I always find Sam Harris’s writings absorbing, but in today’s piece he’s really hit his stride, telling us why, despite his own criticisms of Israel, he won’t debate those people—he calls them “scholars, grifters, and moral lunatics”—who demonize Israel as not only morally worse than its enemies, but the worst country in the world.
In a way, the piece below is a bookend to the superb piece he posted on November 7, 2023: “The bright line between good and evil.” In between then and now, Hamas has lost the war, Gaza has been largely wrecked because of Hamas’s tactics, and yet the terrorists are still in power. What has changed is that despite the efforts of Israel to limit civilian casualties in Gaza and Lebanon, antisemitism and hatred of Israel have ballooned. To Sam, and to me, this spate of criticism of Jews and Israel, parading under the flag of “anti-Zionism”. shows that the “river-to-the-sea” gang has lost its moral compass. And the encampers and drum-bangers have dragged a lot of academics and journalists along with them.
What is missing in all the debate is what Sam has bookended: the moral compass that points clearly to which side in the conflict is on the side of morality and justice. It might be salutary for you to read his 2023 piece first (I posted about it here), but it’s imperative to read the piece he just put on his Substack. You can it for free by clicking on the screenshot below.
What shines in Sam’s analysis is his laserlike focus on the most important question—right versus wrong—and his refusal to be distracted from that focus. This is truly a superb piece, and I recommend it highly. Today you should be reading Sam Harris, not me. I’ll put a few quotes in indents below, but you really need to click above and spend a while pondering Sam’s views.
Excerpts:
Many readers and podcast listeners have been dismayed by my enduring support for Israel and now urge me to debate someone—really anyone—drawn from a growing cast of scholars, grifters, and moral lunatics who have made that beleaguered country their professional or psychiatric obsession. The Making Sense Community seems to have inherited this infatuation, leading to some heated exchanges in recent days. I’ve explained my position on Israel across several podcasts and in my public talks, but it might help to summarize it here.
First, my general attitude: I’m not interested in exploring all the ways that Israel has missed the mark—from Prime Minister Netanyahu’s corrupt alliance with the far right, to the many crimes committed by settlers in the West Bank, to the deaths of innocent noncombatants in several wars—because none of these failings, however grave, will alter my sense that (1) the ethical difference between Israel and her enemies remains vast, and (2) the global preoccupation with the Jewish state, as though it were the worst villain among nations, is contemptible, being the product of perennial lies and delusions.
Next, a simple heuristic: As I suggested in at least one Community thread already, if my intransigence on these matters mystifies you, it might help to understand that, for whatever reason, I think militant Islam is ten times worse than you think it is. When I talk about “jihadists” and their various groups—Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, the IRGC, etc.—I’m talking about people who I consider to be worse than Nazis (jihadists being, essentially, Nazis who are certain of Paradise). My views about the conflict in the Middle East will not fundamentally change unless my critics produce evidence that Israel has become as evil as her enemies.
However, you can rest assured that if the IDF morphs into a death cult that uses its own civilian population as human shields (and yet somehow remains widely popular), if ordinary Israelis begin to celebrate martyrdom above every earthly priority, producing generations of bright-eyed, suicidal fanatics, if the residents of Tel Aviv condone the taking of Palestinian infants, old women, and other noncombatants as hostages and then gather in crowds of thousands, baying for their blood—if, in other words, the Israelis begin to resemble the Palestinians, then I won’t care who wins this war. Short of this, there remains a world of difference between the two sides, and I believe that we should focus on how brutalizing it is for any free society to confront enemies that can sincerely claim to “love death” more than everyone else loves life—for this has been Israel’s predicament for the better part of a century.
The problem in the Middle East is not, and has never been, the existence of the state of Israel. The problem is jihadism, Islamism, Islamic extremism, Islamofascism, militant Islam—or whatever words you want to use to describe the belligerence and triumphal lunacy of those who take the most pernicious doctrines of Islam too seriously.
He then explains his unwillingness to engage in debate about the war. I’ve put a critical bit in bold:
I won’t debate the history of the Middle East because it is irrelevant to resolving the conflict there. Of course, many people insist that we must disentangle and reconsider every strand of this history, going back at least a century. The reason I’m convinced that this is a fool’s errand is simple: Palestinians and Israelis have discrepant accounts of the past, and no amount of study or debate will reconcile them.
