At the outset of his recent article, Sam Harris explains that he considers “Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, the IRGC” to be “worse than Nazis.”
This is noteworthy. Over the last 25 years, these groups have killed a total of maybe several hundred thousand people. By contrast, the Nazis killed 30 million people during World War II, including six million Jews. In Iran, there is a small but active Jewish community, which the IRGC has not attempted to exterminate. By contrast, the Nazis attempted to exterminate most or all Jews in the lands they occupied.
Also, lumping the groups together makes little sense. Hezbollah and the IRGC fought against al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. (Meanwhile, former National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan described al-Qaeda as being “on our side in Syria.”) And al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have killed far more people in terror attacks than Hamas, Hezbollah, or other Iran-backed groups.
Putting all that aside, Harris goes on to say that his “views about the conflict in the Middle East will not fundamentally change unless my critics produce evidence that Israel has become as evil as her enemies.” Given how evil Harris regards Hamas as being, he would presumably consider any outside organization that sought to prop them up as being similarly evil.
We know that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government did precisely this – as numerous quotations from public officials attest. In fact, Netanyahu reportedly sent Mossad chief Yossi Cohen to “beg the Qataris to keep funneling money into Hamas.” His explicit aim was that of dividing the Palestinians and preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state. In other words, Israel’s government sought to keep an organization that is “worse than Nazis” in power to achieve the cynical aim of dividing the Palestinians.
Suppose we accept that Hamas is evil. Is it not also evil to prop them up for cynical reasons, knowing they could attack at any time, and then, when they do attack, launch a bombing campaign that kills tens of thousands of innocent people?
Harris might decline to answer. After all, he’s “not interested in exploring all the ways that Israel has missed the mark” because “the ethical difference between Israel and her enemies remains vast.” As evidence for the latter claim, he lists various heinous things that Palestinians have done.
However, a similar list of heinous things done by Israelis could be compiled, which is why Harris’s critics would obviously reject any claim of a “vast” ethical difference between Israelis and Palestinians. In any case, the question of which side is more ethical in some overall sense is less important than whether specific policies are ethical. Is Israel’s denial of political rights to Palestinians in the West Bank ethical? Is the bombing of suspected militants while they’re at home with their families ethical?
Harris concedes that “Israel has its religious fanatics too” but maintains “they aren’t the same sort of fanatics we find in Hamas or Hezbollah.” He is presumably aware of all the incendiary statements from Israeli politicians and public commentators concerning what should be done – not just to Hamas but to the people of Gaza. It is unclear why these individuals should be regarded as different from “the sort of fanatics we find in Hamas or Hezbollah.” No reason is given.
Harris places “militant Islam” at the root of the conflict, declaring that “I think militant Islam is ten times worse than you think it is.” Yet he omits that for much of the conflict’s history the Palestinians were represented by the PLO, a secular nationalist organization. (Hamas wasn’t even founded until 1987.) “The problem” is surely a fundamental disagreement over land, not one particular ideology that has become prominent since the late ‘80s.
As an aside, Israel supported Islamists in Gaza as a counterweight to the PLO, leading the historian Avner Cohen to describe Hamas as “Israel’s creation.”
Harris proceeds to argue that “if the Palestinians laid down their arms, there would be peace.” As many pro-Palestine commentators have noted, there is a clear test case of this prediction, namely the West Bank. Here, the Palestinian Authority rules in coordination with Israel. There are a few tunnels, rockets, or armed militants.
So, is there peace? Not for the Palestinians. Israeli settlers terrorize them with impunity. And they face numerous controls, checkpoints, and other indignities in their daily lives. It is very far from the “diverse, tolerant, and prosperous society” that Harris envisions for such circumstances.
To his credit, Harris acknowledges the “many crimes committed by settlers in the West Bank.” Yet he can’t see how anyone would disagree that this is all the Palestinians’ fault for not laying down their arms.
Harris also acknowledges that “the suffering in Gaza is terrible.” However, he suggests the attention it receives is out of proportion with its severity when compared to other conflicts around the world. As an example, he cites the war in Yemen in which 377,000 people may have died. He further notes that, like in Gaza, the US supplied arms to some of the belligerents (Saudi Arabia and the UAE).
A case can certainly be made that the war in Yemen should have received more attention. However, the comparison with Gaza is incomplete. The figure of 377,000 deaths in Yemen comes from a UN study that estimated, for the period 2015–2021, the number of deaths that occurred given the war as well as the number that would have occurred in the war’s absence. It is therefore similar to an estimate of excess deaths.
To make such estimates comparable across times and places, they are typically expressed as a percentage of the expected deaths – that is, of the number that would have occurred in the war’s absence. In the case of Yemen, this comes out as 43%.
In the case of Gaza, the corresponding figure for the first year of the war is over 600%. The reason this is so much larger than the figure for Yemen is that there were only 6,454 deaths in Gaza the year before the war, owing to the enclave’s small population and comparatively low pre-war mortality (thanks to the efforts of UNRWA). So in terms of excess mortality, the war in Gaza is far worse.
Referring to Israel, Harris claims, “There is only one nation on Earth that must continually argue for its right to exist.” This is remarkably obtuse. While some commentators do dispute Israel’s “right to exist” and many regional countries do not grant it full recognition, Israel does in fact exist as a state. By contrast, Palestine does not exist as a fully fledged state – largely because of the actions of the US and Israeli governments.
So on the one hand, we have a state whose “right to exist” is disputed by some people. And on the other hand, we have a non-state being prevented from existing by the very state Harris claims is the only one on Earth “that must continually argue for its right to exist.”
Noah Carl is Editor at Aporia Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter @NoahCarl90.
