That you took the time to write this moving and simple piece is commendable. It says in a few words all that is wrong with the way the vast majority of people, Israelis included, continue to discuss and shape the way Israel and its conundrum with the Palestinians so unworthy of that name are handled. You may as well be talking about the American White House, the Israeli government, the anti-Israel marchers across Europe, the elites and the street, as you are about this unfortunate woman and her unfortunate son. The heart weeps at the idiocy and turpitude, even though you say simply look at what they believe. Verily, it is almost beyond words. Indeed, it is beyond words.
Must also be a strong element of low self-esteem there. Imagine how little you must value your life, to consider that it's ok for a barbarous punk to massacre you because something something cycle of violence.
Hard to get your head around this. Is it just utter desperation to stay in with ‘The Community of the Good’ as David Hirsh outlines in his book ‘Contemporary Left Antisemitism’?
Yes, I agree. It is hard to get your head around it. There is certainly an element of tribalism here.
But I think the deeper issue is epistemological. Tribalism is, in a sense, downstream from a more fundamental problem: if there is no objective standard by which one can know what is true or false, then something else has to take its place.
In many of these doctrines, reality is displaced by “narratives,” perspectives, identities, or whichever interpretive framework is currently dominant. Once objective truth is surrendered, where does epistemic authority come from? Very often, from the collective, from the people and institutions regarded as belonging to the morally enlightened tribe.
So yes, the “Community of the Good” may describe an important part of the phenomenon. But I think the deeper question is why membership in such a community can acquire that kind of authority in the first place. My answer is that the fundamental problem begins with giving up reality as the standard of truth.
Within a few days of Oct 7 I was reading profiles of some of the victims. One guy at the Nova festival described himself on social media as a profesional peace advocate. OK, fine. But I couldn’t help but wonder if his last thought was “why didn’t they check my socials”? Same question for Vivian Singer, and probably her son on her behalf that day. These people will stay delusional til the bitter end.
I have sympathy for him simply because his mother died and I know how that feels, but he needs to wake the fuck up.
John Stuart Mill said that when it seems people’s deep-seated beliefs are apparently disproved by events, they do not give them up because they assume there are deeper reasons for holding onto them. It’s why gamblers can’t be dislodged from a casino and why investors who lose to con artists double down, because they can’t get out of the fixed behavior. For him to admit his mom was proven mistaken would require a deeper act of change than he can accomplish: she had to be right
Excellent write-up, Yonatan, as usual. It is the ideas - in this case the egalitarian case he makes for "both sides" and the appeasement case he makes for another Palestian state, but I think the primary idea leans toward psychological. Zeigen has chosen to evade judgment. This is the root of evil.
I grew up in Winnipeg. I still live there, but am working to move my family away. These ideas are a deep part of what this Canadian city believes in. An anti-life ideology that is deeply rooted in the culture. It is no coincidence.
That you took the time to write this moving and simple piece is commendable. It says in a few words all that is wrong with the way the vast majority of people, Israelis included, continue to discuss and shape the way Israel and its conundrum with the Palestinians so unworthy of that name are handled. You may as well be talking about the American White House, the Israeli government, the anti-Israel marchers across Europe, the elites and the street, as you are about this unfortunate woman and her unfortunate son. The heart weeps at the idiocy and turpitude, even though you say simply look at what they believe. Verily, it is almost beyond words. Indeed, it is beyond words.
The violence that occurred on Kibbutz Be’eri on 7th October 2023 was terrible, but it really doesn't tell us anything at all about what we should think about the wider issue. All of that understanding comes from our pre-existing understanding and assumptions.
I am British and lived through much of the period of "the troubles." The Irish Republican Army (IRA) carried out various assassinations and bombings in pursuit of their goal of a united Ireland, during that time. Their bombing campaign was also a response to the discrimination against Catholics in Northern Ireland. The oppression of Palestinians and the denials of their basic human rights is many, many times worse than the very worst that the British were doing to Catholics in Northern Ireland at that time, and yet there was a widespread understanding that the actions of the IRA was a response to a political situation that they were unhappy about, and not just irrational violence.
I cannot view this article as anything other than political propaganda. Superficially you are pretending to try to write an insightful article about Vivian Silver, but you are really just using this to try to provide cover for a deeply flawed narrative about Israel/Palestine/Gaza which are pushed upon the reader as accepted truths about which we shouldn't even think to question. The purpose of the entire article is to rationalise a pre-determined political position.