What’s far more important to understand—and I think it really is the only thing worth considering—is what the current inhabitants of Israel, the Palestinian territories, and the surrounding Arab states want out of life now. (Not what they pretend to want or what a handful of royal families want, while their populations want something quite different.) What do the Jews and Muslims in the region really yearn to accomplish? What are they willing to sacrifice for? What are they willing to die for? And what are they willing to let their children die for?
When we focus on the present this way, if we’re being honest, we must concede that there are two very different realities on either side of this conflict: culturally, psychologically, ethically, spiritually—in every way that matters. Yes, Israel has its religious fanatics too. But they aren’t the same sort of fanatics we find in Hamas or Hezbollah, and they’re far less representative of the surrounding culture. Notwithstanding everything that can be said against Prime Minister Netanyahu, the Israeli far right, and the settlers in the West Bank—and there is much to condemn—I believe the following remains true:
If the Palestinians laid down their arms, there would be peace. There could be a two-state solution; there could even be a one-state solution; it wouldn’t matter. If the Palestinians simply stopped killing Jews and stopped building a culture that celebrates pointless murder and martyrdom as its highest values, there could be a diverse, tolerant, and prosperous society between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. There could have been one eighty years ago. But if the Israelis laid down their weapons, there would be a genocide. This was obviously true on October 7th, 2023. And for anyone who has been paying attention, it has been true on every other day since the founding of the state of Israel.
Those who demonize Israel and lionize terrorists, or those Palestinians who lionize terrorism—and there are many of them—must deal with this point, which seems palpably true. But requiring Hamas to lay down its arms, as well as demanding that Palestinian society lay aside Jew hatred and then aspire to peace and prosperity, is a tough ask, and we won’t see it in our lifetimes. For even the younger generation of Palestinians have been brainwashed into Jew hatred, and they aren’t even teenagers yet.
There’s more, but Sam ends this way:
Why does antisemitism matter? Well, for the Jews, it’s obvious why it matters, but why should it matter to everyone else? It matters because when you look at what antisemites also hate, you find they hate everything that makes culturally rich, diverse, open societies possible. Real antisemites bring with them more than just their hatred of Jews: they bring censorship, political repression, conspiracy thinking, and the politics of dehumanization and scapegoating. So decrying antisemitism is not an act of special pleading. It is a defense of the moral and institutional architecture that free societies require.
Let me close with another general point to members of the Making Sense Community: Many of you have written to tell me that you’ve lost respect for me over this issue (or that you still value my work and are giving me “a pass” on Israel). I reject this framing, and you should too. No one should be a part of Community just because they agree with me. I’m not running a political party, and there is no line for me, or for anyone else, to toe. If I’ve fallen off a pedestal because I said something you don’t agree with, the pedestal was the problem, not the disagreement. Of course, if you think I am lying to you, or that I otherwise lack integrity, you should leave and never look back. But if you just think I happen to be wrong, even about something important—especially about something important—I encourage you to keep showing up with better evidence and argu
The first paragraph makes the point that antisemitism (aka “anti-Zionism”) is a hatred not just of Jews, but of the liberal, democratic societies built by the West. The grifters and maniacs will never admit that, but look at what is happening to liberal European democracies like Belgium and the Netherlands—countries that have admitted floods of Muslims who have imported hatred of the very societies to which they’ve fled.
I have not lost respect for Sam: I admire him all the more, and have told him so. Of course this piece, one of the best on the current Middle East situation, will itself be demonized and ignored, probably by invoking things Sam has said in the past. We will hear, “But he favors torture!” Or “He’s a neuroscientist, and not qualified to pronounce on politics.” Or, “Sam has been too hard on religious people.” Those are all distractions. Yes, I’ve had my differences with Sam—I think his view that there is an objective morality is misguided—but that is irrelevant. Regardless of whether Israel’s morality is objectively better than that of the morality of its critics, it’s true that those of us who are rational want to live in a society based on liberal democracy than in a dysfunctional one based on jihadism and Jew hatred. Jihad is more than a struggle to live a holy life by the lights of Islam: it’s also a struggle to destroy Western values.
Great piece, thank you for sharing it.
Excellent piece from Mr. H with the clarity of thought and communication which makes one wish he still wrote books. Israel is on the front line in the war between democracies and death cults. Those sniping at Harris from the rear should consider which side they would rather be on.
What a great piece of moral clarity, thanks for posting it!
Excellent piece! I’m not surprised to see this. Yesterday I saw an interview with Harris by a guy who pressed him on why he doesn’t debate Israel critics.* Essentially, he said that it wasn’t worth doing because they could not be swayed by facts. He seemed a bit uncomfortable in his answer; I wonder if he took some time to think about it more deeply, leading him to this essay.
