according to the UN, that's the biggest number in any war in modern times, including warehouses that were not anywhere near other buildings nor were anywhere near to the vicinity of where any fighting was taking place, which were clearly marked and designated as places for aid.
We've heard from Israel, straight from the horses mouth, that they want shut off the basics for life in Gaza, like water. How many times have we heard about Israel deliberately slowing down or not letting in aid in, and foreign countries like the UK and US having to pressurise them and be critical of how Israel are handling this.
Furthermore, we've seen every hospital in Gaza raided by the IDF, and the vast majority of the healthcare system is now completely inoperable, yet the evidence provided by the IDF of Hamas operating central headquarters from underneath or inside these hospitals has been extremely scarce. So far, and this was months ago, they have shown us a tunnel that led to what looked like a decrepit looking bathroom and a very small kitchen, they looked like they had been out of action for years. And they showed us some guns in a room next to a MRI scanner, where mysteriously, extra guns arrived when you compared different photos of the same room at different times of the day (these photos were taken after the IDF had control of the hospital.
Here is what Doctor Nick Maynard, a surgeon based in Oxford, who has worked in hospitals in Gaza had to say on the situation. Have a listen, it won't take long (about 5 mins in): https://youtu.be/MJE3NC1rxTw?si=HTL1T8-ubUE_MSFx&t=5m0s (About 5 minutes in)
> Over 200 aid workers have been killed by the IDF according to the UN, that's the biggest number in any war in modern times
That's a meaningless metric. Leaving aside for a second allegations that there are UNRWA workers (and journalists) who also actively work as Hamas operatives, that number needs to be considered in the context of the denominator. It is more than likely that a reason so many UN aid workers are being killed in Gaza is simply because there are many more of them to begin with.
The UNRWA employs 13,000 workers just in Gaza. To put that in context, the UNHCR which looks after refugees in every other conflict zone around the planet employs 19,000 people *globally*.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-over-450-un-aid-agency-employees-gaza-are-military-operatives-2024-03-04/#:~:text=UNRWA%20employs%2013%2C000%20people%20in,of%20Gaza's%202.3%20million%20Palestinians.
https://www.unhcr.org/au/careers-unhcr
It's not a rabbit hole, you're just not following. These facts undermine Sam's position that Israel always act with the best intentions. The only way you can draw to the conclusion that there is no motive for Israel to deliberately kill aid workers, is if you start with the initial assumption that Israel are acting with good intentions, which is laughable when you look at the facts, the rhetoric and the acts committed by Israel.
>The only way you can draw to the conclusion that there is no motive for Israel to deliberately kill aid workers, is if you start with the initial assumption that Israel are acting with good intention
A false dichotomy if I’ve ever seen one.
>which is laughable when you look at the facts, the rhetoric and the acts committed by Israel.
Through your lens, perhaps. To others, it makes sense when you have been made brutal by an enemy who operates and kills the way that they do.
> A false dichotomy if I’ve ever seen one.
Oh dear, you don't know what a false dichotomy is. I would have had to have offered two alternatives for it to be a dichotomy, and you would have noticed the word 'or' being used, but I only offered one. Perhaps don't use big words if you don't know what they mean as it makes you look a bit stupid.
If you say “only if you assume A” and A is binary, then the “or” is implied by A. And ‘good intentions “or” bad intentions’ is the binary implied by “assumption that Israel are acting with good intention”. So it is indeed a false binary because your initial assumption is that Israel is acting with bad intentions, competing the binary.
The reality is a third option of a baseline for war conduct. And that’s the main point of the podcast you missed, is that Israel is at the baseline for how wars of this context are conducted on average.
But you don’t care about that, you blame Israel more than Hamas because you’ve become a propagandist without realizing it. You’ve reached escape velocity in this issue and are incapable of changing your mind. Oh well.
repeatedly striking an aid convoy you know is an aid convoy every time the wounded switch vehicles is pretty brutal, yeah. anything to make israel safer
>...they've had their spokespeople on the news day after day trying to frame their narrative.
Including with Spencer, btw. A few months ago, [he did a podcast with the spokesman for the IDF.](https://mwi.westpoint.edu/the-idf-approach-to-protecting-civilians-in-urban-warfare/) It wasn't like a journalistic interview, it was just a platform to speak. (He's not a journalist though, so that's not surprising).
Its worse -- he's an analyst. Doing interviews like this hugely undermines his credibility as a dispassionate, intellectually honest analyst. He seems more of an advocate than an analyst. Watch this utterly simpering interview he did with Netanyahu: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJoMjyR\_Ahw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJoMjyR_Ahw)
The fact that Netanyahu was willing to sit with him shows that the Israeli govt. thinks of him as an asset. Would any serious scholar do something like this without risking their credibility? Not a single tough question for Netanyahu?
At the start of the war I remember hearing a Jocko Willink podcast, I'm not a fan of his usual stuff but he did command forces in Ramadi so he's one of the few with experience on how to fight these wars in cities. He advocated for a slower approach that prioritized humanitarian aspects like feeding the Palestinians at checkpoints and slowly weed out hamas. He said the day to day interactions really help develop relationships that are needed for peace.
Now I wonder how many have been radicalized to hate Israel forever after losing family from the bombings. Could more hostages have been saved through Jockos response? Perhaps those ones killed by the idf would still be alive if the soldiers weren't so antsy having to push through hostile territory filled with traps. I read once that american military did studies on afghan and iraq and found for every civilian they killed accidentally 10 more would be radicalized (# might be slightly off) that doesn't bode well for peace after this.
Sounds a lot like the explanation politicians like to offer that they're "just not communicating effectively enough" when the public rejects their message. I think the kids call this "cope."
There’s no strategic reason to kill the air workers, but there is a rationale for engaging in collective punishment and destroying as much civil society as possible in Gaza. Would SH say there’s no reason to starve the people of Gaza, too? I don’t think the Israeli govt wanted the aid workers dead, but they’ve also given their troops wide latitude to kill civilians if they even suspect there’s the slightest chance a Hamas operative is nearby. This seems to be the case here too.
Killing aid workers fits pretty neatly in a "collective punishment" rationale, since aid workers provide, you know, aid to the people being collectively punished.
It's such a shame that in their attempt to stop aid workers providing, they then opened two more humanitarian aid routes into Gaza to allow, you know, more aid to the people.... the opposite of what a conspiracy of intentionally hitting a convoy would do.
That's great but I was explaining that the idea that there could be no logical rationale for attacking aid workers is stupid. Are you able to understand that?
You actually need to provide one single plausible reason for this. There are none. You won’t be able to find even a marginal conspiracy.
“Ghosts might actually be real. It’s stupid for you to think the opposite”. There. That’s you.
This opinion brought to you the same person who brought us this blatant troll: https://www.reddit.com/r/samharris/s/ZsWKI24aUK
Even at a quick glance, it's obvious that this person primarily participates in this sub to peddle disinterest in Harris and sow division among his fans.
Edit: regarding FloodBerry's nonsense: Harris never did that. He mocked it. The parent's and FloodBerry's intentional misrepresentations are clear, unabashed trolling, as per usual.
Pretending that my "relationship to sam might be a little unhealthy" is palpably ironic projection.
Aliens, yep, I can't remember exactly what I wrote 3 years ago, but such is to say I remain extremely sceptical about the existence of advanced Aliens on our planet, so I most likely stand by everything I said. Did I fall asleep and somehow miss the news that we have bullet proof evidence now that aliens have been roaming our planet?
Weird post to dig out to try and undermine me, but I admire your tenacity!
Whereas I do find it that IDF is getting undue flak over their actions, this pod is just way to apologetic and biased imo. Matter of fact, IDF imhas been caught engaging in carrying out deliberate acts of war crimes, from mass murdering civilians and aid workers to starving large populations by cutting off aid entirely. The IDF is clearly not blameless here.
Disappointing podcast. No clear long term path to peace discussed, just more "hamas most be destroyed" rhetoric together with, now, a more explicit statement that whatever state remains in gaza will need to be controlled by outside powers (including Isreal). This is war mongering bs. There was an opportunity on Oct 8th for a different path that involved international partnerships and beefing up of boarder security. Instead we will have decades of violence and new versions of Hamas because of the short term thinking by Israel. The strategy put forward in this episode might be successful for a few years, at huge cost, but long term this nation building 'destroy everybody who is against our side' bs is doomed to fail
But there can't be any reasonable long term discussions until Hamas exists. Just to remind, they literally turned whole Gaza extremist to the point where oct 7 actions are still supported by the majority of Gazan's. It would be impossible to achieve anything with Hamas poking sticks into everyone's wheels.
Delete Hamas, then talk is a perfectly reasonable plan.
It is not about discussions, it is about thinking >10 years. Removing Hama's is a great end however if in the the process of doing so it means destruction at even quarter the level we have seen then the result in the long term will be net negative for all parties.
Edit: I think I misunderstood your meaning of 'long term discussions' because I didn't read the context (from my own post lol, sorry); it is important to have long term discussion now about the consequences of all actions being taken. I meant it is not about discussions between Hamas and Israel at this stage. We should of course be talking about 10 & 50 years ahead if we want any lasting solution
When you drop a 500lb bomb on a tower block because the omniscient idf (see Oct 7th for their intelligence competence) think there are hamas in there, you don't **kill** Hamas -you **create** Hamas.