However, I don't necessarily agree with Vivian Silver that the solution is a Palestinian state. I think that the best solution is equal rights for everyone from the river to the sea. Israel can continue to control all of the borders if it wishes, and there would be no distinct Palestinian army or police force, but the discrimination should end and Palestinians should have the same rights as Israelis - the same solution we came to in Northern Ireland. That doesn't seem very realistic right now, but it would be the least bad option in the circumstances.
I think you are responding here to an argument I did not make. A central part of my essay explicitly agrees that October 7 “did not happen in a vacuum” and then asks what that wider context actually was. I discuss Hamas’s rule of Gaza since 2007, its stated ideology, Israel’s 2005 withdrawal, its subsequent military build-up, and the political ideas through which Yonatan Zeigen interprets all of this.
So I certainly do not argue that the massacre at Be’eri, viewed in isolation, settles the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. My argument is precisely about how we identify and interpret the relevant context.
That is also why I find the accusation that the essay is “political propaganda” and pushes a “deeply flawed narrative” frustrating. Those are very serious accusations, but you do not identify which factual claims in the essay are false or which part of my reasoning fails. I am genuinely open to either criticism. If I have made a factual mistake, please point it out and I will correct it.
But I do not accept “narrative” as a substitute for engaging with the facts. I argue that after Israel withdrew its communities and permanent military presence from Gaza in 2005, Gaza functioned as an independent Palestinian state governed by Palestinians; that Hamas took control there; that Hamas’s ideology openly calls for Israel’s destruction; that it built its military power in Gaza; and that October 7 was launched from that territory. These are claims about reality. If you think one of them is false, tell me which one and why.
The IRA analogy does not answer those claims. Saying that violence can arise within a political context is obviously true, I explicitly say so in the essay. The question is what the relevant causes are, who bears moral responsibility for particular acts, and whether the political explanation being offered actually corresponds to the history. Those questions cannot be answered by saying “there was oppression” and moving on.
Your own proposal is actually closer to something I can agree with in principle: every individual should possess equal individual rights, regardless of ethnicity or nationality, and those who violate the rights of others should be punished according to law. Where we disagree is over the factual and political conditions required to make such a society possible.
I do not think the fundamental problem is that Palestinians have been denied some sufficient quantity of concessions by Israel. I think the much deeper problem is a political culture and political movements that reject individual rights themselves. That is precisely why Hamas’s ideas matter.
So I am very happy to debate the argument. I am even happier to correct factual errors if you can identify them. But simply calling the essay “propaganda” does not do either.
Hi Yonatan, and thank you for your very reasonable response. I believe that you are very misguided in terms of what you believe, but you are still being reasonable within the constraints of what you believe to be the case.
I will do my best to address your points, but please don't rely upon me alone if you want to get a broader perspective that will allow you to examine your assumptions. Look to informative sources beyond the mainstream and Israel-critical commentators. +972 Magazine is one such resources and is incredibly informative. It is written by both Israelis and Palestinians. You might also like to consider subscribing to Peter Beinart on Substack, and to Jay Shapiro on Substack and YouTube - Jewish Americans with a critical take on Israel. There are also many, many other informative sources.
Also, if you want to learn about Hamas, in particular, the podcast playlist Understanding Hamas and Why that Matters, which features a series of interviews with experts about Hamas is an extraordinary resource. The experts are pro-Palestinian, but they are also very committed to being objective and don't try to sanitise Hamas.
I believe that your view of this situation is based upon pro-Israel talking points that have very little relationship to the truth.
I will address, each in turn:
"I argue that after Israel withdrew its communities and permanent military presence from Gaza in 2005, Gaza functioned as an independent Palestinian state governed by Palestinians"
This is absolutely not the case. They didn't even have control over the border crossing with Egypt. Israel controlled everything that came in and went out, and Gaza remained under siege and is considered to be occupied territory under international law.
"that Hamas took control there; that Hamas’s ideology openly calls for Israel’s destruction"
Hamas won in democratic elections and one of their first action was to offer Israel a long term truce or Hudna. Israel responded to be targeting their leadership for assassination.
Hamas does not believe that Israel has the right to exist, and nor does the Republican movement believe that Northern Ireland has the right to exist. Anti-Zionist Jews also believe that Israel has no right to exist and should be dismantled.
The Republican movement was offered a fair settlement which they accepted and Hamas would accept a fair settlement if it was offered it. Demanding that Hamas renounce its viewpoint is an unreasonable demand. It is just an excuse for not even trying to offer them a fair settlement, and Israel has been able to get away with this because it has enjoyed so much greater power than the Palestinians, not just militarily, but also diplomatically and in terms of the dominance of the Zionist narrative within the Western mainstream media.
