A few weeks before the Hamas pogrom, Moynihan was reading Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict by the brilliant Israeli-American journalist and historian Oren Kessler. So he called him to talk through the current conflict, its historical antecedents, and how Hamas’s murder spree has effected his family.
When I saw the protest marches in NYC, Chicago, London, and Sydney (where the chanted "kill the Jews" and "gas the Jews") I wondered, where are all those people who marched worldwide in 2020 their millions for the murder of a known criminal, George Floyd, who was murdered by police while being arrested for committing a felony? Where are the millions to protest the murder of over a thousand people for being Jewish (irrespective of nationality)? Don't Jews count?
As penance you can listen to the far creepier inspiration for that song, the rather frightening liturgical prayer, aptly chanted here by the IDF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz6eE_ah8u0
Wow. This has to be a first for me, to have read a book before Moynihan. And it's a very good one. Wish I could listen now. But I am scheduled for surgery early tomorrow morning, and live 75 miles from the hospital. Thanks for giving me something to occupy my mind as I recuperate.
Best wishes to the bride and congratulations to the groom. As we’ve so horrifically been reminded of, life gives us no guarantees, so we have to grab those sweet moments when we can no matter what. My heart is broken for the people of Israel, I feel so helpless in the face of such evil, just stunned and off kilter ... words fail me
I started listening but the crying on the train isn’t an advisable look. I’ll try later tonight when I get home. I know no one there and I’m not Jewish but this is all so infuriatingly awful.
I wouldn't be so quick to write off the unfortunate allegations involving the infants of Kfar Aza. I haven't seen any evidence myself so obviously I can't be of much help, but the Jerusalem Post today is reporting that photos confirming the allegation were delivered to Anthony Blinken (https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-767951) and there are a half dozen journalists who were present and shooting footage willing to corroborate the discovery as described and who have uploaded their accounts to twitter. CNN, CBS, and the Times of Israel are also running with it as of a few hours ago.
Obviously none of this makes it so, but its sufficiently persuasive as not to dismiss anything too lightly. . .yet.
Apparently Netanyahu and Ben Shapiro have tweeted them out. I can’t bring myself to check.
[gruesome language warning]
But to those who are still somehow debating how many babies were killed and in what manner: if there is a line between barbarism and civility, it is not an inch of a baby’s neck.
Just a shoutout to Moynihan's "Free breakfast" theory of political violence. Hope he's feeling vindicated this week. Hamas distributes some of the foreign aid to the people of Gaza and they get written up as freedom fighters for justice after butchering 1,300 Israelis and causing the murder of hundreds more Palestinians. (just counting from this past week.)
I’m sorry, but the discussion of specifics of how babies were murdered was started on the “Israeli side” (quoted because it’s a shorthand for a false binary and I don’t have a better label) to demonstrate the savagery of Hamas. If you’re using specifics to make an argument in any venue, but especially a polarized and uncharitable one, you need to be able to support those specifics or discussion will inevitably devolve into being about the specifics not the broader truth. This was a communication mistake even though the conclusion about Hamas is still true, and should be treated critically on a media criticism podcast.
I suspect that evidence will converge toward these claims but it would be okay to get more specific as information is solidified.
To be honest, I didn’t hear it coming from any side. I was just following the reporting and was hearing that whole families, including small children and babies, were shot or burned to death in their own homes, and that these helpless innocents were among those kidnapped. That was enough for me. The medieval manner of some of the murders confirmed the utter savagery but didn’t make it dispositive it in my mind. The whole debate that Briahna Joy Gray has been obsessed with is truly disgusting.
When al-Qaeda attacked on 911 the reaction was the whole point and it provoked America into war in the middle east that had tremendous downstream effects(70% of Americans believed Saddam was involved when the invasion of Iraq began we should remember). Is Isreal's expected response the whole purpose from Hammas' point of view, and if so should we consider the downstream effects in micro detail to maybe avoid a real catastrophe?
Trust all women. Except those who were raped by noble, oppressed freedom fighters. Seriously, the reflexively pro-Hamas reaction of a good many in the West is maddening and sickening. If this isn't a clarifying moment, maybe there is no such thing as clarity.