*https://youtu.be/sGrB_GAWsxw?si=kX15gdBGbqVOVs-K
The question, What is each side committed to, once answered honestly, clarifies the situation unequivocally. Feeling sympathy for Palestinians is properly human. Siding with Hamas and its supporters is to side with evil. That so many intelligent people do so is mind boggling.
Beautifully expressed by Sam Harris. Thank you, Professor Coyne for sending.
I question the oft-repeated phrase, “they have ‘lost their moral compass’.” When large swaths of people around the world blame the victim, Israel, for the perverted and genocidal atrocities of October 7 — educated people, starting later that same day! — I ask whether those people really had a moral compass to begin with.
My opinion: Antisemitism (because that’s what it is) has no ‘moral compass.’ Maybe Harris is right to eschew debate. Would you debate Goebbels, “Resolved, Jews are vermin”? Why??
I was going to write something similar but you beat me to it. Those who align with Hamas, Iran and Islamism had no moral compass to begin with, or had an Islamist moral compass which is really the same thing.
Contrary to the esteemed boss here, I agree with Harris that there is a rational basis for a moral compass. And it does NOT start from the premise of an angry, oppressive, narcissistic and dictatorial war god called Allah.
It’s interesting that you don’t apply the same mentality to the victimhood of the Palestinians. It seems that for you nothing can justify what Hamas did on October 7 (which I do condemn as monstrous). But then October 7 justifies, countless atrocities by Israel and the IDF. I condemn all war crimes and targeting of innocent civilians. Can you or Sam Harris claim the same?
Sorry, but there were not countless atrocities by Israel and the IDF, nor do you mention a ingle war crime. This comment is obtuse. It is interesting that you do not mention those atrocities and war crimes.
When I read this last night I was hoping you would see it. Thanks for re-posting it here. It’s pretty much (in a different context), “But on the other hand…..NO! There is no other hand!”
Excellently stated, as always with Sam Harris. As for those he won’t bother to debate, the pop-Left’s peculiar habit of cuddling with Islamists (e.g., George Galloway, pro-Hamas academic poseurs, etc. etc.) helps to normalize antisemitism for the ignorant, but I don’t think it stems from antisemitic sentiments. It stems from the pop-Left’s invariable attraction to totalitarian setups, from Leninism to Maoism to Islamism. If tomorrow a new movement appears dedicated to police-state rule on behalf of computer robots, stone idols, or sacred mushrooms, the pop-Leftists will first apologize for it and then ally with it.
Related news:
Iran has launched ballistic missile attacks on northern Israel.
At least 2 missiles have been shot down.
Good piece. Thanks for sharing.
Apologies for being off topic, but you mentioned in your last paragraph that you find Sam’s view of an objective morality as misguided.
I think it’s interesting and unsurprising that yourself, Sam Harris and Steven Pinker have such similar worldviews, but where you all seem to disagree doesn’t make much sense to me.
I could be wrong, but you and Harris seem to align on Free Will, but Pinker does not. And Pinker and Harris seem to align on morality, but you do not.
I find yours and Harris’ arguments on Free Will more persuasive than Pinker’s. And I find Pinkers and Harris’ arguments on morality more persuasive than yours.
I’m very familiar with all of your work and share a similar worldview, but I’ve always struggled to make sense of those differences.
Harris : “What’s far more important to understand—and I think it really is the only thing worth considering—is what the current inhabitants of Israel, the Palestinian territories, and the surrounding Arab states want out of life now. ”
100%. Crystal clear.
Totally agree. Well thought and well written. Thanks for sharing
Forgive me for introducing something that is tangential (rather than really off-topic). Here is an essay about Israel that really makes me scratch my head:
https://unherd.com/2026/06/land-of-milk-and-silicon/?set_edition=us&tl_inbound=1&tl_groups%5B0%5D=18743&tl_period_type=3&utm_source=UnHerd+Today&utm_campaign=264b76b7c9-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2026_06_07_08_47&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_79fd0df946-264b76b7c9-35632850
Its thesis is: “Israel’s example shows that modernization need not coincide with secularization. This is fortunate, because the latter seems to be fraying the social fabric of the nations where it has progressed furthest. Traditional institutions bring to nations’ populations what the sociologist Émile Durkheim described as “a unified system of beliefs and practices . . . which unite [a people] into one single moral community.” That shared framework promotes cohesion, a long-term perspective, and societal strength. ” The whole essay is nuanced, thought-provoking.