"that it built its military power in Gaza; and that October 7 was launched from that territory."
Israel is currently illegally occupying all of the Palestinian territories, brutally oppressing Palestinians, and stealing more and more of their land. It is conducting an ongoing war against Palestine and Palestinians, and denying the Palestinians any route towards self-determination. It is illegally detaining thousands of Palestinians, which it calls "Palestinian prisoners" even though it has no legal jurisdiction over Palestinian territories.
Israel had also killed hundreds of Palestinians in the month priors to October 7, and was seeking to finally settle the Palestinian issue - without the consent of Palestinians - through the Abraham Accords.
Contrary to popular belief Hamas engaged in very serious diplomatic initiatives, including rewriting their Charter in 2017 and making it clear that they would accept a practical resolution of the issue based upon the 1967 borders. They were a willing partner for peace. The obstacle to peace was not Hamas, but Israel and the massive balance of power in Israel's favour - on all fronts - which created a situation in which Israel didn't feel that it had to make any compromises, and could demonise Hamas and pretend that it didn't have a partner for peace instead.
"These are claims about reality. If you think one of them is false, tell me which one and why."
They are all false, as they are based on a very powerful and pervasive but completely deceptive propaganda narrative.
Hamas only came into existence in 1988, 40 years after the Nakba in which Palestinians were expelled from their homes and 21 years after the Six Day War in which Israel took control over all of Palestine. Israel actually supported Hamas - as acknowledged by the Times of Israel - in order to weaken secular Palestinian nationalism, and further their project of seizing all of the land.
The Palestinians are the victims here and have been brutally oppressed for decades. If you brutally oppression millions of people for decade after decade then you create violent resistance. Blaming that violent resistance, or presenting it as half the problem, obscures the power dynamics of the situation and is an obstacle to truth and justice. Basically, Israeli oppression is the whole problem and Palestinians deserve to be free.
There is one more fundamental point on which I think we disagree: responsibility.
I think holding people responsible for their choices is a profoundly good thing. It is precisely what makes it possible for human beings to recognise that they have done something wrong, learn from it, repent where appropriate, and choose differently in the future. Treating people as creatures whose actions are merely produced by their circumstances does not liberate them. It denies them moral agency and the possiblity of redemption.
And I think something tragic happened in the Palestinian case. The Palestinian Arab leadership made a disastrous choice in 1948 to reject the emerging Jewish state and go to war rather than accept coexistence. Instead of that defeat becoming something from which Palestinian society could eventually learn and move forward, the conflict and the grievance surrounding it have been preserved across generations. I think Palestinian leadership bears responsibility for that, and I think parts of the international community have helped perpetuate it rather than encourage a genuine political and moral reckoning.
Nor do I absolve Israel. Quite the opposite.
My own view is that Israel made a catastrophic mistake after 1967. I think it should have integrated Gaza and Judea and Samaria and extended equal individual rights under a single rights-respecting legal order.
This is also why I find the language of “oppression” in your comment strangely one-sided. Palestinians are not merely people upon whom Israel acts upon. They live under political movements and institutions of their own, and those institutions must also be judged morally.
Hamas has arbitrarily arrested and tortured political opponents, violently suppressed dissent, carried out mass killings (of their own people) and imposed coercive social restrictions. The Palestinian Authority has its own serious record of murder and torture. If we care about Palestinian freedom, why should these things somehow disappear from the analysis simply because the people committing them are Palestinians rather than Israelis?
That is not freedom. And pointing to Israel does not make it freedom.
The same applies to the blockade. You write as though Israel simply decided to place Gaza under siege for no reason. That leaves out the essential causal sequence. Restrictions were tightened after Hamas won the 2006 election, the capture of Gilad Shalit, Hamas's 2007 seizure of Gaza, and continuing rocket and mortar fire; Egypt also enforced restrictions at Rafah.
And on Rafah specifically contrary to what you said, Israel withdrew from the Philadelphi Corridor in 2005. Control of the Gazan side passed to the Palestinian Authority, while Egypt controlled its side. After Hamas took Gaza, the border became subject to Egyptian restrictions as well, and a large smuggling-tunnel economy developed underneath it. So the statement that “Israel controlled everything that came in and went out” is simply not accurate.
But there is an even more basic conceptual point. Suppose Israel really had controlled every legal route into and out of Gaza. Why would that mean Gaza could not be a state?