Let’s be fair here. Victims of rape where the assailant was basically anyone other than Brett Kavanaugh or Brock Turner were always excluded from that mantra.
I find it unusual that MM, who rightly mentions the extreme difficulty that islamism poses, never once mentions the ideological underpinning of Israel as a state. it's not a normal country. It has to sustain its, for want of a better term, ethnostate status. It's intransigent on this. I don't want to get into the weeds on the myriad of contentious issues when discussing this topic, I just want to say that the 'Jewish State' as a central constitutional element never seems to be mentioned or discussed whenever Israel is discussed on TFF. MM is well aware of the 'Protestant parliament for a Protestant' people' maxim. It was his knowledge of the conflict in Ireland and his interview with the author of 'Say Nothing' that brought me this podcast in the first place.
I say all this not be in the but brigade. I just think it needs to be said that all conflict in this area stems from the position of Israel as a Jewish state, not a full democracy as we know it. I know they have a certain amount of Israeli Arabs, but the people in Gaza and the West Bank / Judea and Samaria are not without suffering. I think this is downplayed on this podcast.
I'm tempted to list my pro Israel/Jewish credentials to thwart knee-jerk accusations. I'm not going to do that. Does anyone agree with me here. that the analysis on TFF lacks insight into the constitutional make up of Israel and how that ensures there will always be conflict?
I think that argument would have a lot more weight if there was any inkling a Palestinian or Arab state in the area was going to be run in a democratic or non-theocratic manner.
It would be one thing if the Israeli commitment to an ethnostate was making it some uniquely terrible place for Muslims to live. Instead it is a pretty great place for Muslims to live even as a minority, and it certainly rises to the goal of being a modern functional democratic state much higher than any of its neighbors and much higher than any successor Palestinian state would be.
A Muslim successor state would what, in a best case scenario be like Syria part II? Plus also probably be a home to literal ethnic cleansing instead of the figurative ethnic cleansing everyone accuses Israel of (not doing a very good job since the population of gaza is quadrupling every 30 years since 1967).
I agree that Israel's foundational rejection of a separation between religion and state is often glossed over and at the root of some of its present day problems and I'd be very interested in that discussion too.
But I'm not following to where it doesn't make Israel a "full democracy". An atypical one, yes, but since when is multi-religiosity or multi-ethnicity (as opposed to just protection and tolerance for minorities) a condition for a democracy? Is Japan not a "full democracy" either?
I also think using terms like "ethnostate" doesn't help. I assume no ill intent and that you do not know its origins - but its first use can be traced to the writings of virulent anti-semite and KKK ideologue Wilmot Robertson. It is not mere coincidence that it's popping up this week as an arrow in the rhetorical quiver against the Jewish state.
I did say 'for want of a better term', so let's go for the state being founded specifically for Jewish people. When I say it's not a full democracy, I mean that it would never allow demographics to change to where non Jews could be a majority. I mentioned Ireland. Currently, Northern Ireland is in the position where the Unionists are set to be a minority. That will definitely have constitutional implications in the near future. Israel could never integrate the Palestinians because of this. They would also be very reluctant to have a normalised, functioning Palestinian state. It's an intractable position. The status of Jerusalem alone is enough to ensure this conflict will be ongoing. Thanks for assuming no ill intent. I'm not American and I used this term because it seemed to have currency in recent American politics, albeit through the moron Richard Spencer.
So yes, Israel was founded as a state for Jewish people.
But from that to how that delegitimises it as a democracy I still do not follow your argument and try as I might I don't really see how the Northern Ireland example is enlightening.
Willingness to enable majority demographic replacement is not a criterion of a democracy. Pakistan was founded at roughly the same time as Israel (1947) as a state for Muslims and while there are hundreds of valid critiques of their system, the most absurd would be that they can't ever be a full democracy until they accept complete demographic replacement by Hindus.
Israeli Muslims (and other non-Jews) have full citizenship rights and protections, vote, serve in the IDF, are represented in the Knesset and serve as diplomats for their country.