I read both pieces by Harris (2026 and 2023) – they are like the second coming of Christopher Hitchens !
Why is this happening? The radical left hates Israel, the little satan (with the US being the great satan). And then entered an alliance with Islamists based on the idea that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
And then we have the media engaging in militant journalism (and the political skew among today’s journalists is about what you find in academia). And many people believe what they read in the papers.
Just to give an example: in 2021 the Canadian media reported that a mass grave with the bodies of 215 indigeneous children had been found on the ground of a former residential school in Kamloops, British Columbia. This was unambiguously wrong. We just had the fifth anniversary of this media hoax.
Here is what a September 2023 survey of 1,503 adult Canadians found:
Source: Eric Kaufmann: The Politics of the Culture War in Contemporary Canada. Macdonald-Laurier Institute, February 2024, 84 p. (available for free on the net)
The media can’t convince you that life has become more affordable under Trump since people see and feel the prices in the grocery store, etc. But the middle East is far away. So it really matters for what people believe what the media reports about Israel, Palestine, etc.
Jeffrey Herf: Islamist Terror; Journalistic Error. Quillette, Dec 2, 2022
In a valuable new book, historian Richard Landes argues that Western reporting on the Second Palestinian Intifada helped to seed a misunderstanding of terrorism.
A review of Can “The Whole World” Be Wrong?: Lethal Journalism, Antisemitism, and Global Jihad by Richard Landes, 523 pages, Academic Studies Press (November 2022)
This comment is 100 words over the suggested limit (see Da Roolz) but I will let it pass. But please try to leave comments shorter than 400 words. Thanks.
Will do. I was not aware of the suggested word limit.
Not too far off-topic, but can someone please explain the West Bank settlements? they are legal but not under Israeli sovereignty? The land is occupied but not annexed? I am trying to figure out if this acceptable behavior or not.
I glean what I can of its complicated history from talks by Haviv Rettig Gur, an Israeli journalist who speaks American English. See, e.g., https://unpacked.media/truth-vs-myth-in-israel-history-with-haviv-rettig-gur/
Gur says Israel has not applied its civil law to the West Bank to avoid formal annexation. Instead, it operates under a complex mix of Jordanian, Ottoman, and British land registries, leading to significant private property conflicts.
He points out that Jordan, which controlled the West Bank until 1967, did not recognize Palestinian nationalism or a Palestinian state during its rule and only officially relinquished its own claim to the territory in the 1980s.
Israel militarily controls the West Bank because its highlands overlook Israel’s population centers; if Israel left the West Bank, it’s a virtual certainty that Hamas would take it over.
And Israel can’t formally re-annex Judea and Samaria as its sovereign territory because then all the inhabitants would have to be made Israeli citizens, able to move freely all about Israel without passing through checkpoints. Not only would this be an obvious security risk but adding that number of non-Jewish citizens to Israel’s population would make it less of a Jewish state, which it the whole point of the country’s existence. I don’t know for sure that that is a popular or official view among Jewish Israelis or their government. I’m just pointing it out as something that we foreigners could hardly take issue with. Jews must surely control the Knesset forever, no?
Stepping back into the theme of Sam Harris’s brilliant piece, I think the settlements are just one of those internal issues we have to leave to the Israelis to work out, which has nothing to do with the legitimacy of the state of Israel or its moral civilizational superiority over all its opponents and detractors. Because as you say, Jordan has given up its claim to “Trans-Jordan”, the disputed territories (as Israel diplomatically calls them) are not the concern of any other state. (And no, Palestine doesn’t get to carve a state out of sovereign Israeli territory.)
So while we might be uncomfortable with what the settlers are allowed to get away with in the West Bank, the issue is fundamentally irrelevant to how we should view Israel as a whole. Canada’s struggles with its “empowered” aboriginal citizens who claim sovereignty are similarly an internal issue that should be of no relevance to our military allies we would have to call on for assistance were we to be attacked. It’s just not necessary to approve of every single domestic or even foreign policy a country adopts in order to decide whose side you’re on.
What Sam Harris wrote is identical to what I’ve been arguing for a long time, but man I wish I could write it that well.
cheers,
D.A.
NYC 🗽
+1
I couldn’t help but look at some of the reader comments to this (it was posted on Sam’s Making Sense Community site). I only looked at a modest sampling, so I make no claims as to how representative any of it is. Of what I saw, many readers agreed with Sam, as I do. But a few more than I expected still took issue, and their reasons for it generally still failed to go beyond the usual “moral outrage” over the “genocide” of Palestinians. None of them address why their outrage is not directed anywhere other than Israel. A few criticize Hamas in passing, but still hardly veer from their zealous condemnation of Israel. And none of them so much as mention any of the other places Sam notes where military action has inflicted massive suffering (e.g., Yemen), but which do not involve Israel.
