Well, Lebanon isn’t a democracy in the way Israel is for starters. And in any case the answer is simple: no individual should be held as responsible for their government’s policies and that applies for Israelis or Americans just like it would anyone else. Nowhere in my piece did I suggest that Israelis should be mistreated just for being Israeli. In face, I’ve long been a critic of BDS on precisely this grounds.
Shadi - I just want to point out - the talks and positions you are describing here, are exactly the reason why Haviv Rettig Gur characterized your Gaza war commentary as “identitarian” on X last week.
You are articulating it here quite clearly and honestly. As you describe it, all the people at your talks have been muslims and, so, you admit, it follows practically without even saying that they are “pro-Palestinian” to one degree or another. Setting aside the usual semantic dissembling (what are the distinctions at this point among pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel, and pro-Hamas, if any exist) that is the perfect illustration of an “identitarian” approach to perceiving the conflict.
You reacted quite harshly to Haviv’s accurate and descriptive response to your comments, and you should probably apologize to him.
I'm not sure I even follow the logic here. Why wouldn't they be pro-Palestinian? You seem to think that you've landed on a gotcha. But, well, you might want to question your premises. Also, the notion that I'm going to apologize to someone who was insinuating that me (and other Arab-Americans) are overly emotional and irrational made me, well, chuckle.
Not a “gotcha.” Trying to bridge a divide. To start, let me just say that I’m a genuine admirer of your work and I follow your stuff pretty closely, on “X,” here, in WaPo, and otherwise. I found your recent talk on the 5th Column pod really interesting, because, then, you seemed to be struggling with how you want to approach Israel’s war against Hamas. In your earlier, longer podcast on the topic on your own podcast, I also got the sense you were wrestling with the morality of the conflict and had been trying to see things from the Israeli perspective and trying to project what a country would logically do in Israel’s difficult position.
Since then, you have published some more of your thoughs on the topic, though not really all that much in depth. But you have clearly decided to adopt an “anti-Israel, Pro-Palestinian” advocacy position and given up on attempting dispassionate analysis. (I hate those terms). E.g., you now characterize the struggle as “zero-sum,” which I take to mean you think Israel should “lose” and Hamas should “win.” And you have said that you think attempting to “steel man” Israel’s reasons for making war on Hamas are impossible, because Israel’s combat tactics are, to you, so clearly illogical that they must be motivated solely by malice and bad faith desire to harm innocent Palestinians.
Fair enough. That is the nearly uniform position of the super-majority of all Arab Muslims world-wide, especially in the Egypt of your family’s heritage, and here in the US. A big part of that comes from the core belief of the vast majority of Arab Muslims that Israel is an illegitimate, unjust project that should never have occurred in the first place and the world will be better for everyone if Israel can be eliminated and the land returned to Arab Muslims. Israel is fundamental bad.
I don’t think you will be shocked to learn that most Jews, in Israel and worldwide, disagree profoundly. The way they (we) see it, is that Hamas attacked Israel and tried to make it impossible for Israel to retaliate by hiding behind civilians. Daring Israel to kill civilians to get to Hamas’s fighters left Israel little choice but to do exactly that. Because if Hamas’s strategy is allowed to be successful, it will be worse for everyone in the future - Israelis and Palestinians. Deterrence is only possible if your enemies don’t have a safe place to hide.
Of course, all that is premised on the core belief that Israel is a legitimate, just project that should continue to exist to protect its citizens from the genocide its neighbors plan for them. Israel is fundamental good.
That is a major divide - practically two distinct realities. And that is exactly what Haviv was calling an “identitarian” perspective on the war - positions and beliefs that derive first and foremost from tribal loyalty. Once you give in to the identitarian framework it changes the way you react to everything. So, eg, Arab Muslims tend to react skeptically (at best) to information about the war originating from Jewish or Israeli outlets and to give the benefit of the doubt to information from, e.g., the Hamas health ministry. Maybe neither are even remotely reliable - but which a person thinks is more reliable is very likely to derive from an identititarian perspective.
