Islam, Israel, and the Tragedy of Gaza

Great Omari mosque, Gaza. (Mohammed Saber/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)

Having recently expressed support for our bombing of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, I’ve been reminded that my views about the ongoing conflict in the Middle East can seem perplexing. According to certain readers and podcast listeners, my thinking, while impeccable on other topics, has grown contorted by bias on this one. Some worry that my Jewish identity—and, by extension, an irrational attachment to the state of Israel—has caused me to avert my eyes from the horrors of Gaza. Several people have urged me to interview a prominent supporter of the Palestinian cause, so that I can confront an account of the war and the history of the region that paints Israel in a less flattering (and presumably more objective) light.

There may be a basis for some of this confusion: Since publishing my first book, The End of Faith, I have consistently criticized all forms of religious sectarianism. However, in the aftermath of October 7th, my thinking about Israel shifted—in response to the deluge of antisemitism, Holocaust denial, and moral perversity that burst the banks of the Internet and began seeping into every corner of culture. While I have no religious connection to Judaism, and have many misgivings about the current government of Israel, the global response to October 7th made me a Zionist. It is probably worth noting how far I’ve come on this point, for I once made the following statement on my podcast:

I don’t think Israel should exist as a Jewish state. I think it is obscene, irrational and unjustifiable to have a state organized around a religion. So I don’t celebrate the idea that there’s a Jewish homeland in the Middle East. I certainly don’t support any Jewish claims to real estate based on the Bible.

Though I just said that I don’t think Israel should exist as a Jewish state, the justification for such a state is rather easy to find. We need look no further than the fact that the rest of the world has shown itself eager to murder the Jews at almost every opportunity. So, if there were going to be a state organized around protecting members of a single religion, it certainly should be a Jewish state. Now, friends of Israel might consider this a rather tepid defense, but it’s the strongest one I’ve got. I think the idea of a religious state is ultimately untenable.

My opinion of religious sectarianism hasn’t improved, but I now believe that the concerns referenced in the second paragraph are overwhelming. Antisemitism is such a singular hatred, the Holocaust such a singular evil, and its denial such a singular insult, that defending Israel would be a moral necessity even if there were no other rationale for it.

But, of course, there is a more generic concern that has always governed my thinking about the conflict in the Middle East—and that is the omnipresent threat of jihadism. And on this topic there really should be no confusion about my views. Indeed, if one wanted to predict how I will judge the ethics of any future conflict, be it here on Earth or in some doomed colony on Mars, knowing whether jihadists are involved, and on which side, will suffice.

This is why the history of the Middle East is of no relevance to me—and why debating discrepant accounts of this history would be a waste of time (I’ll discuss Israel’s conduct of the war in a moment). My only concern is what people believe, and want, and judge to be sacred—now. Above all, I care about what people are willing to kill for. Beliefs about the past form some part of this inner landscape, but no account of history illuminates it. And no debate over what really happened in 1948, 1967, 2006, or in any other year will allow Palestinians and Jews to transcend their mutual grievances and hatreds. Everything that is worth knowing about this conflict can be learned from the behavior and utterances of ordinary people, on both sides, today.

And, as it happens, jihadists make no secret of their ambitions, however abhorrent. Most are as guileless and garrulous as a beauty queen the moment she is crowned. Just as there can be no doubt as to whether the lovely young lady from Tennessee wants a career in media, a large family, and peace on Earth, any Muslim fanatic who claims to “love death more than the Jews (or the infidels, or the Americans) love life” should be taken at his word.

The philosopher Karl Popper defined an "open society" as one whose inhabitants are free to think, speak, and act according to their own conscience, and where institutions are structured to allow for criticism and the peaceful correction of errors. Such a political order stands in contrast to the various tribal, authoritarian, or totalitarian alternatives, which Popper described as "closed." Understanding the differences between these regimes, and remaining alert to the ways that open societies can fail, is among the most important tasks of the present.

Islam is now the second largest religion on Earth, with more than 25 percent of humanity among its faithful. Unfortunately, several of its doctrines conflict with the core values of any open society. Like all religions, Islam takes diverse forms across cultures, and many Muslims live peacefully in secular democracies. But wherever the core tenets of the faith are fully embraced, secular norms come under pressure—especially with respect to freedom of speech, gender equality, and freedom of conscience.