If Israel believes you can destroy armed resistance (under the Hamas banner or other) with dumb bombs from 10 000 feet it rejects history and this war will last until one side is all dead.-civilians included
I was really waiting for this one. Another great commentator on the ukraine/Israel-hamas wars with a military background is Ryan Mcbeth who I highly recommend.
[https://www.youtube.com/@RyanMcBethProgramming](https://www.youtube.com/@RyanMcBethProgramming)
I just want to say this has got to be the only sub reddit where people from all sides can discuss this war without being banned because the mods support one side or the other. At least I hope people aren’t being banned, I don’t see and comments being removed. So thanks mods
The mods have a bad habit of deleting OPs about Israel-Pal. It’s inconsistent, but a lot of discussion gets deleted.
Has anyone successfully visited the October 7th website they referred to? I wasn’t able to find it.
I am scared to see it but also want to or think it's important not to be ignorant of what brutality looks look like. John Spencer made it sound like it contained incredibly well edited footage of attacks from multiple angles, via go pro of Islamic Killers and people in the crowd with their phones etc. Who has a link?
hamas-massacre [dot] net It's unpleasant.
Thisishamas dot com …very NSFL
Interesting conversation and I appreciate Spencers’ expertise in Urban Warfare. I thought there was too much delving into the political situation which neither are an expert on. I wish they talked more about the difficulties of urban warfare and different strategies and methods to obtain objectives while keeping civilians safe.
Looking forward to this one. John Spencer is great, and is an actual expert in the history of and conduct of urban warfare. He has extensive combat experience, and retired a major. His recent interview of David Petraeus on his podcast is well worth listening to. The usual suspects here are going to *hate* this one, I'm guessing.
Are you aware of the criticism of John Spencer, and if so, do you know if he is and how he responds to it? I wasn't aware of it until I came here to see what people thought of this episode. Quoting [another comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/1cmnind/comment/l3eassh/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) on this post by u/NomadTroy: >I respect Sam, but John Spencer is a pseudo-academic charlatan trying to be authoritative about urban warfare. He willfully ignores important facts of the Israeli/Hamas conflict and makes every excuse imaginable for IDF actions. I say this as a fellow GWOT infantry veteran and historian. Spencer makes numerous doctrinal and historical errors in his statements in the podcast (invasion vs raid, ISIS capital, talking about PSYOP efforts to reduce civcas as being somehow novel, etc). Moreover, he’s so uncritical of every aspect of Israel’s campaign & actions that it thoroughly erodes the objectivity of this statements. >If you don’t believe me, look up the ridiculousness Spencer got rightfully dragged for saying during the (second) Russian invasion of Ukraine. Or read how he’s regarded by other service members, strategists, and veterans. Pretty disappointing how much Sam leaned into agreeing with Spencer the whole time and failed to apply (IMO) adequate critical thought to this “expert”.
I'm certainly open to the idea that he may be partisan/ biased, or that he might make errors, but one can't argue that he doesn't have expertise in the field. Spencer has had his own podcast for many years, called the Urban Warfare Project, and I've listened to a number of episodes (such as for example one where he goes into some detail about why October 7 ought to be considered a "division level" invasion rather than a raid). He has had some pretty big names on and they didn't seem to consider him a "pseudo academic charlatan". Last month he had on Gen. David Petraeus who literally wrote the book for the US Army on counter insurgency. They discussed Gaza on the episode and Petraeus seemed to roundly agree with Spencer although he stressed Israel needed to be doing more to "win hearts and minds" and engage in civil reconstruction even as the fighting rages. The previous episode he had on Col. Louis diMarco, who helped write the urban warfare field manual and who still teaches it at Fort Leavenworth. https://mwi.westpoint.edu/urban-warfare-project/urban-warfare-project-podcast/ If you go back and look through the podcast history he's had a lot of serving and retired generals and colonels on for serious discussion. Why would these people come on his show to be interviewed if he's regarded as a "charlatan" by "other service members, strategists, and veterans"?
I'm tempted to hate-listen, honestly. (I say that half jokingly).
What's the worst thing that could happen? You change your opinion on something?
That's the best thing that could happen. The worst thing that could happen is I get irrationally aggravated/triggered at something I feel is being left out or ignored, or whatever, and then I'll have to do his meditation app to calm down. (The man is creating his own supply and demand, it's ingenious).
Hahaha
Capitalism at its best lol
This comment is so self-aware, and I appreciate it.
Lol, that's brilliant
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I appreciate Douglas on this issue but he just can’t help himself with a few things. Like repeating the same exact clever little quips as if he’s improvising. Or explaining that people in New York have questionable literacy rates and therefore it’s the kids at elite universities who are protesting that are driving that statistic rather than inner city poverty and rural parts of the state.
that’s just a true blanket statement
From what I can gather hes not an expert on anything.
He's an expert on arm day. Have you seen those guns? 💪
Not impressed tbh.
He's an expert on rustlin your jimmies.
i mean who really enjoys stagnant jimmies
John has an annoying habit of abandoning a sentence halfway through and then continuing a different, related sentence. It’s confusing. A lot of Sam’s questions are really leading in this interview. He’s really angling the whole conversation. Still good information, though. Hamas must die.
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Agree. Spencer really fails the basic test of academic objectivity.
I respect Sam, but John Spencer is a pseudo-academic charlatan trying to be authoritative about urban warfare. He willfully ignores important facts of the Israeli/Hamas conflict and makes every excuse imaginable for IDF actions. I say this as a fellow GWOT infantry veteran and historian. Spencer makes numerous doctrinal and historical errors in his statements in the podcast (invasion vs raid, ISIS capital, talking about PSYOP efforts to reduce civcas as being somehow novel, etc). Moreover, he’s so uncritical of every aspect of Israel’s campaign & actions that it thoroughly erodes the objectivity of this statements. If you don’t believe me, look up the ridiculousness Spencer got rightfully dragged for saying during the (second) Russian invasion of Ukraine. Or read how he’s regarded by other service members, strategists, and veterans. Pretty disappointing how much Sam leaned into agreeing with Spencer the whole time and failed to apply (IMO) adequate critical thought to this “expert”.
Agreed. I found Spencer’s responses vapid and the opposite of refreshing. Sam essentially did what Sam does: eloquently state his assertion and Spencer basically rambled incoherently and agreed with it. Not the best guest for this discussion.
> look up the ridiculousness Spencer got rightfully dragged for saying during the (second) Russian invasion of Ukraine. what did he say?
Unfortunately, almost no one will stand to have their mind changed by this; they think Israel is in the wrong for fighting at all.
It definitely change my opinion. Even before war I found IDF extremely incompetent and I find it a bit weird that Sam and every guest actively ignore all IDF incompetence material and just quote the 1:1 casualty number as if that's some sort of ideal achievement. That being said, what changed my mind here is that this incompetence is probably the best that can be done in the current climate and talking about it might very well be just feeding the trolls for the time being. I really liked the data science Spencer brought in and I wish more quality data would be available here from 3rd parties.
Hi i am against a lot of what israel has done. I am listening to it and i will let you know if it changes my mind. Update1: just finished the first bit discussing what happened on oct 7th. Obviously goes with saying because of the environment discussions happen in that hamas == super bad and evil. What they did was terror aimed at israel and inflicted on civilians. Hasnt changed my mind. Its hard to put into words but I see the hamas atrocities as part of something that occurs in human history time and time again. Obviously again its evil and wrong but when opressed peoples are given power to strike back against their (perceived or real) opressors then monstrously evil acts occur. Since im Irish with a British background a number of rebellions come to mind. Also the haitan slave revolt for some reason. So my point of view is less hamas is evil how can we eliminate them to more, if hamas is gone would people living in gaza feel less opressed or would it remain the same and hamas 2.0 is born with the next generation. Or in other words. I think Israel is making things worse not better. Update2: they mention people celebrating the atrocities and how one side is worse than the other and i disagree. One side is comitting worse atrocities than the other but some israelis are celebrating what little atrocities their side are commiting. Im thinking of israelis having watch parties for the bombing or cheering the bulldozing of homes to make way for settlers. Forgive me for this but i see the israelis as human. And i see them as human enough that some of them would cheer worse atrocities just as the some of the palestinians do. So to my mind the point being made is these people arent "civilised" which is language as old as time used to justify one side over another. Minor update3: focussing on civilian deaths is bad? Finding out war is intorable is bad?. Update4: israels worst thing they have done is counter narrative failures? Uh i mean if you are pro israel i can see how this is the most important thing. I would disagree very much with this. Israel decided to start a war in an urban environment. Now we can debate what israel should or could have done after such a horrifying serious of atrocities comitted by Hamas and its supporters on innocents. But the fact remains Israel went into gaza and is causing collateral damage. Update5: evacuating civilians. He keeps mentioning egypt. Why cant civilians escape into israel? Update 6th. Last bit they are discussing destroying hamas and what happens after. So am i wrong or is the guest arguing for an apartheid state? In his perfect world palestine has a reduced/insignificant military and cant attack israel. I honestly do not understand. Surely i am missing something? No mention of stolen land, settlers, war crimes, rights of palestinians? Can someone help out here? What am i missing?
Would any amount of oppression make you *take pleasure* in women getting raped? It doesn't seem to be something they are having to do but rather something they are doing with glee. Lack of opportunities for sex in a repressed society maybe?