If you think I am misunderstanding you, please let me know. But I suspect Haviv - who really is a good dude, and a smart reporter - is just seeing in your comments on X what I and everyone else have been seeing for some time now. I doubt he meant to offend you. And if I can be even more bold than I already have been (which is pretty bold), maybe you should try talking to him sometime? It would be very interesting.
The second person's 'moral question' doesn't seem to leave any room for clarity or nuance. They try to automatically sort people into one of two boxes based on their position without caring about anything else. On the flip side, as a person that happens to agree with your views on de-politicization, I drain myself by constantly worrying at what point this switches to being apathetic and disillusioned with everything in general. So much so that you eventually end up nodding along with understanding and empathy at all expressed view points and never care too much for any of them
Your first interlocutor dismisses the value of reading and the depth of information and ideas it provides, comparable to no other medium. There’s her first terrible idea.
Your second young interlocutor doesn’t seem to think that “moral questions” are worthy of discussion. There’s her terrible idea.
To regard offering or discussing a different point of view as “emotional vampirism” - that one might take the cake.
I think the problem with the first view is that it sees reading as purely a form of information gathering, interchangeable with other forms of information gathering. It's completely instrumental. As for the second view, I suppose we all have our red lines, where we're just like, there's no point in talking to this person. It's really only a question of how narrowly one wishes to draw it. I prefer an expansive, presumptively generous approach, but even I have my limits. And in fact I'm facing them on a somewhat regular basis when I get into debates with people on Gaza :) So I'm struggling with this.
You can't interchange reading with other forms of information gathering because it has so much more breadth and depth. (I'm a linguist and language teacher.) Yet people won't do it these days. A person needs a lively curiosity and a drive to find "truth(s)" and insights to be continuously interested in a real exchange of views. But sometimes when conversation partners are only interested in "winning" or when their identity is tied up in their views, then there comes a point where it may be necessary to change the subject or back off. They are "captured" and often not well informed and they aren't really interested in a conversation that might challenge their beliefs, more's the pity. But don't get discouraged. There are good people out there with whom you CAN carry on a conversation. I was recently in Jordan (mid October) and even got into conversations with taxi drivers there about Gaza (bringing in some of the Israeli angles) and they would occasionally say (somewhat to my surprise), "You are right." In my view, there is no knee-jerk way to address these issues, and fair-minded people will agree with that. I'm not sure moral questions are ever finally settled either because there are so many nuances in each situation, and people NEED to discuss them honestly. But if people you are talking to just aren't interested in thinking or getting more insight (and often this is BECAUSE they are really not that sure of their views), it's probably wise to retreat.
I would have been interested in the reaction of your interlocutor who asked whether she could still be friends with a pro-Israel supporter had you asked if she could still be friends with a Syrian who supports Assad (who is responsible for mass murder, including murder and starvation of thousands of Palestinians) pretty much any Lebanese (where the laws that prohibit Palestinians from citizenship, owning property and access to many professions can legitimately be described as apartheid laws). The world seems curiously disinterested in what some call Muslim on Muslim violence and, if universal principles are to have any meaning, they must be applied universally.
Well, I'm not sure why a Lebanese person should be responsible for their government's policies, particularly policies that they're probably not even aware of. As for Syria, I know many Arabs (probably most of my Arab-American friends) who would not be friends with an Assad supporter. That's basically been my approach too.
If you really mean this, “I'm not sure why a Lebanese person should be responsible for their government's policies”, then why is the answer different when you swap out Lebanese for Israeli. Don’t you think both love their respective countries notwithstanding its flaws?
I suppose the larger question I was posing though is this: where are the demonstrators supporting Palestinian rights where the oppressor is Muslim? The identity of the oppressor should make no difference.
