They went door-to-door, dragging Jewish people out of their homes. Some they kidnapped. Others they simply slaughtered and left to rot.
But we must adopt a nuanced view. We must understand the murderers’ perspective. After all, they had legitimate grievances.
They were upset about the Treaty of Versailles.
Make no mistake, the events that unfolded in Israel over the weekend showed exactly how it would have looked had the Gestapo recorded its crimes and then uploaded the videos to social media. Hamas used Nazi methods in pursuit of a Nazi objective.
Note the use of the singular “objective.” Millions of individual Palestinians might have other and more reasonable objectives in mind. In another context, those objectives might carry weight, even substantial weight.
In the Hamas-Nazi context, however, those objectives recede into moral insignificance.
When we reflect on the crimes of the Third Reich, for instance, most people don’t think about the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I. The miseries of the Weimar Republic rarely enter our minds. Those legitimate German grievances appear as nothing.
This brings us to the moral context, which in turn presents us with the only question that matters when deciding whether to support Israel or Palestinians locked in a generational war over a land both claim.
To be clear, it is not the only question that matters in the present conflict. Indeed, it is far from being even the only moral question. It is, however, the question before which other and perhaps legitimate grievances recede.
For that question we now turn — somewhat uncomfortably — to the author and philosopher Sam Harris.
For the sake of disclosure, we must first acknowledge that much of Harris’ thinking on other subjects should strike us as repellent. In recent years, for instance, he has exposed himself as a medical authoritarian on the subject of COVID-19 vaccination and a champion of censorship in the name of election interference.
In addition to being a political liberal, he’s also an atheist, so he’s not the kind of authority who would normally be cited in a piece published by a conservative, Christian site.
But he is not without redeeming features.
In a 2014 clip from his “Making Sense” podcast, while discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Harris asked: “What would each side do if they had the power to do it?”
That question gets to the soul of each enterprise.
“What would the Jews do to the Palestinians if they could do anything they wanted?” Harris asked. “Well, we know the answer to that question, because they can do more or less anything they want.”
In other words, we know that the Jews have no genocidal intentions because they could commit genocide if they chose.
On the other hand, Harris described the “charter of Hamas” as “explicitly genocidal.” In fact, we have “every reason to believe” that many Palestinians “would kill all the Jews in Israel if they could.”
Does this include every Palestinian?
“Of course not,” Harris said. “But vast numbers of them — and of Muslims throughout the world — would.”
Colin Wright, an evolutionary biologist and fellow atheist, posted the Harris clip to X — formerly Twitter — on Saturday.
This is a pertinent clip from Sam Harris on the moral difference between Israel and her enemies.
The moral difference comes down to understanding the answer to this question: what would each side do if they had the power to do it?
TRANSCRIPT:
The truth is that there is an… pic.twitter.com/Wvld5EOpYx
— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) October 7, 2023
Also on Saturday, Wright posted a different clip of Harris approaching the “what each side would do” question through the lens of human shields.
Hamas uses human shields to hold off attackers, relying on their opponent’s basic respect for life to act as a defense. Israelis, on the other hand, regard human shields as a deterrence.
“Consider the moral difference between using human shields and being deterred by them,” Harris said. “That is the difference we’re talking about.”
Do you agree with Harris?
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Furthermore, “imagine” how “fatuous,” “comical” and “ridiculous” it would be for Israelis to use human shields in their own defense.
“The Palestinians are trying to kill everyone,” Harris said. “Killing women and children is part of the plan. Reversing the roles here produces a grotesque Monty Python skit.”
Indeed, reflections of this nature reveal nothing “more shocking or consequential” than the “ethical disparity” between Israel and Hamas on the use of human shields.
Sam Harris articulating why “using human shields” versus “being deterred by them” tells you “everything you need to know about the moral imbalance between Israel and her enemies.”
TRANSCRIPT:
The truth is that everything you need to know about the moral imbalance between Israel… pic.twitter.com/oyyEhL8MlO
— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) October 7, 2023
In short, Hamas terrorists behave like Nazis because they think and talk like Nazis.
A list of Hitlerian statements by Hamas officials, compiled by the Anti-Defamation League, runs long, but here are some samples:
“The Jews are the most despicable and contemptible nation to crawl upon the face of the Earth,” former Hamas minister of culture Atallah Abu Al-Subh said in a 2011 sermon.
The “Jewish faith does not wish for peace nor stability, since it is a faith that is based on murder,” Hamas representative Dr. Yussuf Al-Sharafi said in 2007.
Meanwhile, as recently as 2021, The Associated Press reported that polling data showed a “dramatic surge in Palestinian support for Hamas.”
The article reported on a survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Research, a non-profit in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Indeed, 53 percent of Palestinians identified Hamas as “most deserving of representing and leading the Palestinian people.”
Head pollster Khalil Shikaki noted, however, that the surge in support for Hamas mirrored past surges, and that this support “dissipated within three to six months as Hamas failed to deliver on promises of change.”
Oscillating levels of support for Hamas among Palestinian civilians merely amplify the Hamas-Nazi comparison.
Just as many Germans after World War I believed that they had legitimate grievances, so too do many modern Palestinians.
We need not evaluate these grievances as purely practical questions involving territory or some other historical claim. However, we can — and must — treat the behavior of those involved as moral questions.
For instance, how do we feel when we recall that in 1945, by some estimates, Soviet troops raped more than 2 million German women?
Do we blame those women? Do we applaud Soviet troops for their rage-and-lust-filled vengeance? At that point, does it matter that the regime that promised those women remedies for the evils of the Versailles Treaty had brought that terrible fate upon them?
In all cases, of course, the answer is no.
In like manner, how do we react to the following video recorded by a Palestinian woman in Gaza over the last few days? Do we want her to pay for Hamas’ crimes with her life? Or do we hope she survives and lives well for many years?
[embedded content]
Clearly, when it comes to basic human decency, more than one moral question matters in this, as in all conflicts.
Notice what happened, however, when you began thinking about those 2 million German women brutalized in 1945. You felt for them, and you wished they had not suffered. But your feeling did not lead you to approve of Nazism.
In the same way, you want this young Palestinian woman and her neighbors to be well. Perhaps you even have an intense feeling to see her and her family safe.
That feeling, however, does not lead you to support Hamas. It cannot.
That is why, in the present conflict, one question matters above all: “What would each side do if they had the power to do it?”