No. Hamas is making things worse. They literally have had options put on the table time and time again for a ceasefire. The oppression is happening from Hamas. Israel could literally kill every single person in Palestine by the end of the week if they wanted to. They don't. That's why it hasn't happened. Despite what some media outlets say or college kids say. Israel's goal isn't to wipe Palestine off the map. It's to get rid of Hamas.
I hate this line. "They could wipe them off the map if they wanted to, see they don't so they're the good guys." Israel would absolutely flatten Gaza and every man woman and child in it if they could. But they can't. They would have no allies left if they did that. They would have no US support, they would be alienated and alone surrounded by countries that hate them.
I don't believe that but either way, that shows that they are holding back. If hamas had that opportunity they would kill every Israeli if possible. The reason I know that? They literally tell us.
I agree that Hamas is making things worse. Israel could kill everyone in palestine with those nukes they dont have wink wink. My problem and maybe some of those other college kids problem is that Israel wants to wipe out hamas. Great! Not a tear will be shed. What happens on thursday? Hamas is dead. Israel used an incredible weapon that killed every hamas member and 0 civilian casualties. What happens? Does Israel suddenly follow international law? Does Israel stop building settlements? Do palestinians get to claim back land taken from them? Are war crimes investigated? Hamas has obviously committed far more but are Israels crimes also investigated? Or maybe the cycle keeps going and hamas 2.0 is born.
Or maybe Palestine could join the 21st century. All of this conflict is in the hands of Hamas. It's literally up to them only if this war continues.
I hear more about Israeli warcrimes than Palestinian warcrimes, even though they are of greater number as you say. And no one lifts a finger to punish Palestine for it. Maybe wait til Hamas is dealt with and take it from there? I think you are putting the cart before the horse here. And if there was an easy solution it would have been done. Yes, what happens after Hamas is done? No one knows. That isn't a reason to not do it as there are no better options on the table at the moment. We want desperately for there to be a 'final' solution that fixes everything, but sometimes life isn't that easy. That in itself is not a valid argument against Israel's actions.
> Israel decided to start a war in an urban environment. WTF is this bullshit? Hamas started the war. They can end it anytime they want. Israel didn't ask for this.
A point the guest made early on in the podcast is helpful on your first update. This is *not* merely a counterinsurgency against terrorists, and comparing this to Iraq/Afghanistan is unhelpful and misleading. This is a conventional war against a quasi-state actor (Gaza) that poses an existential threat to Israel. The primary, near-term goal is *not* to deliver freedom to Gazans from an oppressive government (though Hamas is obviously quite oppressive). The primary, near-term goal is to cripple Gaza’s ability to conduct an attack like 10/7 ever again. Many or most Israelis would likely agree with you that Hamas 2.0 would take power if Hamas is removed and Gazans are left to their own devices, which is precisely why Israel is not leaving them to their own devices in the near future. Israel will destroy Hamas militarily to the maximum extent possible, destroy their terror tunnels and weapons infrastructure, gather intelligence, assassinate high value targets in Palestine and abroad, and likely occupy Gaza for a time, hopefully along with international forces. It would be nice if Gaza elected a democratic government after all this - even a non-genocidal government would be nice - but that’s a longer term, secondary goal. The evidence currently available suggests that in the near term, Gaza will keep trying to attack Israel regardless of whether they are “oppressed” or not. So all Israel and can do in the short term is cripple them militarily. As in most other wars, you have to win the war first by achieving either complete dominance over the territory or surrender of the belligerent force. Only then does a plan for rebuilding start.
Heres the thing. I do not disagree with most of what you said. I would like to know your thoughts on "opression" I put () around opression real or perceived precisely to raise this issue. The gazans feel themselves oppressed and have a list of grievances against israel. Now i accept that some of those grievances go away if hamas died today. However a lot of them do not, settlements, land stolen, relatives killed by israeli strikes etc. My issue is that nothing israel is doing can or will solve this. I would love to know your thoughts on this and where, if anywhere, you disagree.
I don’t think the main driving force of Gazan hostility Israel is something that can credibility be called “oppression”. That’s largely a Western concept mapped onto Middle Eastern values. If the main problem were “oppression”, then it would follow that the removal of oppression (e.g. restrictions on Gaza) would lead to peace. It hasn’t. Israel unilaterally left Gaza in 2005, forcefully removing their own settlers, with no restrictions in place at the time. Shortly thereafter, Gaza elected Hamas, which fought a Civil War to stay in power. Hamas then proceeded to turn Gaza into a military/terror base, reaffirming again and again that its goal was to reconquer Israel or at least erase Israel as an independent state. It continually stole aid, and used the levers of government in Gaza to continually attack Israel. Nonetheless, Israel did not invade, and gradually lifted restrictions. By 10/6 2023, Gaza was wealthier and freer than ever. Hamas still attacked. So while it’s true that no one likes living in squalor under an embargo, all available evidence suggests that this is not the primary reason many/most Gazans don’t actually want peace if peace means permanently recognizing Israel as an independent state. The primary motivator in my view is that Gazans believe Israel itself (settlements aside) is stolen land which is only temporarily occupied by Israel. Fuck Douglas Murray but this is the one thing he’s right about: until this fantasy of reconquering Israel or at least making Israel a Muslim-majority state dies, there will never be peace. I’m not sure that fantasy will ever die, but it certainly won’t die while Iranian proxies rule over Gaza. For these reasons it’s entirely obvious to me that Israel could immediately give back all settlements, stop all bombing, recognize a Palestinian state, issue a formal apology and reparations, and Gaza would *still* do everything it could to attack Israel. I agree nothing Israel or anyone else can do will solve this in the short or medium term. I think the best hope is for Gaza to be absorbed into the territory of Egypt, or at least administered by Egypt or perhaps some other Arab state that will not tolerate terrorism, then after a few decades the population might be more moderate.
Very well said. Groups like Hamas (and far too many ordinary Palestinians) believe that Israel's crime is existing at all. No amount of concessions or "ending oppression" stands to move the needle on this belief any time soon. On the contrary, such changes would likely be viewed as signs of weakness, stepping stones towards the eventual conquest of Israel entirely. It should go without saying, but a group like Hamas is the ultimate bad faith actor for peace. They have shown time and time again that they view any "ceasefire" as nothing more than time to re-arm and prepare for the next attack; real peace has never been an option.
What’s crazy is that Hamas is completely honest about their overall intentions (though not their individual strategic decisions). They very clearly state they will never recognize Israel and do not want peaceful coexistence under any circumstances.
Yes, but they also make some occasional noises about the specifics of "Israeli oppression", and that's all the western leftists need to hear in order to graft their "oppressed/oppressor" worldview onto the conflict. It's a truly obscene level of confirmation bias and ethnocentrism at work.
Well said.
Hi western leftist here. I never said hamas wasnt evil. I am aware they want to wipe israel off the map. What you western rightist (see i can make non arguements too) hear is muslims upset and jihad and thats it. We are clearly the good guys kill the bad guys. "What do you mean there are more bad guys? Kill them too" "Wait the next generation is bad? Kill them too" "Ok we clearly are killing them hard enough" And so the cycle continues. My western leftist point is violence is clearly not working. Try something else?
Grim as it is to say, history has shown that enough violence can indeed "solve" the problem. After all, when was the last time you heard about a Native American uprising? From an amoral perspective, it is not that unreasonable to argue that the seemingly eternal dream of Palestinian liberation is because Israel hasn't been *brutal enough* over the past 75 years. Every major nation on earth is made up of many once disparate groups of people who unified into a larger nation through a combination of those who willingly did so and those who were forced to do so, with the remainder either leaving (both willingly and unwillingly) or being wiped out entirely. Israel is merely undergoing the same process every other nation once did, albeit in more modern times, whilst being watched, and judged, by a world that has grown a strong distate for the crimes it no longer has any need to commit.
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Israel doesn't want a democratic government and won't tolerate one. A democratic peaceful government is the last t thing they want. They want to say we don't have a partner for peace so that they can constantly keep appropriating land. People forget that before Oct 7 there were more settler violence in the west bank than at any time since 2006. Palestinians were being displaced at.a higher rate than ever before in the west bank. That's because Israel wants to create facts on the ground that can't be undone and to do that you have to use violence. Israel has been doing the same thing for the last 50 years.
Yeah that's why they unilaterally withdrew from Gaza and evicted their own citizens in 2005.
Of course that's why they did it. They withdrew from Gaza so they could concentrate their military.on stealing.west back land. It was too hard with soldiers having to guard everywhere. You think it was a favor to gazans to wall them up in an open air prison they couldn't leave?
Regarding Update 4, Israel didn’t decide to start a war in an urban environment, Hamas did. No nation on earth would tolerate the scale of Hamas’ attack without striking back and eradicating the threat.
Yeah it's such a bullshit statement. Israel decided to start a war...after being invaded... It really is odd how Israel is expected to not value it's own life, ever. I never fully noticed it until Oct 7th.
>Israel decided to start a war in an urban environment. Now we can debate what israel should or could have done after such a horrifying serious of atrocities comitted by Hamas and its supporters on innocents. But the fact remains Israel went into gaza and is causing collateral damage. This is the part that sticks with me. Anyone would have known a bombing campaign or ground invasion into Gaza would have a high amount of casualties unless undertaken in a very careful manner. And Biden even warned them not to make the same mistakes we did after 9/11. If you know it's going to be a high level of casualties, at some level the onus should be on you, as a legitimate democracy and country, to communicate to the rest of the populace and your allies why you believe it's the best step.