Thought-provoking though not easy to achieve
Well, Lebanon isn’t a democracy in the way Israel is for starters. And in any case the answer is simple: no individual should be held as responsible for their government’s policies and that applies for Israelis or Americans just like it would anyone else. Nowhere in my piece did I suggest that Israelis should be mistreated just for being Israeli. In face, I’ve long been a critic of BDS on precisely this grounds.
Shadi - I just want to point out - the talks and positions you are describing here, are exactly the reason why Haviv Rettig Gur characterized your Gaza war commentary as “identitarian” on X last week.
You are articulating it here quite clearly and honestly. As you describe it, all the people at your talks have been muslims and, so, you admit, it follows practically without even saying that they are “pro-Palestinian” to one degree or another. Setting aside the usual semantic dissembling (what are the distinctions at this point among pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel, and pro-Hamas, if any exist) that is the perfect illustration of an “identitarian” approach to perceiving the conflict.
You reacted quite harshly to Haviv’s accurate and descriptive response to your comments, and you should probably apologize to him.
I'm not sure I even follow the logic here. Why wouldn't they be pro-Palestinian? You seem to think that you've landed on a gotcha. But, well, you might want to question your premises. Also, the notion that I'm going to apologize to someone who was insinuating that me (and other Arab-Americans) are overly emotional and irrational made me, well, chuckle.
Not a “gotcha.” Trying to bridge a divide. To start, let me just say that I’m a genuine admirer of your work and I follow your stuff pretty closely, on “X,” here, in WaPo, and otherwise. I found your recent talk on the 5th Column pod really interesting, because, then, you seemed to be struggling with how you want to approach Israel’s war against Hamas. In your earlier, longer podcast on the topic on your own podcast, I also got the sense you were wrestling with the morality of the conflict and had been trying to see things from the Israeli perspective and trying to project what a country would logically do in Israel’s difficult position.
Since then, you have published some more of your thoughs on the topic, though not really all that much in depth. But you have clearly decided to adopt an “anti-Israel, Pro-Palestinian” advocacy position and given up on attempting dispassionate analysis. (I hate those terms). E.g., you now characterize the struggle as “zero-sum,” which I take to mean you think Israel should “lose” and Hamas should “win.” And you have said that you think attempting to “steel man” Israel’s reasons for making war on Hamas are impossible, because Israel’s combat tactics are, to you, so clearly illogical that they must be motivated solely by malice and bad faith desire to harm innocent Palestinians.
Fair enough. That is the nearly uniform position of the super-majority of all Arab Muslims world-wide, especially in the Egypt of your family’s heritage, and here in the US. A big part of that comes from the core belief of the vast majority of Arab Muslims that Israel is an illegitimate, unjust project that should never have occurred in the first place and the world will be better for everyone if Israel can be eliminated and the land returned to Arab Muslims. Israel is fundamental bad.
I don’t think you will be shocked to learn that most Jews, in Israel and worldwide, disagree profoundly. The way they (we) see it, is that Hamas attacked Israel and tried to make it impossible for Israel to retaliate by hiding behind civilians. Daring Israel to kill civilians to get to Hamas’s fighters left Israel little choice but to do exactly that. Because if Hamas’s strategy is allowed to be successful, it will be worse for everyone in the future - Israelis and Palestinians. Deterrence is only possible if your enemies don’t have a safe place to hide.
Of course, all that is premised on the core belief that Israel is a legitimate, just project that should continue to exist to protect its citizens from the genocide its neighbors plan for them. Israel is fundamental good.
That is a major divide - practically two distinct realities. And that is exactly what Haviv was calling an “identitarian” perspective on the war - positions and beliefs that derive first and foremost from tribal loyalty. Once you give in to the identitarian framework it changes the way you react to everything. So, eg, Arab Muslims tend to react skeptically (at best) to information about the war originating from Jewish or Israeli outlets and to give the benefit of the doubt to information from, e.g., the Hamas health ministry. Maybe neither are even remotely reliable - but which a person thinks is more reliable is very likely to derive from an identititarian perspective.