States can be blockaded. Germany did not cease to be Germany during the British blockade of the First World War, nor did Japan in the Second World War. The fact that another state restricts your external trade or borders does not mean that it thereby governs your internal political life.
The relevant question is: who exercised political authority inside Gaza?
After Israel's withdrawal, it was Fatah, and after 2007 it was Hamas. Hamas ran the government, security apparatus and education systme, imposed laws, controlled armed forces, imprisoned opponents and exercised coercive power over the population. Israel did not administer Gaza's schools, police its streets, arrest ordinary Gazans for violating Gazan law, or decide the internal political order.
So again, I think you are collapsing two quite different questions: whether Gaza faced serious external restrictions, and whether Palestinians exercised political government inside Gaza. The first can be true without making the second false.
And I want to return to your final sentence, because I think it expresses our deepest disagreement:
“Israeli oppression is the whole problem.”
I cannot accept that.
It deprives Palestinians of precisely the thing I think every human being deserves to be granted: moral agency.
If Hamas chooses an ideology, that choice matters. If somebody chooses to fire a rocket at a civilian population, that choice matters. If Palestinian rulers torture dissidents, that choice matters. If Israelis violate individual rights, their choices matter too.
My criticism of Israel is severe precisely because I apply that standard universally. I think Israel should have dealt with Hamas very differently. I think it should never have allowed a movement openly hostile to its citizens to develop the military and political power Hamas acquired. I think Oslo was a disastrous error. I think successive Israeli governments evaded the nature of the problem for decades and thereby failed in their most basic responsibility to protect individual rights.
So yes, I think Israel bears enormous responsibility for the situation we are in.
But not because Palestinian violence is an understandable reflex of Israeli “oppression.”
Almost the opposite: because Israel repeatedly failed to recognise that Palestinian political actors possess ideas, make choices and must be held responsible for them.
That is the same standard by which I judge Israel, Hamas, Palestinians, Vivian Silver's son, and myself.
People are not their tribe. They are not merely products of history. They are thinking human beings capable of choosing better or worse ideas and acting accordingly.
If we deny them that responsibility, we deny them the possibility of ever doing better.
Yes, Israeli oppression is the whole of the problem, not because Palestinians are perfect or don't have moral agency, but because it is Israeli oppression that is shaping the direction of everything else.
Peter Beinart likes to talk a lot about Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian negotiator who tried to give Israel everything that it said it wanted in order to secure a deal and was rewarded with further settlement expansion and deepening occupation and oppression. According to Beinart, Erekat said that his defeat represented a defeat for moderation and a victory for extremism. This is the fundamental dynamic and driver of everything else, and the sense in which I say that Israeli oppression is the whole of the problem.
Briefly on Gaza: The fact that Gaza had some measure of self-governance doesn't make it a state. Yes, there were tunnels that allowed them to smuggle in some goods. Clearly, Israel still exerts huge control over what gets in and out of the Rafah crossing, as we've seen.
Another person I'd like to recommend you follow is Shaiel Ben-Ephraim who was brought up as a Zionist Jew.
I see from a brief internet search that you subscribe to the philosophy of Ayn Rand, and that you have written a novella about "passivity, guilt, and the struggle to take control of one’s life."
What I would say, in brief, is that individually responsibility is important, but it isn't the best lens through which to try to understand situations like this.
One question (again): which business owner would run a company not with the most capable and best-trained people available, but rather with individuals who are liked by the workforce and make nice promises to the employees? Any such company would go bankrupt in no time.
And how does anyone get the idea that this could work (better) when it comes to "States"?
Why should for example constitutionally enshrined, inviolable universal rights be open to challenge simply because some "majority" of `opinionated´ idiots had "voted" accordingly?
The "opinion" of "the people" certainly shouldn't be ignored, but we must finally put an end to the fatal misunderstanding of "democracy" that treats "votes" by "the people"—whether the "average" citizen, "intellectuals," or anyone else—as a binding standard, as kind of G*d´s Word, especially when "majorities" can so easily be won with the "best" lies and promises, and the truth is deemed "too harsh" for "the people" ?
Hitler, Mussolini, Putin, and other criminals were "elected" and supported by overwhelming "(democratic)majorities"—majorities that carried out the crimes of those they had elected - and then later were allowed to "excuse" themselves with "Oh how should we have known ? The truth hadn´t been told on TV ?"
When will all this finally be recognized as irrefutable proof that the practice of elevating achieved "majorities" to the status of gospel—something that must be followed at all costs—is deeply flawed? When will the oh-so-glorious "voice of the people" finally be relegated to the very back of the line, where it belongs?
