Few figures in conservativism are more revered than Thomas Sowell. A free-market economist, social theorist and philosopher, Sowell’s work has spanned decades and influenced generations.
Sowell wrote a nationally syndicated column, authored dozens of books and dazzled television audiences time and time again with his common sense, anti-intellectual approach to political and cultural issues.
The following story is part of The Western Journal’s exclusive series “The Sowell Digest.” Each issue will break down and summarize one of Sowell’s many influential works.
As rockets and terror continue to rain down upon the people of Israel, it bears reflecting on how we got to this point.
As it turns out, going back decades, Thomas Sowell warned us all about the dangers posed by both Joe Biden’s foreign policy experience and the West’s goal to create “peace” between Israel and Palestine.
If only our leaders had listened to his sage advice.
Biden’s Foreign Policy Blunder
This most recent conflict began on Saturday. Following a massive surprise attack, the Israeli cabinet officially declared war on the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas.
Many believe the disastrous foreign policy moves of our sitting president, Joe Biden, played a key role in igniting this bloody conflict.
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Biden’s policies likely gave Hamas the ammunition — literally speaking — to successfully kill numerous Israeli citizens. Back in September, the Biden administration announced it was sending five Iranian citizens jailed in the U.S., along with a whopping $6 billion to Iran in exchange for five American hostages.
On Saturday, Iranian lawmakers celebrated the attacks on Israel as a “proud operation”; Many members of the country’s parliament changed “Down with Israel” and “Down with America.”
According to The Heritage Foundation’s Victoria Coates, Hamas could not have successfully launched such a large-scale attack on Israel without Iran’s backing.
Hamas could not have carried out an attack of this scale against Israel alone. They had help from Iran, and the Biden administration’s permissive policy toward the terrorist regime helped fund it.@VictoriaCoates pic.twitter.com/4VyIsWD7XU
— Heritage Foundation (@Heritage) October 8, 2023
“Absent Iran, there’s no way they can pull this off. And so we know Iran is taking all of the money that’s been flowing to it for the last two and a half years… and pouring that into fueling an unprecedented terrorist operation against innocent Israeli civilians,” she said during a recent appearance on Fox News.
Sowell on Biden’s “Experience”
In the past, Sowell warned us about the dangers posed by Biden’s supposed foreign policy experience.
The beloved economist did so in a 2008 column titled “Foreign Policy ‘Experience.’”
At the time, Sowell was lamenting Biden’s lack of solid experience, along with the fact that the career politician, if Obama were to be elected, would soon be only “a heartbeat away” from becoming the president.
If only he knew what was to come over a decade later.
“…[T]he big talking point is that the Democrats’ vice-presidential nominee, Senator Joe Biden, has years of foreign policy experience as a member, and now chairman, of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,” Sowell wrote.
“That all depends on what the definition of ‘experience’ is.”
Sowell went on to point out that just because Biden had served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee meant next to nothing when it came to actual “experience.”
“The difference between being a spectator and being a participant, with responsibility for the consequences of what you say and do, is fundamental,” Sowell wrote. “You can read books about crime or attend lectures by criminologists, but you have no real experience or expertise about crime unless you have been a criminal or a policeman.”
“The fact that Senator Joe Biden has for years listened to all sorts of people testify on all sorts of foreign-policy issues tells us nothing about how well he understood the issues.”
And, as we would soon find out years ahead, that lack of meaningful experience would cause many major crises across the world including, but far from limited to, the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal and the ongoing conflict in Israel.
Sowell on Israel and Palestine “Cease Fires”
In a separate column published years later in 2014, Sowell made a point to call out the ignorance of those calling for cease-fires in the Middle East.
The Bidena administration itself played into this fallacious idea when it sent out a now-deleted post on X (formerly known as Twitter) urging Israel to refrain from defending itself via counterattack.
🚨🚨🚨Joe Biden DEMANDS Israel NOT Defend Itself From Terrorist Attacks
In a now deleted tweet, the Biden Regime demanded Israel stop fighting after a brutal surprise attack on Israel by terrorist group Hamas overnight.
Hundreds of Israeli civilians have been killed/captured pic.twitter.com/rG0Mqk3F4R
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) October 7, 2023
According to Sowell, such thinking betrays a lack of understanding about the nature of conflict in the Middle East, as well as a lack of understanding of the history behind them.
“The Middle East must lead the world in cease-fires. If cease-fires were the road to peace, the Middle East would easily be the most peaceful place on the planet,” Sowell wrote. “In the short run, they save some lives. But in the long run they cost far more lives, by lowering the cost of aggression.”
When the cost of aggression is lessened through cease-fires and periods of peace, terrorists are incentivized to periodically continue their attacks.
This is especially the case for Hamas and the Palestinian people. Hamas’s official founding charter calls for the destruction of Israel and, despite the fact that it is officially designated a terrorist organization, has been democratically elected by the Palestinian people, per Reuters.
Israel wants peace. Hamas wants to murder the Jewish people. No amount of peace talks is every going to change that. But, as Sowell suggests, perhaps swift action and serious consequences for terrorist could.
“At one time, launching a military attack on another nation risked not only retaliation but annihilation. When Carthage attacked Rome, that was the end of Carthage,” Sowell wrote.
“But when Hamas or some other terrorist group launches an attack on Israel, they know in advance that whatever Israel does in response will be limited by calls for a cease-fire, backed by political and economic pressures from the United States.”
“If you want to minimize civilian casualties, then minimize the dangers of war, by no longer coming to the rescue of those who start wars.”
