I don’t think it’s controversial to say that Israel is winning its campaign against Hamas. Since the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, Israel has waged a siege on Gaza that has reduced most of the territory to rubble. Hamas has been decapitated, their infrastructure is in ruins, and well over a million Gazan civilians have been displaced. Israelis and Palestinianians will be dealing with October 7th’s fallout for decades to come. But as of this moment, Israel is largely getting its way.
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How can we find a way to make sense of such a situation, in which both sides have committed terrible acts in the name of what they see as righteous causes, without reverting to platitudes like “it’s complicated”? With so much blood shed and so many people displaced over so many decades, the human instinct is to take a side. But merely picking a side can sometimes substitute superficial partisanship for moral and analytical insight.
Last Friday’s guests—Norman Finkelstein and Eli Lake—have, I think it’s fair to say, chosen their sides, though there’s nothing superficial about their reasons for doing so. I wanted to have both of them on the show to articulate what they see as the most pressing issues facing Israel, Palestine, and the United States. But I also felt that having them debate each other directly could result in conflict without clarity. Instead, I had them on in succession, first Norman and then Eli, to present what they see as the most pressing concerns today, nearly three years after the October 7th attacks.
Norman’s forthcoming book, Gaza’s Gravediggers: An Inquiry into Corruption in High Places, examines the international human rights community’s response to Gaza, and argues that some institutions have failed in their responsibility to protect vulnerable populations, like the Gazans. As he admits, it is very difficult to see any kind of Palestinian future for Gaza. Still he remains focused on analyzing the truth and morality of the conflict.
In his position as a columnist for the Free Press, Eli Lake has argued that Israel’s response to Hamas has been, on the whole, justified, despite some horrific missteps. He worries over the growing popularity of anti-Israel sentiment here in the United States, especially among Democratic and democratic socialist politicians. He’s argued that Michigan senatorial candidate and Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed represents a dangerous anti-American ideology on the left, in which criticism of U.S. support for Israel is a major factor.
In these two linked conversations, John McWhorter and I interrogate both positions. The result won’t fully satisfy everyone, and it isn’t supposed to. We all need to expose ourselves to ideas and analyses with which we disagree, and we must do so in good faith. That’s what John and I are trying to do here.
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