If you think I am misunderstanding you, please let me know. But I suspect Haviv - who really is a good dude, and a smart reporter - is just seeing in your comments on X what I and everyone else have been seeing for some time now. I doubt he meant to offend you. And if I can be even more bold than I already have been (which is pretty bold), maybe you should try talking to him sometime? It would be very interesting.
The second person's 'moral question' doesn't seem to leave any room for clarity or nuance. They try to automatically sort people into one of two boxes based on their position without caring about anything else. On the flip side, as a person that happens to agree with your views on de-politicization, I drain myself by constantly worrying at what point this switches to being apathetic and disillusioned with everything in general. So much so that you eventually end up nodding along with understanding and empathy at all expressed view points and never care too much for any of them
Well said, it is a bit of balancing act, and has to be constantly negotiated. As a great philosopher once said, the danger of having an open mind is that your brain might fall out. I still do think this is a better way to live fwiw, but obviously I wrote that pre-Gaza: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/information-news-addiction-liberal-depression/673351/
Your first interlocutor dismisses the value of reading and the depth of information and ideas it provides, comparable to no other medium. There’s her first terrible idea.
Your second young interlocutor doesn’t seem to think that “moral questions” are worthy of discussion. There’s her terrible idea.
To regard offering or discussing a different point of view as “emotional vampirism” - that one might take the cake.
I think the problem with the first view is that it sees reading as purely a form of information gathering, interchangeable with other forms of information gathering. It's completely instrumental. As for the second view, I suppose we all have our red lines, where we're just like, there's no point in talking to this person. It's really only a question of how narrowly one wishes to draw it. I prefer an expansive, presumptively generous approach, but even I have my limits. And in fact I'm facing them on a somewhat regular basis when I get into debates with people on Gaza :) So I'm struggling with this.
You can't interchange reading with other forms of information gathering because it has so much more breadth and depth. (I'm a linguist and language teacher.) Yet people won't do it these days. A person needs a lively curiosity and a drive to find "truth(s)" and insights to be continuously interested in a real exchange of views. But sometimes when conversation partners are only interested in "winning" or when their identity is tied up in their views, then there comes a point where it may be necessary to change the subject or back off. They are "captured" and often not well informed and they aren't really interested in a conversation that might challenge their beliefs, more's the pity. But don't get discouraged. There are good people out there with whom you CAN carry on a conversation. I was recently in Jordan (mid October) and even got into conversations with taxi drivers there about Gaza (bringing in some of the Israeli angles) and they would occasionally say (somewhat to my surprise), "You are right." In my view, there is no knee-jerk way to address these issues, and fair-minded people will agree with that. I'm not sure moral questions are ever finally settled either because there are so many nuances in each situation, and people NEED to discuss them honestly. But if people you are talking to just aren't interested in thinking or getting more insight (and often this is BECAUSE they are really not that sure of their views), it's probably wise to retreat.
I would have been interested in the reaction of your interlocutor who asked whether she could still be friends with a pro-Israel supporter had you asked if she could still be friends with a Syrian who supports Assad (who is responsible for mass murder, including murder and starvation of thousands of Palestinians) pretty much any Lebanese (where the laws that prohibit Palestinians from citizenship, owning property and access to many professions can legitimately be described as apartheid laws). The world seems curiously disinterested in what some call Muslim on Muslim violence and, if universal principles are to have any meaning, they must be applied universally.
Well, I'm not sure why a Lebanese person should be responsible for their government's policies, particularly policies that they're probably not even aware of. As for Syria, I know many Arabs (probably most of my Arab-American friends) who would not be friends with an Assad supporter. That's basically been my approach too.
If you really mean this, “I'm not sure why a Lebanese person should be responsible for their government's policies”, then why is the answer different when you swap out Lebanese for Israeli. Don’t you think both love their respective countries notwithstanding its flaws?
I suppose the larger question I was posing though is this: where are the demonstrators supporting Palestinian rights where the oppressor is Muslim? The identity of the oppressor should make no difference.