That you took the time to write this moving and simple piece is commendable. It says in a few words all that is wrong with the way the vast majority of people, Israelis included, continue to discuss and shape the way Israel and its conundrum with the Palestinians so unworthy of that name are handled. You may as well be talking about the American White House, the Israeli government, the anti-Israel marchers across Europe, the elites and the street, as you are about this unfortunate woman and her unfortunate son. The heart weeps at the idiocy and turpitude, even though you say simply look at what they believe. Verily, it is almost beyond words. Indeed, it is beyond words.
Must also be a strong element of low self-esteem there. Imagine how little you must value your life, to consider that it's ok for a barbarous punk to massacre you because something something cycle of violence.
Certainly!
Hard to get your head around this. Is it just utter desperation to stay in with ‘The Community of the Good’ as David Hirsh outlines in his book ‘Contemporary Left Antisemitism’?
Yes, I agree. It is hard to get your head around it. There is certainly an element of tribalism here.
But I think the deeper issue is epistemological. Tribalism is, in a sense, downstream from a more fundamental problem: if there is no objective standard by which one can know what is true or false, then something else has to take its place.
In many of these doctrines, reality is displaced by “narratives,” perspectives, identities, or whichever interpretive framework is currently dominant. Once objective truth is surrendered, where does epistemic authority come from? Very often, from the collective, from the people and institutions regarded as belonging to the morally enlightened tribe.
So yes, the “Community of the Good” may describe an important part of the phenomenon. But I think the deeper question is why membership in such a community can acquire that kind of authority in the first place. My answer is that the fundamental problem begins with giving up reality as the standard of truth.
Sad story really
Within a few days of Oct 7 I was reading profiles of some of the victims. One guy at the Nova festival described himself on social media as a profesional peace advocate. OK, fine. But I couldn’t help but wonder if his last thought was “why didn’t they check my socials”? Same question for Vivian Singer, and probably her son on her behalf that day. These people will stay delusional til the bitter end.
I have sympathy for him simply because his mother died and I know how that feels, but he needs to wake the fuck up.
John Stuart Mill said that when it seems people’s deep-seated beliefs are apparently disproved by events, they do not give them up because they assume there are deeper reasons for holding onto them. It’s why gamblers can’t be dislodged from a casino and why investors who lose to con artists double down, because they can’t get out of the fixed behavior. For him to admit his mom was proven mistaken would require a deeper act of change than he can accomplish: she had to be right
Excellent write-up, Yonatan, as usual. It is the ideas - in this case the egalitarian case he makes for "both sides" and the appeasement case he makes for another Palestian state, but I think the primary idea leans toward psychological. Zeigen has chosen to evade judgment. This is the root of evil.
I grew up in Winnipeg. I still live there, but am working to move my family away. These ideas are a deep part of what this Canadian city believes in. An anti-life ideology that is deeply rooted in the culture. It is no coincidence.
That you took the time to write this moving and simple piece is commendable. It says in a few words all that is wrong with the way the vast majority of people, Israelis included, continue to discuss and shape the way Israel and its conundrum with the Palestinians so unworthy of that name are handled. You may as well be talking about the American White House, the Israeli government, the anti-Israel marchers across Europe, the elites and the street, as you are about this unfortunate woman and her unfortunate son. The heart weeps at the idiocy and turpitude, even though you say simply look at what they believe. Verily, it is almost beyond words. Indeed, it is beyond words.
The violence that occurred on Kibbutz Be’eri on 7th October 2023 was terrible, but it really doesn't tell us anything at all about what we should think about the wider issue. All of that understanding comes from our pre-existing understanding and assumptions.
I am British and lived through much of the period of "the troubles." The Irish Republican Army (IRA) carried out various assassinations and bombings in pursuit of their goal of a united Ireland, during that time. Their bombing campaign was also a response to the discrimination against Catholics in Northern Ireland. The oppression of Palestinians and the denials of their basic human rights is many, many times worse than the very worst that the British were doing to Catholics in Northern Ireland at that time, and yet there was a widespread understanding that the actions of the IRA was a response to a political situation that they were unhappy about, and not just irrational violence.
I cannot view this article as anything other than political propaganda. Superficially you are pretending to try to write an insightful article about Vivian Silver, but you are really just using this to try to provide cover for a deeply flawed narrative about Israel/Palestine/Gaza which are pushed upon the reader as accepted truths about which we shouldn't even think to question. The purpose of the entire article is to rationalise a pre-determined political position.
