I think it is great that you wrote and posted this and I love the list format. So much interesting perspective in every bite. "Lashing out is not synonymous with strength, and will likely become the source of lasting regret."
While I am normally not a huge Tom Friedman fan, he wrote a column today saying the exact same thing about how Israel can not let itself be goaded into doing what it’s enemies want. Plus he had very, very strong words about how Netanyahu was to blame for the massive intelligence and security failure. (Which is not the same as saying he was responsible for the attacks-no one but Hamas is responsible for those.) I normally don’t comment much on Israeli matters, but I think that unconditional support for the Israeli people while giving support combined with warnings and tough love to Netanyahu’s government seems like the place the US should be.
Thanks for writing this. You articulated a lot of my own thoughts much better than I could have myself, and covered additional items I hadn’t connected as well.
And as for anyone demanding that you provide solutions — e.g., “what should the Israeli military do?” — it’s okay if you honestly don’t have them. No one is required to have the perfect answer to every problem before they are allowed to point out that something is demonstrably wrong. for example, I don’t know how to cure Covid, but I can certainly point out that drinking bleach or taking horse paste is not the answer.
The rote mantra “Israel has a right to defend itself” (everyone has a right to defend themselves) loses no force with the caveat that war crimes are a defense to nothing, even other war crimes.
Exactly. For self defense to apply in U.S. criminal law, the response must be reasonable and only to protect self and/or others from harm. Leveling the Gaza Strip will not accomplish that any more than attacking Jewish civilians.
In times like these, I advise going directly to English language Israeli press to look at how vigorously the internal debates about events such as this is carried out compared to how these events are discussed here. There is also a greater chance of linking the most current event to decisions made in the past (by all parties, internal and external) which adds to making some sense out of what seems over here purely senseless or incomprehensible. Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has compiled a useful list of these sources for anyone interested in doing so.
2 points. a) we need to get off fossil fuels asap so we can ditch the medieval emirs of Saudi Arabia. b) You can be pro Israel and anti Netanyahu. Netanyahu is falling into the same trap as we did over 9/11. 22 years on it's painfully obvious we overreacted and killed thousands of innocents.
I so appreciate your thoughts and insights. I have one question from a pretty well-versed layman, given that this terror is ongoing, what is Israel to do - and by this, I do not condone the annihilation of Gaza and already, my heart hurts for the Palestinians in Gaza, but looking for better minds then mine as to what to do at this moment?
Thanks Amy. This is so very far outside my wheelhouse, so I hesitate to weigh in confidently, but my instinct would be to focus on a) hostage rescue and b) making a big show of a national commitment to respond in a way that *minimizes* civilian casualties—even if it means having to hunt Hamas leadership to the ends of the Earth. No weakness but also no indiscriminate recklessness.
Quite a few excellent lines & thoughts in here, but this insight of yours (often stated in similar phrasings in other columns) is critical:
"Republicans aren’t interested in good-faith criticism and won’t listen to it. Democrats, by contrast, aspire to higher values, and they just might."
After all these years, after Rushbo's "I hope he fails" about Obama in 2009, after the relentlessly bad faith "death panels" nonsense and baselessly distorting the "pass the bill and find out what's in it" comment by Pelosi, after Mitch's cynical actions to refuse hearing to Garland while rushing to confirm Barrett, etc etc etc etc -- far far too many otherwise smart people fail to grapple with the limitless badfaith nihilism of the Republican party and conservatives. Perpetuating and growing their own power is their only, singular principle.
But to return to these awful recent events, your takes are measured and thoughtful, and I appreciated reading them.
I see no reason why your words would invite any sort of attack. We should be able to hold competing ideas in our minds and consider at least two perspectives. I cannot remember a time when ”The Middle East” has not been a global issue. Without remembering specifics, I recall covering the Iran hostage crisis in Current Events in 4th grade. The enormity of history and the deep cultural and religious factors make it almost impossible to grasp.
A lot of people and media have been equating Hamas with Gaza which is such a superficial and harmful take. There are 2 million people in Gaza, over half of which are under 19 years old. I greatly appreciate seeing the more nuanced takes that differentiate between Hamas, a terrorist organization, and the innocent civilians stuck by Israel and Egypt in the strip. Netanyahu will (and has historically) do anything within his power to marginalize, dehumanize, and destroy the Palestinian people. Hamas is just helping him along.