This isn’t merely a theoretical concern. Among the top 50 countries ranked by Freedom House for political rights and civil liberties, not one has a Muslim population exceeding 10 percent—apart from Cyprus. Conversely, most of the nations at the bottom of that list are Muslim-majority states, keeping company with China, North Korea, and Russia. In the 14th century, a secular liberal would have found life intolerable everywhere under Christendom; today, the same can be said for anyone seeking a life of freedom wherever Islam dominates. That such a claim will be considered “Islamophobic” in most liberal circles in the West is symptomatic of a pervasive delusion—one that has been carefully nurtured by Islam’s apologists. This inability (or refusal) to distinguish between a criticism of dangerous ideas and a hatred for people is itself a capitulation to the forces of theocracy.

Islam is long overdue for an Enlightenment. But theological obstacles—most notably the imagined inerrancy of the Qur’an and the sterling example set by the Prophet Muhammad—have made lasting reform very difficult to achieve. Those who dismiss this observation as further evidence of bigotry are either ignorant of Islamic doctrine or lying about it.¹

Unfortunately, the term “jihadism,” which has the virtue of precision, also functions like a euphemism—as the concept can appear detached from the mainstream religion of Islam. However, the connection to doctrine is self-evident for the related term, “Islamism,” which is generally employed as a synonym for “political Islam”—the aim of which is to impose Islamic law (sharia) on society. Islamists often attempt to do this by subverting the democratic process itself, using charities, schools, and mosques to influence public opinion and secure political influence. Like any form of theocracy, Islamism treats apostasy, blasphemy, and dissent not as modern rights, but as ancient crimes—and it is, therefore, incompatible with the principles of secularism and pluralism that make open societies possible.

Jihadism is simply Islamism in its most belligerent form, freely using violence to achieve the same theocratic ends. For the jihadist, behavior which we describe as “terrorism” represents nothing less than a divine mandate for perpetual war.

While jihadists constitute a small minority among Muslims, their aspirations are perfectly orthodox—and, therefore, often widely supported. The belief that infidels and apostates are fit merely for the fires of hell, that waging holy war against them is a religious duty, and that martyrdom in this cause offers a direct path to Paradise (bypassing the torments awaiting everyone else on the Day of Judgment), are not fringe ideas within Islam—they are central. This is why the nihilistic brutality of Islamic “terrorists” can be difficult to disavow from within the faith, and why jihadism remains a theological and political menace throughout much of the world. We have seen Muslims by the tens of thousands, and in scores of countries, protest the slightest perceived insult to their faith. Where were all the protests over the countless atrocities committed by al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and Hamas?

The spread of Islam presents a profound challenge to open societies. While we cherish tolerance as a foundational value, tolerance of intolerance eventually becomes self-destructive.² As we struggle to defend secular, liberal values without lapsing into bigotry or xenophobia, the distinction between criticizing ideas and dehumanizing people is essential. But so is honesty: And the truth is that open societies cannot tolerate the spread of Islamic fanaticism indefinitely.

In this context, I regard Israel as a frontline state in the larger conflict between open societies and militant Islam. Whatever its flaws—and there are many—Israel remains a pluralistic democracy, committed to values that its enemies despise: free speech, women’s and LGBT rights, and scientific progress. The asymmetry here is not incidental: Israel’s critics, particularly those on the far Left, fail to grasp the difference between a flawed democracy and a death cult. Of course, they also fail to recognize the implications of such moral blindness for the societies in which they live. This is where progressive sanctimony and suicidality become indistinguishable.

In closing, I want to clarify how I think about the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians:

1. The current war in Gaza is one of the most tragic episodes in the larger struggle between jihadism and open societies, and the suffering of Palestinians is as horrific as it is undeniable. But the proximate cause of this suffering is not merely Israeli bombs—it is the millenarian nihilism of Hamas. The war could end tomorrow if Hamas released the remaining hostages and ceased attacking Israel. This fact is consistently ignored by those who blame Israel for the devastation in Gaza.