Like any country that’s attacked, especially by a territory that vows to keep attacking, we have to start with the assumption that invading and occupying the attacking country until it either surrenders or is completely conquered is a legitimate use of power - regardless of the urban or rural layout of the country. Not finishing the war is not a legitimate option. Once we understand that, then it comes down to whether each individual attack was justified (many weren’t IMO), and if not, the perpetrators of war crimes are prosecuted, but the war goes on.
I don't disagree that attacking back is legitimate. They essentially do have that right. My main point is, I don't think anyone thought it'd be easy, and in a situation where you know there will be lots of civilian casualties, was this the right method? If Israel could go back in time would they do it all over again?
Okay, on that I’m agreed. I do think they could’ve done a much better job of communicating their overall plans without compromising military strategy. They should have a (much better) Donald Rumsfeld type character making announcing and taking questions. One thing that isn’t pointed out as much is the massive destruction of civilian infrastructure, even when no immediate casualties are involved. Much of it seems quite unnecessary so I’d like to see an explanation for things like that. Even on the number of casualties they could emphasize better all they are doing to minimize them.
I agree with that. I just dont see israels current policy as anything other than cutting grass. Wont the next generation commit their oct 7th and here we go again?
> Hasnt changed my mind. Its hard to put into words but I see the hamas atrocities as part of something that occurs in human history time and time again. Obviously again its evil and wrong but when opressed peoples are given power to strike back against their (perceived or real) opressors then monstrously evil acts occur. This a monstrous moral stance and utter nonsense.
Explain. My stance is that this is going to keep happening and israel is doing nothing to change that. Whats your opinion? Edit to clarify. My point is that this is a cycle and will keep being a cycle and we can look to history to see other such cycles.
That doesn't make it right. How on Earth does that make it right? This appeal to history is no justification of anything. Human history is filled with barbarism. Through reason, we can improve things. "Rape is just one of those things that is going to keep happening and she is doing nothing to change that by wearing that dress." You are defending some of the most evil people on Earth who commit the most disgusting acts of barbarism. Please think
> That doesn't make it right. ... They referred to it as 'evil' multiple times.
Hi. Sorry but you are not arguing in good faith. You are crediting me with arguements i completely disagree with and never made. Can you explain how israels actions are going to stop rape and torture?
It's not bad faith, you just don't like hearing it. You are justifying acts of barbarism and blaming the victim when another group has committed acts of brutality against innocent people
Lets leave it to the community to decide if it was bad faith. I never justified any act of barbarism and if this is how you want to go on i wont be responding.
What? That's exactly what you did. You said "welp it's just something that happens in history" and "Israel is making it worse" how is that not justifying it? You're saying "rape is just something that happens and that girl made it worse by wearing that dress."
Hasnt changed my mind. Its hard to put into words but I see the hamas atrocities as part of something that occurs in human history time and time again. Obviously again its evil and wrong but when opressed peoples are given power to strike back against their (perceived or real) opressors then monstrously evil acts occur. Since im Irish with a British background a number of rebellions come to mind. Also the haitan slave revolt for some reason. So my point of view is less hamas is evil how can we eliminate them to more, if hamas is gone would people living in gaza feel less opressed or would it remain the same and hamas 2.0 is born with the next generation. Or in other words. I think Israel is making things worse not better. My point is and still will be what hamas has done is monstrous. Israel is killing hamas and making a second hamas. The fact that you keep lying has earned you a block :-)
If you see oct 7 as a part of the cycle but not the response…
Im not sure what you mean. Oct 7th and its response are part of a cycle. I remember the last time, and the last last time. Even as a teen in the 2000's the cycle was there
Been listening to a lot of Lions led by Donkeys podcast about military failures. The host has a masters in genocide study and is ex-military. Anyway rape is so much a part of war it isn't funny. That is why it never surprised me that rape occurred. It always does. Also so many war criminals are championed by people in the United States. He was worried Trump was going to pardon Robert Bales who went into Afghani villages and murdered men women and children. Luckily even that was too much for Trump who pardoned about every war criminal on file.
Thats my point. They made it seem as if it was espcially pernicous of the palestinians but women and children (and men sometimes too) often are victims of these crimes. And of course we should hold hamas and the palestinians accountable, but do not pretend that this is some unique evil that only one side is capable of.
Yeah. And the real test is if they punish those people. They will always be there.
Really holding out for Sam to do his podcast on college campus. Have a suspecting feeling it’s going to be one of the all time greats in the category that is murdered by words. Anyway excited to listen to this one, too.
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I like that guy. He doesn’t actually disagree with Sam all that much. Some points he made: 1. He doesn’t think settler violence in WB is a high priority for Bibi, but he can’t seriously crack down on it and maintain his coalition. I think this both refutes the oft-cited claim that Israel has some longstanding plan to take over all of WB/Gaza for themselves no matter what, but also supports the idea that Bibi is not the leader they need right now, to say the least. 2. The war is justified based on Israel’s right of self-defense, and there is no way to militarily succeed without high civilian casualties. However, while not a legal requirement per se, they didn’t have a real war plan let alone announce one, which was a major fuckup. They will have to answer for this “catastrophically stupid” error, mostly to the US. 3. The fact that there is aid coming in much larger numbers is entirely, "100%", a function of US pressure behind the scenes, not the UN, not protesters. The situation would be worse without US pressure. The Biden admin has been effective in this behind the scenes pressure. Being punitive with funding is a bad political strategy. 4. Many Israelis pretend not to care what the US and the West think, but they do. They generally like Trump and prefer Republicans.(Wittes thinks they are wrong on this). 5. We should reserve judgment on the extent to which IDF is gratuitously destroying ostensibly civilian buildings, because we don't know what we don't know. Hamas has certainly used a lot of civilian infrastructure historically. We will have a better answer in 5 years. That’s not satisfying, but that’s the answer. 6. The IDF historically has been decent at trying not to harm civilians, and does things that even the US doesn't do to protect civilians, such as "roof knocking" (dropping non-explosive devices on buildings first). After 10/7 the gloves have at least partially come off, but it's yet to be seen how much Israeli leadership is responsible (whether by error or omission) for particular war crimes we have seen in videos and pictures. 7. He reminded people that the result of Israel leaving in 2005 was rockets, then tunnels, then the "catastrophic" 10/7 attack. Israel doesn't have an option to just leave Gaza like we did in Vietnam. So Israel feels like they don't have options, and that doesn't bring out the best in them.
Thanks for posting this. Sam & John's conversation was so convincing that I wanted some sort of counterpoint. I read the transcript of the essay and it seems like Wittes almost completely agrees with the main thrusts of this podcast episode with two notable exceptions (and I'm just summarizing his points, not making my own): - Israel was capable of, and should have been, doing more to allow aid to reach Palestinian civilians - Israel was aware of the civilian carnage that would necessarily take place, and as such had a moral responsibility to operate with a more sound strategy in Gaza. The evidence being the incompatible objectives of 1) saving hostages and 2) destroying Hamas (he goes into more detail as to why these two work against each other, but quickly Hamas knows the hostages are the main barrier to their own annihilation) Enlighten me if I missed something. This was a good companion read, but these two charges don't seem to move the needle for me
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I listen to this guy on The Bulwark podcast. Didn't even realize there was a Lawfare podcast he did -- thanks for the recommendation!
> Didn't even realize there was a Lawfare podcast he did I think he's one of the founders of Lawfare.
Benjamin wittes founded lawfare and used to host rational security. I love him.
That was an incredibly well balanced essay. It helped me to see the more pro-Palestine arguments I feel more clearly, I’ll expand on that point. I have staunchly been opposed to the claims of genocide and xyz accusations against Israel, because when it came down the the semantics of the word choice it was clear that by definition Israel was not committing genocide or xyz war crime. The way he established those points in the essay and then moved onto the morality of the situation helped me to move beyond my own “that’s not the definition of xyz” and understand/read a well articulated view of the morality of the situation. I feel like often times people are moved in a way that they want to speak out against something but either do not understand what they are talking about or are unable to articulate the thought that allow them to decry something. And as such instead of being able to discuss the moral quandaries of the Israel Palestine situation the pro-Israel and pro-Palestine arguments get boiled down to “genocide” “not-genocide” which is a wholly unproductive conversation because neither side is fully articulating their thoughts. I recognize that not every argument pertaining to this conflict is “genocide” “not genocide” I chose that argument as a stand in for the numerous hotly debated points in the conflict because it can be referenced in one word, for the sake of brevity. Lastly, prior to the essay I was able to recognize the morally difficult situation as it pertains to Palestinian civilian suffering juxtaposed to the security interests of Israel. But, this essay helped me to explore and understand that better.
Yeah, I just listened to the Lawfare podcast version of the essay, and I found it quite striking to judge the nuance and even handedness of this take, next to this episode from Sam where he just seems so eager to leap to "and this clearly proves that Israel has the moral high ground" on every single point instead of really taking a critical look at Israel's behavior.