It’s the same old story. I’ve had private discussions with a few people such as these, as I’m sure other posters on this site have as well, and my experience is that there’s an almost unhinged component to many of these people; it’s almost as if you can’t get them to even concede that Israelis (or more specifically, Jews) are human beings. It’s intensely disturbing to not be able to squeeze a glimmer of sanity out of some of these people. I understand why Sam finds it pointless to go there.
I, like many others, had thought the era of virulent and overt antisemitism, brought to such a horrific climax in the Holocaust, had been left in the past. It’s been shocking and deeply disturbing to realize just how wrong that assumption was.
I really try to get into the heads of those who believe that Israel is an “apartheid state” that systematically oppresses the poor Palestinians. The late Christopher Hitchens had his criticisms of Zionism and the displacement of the local Arab populations that it caused, and he was sympathetic to certain Palestinian activists such as Edward Said. Hitchens was also quite fond of the Kurds and perhaps saw similarities between them and the Palestinians. So I have always tried to take the criticism of Israel seriously.
However, the events of the last 20 years, and especially the last half-decade, have crystalized this conflict and made clear who has the ethical high ground and who does not. I am certain that if Hitchens had lived to see the events of 10/7, he would have had nothing but invective for the likes of Hamas and would have fully supported Israel’s right to defend itself.
According to AI: Since the conflict began on October 7, 2023, approximately 30,000 projectiles have been launched at Israel by various actors.
While I like Sam Harris and have enjoyed his talks on consciousness and meditation, on this topic he is woefully ignorant. I think thenew yorker article does a good job taking apart his fantasy version of the israel/palestine conflict
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/11/sam-harriss-fairy-tale-account-of-the-israel-hamas-conflict.html
It’s paywalled. What are the top two or three mistakes that Sam Harris is making on this issue in your opinion?
I didn’t hit a paywall. Maybe try again? But that’s if you want to read this piece, and I’m not sure it was worth the time. I will provide my (hopefully short, I don’t want to violate Da Roolz) take below. I note that the author was reviewing a podcast by Harris, not the blog post discussed in WEIT. I have only read the post and not heard the podcast. I assume they’re consistent, but my reaction is based on what Harris said in his blog.
The entire piece revolves primarily around the author’s criticism of Harris for his “blinkered” view that the situation in Gaza is purely the result of extremist Islam, and that Harris is ignoring the political aspects of the conflict, leading to an unbalanced “fantasy” view of the situation. Anyone familiar with Harris’s writings over the years knows that Sam is very focused on the dangers of extremist religion, especially Islam. To my mind, for good reason. His post about why he won’t debate anyone over Gaza does indeed continue much of this focus, in my opinion because few other people are devoting much attention to it.
But the cited article seems to disingenuously attribute a level of willful (or woeful) ignorance that just doesn’t play. One example: Harris is famous for saying that when jihadists tell you who they are, you should believe them, but here the author slams Harris for not acknowledging Hamas’ explanations for why they launched the October 7 attacks, saying that Harris “manifestly refuses to [believe Hamas], or else, he did not bother to look up what Hamas’s stated rationale for its attack was”. See, hypocrite!
This is unfairly twisting Harris’ statement. Harris referred to Hamas’s founding documents, where they explicitly state their goal of eradicating the Jews. Obviously Hamas, who have demonstrated substantial public relations skills throughout the conflict, are not going to announce that they launched the attack in the furtherance of achieving the goal set forth in their charter; of course they are going to frame the attack around specific political grievances. Those claims can be true, or they can be false, but comparing whether your believe their obvious political statements versus the express mandate they adopted as their raison d’etre is apples and oranges. This does not invalidate Harris’ point.
Much of the rest of the article is like this. Of course Hamas can be, and no doubt is, motivated by political aims as well as general jihadist fervor, but Sam’s focus on the latter doesn’t mean he is “fantasizing”. I don’t think Sam’s take is perfect, and in my view he needs to balance his discussion a bit more, but for the author to say that Harris’ analysis of the situation “rests on blind faith” is ridiculous.
There is much more to be said but I think I should probably stop now. Sorry if this was too long.
I once read the Koran in translation and was struck by the amount of repetitive nonsense. The psychological and sociological forces needed to get Muslims to take it seriously must be truly impressive