2. While support for Hamas appears to have diminished somewhat, polls throughout the region consistently show widespread allegiance to what has always been, explicitly, a genocidal death cult. Support for the atrocities of October 7th among Palestinians has also declined—as one might expect, given the cataclysm they unleashed upon Gaza, along with the military humiliation of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran—but it still stands at around 50 percent (59 percent in the West Bank, 38 percent in Gaza). Even in the midst of all this death and misery, Hamas still polls higher than its rivals, especially in the West Bank. Despite what we might wish to believe, there is simply no clear line of separation between a jihadist organization like Hamas and Palestinian society. We are talking about a culture that has been teaching its children to hate Jews, wage jihad, and aspire to martyrdom for decades (and they are still doing it).³

3. Whether or not Israel has done enough to mitigate the loss of innocent life in Gaza is debatable, and I won’t be surprised if some members of the IDF are found guilty of war crimes. Worse, it seems likely that many soldiers have been routinely given jobs—the guarding of food-distribution centers, for instance—where predictable encounters with civilians have led to pointless killing. Again, much of the onus rests with Hamas, whose members dress in civilian clothing and use crowds of noncombatants as cover for their attacks. But these were lethal failures of planning for which the Israeli government remains culpable.

4. There are also reasons to be alarmed by Israel’s current political trajectory—chief among them, the corruption of Prime Minister Netanyahu, the growing influence of religious extremists within his government, and the expansion of settlements in the West Bank. Needless to say, it would be much easier to support the Jewish state without having to issue such caveats.

5. My support for Israel is not tribal; it is ethical. And it would require a wholesale transformation of Israeli society—an explosion of religious fanaticism, widespread support for war crimes, and other signs of its becoming a death cult—to make me indifferent between the two sides. Should such a transformation occur, the primary reason for supporting Israel would disappear. While Israel has its own religious zealots on the far Right, they do not represent Israeli society nearly to the degree that Hamas and other jihadist groups represent the will of the Palestinian people.

6. I believe the following statement remains true: If the Palestinians put down their weapons, there would be peace in the region. If the Israelis put down their weapons, there would be a genocide. This asymmetry contains all the information one needs to discern the moral high ground in the Middle East. Should this difference between the two sides ever evaporate—should the IDF start perpetrating an actual genocide, for instance—so too would my primary reason for supporting Israel.⁴

I’ve spent much of my career debating people who do not view jihadism the way I do. (It is always telling that they do not view it the way jihadists do either.) These have been among the most boring and least productive encounters of my life. I am not a masochist. However, if my readers can find a relevant expert who understands that groups like Hamas actually believe what they say they believe—and that these beliefs are widely shared among Palestinians—but who, nevertheless, has a very different view of the conflict in the Middle East, I would be happy to engage such a person on my podcast. Feel free to email suggestions to info@samharris.org.

1. At the risk of appearing merely bigoted, permit me to spell out the obvious coda to this point: Among Muslims who are educated in their faith, liars will vastly outnumber the ignorant (by definition).

2. In The Open Society and Its Enemies, Karl Popper described this as the “paradox of tolerance”:

Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.

3. To be clear, I’m not talking about intrinsic differences between groups of people; I’m talking about the power of ideas. My criticism is aimed at any person or group that has come to believe, through whatever means, that martyrdom is real and Paradise awaits, that apostasy is a killing offense, and that one has a moral and spiritual obligation to spread this lunatic certainty to the ends of the Earth. Anyone who believes this, or teaches children to believe it, has made himself an enemy of civilization.

4. As I said above, my support for Israel has gained further impetus from the current reality of antisemitism, both within the Muslim community and throughout the West. The global response to October 7th revealed depths of suspicion and hatred for Jews that stunned even those of us who have been students of antisemitism. It still seems impossible to believe, but most of the charges now leveled against the Jewish state—accusations of genocide, starvation campaigns, and indiscriminate slaughter—were made before it responded to the events of October 7th. These were blood libels. And whatever subsequent errors or crimes have been committed by Israel, the threat posed by antisemitism to Jews throughout the world is now undeniable. When our best universities erupt in ecstasies of Jew hatred, when leftist mobs openly support jihad, when Jews are murdered on American streets—while, right of center, prominent figures play a game of “Just Asking Questions” with Holocaust deniers—the justification for a Jewish state that defends itself without apology is obvious. I once thought that Western democracies could be counted upon to protect their Jewish citizens. Unfortunately, the global response to October 7th has put this assumption very much in doubt.