A government elected before half the population was born is hardly an elected government of the people. Hamas is a terrorist organization with a brutal grip on the Gaza Strip. Also Netanyahu literally stated this a few years ago:
“Those who want to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state should support the strengthening of Hamas and the transfer of money to Hamas,” he stated at a Likud party meeting in March 2019." I think it goes without saying that Netanyahu wants to thwart the establishment of any proper Palestinian authority.
As I was driving to work today, listening to the latest "news", I found myself resigned to frustration with my feelings which are complex as I resist the black and white choices/ opinions that are put forth. Upon reading your post, it led to a feeling of relief. That there are rational people out there who can contain their emotions even in the face of heinous acts. Thank you for this article. I so desperately needed it.
Interesting point about how we don’t see Europeans (or Japan and Korea) interfering in US media and politics like Israel and Saudi Arabia do. I wonder, though, if they did, what kind of end would they be angling for and how they would go about it.
I love your comments Brian. It makes me feel that your comments section might be a decent place to put some thoughts of my own down. Not that anyone is looking for my take, but I do have the thoughts and sometimes they feel like they need to get out.
To begin pragmatically: Some of the attackers are 16-17 years old; pretty much all of them are young men. Are they just born bad and driven to evil? Some commentators do seem to believe that, but I think it's clear that they are made capable of and amenable to actions we consider abhorrent by the circumstances they were raised in...and I don't think this should be unexpected. Slave uprisings in the US were extremely brutal too (and the brutality was used to justify harsher treatment of slaves afterwards). Young men in hopeless situations very easily turn into Vikings. Viking raiders took no shame in violence or sexual violence; quite the contrary. The same can be said of 1000 other ancient or uncivilized peoples, and the same can be said of young people throughout the world who have pride but no prospects. They are a weapon created that is easy for others to use. Such a weapon sits in and all around Israel, and whether Israel inherited it, crafted it, or merely allowed it to form is complicated and largely beside the point. The weapon will do violence and although there may be some gut reaction to destroy it, that would probably be the most painful and difficult to achieve of all potential solutions. We just watched 20 years of war in Afghanistan, hopefully something was learned.
Another way to undo the weapon is to lift up the people of Palestine. This would be an agonizingly slow process that I guess would require at least 50 years of turning the other cheek. It would feel hopeless and unrewarding at many times. Many young people in Palestine would still be violent, and forces inside or outside Palestine would seek to exploit them for various political purposes. Nonetheless, I think it would be easier than a hopeless battle of destruction, and more productive than the in-between course that Israel has been pursuing during my lifetime.
There would be other benefits as well. A nation that was actually able to pursue such a course would stand as an example to the world. And to set aside the pragmatic, for any who believe that Israel was promised to the Jewish people by God, can there be any doubt that the path of peace and uplift would be the one God intended?
Personally (and this really is just personally), I would have no use for a God that only fueled my baser human instincts, and I would not rely on the texts of Iron-Age authors who led much more savage lives than my own to convince me God was such.
I so agree with 95 percent of this. We see it happening in the US, hopelessness leads young men down terrible paths. But that sense of hopelessness cannot all be blamed at the feet of Israel. Israel tried for decades for peace and only fought defensive wars. It suits all the other Arab countries to have the Palestinians live in squalor. It’s so much easier to rule when you can cast blame on Israel (and lest you think Netanyahu has been good for Israel or Palestine, I think he has been terrible and it’s obvious why you can’t strongman your way to peace)
Michael, Have you real scholarship on Viking ethics? Surely young Viking men had prospects, so are a poor comparison for your argument in any case. The claim that Northern Europeans were barbarous may have largely been Roman disinformation. It's certainly in scholarly dispute.
I used Vikings because in America there have been several TV shows (The Last Kingdom, for example) that show Viking culture celebrating murder, rape and torture, so it is a familiar concept, and also because there are no Vikings around to be offended by the comparison. My point was that young men more easily than many think begin to behave like Vikings do on TV. I have confidence in this assessment because I have witnessed it and heard first-hand accounts of it during my military career.