What you seem to suggest is that Israel is not a full democracy because it is not committed to importing millions of people who are NOT currently its citizens, people who have rejected the idea of becoming Israeli citizens under Israeli law and making those unwilling people citizens and the instant majority, thus destroying itself and becoming a "normalised, functioning Palestinian state" which is... absurd. Unless you mean that they are opposed to having a "normalised, functioning Palestinian state" as a neighbor which is patently false and has never been a real option. Had the Palestinians demonstrated at any point a willingness or capacity for becoming a functioning state as opposed to a violent fundamentalist bastion, the Israelis, who already pour millions of aid money into those territories, would have been their primary investors and trading partners.
Anyway, it seems what you're getting at goes way beyond a discussion about how Judaism is tied into and affects the legal system and political situation of Israel, which I initially thought you were talking about. I'm all for sparring over ideas but arguing over why Israel is responsible for all conflict in the Middle East because it refuses to become a Muslim state isn't really something I'm interested in pursuing right now.
I appreciate you sober replies to my posts. I don't think Israel is responsible for all conflict in the Middle East, I specifically meant the conflict with the Palestinians.
Northern Ireland was partitioned by the British to maintain a population loyal to Britain in perpetuity. Gerrymandering and vote suppression was used to back this up. Over time, birth rates have transformed the demography of this statelet and it's now o the verge of constitutional crisis. It's similar to Israel in that it's a state formed to serve the interests of a certain group at the expense of another. Where you have a situation like that , you'll always have conflict.
When you say that "all conflict in this area stems from the position of Israel as a Jewish state" do you mean just Israel and the countries that share a border with Israel or the Middle East in general? If it is the Middle East in general there are countless examples of conflict since 1948 that have nothing to do with Israel. If it is the immediate bordering area, how do you blame the Syrian Civil War (where far more Syrians have died than Palestinians since 1948) on Israel? Or Egypt's involvement in Yemen in the 1960's?
Yes, I do agree with you. Hamas' acts are practically begging for retaliation and I know they don't have Palestinian peoples interests in mind. I can even understand the urge and the necessity for a forceful response, but I do agree with your underlying point.
Thanks to all who wished me well with my surgery Friday morning. It went well, and I am back home. And finally got to listen to this talk between Moynihan and Oren Kessler.
As I noted in my earlier message, I was amazed to discover that I had read Kessler's book before Moynihan, because it feels he has read everything out there and retained it all. I do want to fervently second his suggestion to you all that you read Palestine 1936. I knew nothing about "The Great Revolt" before reading it. And found Kessler's writing both thorough and even-handed. One take-away from the book is how regularly the Arab population of Palestine, which was an essentially feudal society, was failed by its leadership. And not just the Grand Mufti, as Mr. Kessler aptly calls out toward the end of the talk here. Wealthy Arabs who owned large tracts of land, with poor Arabs as their serfs, often sold their lands to the Jewish settlers, then moved away to Beirut and Damascus. But even then, a dozen years before 1948, there were chances missed by all "sides", including the Brits, to have found a better outcome. Or at least I like to think so.
So glad to hear your surgery was a success and you’re home recovering!
Thanks for your notes on 1936. I picked up a copy yesterday but haven’t had a chance to read it yet. I was surprised, but gladdened to see that there were stacks of the book at the check-out counter at my local, Philadelphia B&N.
When I saw the protest marches in NYC, Chicago, London, and Sydney (where the chanted "kill the Jews" and "gas the Jews") I wondered, where are all those people who marched worldwide in 2020 their millions for the murder of a known criminal, George Floyd, who was murdered by police while being arrested for committing a felony? Where are the millions to protest the murder of over a thousand people for being Jewish (irrespective of nationality)? Don't Jews count?
Yes. Hypocrisy.
Closing song is "Who by fire" by Leonard Cohen: https://youtu.be/ilGahIwQEQ0?feature=shared
Lovely pick.
For a deep dive on the history of the song and Cohen himself.
https://www.econtalk.org/matti-friedman-on-leonard-cohen-and-the-yom-kippur-war/
Came here to praise the choice for the outro, given the history.
Thank you!
We all know that. 🤷🏻♂️
I didn't! I had heard it before on the series "Bad Sisters", but didn't know the name. It's creepy as hell but really good.
They've discussed it (and Matti Friedman's book about Leonard Cohen and the Yom Kippur war) before: https://mattifriedman.com/who-by-fire/
I’m such an embarrassing newbie.