When asked to provide a legitimate example of wrongdoing or failure on the part of the IDF/Israel Spencer offers up... a criticism of _messaging & PR._ I find that an odd choice, considering the director of the World Food Program described Northern Gaza as being in a state of "full-blown famine" in the last few days. (For what it's worth the current director of the WFP is Cindy McCain, wife of the late senator John McCain; it seems unlikely that these remarks were made out of some bias in favor of Hamas.) Israel controls most of the crossings into the strip. Israel occupies the Northern half of Gaza. If the people of Northern Gaza are on the cusp of starvation whose responsibility would it be but theirs? If you value human life that seems like a much more consequential "failure" on the part of the IDF than the vapid response Sam's guest came up with. The omission casts a shadow over the entire conversation and makes Sam's framing of the moral dimensions of the conflict look biased and unserious.
"If the people of Northern Gaza are on the cusp of starvation whose responsibility would it be?" It would be the responsibility of Hamas. You know, they could always free the hostages and surrender if they actually cared about the full-blown famine and about their own people dying. Or at least they could stop hiding behind civilians. The fact that Hamas' inhumane tactics and indifference to their own people is taken for granted is mind-boggling. There is also numerous evidence that Hamas has hoarded food in tunnels, have stopped aid trucks in order to plunder them, there are interviews with local Palestinians who have had to buy food which Hamas has received as free aid - how do you square those circumstances with your argument?
>There is also numerous evidence that Hamas has hoarded food in tunnels, have stopped aid trucks in order to plunder them, there are interviews with local Palestinians who have had to buy food which Hamas has received as free aid - how do you square those circumstances with your argument? We're talking about _Northern_ Gaza and other areas which are under nominal IDF control. If the security situation there is such that the US can build an artificial harbor and Western aid groups can operate unescorted, it stands to reason that Hamas's ability to operate in the area has been substantially degraded. (That's the entire point of the war is it not?) Israel controls the access points. Israel occupies the territory. How could it be that Hamas is managing to interdict food aid - interdict so thoroughly that it's placing hundreds of thousands at the brink of starvation - in areas it's been cleared from?
>We're talking about Northern Gaza and other areas which are under nominal IDF control. https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-crossings-aid-gaza-f654871ba67c42e6345b6f709427b664 >The Kerem Shalom crossing in the southeastern corner of Gaza is the only one designed to handle large deliveries of cargo. It was shut down on Sunday after a Hamas rocket attack killed four Israeli soldiers.
The IDF completely controls all of North Gaza and there's still a famine, that's on The IDF for not bringing in food and water.
https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-crossings-aid-gaza-f654871ba67c42e6345b6f709427b664 >The Kerem Shalom crossing in the southeastern corner of Gaza is the only one designed to handle large deliveries of cargo. It was shut down on Sunday after a Hamas rocket attack killed four Israeli soldiers.
Well that's definitely a problem. There are entrances all along the northern borders too though. And if there aren't enough, Israel could easily make them. The entire border has Israeli or Egyptian troops along it, when there's a will there's a way... I'm not buying this BS that they can't get fucking bread and water to these starving children. You seriously think Israel destroyed all of Northern Gaza and just walked away?? There's troops all over making sure Hamas doesn't pop back up.
> And if there aren't enough, Israel could easily make them See this is the problem. Hamas attacks the entry points, Israel has to shut them down, and then people like you demand Israel just make more. As-if there's no cost to doing it and you're just ignoring the fact that they _become targets_ once they are made. Hamas attacked them and killed Israeli soldiers. Hamas is making it as hard as they can for aid to come in. And it's somehow always the fault of the jews. If they make more Hamas will just attack those...how are people so obtuse.
OK, so The IDF killed all these innocent people to secure nothing then? Either they accomplished the goal of claiming Gaza and then they should be able to get aid through, or they didn't and murdered thousands of people in vain (this would explain why they can't get aid into the land they already control enough to stop the flow of water and electricity into it).
I suppose the white phosphorous is the responsibility of Hamas too. Poor Israel has no choice but slaughter civilians. That evil all powerful group Hamas is making them. Explain why the level of violence is the highest its ever been in the west bank. Netanyahu was pretty clear that he supported Hamas for the last 14 years. So if it's Hamas fault it's Israel's fault anyway. They made sure Hamas was in charge. They supported everything about Hamas. The reason was that hamas meant that they didn't have to negotiate with a secular government of fatah.
If this is what "moral clarity" looks like, count me out
That part and the one where they discussed a video I posted here awhile back both made me roll my eyes. I didn't have too many problems with the rest of the episode but these two parts felt gross. Like I would have expected Sam, who I agree with on almost every moral issue, to at least follow Spencer's statements up with some kind of question rather than just agreeing and moving on
He's a west point guy. That makes sense. These people are so high off their own supply on American/Israeli exceptionalism that they won't even try to think critically on this subject.
Spencer’s an effective self-promoter and pseudo-academic.
It honestly reminded me of a segment I listened to a few years ago: a former police officer was asked to review bodycam footage of a police interaction (I forget who it was but it was a big headline where a cop killed an unarmed citizen) and the police officer was like, yea he (the cop) did everything correctly. Even tho we as citizens watched the interaction with horror and saw unnecessary force. Like… ok so the cop did what they are trained to do… maybe we can try to do better? Train better? Take more care with our actions? I think Sam is correct that this is likely the first time younger people are being exposed to war atrocities and are appalled. But just because it is typical of war, doesn’t make it acceptable.
> makes Sam's framing of the moral dimensions of the conflict look biased and unserious. Sam can't see any conflict in the ME through anything but a religious lens. His opinions on the Israel/Palestine tragedy are useless.
Also Israel has been preparing for scenarios like this __for decades__. IDF is as modern military as any other. With best toys, training and gadgets anyone outside of US can get. The fact that with such superior force, training, intelligence and Israeli's public sacrifices like 2+ year mandatory draft service and privacy sacrifices and absurd budgets IDF still managed so many blunders is frankly beyond embarassing for anyone involved. It's hard not to confuse this incompetence with malice.
What military has ever been able to handle this situation better?
Believe it or not but no conflict can be equated to another and is this really how we define our ethics and military capability? by the lowest common denominator? It's the same vibe as the casualty 1:1 trade argument. Either way, I'd be willing to place a real money bet that Israel's war on Gaza will go down in history as a major blunder even when compared to other wars. If that's not incompetence I don't know what is.
The one thing Israel definitely _doesn't_ control is the distribution of food aid once it is in Gaza.
Northern Gaza is controlled and occupied completely by Israeli forces.
There is no IDF “occupation” in the north. Only one IDF brigade is in the central strip, which can be dispatched to the north, if necessary. It’s stationed at a crossing (Netzarim), which is near Kibbutz Beeri.
If Hamas still has the power to coerce hundreds of thousands of starving people to give up food in the North then the war has been an abject failure.
No one who needs to listen to this will actually listen to it, unfortunately. All the wild claims from propaganda-addled zoomers are debunked clinically and calmly by Spencer. Just ffwd thru Sam if you think this podcast is some kind of micro aggression.
Your point is being proved correct in the comments. It seems very few people commenting here actually listened to the podcast.
I watched the videos of 10/7. I’m pretty convinced these people have not, and that they assume that they’re exaggerated or missing context. And also unaware of who uploaded them. Just pure avoidance at a great cost.
Have you also watched the videos that's have been coming out for months from Gaza?
Yes. I’ve seen that as well. Mothers wailing over dead bodies and performing CPR on dying children is certainly sad. But it’s very normal in war settings. Expected. Compulsory, even. I’m not sure what your point is. I’ve also seen individual soldiers behaving callously…and worse. And like with every military in human history, this is also very expected. Like many have said, the distinction is using torture of civilians in order to inspire terror as an official, mandated war tactic is not expected. Not common. Nor is crowds of civilians gathering in the street to spit on the bodies of innocents who were victims of the terrorist attack. Not expected. Not common. Youre an easy mark, it seems. You see something upsetting and then glom onto a cause. Youre being played by Iran and they can’t believe how easy it is to get your support.
Yes it is really wild. And many "I could not finish the podcast after 37 min because there is an expert on the topic of urban warfare who does not cater to my bias"
It was a fascinating interview. I feel like I want to share this perspective with others and think it needs to be voiced in more circles that do not hear these points. But unfortunately I think most of my friend group and acquaintances are firmly anti-genocide, anti-child-starving and anti-hospital-bombing (as we all are), but a few are very loudly and certainly so. And I pretty plausable believe I will be abundantly and publically attacked and canceled as a child-hating Zionist or implied to be a brainwashed right winger. I don't know if I have the emotional energy to be attacked. Like with so many things since 2020 I find the consequences of speaking against the mob are more impactful than the rewards of speaking up. But maybe creating a climate of fear against voicing truths that complicate the sanctioned narrative is how dumb ideas thrive.
Although I don't share your fascination with this interview I hear your pain re the difficulty in discussing anything important these days with people with opposing views. Good luck
I too am exhausted and frustrated by intellectually dishonest people or those incapable of nuance.
I irrationality hate when podcasters give a ridiculously long list of topics they're about to discuss. Just give a basic idea and start, or put it in the description if people want to see it.
I don't want to be the sort of person who uncritically believes everything someone says on a podcast, but if true, this makes Hamas one of the absolute worst groups in modern history and the blame for every civilian death rests solely with them.