However, I don't necessarily agree with Vivian Silver that the solution is a Palestinian state. I think that the best solution is equal rights for everyone from the river to the sea. Israel can continue to control all of the borders if it wishes, and there would be no distinct Palestinian army or police force, but the discrimination should end and Palestinians should have the same rights as Israelis - the same solution we came to in Northern Ireland. That doesn't seem very realistic right now, but it would be the least bad option in the circumstances.
I think you are responding here to an argument I did not make. A central part of my essay explicitly agrees that October 7 “did not happen in a vacuum” and then asks what that wider context actually was. I discuss Hamas’s rule of Gaza since 2007, its stated ideology, Israel’s 2005 withdrawal, its subsequent military build-up, and the political ideas through which Yonatan Zeigen interprets all of this.
So I certainly do not argue that the massacre at Be’eri, viewed in isolation, settles the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. My argument is precisely about how we identify and interpret the relevant context.
That is also why I find the accusation that the essay is “political propaganda” and pushes a “deeply flawed narrative” frustrating. Those are very serious accusations, but you do not identify which factual claims in the essay are false or which part of my reasoning fails. I am genuinely open to either criticism. If I have made a factual mistake, please point it out and I will correct it.
But I do not accept “narrative” as a substitute for engaging with the facts. I argue that after Israel withdrew its communities and permanent military presence from Gaza in 2005, Gaza functioned as an independent Palestinian state governed by Palestinians; that Hamas took control there; that Hamas’s ideology openly calls for Israel’s destruction; that it built its military power in Gaza; and that October 7 was launched from that territory. These are claims about reality. If you think one of them is false, tell me which one and why.
The IRA analogy does not answer those claims. Saying that violence can arise within a political context is obviously true, I explicitly say so in the essay. The question is what the relevant causes are, who bears moral responsibility for particular acts, and whether the political explanation being offered actually corresponds to the history. Those questions cannot be answered by saying “there was oppression” and moving on.
Your own proposal is actually closer to something I can agree with in principle: every individual should possess equal individual rights, regardless of ethnicity or nationality, and those who violate the rights of others should be punished according to law. Where we disagree is over the factual and political conditions required to make such a society possible.
I do not think the fundamental problem is that Palestinians have been denied some sufficient quantity of concessions by Israel. I think the much deeper problem is a political culture and political movements that reject individual rights themselves. That is precisely why Hamas’s ideas matter.
So I am very happy to debate the argument. I am even happier to correct factual errors if you can identify them. But simply calling the essay “propaganda” does not do either.
Hi Yonatan, and thank you for your very reasonable response. I believe that you are very misguided in terms of what you believe, but you are still being reasonable within the constraints of what you believe to be the case.
I will do my best to address your points, but please don't rely upon me alone if you want to get a broader perspective that will allow you to examine your assumptions. Look to informative sources beyond the mainstream and Israel-critical commentators. +972 Magazine is one such resources and is incredibly informative. It is written by both Israelis and Palestinians. You might also like to consider subscribing to Peter Beinart on Substack, and to Jay Shapiro on Substack and YouTube - Jewish Americans with a critical take on Israel. There are also many, many other informative sources.
Also, if you want to learn about Hamas, in particular, the podcast playlist Understanding Hamas and Why that Matters, which features a series of interviews with experts about Hamas is an extraordinary resource. The experts are pro-Palestinian, but they are also very committed to being objective and don't try to sanitise Hamas.
I believe that your view of this situation is based upon pro-Israel talking points that have very little relationship to the truth.
I will address, each in turn:
"I argue that after Israel withdrew its communities and permanent military presence from Gaza in 2005, Gaza functioned as an independent Palestinian state governed by Palestinians"
This is absolutely not the case. They didn't even have control over the border crossing with Egypt. Israel controlled everything that came in and went out, and Gaza remained under siege and is considered to be occupied territory under international law.
"that Hamas took control there; that Hamas’s ideology openly calls for Israel’s destruction"
Hamas won in democratic elections and one of their first action was to offer Israel a long term truce or Hudna. Israel responded to be targeting their leadership for assassination.
Hamas does not believe that Israel has the right to exist, and nor does the Republican movement believe that Northern Ireland has the right to exist. Anti-Zionist Jews also believe that Israel has no right to exist and should be dismantled.
The Republican movement was offered a fair settlement which they accepted and Hamas would accept a fair settlement if it was offered it. Demanding that Hamas renounce its viewpoint is an unreasonable demand. It is just an excuse for not even trying to offer them a fair settlement, and Israel has been able to get away with this because it has enjoyed so much greater power than the Palestinians, not just militarily, but also diplomatically and in terms of the dominance of the Zionist narrative within the Western mainstream media.