As penance you can listen to the far creepier inspiration for that song, the rather frightening liturgical prayer, aptly chanted here by the IDF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz6eE_ah8u0
Thank you.
We are busting this Scandinavian’s balls over here, Midwit Molly!
Do we? I didn't 👀
👨🏻💼
Søren, I will ban you from this podcast!
😟
Wow. This has to be a first for me, to have read a book before Moynihan. And it's a very good one. Wish I could listen now. But I am scheduled for surgery early tomorrow morning, and live 75 miles from the hospital. Thanks for giving me something to occupy my mind as I recuperate.
Hope your surgery goes well!
Best wishes for a successful surgery and speedy recovery ❤️
Good luck tomorrow. 75 miles?! I hope they’re flying you there.
Thanks. Not an emergency. And my county has about 13,000 people, one traffic light. I am in Appalachia. My neighbor is my driver, up and back.
Good luck 👍🏻
Hope it goes well 🙌
Best wishes to the bride and congratulations to the groom. As we’ve so horrifically been reminded of, life gives us no guarantees, so we have to grab those sweet moments when we can no matter what. My heart is broken for the people of Israel, I feel so helpless in the face of such evil, just stunned and off kilter ... words fail me
❤️❤️
I started listening but the crying on the train isn’t an advisable look. I’ll try later tonight when I get home. I know no one there and I’m not Jewish but this is all so infuriatingly awful.
I will cry on the train for you.
It is awful, infuriating, and worth crying over.
The Fifth has recommended so many great books to me throughout the years. Thanks for another one, Michael. Added to the list.
Same!
I wouldn't be so quick to write off the unfortunate allegations involving the infants of Kfar Aza. I haven't seen any evidence myself so obviously I can't be of much help, but the Jerusalem Post today is reporting that photos confirming the allegation were delivered to Anthony Blinken (https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-767951) and there are a half dozen journalists who were present and shooting footage willing to corroborate the discovery as described and who have uploaded their accounts to twitter. CNN, CBS, and the Times of Israel are also running with it as of a few hours ago.
Obviously none of this makes it so, but its sufficiently persuasive as not to dismiss anything too lightly. . .yet.
Apparently Netanyahu and Ben Shapiro have tweeted them out. I can’t bring myself to check.
[gruesome language warning]
But to those who are still somehow debating how many babies were killed and in what manner: if there is a line between barbarism and civility, it is not an inch of a baby’s neck.
The new talking point is that the photo of the burnt body is computer-generated.
The goalposts never stop moving.
Ugh 😩
Just a shoutout to Moynihan's "Free breakfast" theory of political violence. Hope he's feeling vindicated this week. Hamas distributes some of the foreign aid to the people of Gaza and they get written up as freedom fighters for justice after butchering 1,300 Israelis and causing the murder of hundreds more Palestinians. (just counting from this past week.)
Off topic, but I cannot imagine MM as a computer programmer
He thought HTML stood for 'How To Meet Ladies', and then probably quickly realized his mistake.
This was shocking to me. Been listening since 2018, and I've never gotten a whiff of it.
Right??! I was shocked when he said that 😂
We love you too. You must be one of those unbearable assholes in Sales 😘
I'm an unbearable nurse.
That explains a lot, given the state of software and IT in the healthcare industry.
Cheers from a computer programmer.
🍻
I don’t think there is a comment that could be made here that would get Michael to respond is what I’ve learned
I’m sorry, but the discussion of specifics of how babies were murdered was started on the “Israeli side” (quoted because it’s a shorthand for a false binary and I don’t have a better label) to demonstrate the savagery of Hamas. If you’re using specifics to make an argument in any venue, but especially a polarized and uncharitable one, you need to be able to support those specifics or discussion will inevitably devolve into being about the specifics not the broader truth. This was a communication mistake even though the conclusion about Hamas is still true, and should be treated critically on a media criticism podcast.
I suspect that evidence will converge toward these claims but it would be okay to get more specific as information is solidified.
To be honest, I didn’t hear it coming from any side. I was just following the reporting and was hearing that whole families, including small children and babies, were shot or burned to death in their own homes, and that these helpless innocents were among those kidnapped. That was enough for me. The medieval manner of some of the murders confirmed the utter savagery but didn’t make it dispositive it in my mind. The whole debate that Briahna Joy Gray has been obsessed with is truly disgusting.