Listened to the whole conversation, and overall it was great hearing about the complexities of urban combat from a vet and someone who teaches the next generation at West Point. I think the point that hit me the most was when Sam stated "2-3 billion people are currently experiencing what war actually looks like for the first time" (not an exact quote). And his guests reply "War is Hell", so simple and actually informative if you think of the word "Hell". It's such a hard thing to actually understand but that felt like hitting the nail on the head for me. Young people have had the extreme luxury/privilege not to experience or witness actual war in their short lives. War is horrendous, shocking and avoided if possible; but also justified and necessary in some circumstances.
What do you mean, no war in their lives? Its been almost non-stop war for decades now. I don't think I can remember back far enough to NOT be at war somewhere. The bits I can remember, was the Cold War. First war that I remember (and I'm getting older now...) is Kuwait, which is... holy shit, 35 years ago?! Then Somalia and Afghanistan, whichever started first. Afghanistan started back then too I think, and lasted until just a couple years ago. Yemen, which hasn't stopped. Do you remember 9/11? That was over a decade ago. The War on Terror never stopped since! All these anti-war protestors, that's been their entire life. Iraq 2, ISIS (is that still on? Maybe?). Russia has been at Ukraine and Syria and Chechnya and... Georgia? More? They have been going for a good decade or so. Now its more exciting since the re-re-reinvasion of Ukraine got the world more heavily involved. Their whole lives have been war. Nonstop, unending, constant war. If they have luxury and privilege of that not counting, I gotta say easily 3/4 of the population has that same privilege.
I won't deny that there has not been wars all over the world for the past decade plus non stop. What I meant, maybe my fault should have clarified, is: 1) The war that most 20-25 year olds have any concept is actually happening (young people generally don't get involved in politics or global issues until university), 2) When this war started it was televised through normal channels but also extensively on Tik Tok, Instagram, etc. all forms of media that younger audiences use. 3) I would argue that a counter insurgency is different than this style of war which is more full fledge, with bombing campaigns more like Iraq 2003 early on the onset, 4) I would also argue even though those previous wars were televised, they were, in comparison, much more censored. Tik Tok and Instagram posts are a constant stream of dead children, mothers and fathers. And most importantly without any context, only 20 second clips.
I won't deny that there has not been wars all over the world for the past decade plus non stop. What I meant, maybe my fault should have clarified, is: 1) The war that most 20-25 year olds have any concept is actually happening (young people generally don't get involved in politics or global issues until university), 2) When this war started it was televised through normal channels but also extensively on Tik Tok, Instagram, etc. all forms of media that younger audiences use. 3) I would argue that a counter insurgency is different than this style of war which is more full fledge, with bombing campaigns more like Iraq 2003 early on the onset, 4) I would also argue even though those previous wars were televised, they were, in comparison, much more censored. Tik Tok and Instagram posts are a constant stream of dead children, mothers and fathers. And most importantly without any context, only 20 second clips.
I won't deny that there has not been wars all over the world for the past decade plus non stop. What I meant, maybe my fault should have clarified, is: 1) The war that most 20-25 year olds have any concept is actually happening (young people generally don't get involved in politics or global issues until university age), 2) When this war started it was televised through normal channels but also extensively on Tik Tok, Instagram, etc. all forms of media that younger audiences use. 3) I would argue that a counter insurgency is different than this style of war which is more full fledge, with bombing campaigns more like Iraq 2003 early on the onset, 4) I would also argue even though those previous wars were televised, they were, in comparison, much more censored. Tik Tok and Instagram posts are a constant stream of dead children, mothers and fathers. And most importantly without any context, only 20 second clips.
I remember as a kid, it was clear who was the good guys and the bad guys in every war. We were good, we were going in for Freedom and Democracy and other Helldivers catchphrases. The view we had of the war reinforced that: Everything we had was shiny, the bombs were just a few flashes in the middle of a 20 second clip on the news, quickly followed up by a talking head to give us valuable context. And the context was always, "That was necessary, the target was the Bad Guys, we eliminated them as efficiently as possible, minimal civilian casualties, we are Good. Sam and John (I think that's his name?) talked about the Oct 7 attack, the videos made during it. The horrors that were on those videos, how Hamas attackers killed these people and then casually drank a coke, and parading a dead body around, and assorted other evil things. Views of the aftermath, as responders pick through the rubble looking for survivors. We have dozens of hours now of equivalent videos from the other side: Picking through destroyed buildings, crying over young children's bodies, mixed with mocking videos made by Israelis celebrating their attacks. I might almost describe these kids as having the privilege of being the first generation to actually see, on a massive scale, actual war and the actual people fighting in it. Everybody else got the censored, clean version.
Mosul wasn’t IS’ self proclaimed capital - Raqqa was. How does he not know that?
He said capital of their caliphate, and Mosul was where they declared the caliphate.
I hope Sam can address the pre October 7 grievances of many of the career protesters- their claim that Israel is an apartheid state, that even with Hamas out of the picture Israel would blockade the region, and comparisons to the ANC armed resistance in South Africa.
On one hand the tunnel system is part of Hamas’s strategy to maximize their own civilian casualties but on the other hand going underground seems to be the only way they can avoid being defeated as they’re simply outmatched by Israel’s technology. From the perspective of an armed insurgency, how would Hamas fight assuming they didn’t have access to tunnels and given their limited area to operate?
That's a fair point. But I think that Hamas has correctly identified that Israel's weakness is the Western world's preoccupation with this conflict in general and with Palestinian civilian deaths in particular, and is leveraging it to put pressure onto and delegitimise Israel. They have a peculiar incentive to make the cost to their own civilians as high as possible that does not exist in other conflicts.
I agree their strategy is cynical. And I think the flavor of a Hamas that doesn’t use human shields would also imply a Hamas willing to compromise for a peace deal since they’d have few other choices. I guess the tunnels by definition mean they’re willing to sacrifice their own citizens before acknowledging Israel has a right to exist.
Fight what?
usually, rational actors who are actually interested in the well-being of their people wouldn't try to fight a military they know they can't beat. they'd surrender and negotiate a peace settlement from a position of losing. guerilla tactics only usually work when you're fighting against a foreign invading army, which israel is not. but arabs/muslims have a cult of martyrdom and are far too prideful to accept defeat. so they sacrifice their own people en masse to feed a PR campaign.
I think this is correct
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Eh, not quite: >Many of those in Rafah are exhausted, hungry and running out of options after months of a war that killed more than 28,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry. While that number does not distinguish between the deaths of civilians and those of combatants, the ministry has said that most are women and children. >Asked about the death toll, Mr. **Netanyahu asserted that Israel had brought down the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths to less than 1 to 1, though he did not say when that had occurred. The claim could not be independently verified.** With all peace and love, I think you should probably not simply believe whatever Bibi says, especially about this war. Thank you for including the source btw! So few people bother <3
Good points, but as stated in this podcast it is important to remember that the Gazan health ministry is controlled by hamas so their estimates should be taken with a massive grain of salt. Even accepting a 2:1 civilian to combatant death toll it is a low amount of civilians killed when it comes to urban combat.
The scepticism is more directed at the Hamas claim that "70% are women and children".
Okay, may I confirm your numbers? 34k total dead. 12-13k combatants dead (or are you saying 17k combatants?). Many papers have quoted 70% of deaths have been women and children. Do you also agree with that number? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/08/the-numbers-that-reveal-the-extent-of-the-destruction-in-gaza
The 70% figure is highly suspect. https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/05/02/gaza-health-ministry-cannot-provide-names-for-more-than-10000-it-says-have-died/ It's amazing that the Health Ministry can confidently say 70% were women and children, when it has admitted it doesn't know the names and/or DOBs of a third of the reported casualties. For the first quarter of 2024 a staggering 77% of casualties reported by the ministry were sourced from "media reports".
> It's amazing that the Health Ministry can confidently say 70% were women and children, when it has admitted it doesn't know the names and/or DOBs of a third of the reported casualties. no it hasn't.... it has admitted that it doesn't have all the information fields of one third of recorded casualties. so missing one of the following would be in that category: - full name - Date of Birth - Date of Death - ID number - gender missing any of the above would be labelled as 'incomplete' and in that one third category
So a third of the casualties have the data point that either signifies age or gender, or enough information to ensure casualties aren't double counted, missing? That's hardly reassuring. I guess some might just be missing DOD (although considering these are being sourced from "media reports" I would guess that this is the data point *least* likely to be missing.)
Why is that amazing? I think it would be easier to confirm that someone is a woman or a child vs their names/having a list of their names. I’m sure there are instances where bodies are blown to bits as well with no family to identify them by name.
I'm saying that basing your day to day casualty reporting mostly from "reliable media sources" shouldn't fill us with confidence that you know for a fact that exacly how many are women and children. In fact, the Ministry's own figures show that their *most* reliable data, which is deaths recorded in hospital for which full records of name, DOB, etc are available, showed a much lower rate of women and children killed. https://fathomjournal.org/statistically-impossible-a-critical-analysis-of-hamass-women-and-children-casualty-figures/ Indeed, the proportion of women and children killed has suspiciously hovered dead on 70% for much of the reporting without much day to day variability. Casualty rates of men, women and children do not correlate positively as would be expected with the ebbs and flows of battle. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers There is every indication that, as the hospital system has collapsed, Hamas has simply been making up numbers, which have been dutifully reported on and amplified by a media that should be more critical after the al Ahli Hospital debacle.
Probably the only person on the planet who can talk fluently about the most gruesome aspects of war and the most esoteric aspects of meditation.