Older cultures did not necessarily need a lack of prospects to embrace violence, it was normal mammalian nature and easy to build a way of life around. Only today do so many of us live in security that violence seems shocking - but we are the same mammals we have always been.
Ah, I suspected you were sourcing TV fictions. As for us being mammals ... well, perhaps bonobos? That the music festival ("degenerate art") was the largest single target of the killers may be telling. The kids at the festival were behaving like bonobos.
>> it’s not anger over Palestinians who have already been killed, injured, or displaced.
I would only clarify that the root anger does seem to be over past injustices. Where Hamas goes horrifically wrong is deciding that it justifies the slaughter of innocents.
I also think there’s value in recognizing that this is a strategy and tactics of the most abhorrent and vile form of nihilism precisely *because* Hamas is incapable of seeing any other non-barbaric strategy or tactics that have remotely realistic chances of winning. They’re left with nothing, so they embrace *nothingness*.
That’s not to say that this is some “cry of the unheard”. Rather, that Israel’s overarching policy for the last two decades has been to bottle up Hamas and make meager, pro-forma overtures while still otherwise completely boxing Hamas in.
It would have worked for Israel if any of their other regional adversaries had made concessions of their own - for instance, Egypt opening its own border, or Hamas abandoning its genocidal goals. But they didn’t, leaving Hamas in the aforementioned nihilistic position. People can disagree in good faith on how to assign the blame, but it at least bears acknowledging what dynamic was at play here.
"They," as in Hamas, are left with nothing, so they are nihilistic? Am I understanding your point right? Because the history of Hamas doesn't support that they were a good faith political arm of the Palestinian people. They never were - they have always been committed to ending the state of Israel. I've heard over and over that Hamas doesn't speak for the Palestinians and that seems right; but you seem to be under the impression that they definitely do want a political solution. They're just terrorists and their first victims are the population who they rule by fear - they've killed many Palestinian activists who oppose their terrorism, for example.
I think it is great that you wrote and posted this and I love the list format. So much interesting perspective in every bite. "Lashing out is not synonymous with strength, and will likely become the source of lasting regret."
I like that most.
While I am normally not a huge Tom Friedman fan, he wrote a column today saying the exact same thing about how Israel can not let itself be goaded into doing what it’s enemies want. Plus he had very, very strong words about how Netanyahu was to blame for the massive intelligence and security failure. (Which is not the same as saying he was responsible for the attacks-no one but Hamas is responsible for those.) I normally don’t comment much on Israeli matters, but I think that unconditional support for the Israeli people while giving support combined with warnings and tough love to Netanyahu’s government seems like the place the US should be.
Yes he usually drives me nuts but it was excellent column
Thanks for writing this. You articulated a lot of my own thoughts much better than I could have myself, and covered additional items I hadn’t connected as well.
And as for anyone demanding that you provide solutions — e.g., “what should the Israeli military do?” — it’s okay if you honestly don’t have them. No one is required to have the perfect answer to every problem before they are allowed to point out that something is demonstrably wrong. for example, I don’t know how to cure Covid, but I can certainly point out that drinking bleach or taking horse paste is not the answer.
The rote mantra “Israel has a right to defend itself” (everyone has a right to defend themselves) loses no force with the caveat that war crimes are a defense to nothing, even other war crimes.
Exactly. For self defense to apply in U.S. criminal law, the response must be reasonable and only to protect self and/or others from harm. Leveling the Gaza Strip will not accomplish that any more than attacking Jewish civilians.
In times like these, I advise going directly to English language Israeli press to look at how vigorously the internal debates about events such as this is carried out compared to how these events are discussed here. There is also a greater chance of linking the most current event to decisions made in the past (by all parties, internal and external) which adds to making some sense out of what seems over here purely senseless or incomprehensible. Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has compiled a useful list of these sources for anyone interested in doing so.
2 points. a) we need to get off fossil fuels asap so we can ditch the medieval emirs of Saudi Arabia. b) You can be pro Israel and anti Netanyahu. Netanyahu is falling into the same trap as we did over 9/11. 22 years on it's painfully obvious we overreacted and killed thousands of innocents.
THIS!!!!!!