"that it built its military power in Gaza; and that October 7 was launched from that territory."
Israel is currently illegally occupying all of the Palestinian territories, brutally oppressing Palestinians, and stealing more and more of their land. It is conducting an ongoing war against Palestine and Palestinians, and denying the Palestinians any route towards self-determination. It is illegally detaining thousands of Palestinians, which it calls "Palestinian prisoners" even though it has no legal jurisdiction over Palestinian territories.
Israel had also killed hundreds of Palestinians in the month priors to October 7, and was seeking to finally settle the Palestinian issue - without the consent of Palestinians - through the Abraham Accords.
Contrary to popular belief Hamas engaged in very serious diplomatic initiatives, including rewriting their Charter in 2017 and making it clear that they would accept a practical resolution of the issue based upon the 1967 borders. They were a willing partner for peace. The obstacle to peace was not Hamas, but Israel and the massive balance of power in Israel's favour - on all fronts - which created a situation in which Israel didn't feel that it had to make any compromises, and could demonise Hamas and pretend that it didn't have a partner for peace instead.
"These are claims about reality. If you think one of them is false, tell me which one and why."
They are all false, as they are based on a very powerful and pervasive but completely deceptive propaganda narrative.
Hamas only came into existence in 1988, 40 years after the Nakba in which Palestinians were expelled from their homes and 21 years after the Six Day War in which Israel took control over all of Palestine. Israel actually supported Hamas - as acknowledged by the Times of Israel - in order to weaken secular Palestinian nationalism, and further their project of seizing all of the land.
The Palestinians are the victims here and have been brutally oppressed for decades. If you brutally oppression millions of people for decade after decade then you create violent resistance. Blaming that violent resistance, or presenting it as half the problem, obscures the power dynamics of the situation and is an obstacle to truth and justice. Basically, Israeli oppression is the whole problem and Palestinians deserve to be free.
There is one more fundamental point on which I think we disagree: responsibility.
I think holding people responsible for their choices is a profoundly good thing. It is precisely what makes it possible for human beings to recognise that they have done something wrong, learn from it, repent where appropriate, and choose differently in the future. Treating people as creatures whose actions are merely produced by their circumstances does not liberate them. It denies them moral agency and the possiblity of redemption.
And I think something tragic happened in the Palestinian case. The Palestinian Arab leadership made a disastrous choice in 1948 to reject the emerging Jewish state and go to war rather than accept coexistence. Instead of that defeat becoming something from which Palestinian society could eventually learn and move forward, the conflict and the grievance surrounding it have been preserved across generations. I think Palestinian leadership bears responsibility for that, and I think parts of the international community have helped perpetuate it rather than encourage a genuine political and moral reckoning.
Nor do I absolve Israel. Quite the opposite.
My own view is that Israel made a catastrophic mistake after 1967. I think it should have integrated Gaza and Judea and Samaria and extended equal individual rights under a single rights-respecting legal order.
This is also why I find the language of “oppression” in your comment strangely one-sided. Palestinians are not merely people upon whom Israel acts upon. They live under political movements and institutions of their own, and those institutions must also be judged morally.
Hamas has arbitrarily arrested and tortured political opponents, violently suppressed dissent, carried out mass killings (of their own people) and imposed coercive social restrictions. The Palestinian Authority has its own serious record of murder and torture. If we care about Palestinian freedom, why should these things somehow disappear from the analysis simply because the people committing them are Palestinians rather than Israelis?
That is not freedom. And pointing to Israel does not make it freedom.
The same applies to the blockade. You write as though Israel simply decided to place Gaza under siege for no reason. That leaves out the essential causal sequence. Restrictions were tightened after Hamas won the 2006 election, the capture of Gilad Shalit, Hamas's 2007 seizure of Gaza, and continuing rocket and mortar fire; Egypt also enforced restrictions at Rafah.
And on Rafah specifically contrary to what you said, Israel withdrew from the Philadelphi Corridor in 2005. Control of the Gazan side passed to the Palestinian Authority, while Egypt controlled its side. After Hamas took Gaza, the border became subject to Egyptian restrictions as well, and a large smuggling-tunnel economy developed underneath it. So the statement that “Israel controlled everything that came in and went out” is simply not accurate.
But there is an even more basic conceptual point. Suppose Israel really had controlled every legal route into and out of Gaza. Why would that mean Gaza could not be a state?