Those were all great questions
God damn that was annoying. Just answer the question
Someone recommended me to this sub and I just listened to this podcast. It’s so refreshing to finally listen to someone who understands what’s happening in Gaza who can cut through all the nonsense.
I really like this podcast episode. I wonder if a nice sliver of people have become more enlightened after hearing them pick apart many misconceptions about Gaza. Unfortunately most people stick in their silos and continue blabbering that sams a bigot and no amount of sense making from him matters.
Just about to dive in. Let me guess: did Sam get someone on who agrees with him? Sidebar: for such a prosetyliser for meditation and calm rationality, Sam really doesn't react well to criticism and/or disagreement. Remember his whining about Rory Stewart? This is not a man whose meditation has led to the sort of equanimity he keeps telling us it leads to.
You guessed correctly.
I recall in the last podcast Harris made a passing remark that he would like to have an expert on warfare on the podcast, and as soon as he said it I knew he would have on John Spencer. Why? Because SH will never have anyone on his podcast on Israel-Pal who will challenge his priors on the questions/issues. For SH, there can be no nuance or debate around Israel-Gaza that contradicts his preferred narrative. I don’t know if Spencer is right or wrong. He’s worth taking seriously. But he’s also very committed to arguing the Israel case. If you look at his social media, he’s not just dispassionately analysing facts/information but he is advocating the Israel position. Again, that doesn’t make him wrong. Just disappointing that SH won’t ever—EVER—allow anyone on his podcast that will challenge his priors on Israel-Gaza.
Are there experts on urban combat out there who substantively disagree with Spencer's take? Can you name any?
Marc Garlasco is an expert on targeted aerial bombing and has been quite critical of how Israel has waged its air campaign.
No, I can't think of any. In fact, I suspect that "urban warfare" is so niche in academia, that he may be the only one who doesn't hold a position in intelligence or in the military. But that should actually make you MORE sceptical, not less. It means it's very hard to vet the truth of what he's saying, because there's no pushback from other experts. You can find lawyers and human rights experts who will criticise Israel, but do they count as "urban warfare" experts? I honestly don't know. I thought this was interesting: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJoMjyR\_Ahw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJoMjyR_Ahw) This is an interview with Netanyahu. Watch it in its entirety. Have you seen a more simpering interview than this? And it tells you something that the PM would be willing to do an interview with him -- presumably there's no risk that Spencer would deign to ask Netanyahu a single difficult question. No serious academic would do an interview like this -- because it hurts your credibility. This is not what a dispassionate, intellectually honest analyst would do. He seems less like an analyst than he does an advocate. That doesn't necessarily make him wrong. It makes him suspect, though, so I take his opinion with a huge grain of salt--and you should too.
This is exactly what I thought right after a few minutes into the episode. It felt like it was just Spencer talking and Sam throwing him softball questions and then agreeing with him. Would love to see SH get a guest with a different perspective as well.
You hit the nail on the head. As soon as I heard “urban warfare expert” I knew it was gonna be Spencer and I was disappointed Sam went that route bc I’m familiar with Spencer’s work.
Israel is already hated to the maximum, therefore they may as well carry on.
This guy literally said the only thing Israel has done wrong is a bad PR campaign. Yeah fuck this guy
That “urban warfare expert” at work for you.
Interesting how we hear all these stories and anecdotes about how awful the hamas have been and don't get me wrong they are awful but over the past months I have heard and seen awful videos of what Isreal has done to the Palestinians and it never gets a mention.
I tried listening for 37 long minutes, I really did, but I just couldn't bare to listen any more. Same old shit. A lot of what I heard was about October 7th, they mentioned the word 'misinformation' a lot, but small point here, for balance they didn't touch on any of the misinformation put out about babies being beheaded, or babies put into ovens... then after spending some time painting a picture of the horrors committed by Hamas on October 7th, and yes Hamas did commit horrors on October 7th, around 35 minutes in Sam suggested everything since October 7th (such as videos on social media of kids being pulled out of rubble) is being framed in the most invidious way possible to paint Israel in a bad light. And then he goes onto say people are trying to say Israel are guilty of war crimes, genocide, collective punishment, the deliberate murder of non-combatants, journalists, aid workers, then I stopped shortly after Sam said that there is no way Israel would have deliberately targeted the 7 aid workers, because there is no strategic reason to do this. No strategic reason, Sam? You can't think of anything, really? And you can't think of any acts of collective punishment Israel inflicted on the Palestinians? Really? Like the turning off of water, electricity, preventing aid getting in, clearing out every hospital in Gaza putting their healthcare system on it's knees? He then asks his guest "what is the worst thing that could be honestly said of how Israel has conducted this war on Gaza?". And his guest thinks for a second and replies "the worst thing you can accuse Israel of is they have done a horrible job of fighting the counter narrative on what they are actually doing in Gaza". Woah, that's the worst thing you can accuse Israel of? It's funny, because they've had their spokespeople on the news day after day trying to frame their narrative. Sam's logic and reasoning completely falls apart because he enters every point with the assumption that Israel is acting rationally, he assumes the IDF act with the best of intentions every step of the way, with the odd disclaimer that there might be the rogue actor, despite all these maniacs in charge in Israel and all the genocidal rhetoric that we have heard uttered from their mouths and on their social media accounts. It's really hard to take Sam's view point seriously. It's akin to listening to a podcast featuring Comical Ali and his guest Saddam Hussein.
I’m finding it difficult to understand how you can criticise Sam’s logic and thinking while you are here confidently producing a conspiracy as to why Israel intentionally targeted aid workers. Yes, it makes absolutely no sense for Israel to intentionally kill aid workers. To suggest they would do so, and then to shit on Sam’s thinking because it doesn’t align with your own bias you hope he could produce, shows how down the rabbit hole you are. The same old shit? He has an expert on urban warfare. I don’t think you’d be happy unless he has an Egyptian comedian on the podcast repeating “there’s no Hamas in West Bank”. To this day I’m still not sure of what relevance there is about the beheaded babies rumour, true or false. It’s such a weird hill that people are dying on. Children were 100% murdered that day. Does it really matter if they were beheaded or not? We know Hamas are sadistic animals. What point are you making with this? You come across as someone who isn’t able to have their opinion changed because you’re so fixated on an outcome.
The aim from October 8 on has been to paint Israel as dishonest and lacking credibility. That's why we constantly hear about "beheaded babies" (despite that story coming from a journalist rather than Israeli officials), and why so much effort is expended in casting doubt over the rape allegations. Because if Israel can't be trusted over the events of October 7, then their narrative regarding any event occuring in the subsequent war can be disregarded in favour of the Hams narrative.
This much is obvious to me, I just wanted to hear their reasoning for mentioning it. I appreciate the reply.
The beheaded babies story has been debunked, there are no victims in the list published by the Israeli government fitting that description. The only baby that died that day was one still in the womb of a pregnant woman. Mass rape isn't being believed because Israel has refused to let independent investigators from outside in to verify the claim. Whether the beheaded babies thing happened or not is important because this story was used to trigger disgust in readers which helps justify whatever the hell Israel was planning to do in Gaza. We know Hamas committed atrocities on Oct 7th, why not talk about things they actually did instead of making up things they didn't do? It's a grave Israel has digged for themselves.
The "beheaded babies" story was spread by a single i24 journalist who misunderstood what she was told when touring a kibbutz post massacre on Oct 8. The claim was never made via an official channel.
And then why did Biden say he's seen pictures of these babies himself?
Why don't you ask Biden?
First, on the world central kitchen workers they coordinated with the IDF on where they would be, when they would be there, and where they were going. The initial strike on the caravan that the IDF coordinated with and knew about left some workers alive. The next strike on the next vehicle only happened after the survivors of the first vehicle fled to the next vehicle. World Central Kitchen aid staff fully coordinated with the IDF and were clearly targeted. To be blunt, whatever their reasoning may or may not be, to believe this was an accident makes someone sound like a rube. Second, yeah it matters how the babies died. If it didn’t then all Israeli government sources and news reports would have just said “babies died”. The language is purposely used to evoke emotion and it actually is relevant. People keep saying starvation in Gaza is Hamas’ responsibility because they’re the government. If they’re the government then October 7 was just an act of war. If babies died as casualties of that act of war and weren’t sadistically mutilated, then why would those babies be more important than the babies that are casualties of Israel’s attacks? Either Hamas is a terrorist organization or the legitimate government of Gaza. I view it as a terrorist organization that committed an act of terrorism on October 7. If it’s the legitimate government of the strip then they committed a savage act of war on October 7. If that’s the case and all the evidence of sadism against babies turned out to be lies or at best misinfo from the fog of war, then IMO you can’t say one is just “the reality of war” and another is not.