I so appreciate your thoughts and insights. I have one question from a pretty well-versed layman, given that this terror is ongoing, what is Israel to do - and by this, I do not condone the annihilation of Gaza and already, my heart hurts for the Palestinians in Gaza, but looking for better minds then mine as to what to do at this moment?
Thanks Amy. This is so very far outside my wheelhouse, so I hesitate to weigh in confidently, but my instinct would be to focus on a) hostage rescue and b) making a big show of a national commitment to respond in a way that *minimizes* civilian casualties—even if it means having to hunt Hamas leadership to the ends of the Earth. No weakness but also no indiscriminate recklessness.
Thanks for writing this and I hope your fears of it being ill-advised are ill-founded.
Quite a few excellent lines & thoughts in here, but this insight of yours (often stated in similar phrasings in other columns) is critical:
"Republicans aren’t interested in good-faith criticism and won’t listen to it. Democrats, by contrast, aspire to higher values, and they just might."
After all these years, after Rushbo's "I hope he fails" about Obama in 2009, after the relentlessly bad faith "death panels" nonsense and baselessly distorting the "pass the bill and find out what's in it" comment by Pelosi, after Mitch's cynical actions to refuse hearing to Garland while rushing to confirm Barrett, etc etc etc etc -- far far too many otherwise smart people fail to grapple with the limitless badfaith nihilism of the Republican party and conservatives. Perpetuating and growing their own power is their only, singular principle.
But to return to these awful recent events, your takes are measured and thoughtful, and I appreciated reading them.
Thank you Jay, I'm glad to hear it.
I see no reason why your words would invite any sort of attack. We should be able to hold competing ideas in our minds and consider at least two perspectives. I cannot remember a time when ”The Middle East” has not been a global issue. Without remembering specifics, I recall covering the Iran hostage crisis in Current Events in 4th grade. The enormity of history and the deep cultural and religious factors make it almost impossible to grasp.
A lot of people and media have been equating Hamas with Gaza which is such a superficial and harmful take. There are 2 million people in Gaza, over half of which are under 19 years old. I greatly appreciate seeing the more nuanced takes that differentiate between Hamas, a terrorist organization, and the innocent civilians stuck by Israel and Egypt in the strip. Netanyahu will (and has historically) do anything within his power to marginalize, dehumanize, and destroy the Palestinian people. Hamas is just helping him along.
Ugh really? Destroy the Palestinians? You says this as the elected gazan government is murdering Israeli citizens. C’mon
A government elected before half the population was born is hardly an elected government of the people. Hamas is a terrorist organization with a brutal grip on the Gaza Strip. Also Netanyahu literally stated this a few years ago:
“Those who want to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state should support the strengthening of Hamas and the transfer of money to Hamas,” he stated at a Likud party meeting in March 2019." I think it goes without saying that Netanyahu wants to thwart the establishment of any proper Palestinian authority.
Dear Mr. Beutler,
As I was driving to work today, listening to the latest "news", I found myself resigned to frustration with my feelings which are complex as I resist the black and white choices/ opinions that are put forth. Upon reading your post, it led to a feeling of relief. That there are rational people out there who can contain their emotions even in the face of heinous acts. Thank you for this article. I so desperately needed it.
Interesting point about how we don’t see Europeans (or Japan and Korea) interfering in US media and politics like Israel and Saudi Arabia do. I wonder, though, if they did, what kind of end would they be angling for and how they would go about it.
I love your comments Brian. It makes me feel that your comments section might be a decent place to put some thoughts of my own down. Not that anyone is looking for my take, but I do have the thoughts and sometimes they feel like they need to get out.
To begin pragmatically: Some of the attackers are 16-17 years old; pretty much all of them are young men. Are they just born bad and driven to evil? Some commentators do seem to believe that, but I think it's clear that they are made capable of and amenable to actions we consider abhorrent by the circumstances they were raised in...and I don't think this should be unexpected. Slave uprisings in the US were extremely brutal too (and the brutality was used to justify harsher treatment of slaves afterwards). Young men in hopeless situations very easily turn into Vikings. Viking raiders took no shame in violence or sexual violence; quite the contrary. The same can be said of 1000 other ancient or uncivilized peoples, and the same can be said of young people throughout the world who have pride but no prospects. They are a weapon created that is easy for others to use. Such a weapon sits in and all around Israel, and whether Israel inherited it, crafted it, or merely allowed it to form is complicated and largely beside the point. The weapon will do violence and although there may be some gut reaction to destroy it, that would probably be the most painful and difficult to achieve of all potential solutions. We just watched 20 years of war in Afghanistan, hopefully something was learned.