When al-Qaeda attacked on 911 the reaction was the whole point and it provoked America into war in the middle east that had tremendous downstream effects(70% of Americans believed Saddam was involved when the invasion of Iraq began we should remember). Is Isreal's expected response the whole purpose from Hammas' point of view, and if so should we consider the downstream effects in micro detail to maybe avoid a real catastrophe?
Trust all women. Except those who were raped by noble, oppressed freedom fighters. Seriously, the reflexively pro-Hamas reaction of a good many in the West is maddening and sickening. If this isn't a clarifying moment, maybe there is no such thing as clarity.
Let’s be fair here. Victims of rape where the assailant was basically anyone other than Brett Kavanaugh or Brock Turner were always excluded from that mantra.
I find it unusual that MM, who rightly mentions the extreme difficulty that islamism poses, never once mentions the ideological underpinning of Israel as a state. it's not a normal country. It has to sustain its, for want of a better term, ethnostate status. It's intransigent on this. I don't want to get into the weeds on the myriad of contentious issues when discussing this topic, I just want to say that the 'Jewish State' as a central constitutional element never seems to be mentioned or discussed whenever Israel is discussed on TFF. MM is well aware of the 'Protestant parliament for a Protestant' people' maxim. It was his knowledge of the conflict in Ireland and his interview with the author of 'Say Nothing' that brought me this podcast in the first place.
I say all this not be in the but brigade. I just think it needs to be said that all conflict in this area stems from the position of Israel as a Jewish state, not a full democracy as we know it. I know they have a certain amount of Israeli Arabs, but the people in Gaza and the West Bank / Judea and Samaria are not without suffering. I think this is downplayed on this podcast.
I'm tempted to list my pro Israel/Jewish credentials to thwart knee-jerk accusations. I'm not going to do that. Does anyone agree with me here. that the analysis on TFF lacks insight into the constitutional make up of Israel and how that ensures there will always be conflict?
I think that argument would have a lot more weight if there was any inkling a Palestinian or Arab state in the area was going to be run in a democratic or non-theocratic manner.
It would be one thing if the Israeli commitment to an ethnostate was making it some uniquely terrible place for Muslims to live. Instead it is a pretty great place for Muslims to live even as a minority, and it certainly rises to the goal of being a modern functional democratic state much higher than any of its neighbors and much higher than any successor Palestinian state would be.
A Muslim successor state would what, in a best case scenario be like Syria part II? Plus also probably be a home to literal ethnic cleansing instead of the figurative ethnic cleansing everyone accuses Israel of (not doing a very good job since the population of gaza is quadrupling every 30 years since 1967).
I agree that Israel's foundational rejection of a separation between religion and state is often glossed over and at the root of some of its present day problems and I'd be very interested in that discussion too.
But I'm not following to where it doesn't make Israel a "full democracy". An atypical one, yes, but since when is multi-religiosity or multi-ethnicity (as opposed to just protection and tolerance for minorities) a condition for a democracy? Is Japan not a "full democracy" either?
I also think using terms like "ethnostate" doesn't help. I assume no ill intent and that you do not know its origins - but its first use can be traced to the writings of virulent anti-semite and KKK ideologue Wilmot Robertson. It is not mere coincidence that it's popping up this week as an arrow in the rhetorical quiver against the Jewish state.
I did say 'for want of a better term', so let's go for the state being founded specifically for Jewish people. When I say it's not a full democracy, I mean that it would never allow demographics to change to where non Jews could be a majority. I mentioned Ireland. Currently, Northern Ireland is in the position where the Unionists are set to be a minority. That will definitely have constitutional implications in the near future. Israel could never integrate the Palestinians because of this. They would also be very reluctant to have a normalised, functioning Palestinian state. It's an intractable position. The status of Jerusalem alone is enough to ensure this conflict will be ongoing. Thanks for assuming no ill intent. I'm not American and I used this term because it seemed to have currency in recent American politics, albeit through the moron Richard Spencer.
So yes, Israel was founded as a state for Jewish people.
But from that to how that delegitimises it as a democracy I still do not follow your argument and try as I might I don't really see how the Northern Ireland example is enlightening.