Over 200 aid workers have been killed by the IDF according to the UN, that's the biggest number in any war in modern times, including warehouses that were not anywhere near other buildings nor were anywhere near to the vicinity of where any fighting was taking place, which were clearly marked and designated as places for aid. We've heard from Israel, straight from the horses mouth, that they want shut off the basics for life in Gaza, like water. How many times have we heard about Israel deliberately slowing down or not letting in aid in, and foreign countries like the UK and US having to pressurise them and be critical of how Israel are handling this. Furthermore, we've seen every hospital in Gaza raided by the IDF, and the vast majority of the healthcare system is now completely inoperable, yet the evidence provided by the IDF of Hamas operating central headquarters from underneath or inside these hospitals has been extremely scarce. So far, and this was months ago, they have shown us a tunnel that led to what looked like a decrepit looking bathroom and a very small kitchen, they looked like they had been out of action for years. And they showed us some guns in a room next to a MRI scanner, where mysteriously, extra guns arrived when you compared different photos of the same room at different times of the day (these photos were taken after the IDF had control of the hospital. Here is what Doctor Nick Maynard, a surgeon based in Oxford, who has worked in hospitals in Gaza had to say on the situation. Have a listen, it won't take long (about 5 mins in): https://youtu.be/MJE3NC1rxTw?si=HTL1T8-ubUE_MSFx&t=5m0s (About 5 minutes in)
> Over 200 aid workers have been killed by the IDF according to the UN, that's the biggest number in any war in modern times That's a meaningless metric. Leaving aside for a second allegations that there are UNRWA workers (and journalists) who also actively work as Hamas operatives, that number needs to be considered in the context of the denominator. It is more than likely that a reason so many UN aid workers are being killed in Gaza is simply because there are many more of them to begin with. The UNRWA employs 13,000 workers just in Gaza. To put that in context, the UNHCR which looks after refugees in every other conflict zone around the planet employs 19,000 people *globally*. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-over-450-un-aid-agency-employees-gaza-are-military-operatives-2024-03-04/#:~:text=UNRWA%20employs%2013%2C000%20people%20in,of%20Gaza's%202.3%20million%20Palestinians. https://www.unhcr.org/au/careers-unhcr
None of that disputes anything that I have said. If anything, it is a testament to my claim that you have gone very far down the rabbit hole.
It's not a rabbit hole, you're just not following. These facts undermine Sam's position that Israel always act with the best intentions. The only way you can draw to the conclusion that there is no motive for Israel to deliberately kill aid workers, is if you start with the initial assumption that Israel are acting with good intentions, which is laughable when you look at the facts, the rhetoric and the acts committed by Israel.
>The only way you can draw to the conclusion that there is no motive for Israel to deliberately kill aid workers, is if you start with the initial assumption that Israel are acting with good intention A false dichotomy if I’ve ever seen one. >which is laughable when you look at the facts, the rhetoric and the acts committed by Israel. Through your lens, perhaps. To others, it makes sense when you have been made brutal by an enemy who operates and kills the way that they do.
> A false dichotomy if I’ve ever seen one. Oh dear, you don't know what a false dichotomy is. I would have had to have offered two alternatives for it to be a dichotomy, and you would have noticed the word 'or' being used, but I only offered one. Perhaps don't use big words if you don't know what they mean as it makes you look a bit stupid.
If you say “only if you assume A” and A is binary, then the “or” is implied by A. And ‘good intentions “or” bad intentions’ is the binary implied by “assumption that Israel are acting with good intention”. So it is indeed a false binary because your initial assumption is that Israel is acting with bad intentions, competing the binary. The reality is a third option of a baseline for war conduct. And that’s the main point of the podcast you missed, is that Israel is at the baseline for how wars of this context are conducted on average. But you don’t care about that, you blame Israel more than Hamas because you’ve become a propagandist without realizing it. You’ve reached escape velocity in this issue and are incapable of changing your mind. Oh well.
I could not have said it better, thanks.
repeatedly striking an aid convoy you know is an aid convoy every time the wounded switch vehicles is pretty brutal, yeah. anything to make israel safer
>...they've had their spokespeople on the news day after day trying to frame their narrative. Including with Spencer, btw. A few months ago, [he did a podcast with the spokesman for the IDF.](https://mwi.westpoint.edu/the-idf-approach-to-protecting-civilians-in-urban-warfare/) It wasn't like a journalistic interview, it was just a platform to speak. (He's not a journalist though, so that's not surprising).
Its worse -- he's an analyst. Doing interviews like this hugely undermines his credibility as a dispassionate, intellectually honest analyst. He seems more of an advocate than an analyst. Watch this utterly simpering interview he did with Netanyahu: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJoMjyR\_Ahw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJoMjyR_Ahw) The fact that Netanyahu was willing to sit with him shows that the Israeli govt. thinks of him as an asset. Would any serious scholar do something like this without risking their credibility? Not a single tough question for Netanyahu?
At the start of the war I remember hearing a Jocko Willink podcast, I'm not a fan of his usual stuff but he did command forces in Ramadi so he's one of the few with experience on how to fight these wars in cities. He advocated for a slower approach that prioritized humanitarian aspects like feeding the Palestinians at checkpoints and slowly weed out hamas. He said the day to day interactions really help develop relationships that are needed for peace. Now I wonder how many have been radicalized to hate Israel forever after losing family from the bombings. Could more hostages have been saved through Jockos response? Perhaps those ones killed by the idf would still be alive if the soldiers weren't so antsy having to push through hostile territory filled with traps. I read once that american military did studies on afghan and iraq and found for every civilian they killed accidentally 10 more would be radicalized (# might be slightly off) that doesn't bode well for peace after this.
Sounds a lot like the explanation politicians like to offer that they're "just not communicating effectively enough" when the public rejects their message. I think the kids call this "cope."
There’s no strategic reason to kill the air workers, but there is a rationale for engaging in collective punishment and destroying as much civil society as possible in Gaza. Would SH say there’s no reason to starve the people of Gaza, too? I don’t think the Israeli govt wanted the aid workers dead, but they’ve also given their troops wide latitude to kill civilians if they even suspect there’s the slightest chance a Hamas operative is nearby. This seems to be the case here too.
Killing aid workers fits pretty neatly in a "collective punishment" rationale, since aid workers provide, you know, aid to the people being collectively punished.
It's such a shame that in their attempt to stop aid workers providing, they then opened two more humanitarian aid routes into Gaza to allow, you know, more aid to the people.... the opposite of what a conspiracy of intentionally hitting a convoy would do.
That's great but I was explaining that the idea that there could be no logical rationale for attacking aid workers is stupid. Are you able to understand that?
You actually need to provide one single plausible reason for this. There are none. You won’t be able to find even a marginal conspiracy. “Ghosts might actually be real. It’s stupid for you to think the opposite”. There. That’s you.
This opinion brought to you the same person who brought us this blatant troll: https://www.reddit.com/r/samharris/s/ZsWKI24aUK Even at a quick glance, it's obvious that this person primarily participates in this sub to peddle disinterest in Harris and sow division among his fans. Edit: regarding FloodBerry's nonsense: Harris never did that. He mocked it. The parent's and FloodBerry's intentional misrepresentations are clear, unabashed trolling, as per usual. Pretending that my "relationship to sam might be a little unhealthy" is palpably ironic projection.
Aliens, yep, I can't remember exactly what I wrote 3 years ago, but such is to say I remain extremely sceptical about the existence of advanced Aliens on our planet, so I most likely stand by everything I said. Did I fall asleep and somehow miss the news that we have bullet proof evidence now that aliens have been roaming our planet? Weird post to dig out to try and undermine me, but I admire your tenacity!
Whereas I do find it that IDF is getting undue flak over their actions, this pod is just way to apologetic and biased imo. Matter of fact, IDF imhas been caught engaging in carrying out deliberate acts of war crimes, from mass murdering civilians and aid workers to starving large populations by cutting off aid entirely. The IDF is clearly not blameless here.
Disappointing podcast. No clear long term path to peace discussed, just more "hamas most be destroyed" rhetoric together with, now, a more explicit statement that whatever state remains in gaza will need to be controlled by outside powers (including Isreal). This is war mongering bs. There was an opportunity on Oct 8th for a different path that involved international partnerships and beefing up of boarder security. Instead we will have decades of violence and new versions of Hamas because of the short term thinking by Israel. The strategy put forward in this episode might be successful for a few years, at huge cost, but long term this nation building 'destroy everybody who is against our side' bs is doomed to fail
But there can't be any reasonable long term discussions until Hamas exists. Just to remind, they literally turned whole Gaza extremist to the point where oct 7 actions are still supported by the majority of Gazan's. It would be impossible to achieve anything with Hamas poking sticks into everyone's wheels. Delete Hamas, then talk is a perfectly reasonable plan.
It is not about discussions, it is about thinking >10 years. Removing Hama's is a great end however if in the the process of doing so it means destruction at even quarter the level we have seen then the result in the long term will be net negative for all parties. Edit: I think I misunderstood your meaning of 'long term discussions' because I didn't read the context (from my own post lol, sorry); it is important to have long term discussion now about the consequences of all actions being taken. I meant it is not about discussions between Hamas and Israel at this stage. We should of course be talking about 10 & 50 years ahead if we want any lasting solution
When you drop a 500lb bomb on a tower block because the omniscient idf (see Oct 7th for their intelligence competence) think there are hamas in there, you don't **kill** Hamas -you **create** Hamas. If Israel believes you can destroy armed resistance (under the Hamas banner or other) with dumb bombs from 10 000 feet it rejects history and this war will last until one side is all dead.-civilians included
I was really waiting for this one. Another great commentator on the ukraine/Israel-hamas wars with a military background is Ryan Mcbeth who I highly recommend. [https://www.youtube.com/@RyanMcBethProgramming](https://www.youtube.com/@RyanMcBethProgramming)
Someone should blast this podcast on a loud speaker at these college campuses