States can be blockaded. Germany did not cease to be Germany during the British blockade of the First World War, nor did Japan in the Second World War. The fact that another state restricts your external trade or borders does not mean that it thereby governs your internal political life.
The relevant question is: who exercised political authority inside Gaza?
After Israel's withdrawal, it was Fatah, and after 2007 it was Hamas. Hamas ran the government, security apparatus and education systme, imposed laws, controlled armed forces, imprisoned opponents and exercised coercive power over the population. Israel did not administer Gaza's schools, police its streets, arrest ordinary Gazans for violating Gazan law, or decide the internal political order.
So again, I think you are collapsing two quite different questions: whether Gaza faced serious external restrictions, and whether Palestinians exercised political government inside Gaza. The first can be true without making the second false.
And I want to return to your final sentence, because I think it expresses our deepest disagreement:
“Israeli oppression is the whole problem.”
I cannot accept that.
It deprives Palestinians of precisely the thing I think every human being deserves to be granted: moral agency.
If Hamas chooses an ideology, that choice matters. If somebody chooses to fire a rocket at a civilian population, that choice matters. If Palestinian rulers torture dissidents, that choice matters. If Israelis violate individual rights, their choices matter too.
My criticism of Israel is severe precisely because I apply that standard universally. I think Israel should have dealt with Hamas very differently. I think it should never have allowed a movement openly hostile to its citizens to develop the military and political power Hamas acquired. I think Oslo was a disastrous error. I think successive Israeli governments evaded the nature of the problem for decades and thereby failed in their most basic responsibility to protect individual rights.
So yes, I think Israel bears enormous responsibility for the situation we are in.
But not because Palestinian violence is an understandable reflex of Israeli “oppression.”
Almost the opposite: because Israel repeatedly failed to recognise that Palestinian political actors possess ideas, make choices and must be held responsible for them.
That is the same standard by which I judge Israel, Hamas, Palestinians, Vivian Silver's son, and myself.
People are not their tribe. They are not merely products of history. They are thinking human beings capable of choosing better or worse ideas and acting accordingly.
If we deny them that responsibility, we deny them the possibility of ever doing better.
Yes, Israeli oppression is the whole of the problem, not because Palestinians are perfect or don't have moral agency, but because it is Israeli oppression that is shaping the direction of everything else.
Peter Beinart likes to talk a lot about Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian negotiator who tried to give Israel everything that it said it wanted in order to secure a deal and was rewarded with further settlement expansion and deepening occupation and oppression. According to Beinart, Erekat said that his defeat represented a defeat for moderation and a victory for extremism. This is the fundamental dynamic and driver of everything else, and the sense in which I say that Israeli oppression is the whole of the problem.
Briefly on Gaza: The fact that Gaza had some measure of self-governance doesn't make it a state. Yes, there were tunnels that allowed them to smuggle in some goods. Clearly, Israel still exerts huge control over what gets in and out of the Rafah crossing, as we've seen.
Another person I'd like to recommend you follow is Shaiel Ben-Ephraim who was brought up as a Zionist Jew.
I see from a brief internet search that you subscribe to the philosophy of Ayn Rand, and that you have written a novella about "passivity, guilt, and the struggle to take control of one’s life."
What I would say, in brief, is that individually responsibility is important, but it isn't the best lens through which to try to understand situations like this.
One question (again): which business owner would run a company not with the most capable and best-trained people available, but rather with individuals who are liked by the workforce and make nice promises to the employees? Any such company would go bankrupt in no time.
And how does anyone get the idea that this could work (better) when it comes to "States"?
Why should for example constitutionally enshrined, inviolable universal rights be open to challenge simply because some "majority" of `opinionated´ idiots had "voted" accordingly?
The "opinion" of "the people" certainly shouldn't be ignored, but we must finally put an end to the fatal misunderstanding of "democracy" that treats "votes" by "the people"—whether the "average" citizen, "intellectuals," or anyone else—as a binding standard, as kind of G*d´s Word, especially when "majorities" can so easily be won with the "best" lies and promises, and the truth is deemed "too harsh" for "the people" ?
Hitler, Mussolini, Putin, and other criminals were "elected" and supported by overwhelming "(democratic)majorities"—majorities that carried out the crimes of those they had elected - and then later were allowed to "excuse" themselves with "Oh how should we have known ? The truth hadn´t been told on TV ?"
When will all this finally be recognized as irrefutable proof that the practice of elevating achieved "majorities" to the status of gospel—something that must be followed at all costs—is deeply flawed? When will the oh-so-glorious "voice of the people" finally be relegated to the very back of the line, where it belongs?