Willingness to enable majority demographic replacement is not a criterion of a democracy. Pakistan was founded at roughly the same time as Israel (1947) as a state for Muslims and while there are hundreds of valid critiques of their system, the most absurd would be that they can't ever be a full democracy until they accept complete demographic replacement by Hindus.
Israeli Muslims (and other non-Jews) have full citizenship rights and protections, vote, serve in the IDF, are represented in the Knesset and serve as diplomats for their country.
What you seem to suggest is that Israel is not a full democracy because it is not committed to importing millions of people who are NOT currently its citizens, people who have rejected the idea of becoming Israeli citizens under Israeli law and making those unwilling people citizens and the instant majority, thus destroying itself and becoming a "normalised, functioning Palestinian state" which is... absurd. Unless you mean that they are opposed to having a "normalised, functioning Palestinian state" as a neighbor which is patently false and has never been a real option. Had the Palestinians demonstrated at any point a willingness or capacity for becoming a functioning state as opposed to a violent fundamentalist bastion, the Israelis, who already pour millions of aid money into those territories, would have been their primary investors and trading partners.
Anyway, it seems what you're getting at goes way beyond a discussion about how Judaism is tied into and affects the legal system and political situation of Israel, which I initially thought you were talking about. I'm all for sparring over ideas but arguing over why Israel is responsible for all conflict in the Middle East because it refuses to become a Muslim state isn't really something I'm interested in pursuing right now.
I appreciate you sober replies to my posts. I don't think Israel is responsible for all conflict in the Middle East, I specifically meant the conflict with the Palestinians.
Northern Ireland was partitioned by the British to maintain a population loyal to Britain in perpetuity. Gerrymandering and vote suppression was used to back this up. Over time, birth rates have transformed the demography of this statelet and it's now o the verge of constitutional crisis. It's similar to Israel in that it's a state formed to serve the interests of a certain group at the expense of another. Where you have a situation like that , you'll always have conflict.
When you say that "all conflict in this area stems from the position of Israel as a Jewish state" do you mean just Israel and the countries that share a border with Israel or the Middle East in general? If it is the Middle East in general there are countless examples of conflict since 1948 that have nothing to do with Israel. If it is the immediate bordering area, how do you blame the Syrian Civil War (where far more Syrians have died than Palestinians since 1948) on Israel? Or Egypt's involvement in Yemen in the 1960's?
I meant the Israel/Palestinian conflict specifically.
Yes, I do agree with you. Hamas' acts are practically begging for retaliation and I know they don't have Palestinian peoples interests in mind. I can even understand the urge and the necessity for a forceful response, but I do agree with your underlying point.
James Kirchick on Real Time was great.
*affected
Thank you for being the asshole, so that I don’t have to.
Affected doesn't make a lick of sense grammatically. It is a distinction desperately in search of a difference.
The word "affect" already has another totally different use, whereas the word effect has an extremely similar use.
This is one of those linguistic battles that is losing because the status quo was actively stupid/nonsensical.
Thanks to all who wished me well with my surgery Friday morning. It went well, and I am back home. And finally got to listen to this talk between Moynihan and Oren Kessler.
As I noted in my earlier message, I was amazed to discover that I had read Kessler's book before Moynihan, because it feels he has read everything out there and retained it all. I do want to fervently second his suggestion to you all that you read Palestine 1936. I knew nothing about "The Great Revolt" before reading it. And found Kessler's writing both thorough and even-handed. One take-away from the book is how regularly the Arab population of Palestine, which was an essentially feudal society, was failed by its leadership. And not just the Grand Mufti, as Mr. Kessler aptly calls out toward the end of the talk here. Wealthy Arabs who owned large tracts of land, with poor Arabs as their serfs, often sold their lands to the Jewish settlers, then moved away to Beirut and Damascus. But even then, a dozen years before 1948, there were chances missed by all "sides", including the Brits, to have found a better outcome. Or at least I like to think so.
So glad to hear your surgery was a success and you’re home recovering!
Thanks for your notes on 1936. I picked up a copy yesterday but haven’t had a chance to read it yet. I was surprised, but gladdened to see that there were stacks of the book at the check-out counter at my local, Philadelphia B&N.