Another way to undo the weapon is to lift up the people of Palestine. This would be an agonizingly slow process that I guess would require at least 50 years of turning the other cheek. It would feel hopeless and unrewarding at many times. Many young people in Palestine would still be violent, and forces inside or outside Palestine would seek to exploit them for various political purposes. Nonetheless, I think it would be easier than a hopeless battle of destruction, and more productive than the in-between course that Israel has been pursuing during my lifetime.
There would be other benefits as well. A nation that was actually able to pursue such a course would stand as an example to the world. And to set aside the pragmatic, for any who believe that Israel was promised to the Jewish people by God, can there be any doubt that the path of peace and uplift would be the one God intended?
Personally (and this really is just personally), I would have no use for a God that only fueled my baser human instincts, and I would not rely on the texts of Iron-Age authors who led much more savage lives than my own to convince me God was such.
I so agree with 95 percent of this. We see it happening in the US, hopelessness leads young men down terrible paths. But that sense of hopelessness cannot all be blamed at the feet of Israel. Israel tried for decades for peace and only fought defensive wars. It suits all the other Arab countries to have the Palestinians live in squalor. It’s so much easier to rule when you can cast blame on Israel (and lest you think Netanyahu has been good for Israel or Palestine, I think he has been terrible and it’s obvious why you can’t strongman your way to peace)
Michael, Have you real scholarship on Viking ethics? Surely young Viking men had prospects, so are a poor comparison for your argument in any case. The claim that Northern Europeans were barbarous may have largely been Roman disinformation. It's certainly in scholarly dispute.
I used Vikings because in America there have been several TV shows (The Last Kingdom, for example) that show Viking culture celebrating murder, rape and torture, so it is a familiar concept, and also because there are no Vikings around to be offended by the comparison. My point was that young men more easily than many think begin to behave like Vikings do on TV. I have confidence in this assessment because I have witnessed it and heard first-hand accounts of it during my military career.
Older cultures did not necessarily need a lack of prospects to embrace violence, it was normal mammalian nature and easy to build a way of life around. Only today do so many of us live in security that violence seems shocking - but we are the same mammals we have always been.
Ah, I suspected you were sourcing TV fictions. As for us being mammals ... well, perhaps bonobos? That the music festival ("degenerate art") was the largest single target of the killers may be telling. The kids at the festival were behaving like bonobos.
>> it’s not anger over Palestinians who have already been killed, injured, or displaced.
I would only clarify that the root anger does seem to be over past injustices. Where Hamas goes horrifically wrong is deciding that it justifies the slaughter of innocents.
I also think there’s value in recognizing that this is a strategy and tactics of the most abhorrent and vile form of nihilism precisely *because* Hamas is incapable of seeing any other non-barbaric strategy or tactics that have remotely realistic chances of winning. They’re left with nothing, so they embrace *nothingness*.
That’s not to say that this is some “cry of the unheard”. Rather, that Israel’s overarching policy for the last two decades has been to bottle up Hamas and make meager, pro-forma overtures while still otherwise completely boxing Hamas in.
It would have worked for Israel if any of their other regional adversaries had made concessions of their own - for instance, Egypt opening its own border, or Hamas abandoning its genocidal goals. But they didn’t, leaving Hamas in the aforementioned nihilistic position. People can disagree in good faith on how to assign the blame, but it at least bears acknowledging what dynamic was at play here.
"They," as in Hamas, are left with nothing, so they are nihilistic? Am I understanding your point right? Because the history of Hamas doesn't support that they were a good faith political arm of the Palestinian people. They never were - they have always been committed to ending the state of Israel. I've heard over and over that Hamas doesn't speak for the Palestinians and that seems right; but you seem to be under the impression that they definitely do want a political solution. They're just terrorists and their first victims are the population who they rule by fear - they've killed many Palestinian activists who oppose their terrorism, for example.
Lots of hand-wringing but I’m still waiting to read proposals for alternative courses of action.