This is very hard to listen to because of Briahna Joy Gray. Her debating skills are non existent she completely derailed any useful debate. She's just dreadful and frankly a bully. Would be great to redo this with an equal to Jake as his partner so we can actually hear a rational and informative debate.
Haha I know what you mean, and thanks for listening Jane!
I worry we're a bit inclined toward bias against Briahna considering her usual politics and her disagreeable nature, so I try to give the benefit of the doubt. Honestly I think Eli Lake has been getting away with nasty behavior because he says what his side wants to hear. I found him goading Briahna and intentionally laughing loudly while the opposing side spoke very immature. In my opinion this debate needed far more structured moderation to be more informative!
May 28Liked by Salomé Sibonex, Joseph (Jake) Klein
Interestingly I have no idea who Briahna is, I'm sure I've come across her but I don't know anything about her. My impression was purely on her during the debate but yes agree the behavior generally was not good and the debate became quite unhinged. No doubt there was much lost without the body language and posturing, but agree laughing over others because you disagree is some of the worst behavior. It's almost impossible to find a balanced civil debate on this topic, some of us actually want to learn and develop our own position based on information not just passion.
Haha yeah her politics only make her more dislikable if you're Right-leaning! I'm trying to give her the benefit of the doubt as I've never much liked her style of argumentation and think I'm biased against her, but I agree she did NOT make Jake's role any easier.
And yeah, you've described why I don't actually enjoy most debates. It's so hard to get clarity and depth on an issue when everyone is basically just fighting! We'll be releasing a video response to this debate once the video is released and that will add some of the nuance that got lost in the heat.
Ha, thanks Jane! I don’t want to cast any shade towards Briahna, who I think did a good job against a tough crowd, but we do come from very different perspectives on this topic, her being a progressive and me a libertarian. I intend to do more debates/conversations in the near future and look forward to continuing to share my perspective.
May 28Liked by Salomé Sibonex, Joseph (Jake) Klein
I just finished listening, here are my thoughts. They are, admittedly, a bit all over the place but I really find myself struggling to find debates/conversations on this topic that aren't rehashes of the same polarizing talking points, a fair bit of which happened in this debate.
I agree w/other comments about debate format. Definitely not an easy topic to discuss but stronger structure/moderation would have been helpful. My irritation w/Briahna reached its peak when she had the nerve to proclaim that Hamas did not, in fact, want to eradicate the Jewish people of Israel, just the state of Israel as a political entity.
I appreciated the fact that Jake was the only one to bring up some real, valid points about the necessity for a pathway to peace which starts with making room for both sides to acknowledge the myriad ways they have contributed to violence. I agree that this is an absolute necessity if there will ever be a peaceful solution. And well done to Jake for actually giving a straightforward answer to a question from the moderator.
One aspect that I find particularly irritating in the side that criticizes Israel is the blatant obfuscation/disregard for the role of Hamas in this conflict. At this point, having listened to a fair number of in-depth interviews/debates around this topic, I find myself getting stuck on the same question: Why do people who criticize Israel always seem to leave out the tactics of Hamas? I feel as though critiques of Israel's approach NEVER acknowledge the tunnels. The proximity of military assets to civilian areas. The human shield factor.
Here's a question I that I would like someone to answer: Who cares more about the women & children of Gaza: The IDF or Hamas? If someone were going to steel-man the case that Hamas is demonstrably invested in and cares more about innocent civilians in Gaza than the IDF....how would one proceed to make such a case?
There is such an emphasis on the unnecessary civilian casualties, but the entire world seems hellbent soley on blaming Israel. Dropping 2000lb bombs on apartment buildings is awful, but what about reports of Hamas firing on their own civilians and deliberately blocking evacuation routes to the south when the IDF invaded northern Gaza? What about the unprecedented efforts to alert the civilian population of the imminent threat despite it being a strategic disadvantage to do so? How can such a fact go totally unaddressed or ignored by the pro-palestine side? If these reports are true (maybe they are not?), it seems that it would seriously undermine ANY serious attempt to paint Israel as the prime aggressor in this situation.
Israel is accused of turning Gaza into a concentration camp, but why is there no acknowledgement of the billions of dollars that has been poured into Gaza by the international community that has been stolen by Hamas to build rockets and terror tunnels under the very civilian population that the entire world suddenly seems intent on saving? These are things that I genuinely do not understand. Maybe I am mistaken? Maybe reports of the IDF dropping millions of leaflets turned out to be false? Maybe the publicly available phone recordings of IDF encouraging Palestinians to leave their homes due to an imminent airstrike are fake? Has Hamas been launching rockets from established military bases, isolated from the civilian population like the rest of the world all along?
If Hamas cares so much about their civilian population, why does the Gaza Health Ministry refer to civilians killed as "martyrs"? To me, it seems that Hamas doesn't actually view the population of Gaza as "civilians" as much as they are fodder for a millenia-old religious conflict centered on eradicating the Jewish population.
I guess now that I'm writing this out, I feel like none of the debates/interviews I've seen are even asking the right questions that get to the heart of the matter. I'd be interested to see a vigorous debate about the appropriate level of analysis through which we should even attempt to understand this conflict. Is the war in Gaza best understood as a political dispute over stolen land and occupied territory? Or is it best understood as a religious conflict between Radical Zionists and Radical Islamists? Or is it something else? Obviously, the situation is comprised of many dimensions, but what is the lens through which we can explore the situation that will lead to the highest likelihood of real solutions and lasting peace in the region?
Anyway, my position before the debate would have been "yes" that Israel is waging a just war against Hamas, and it would have been "yes" after the debate as well. I think Jake made some very compelling points that I have no problem accepting, particularly around the ratio/numbers of civilian casualties. The criticism of Zionism as an ethno-nationalist movement is also a refreshing breath of fresh air that deserves more attention. That said, if Zionism is going to be critiqued in that manner, it also becomes necessary to criticize whatever ideological forces are motivating Hamas. If those criticisms of both sides are fully articulated, I can't see a situation in which Hamas and its radical islamic roots are not clearly dramatically worse than those of Israel. Happy to be proven wrong though.
Hey James! Really appreciate your thoughtful comment and questions; these are excellent points that I agree warrant more attention. I'm going to let Jake give you the full answer because the details of the conflict and its history are his strength, where I'm more focused on explaining how ethno-nationalist ideologies like Zionism lead to more conflict than other philosophies, like individualism or classical liberalism, and particularly why it's not useful for us in classical liberal societies to adopt this ideology in a kind of "solidarity" with Israel.
I will say, one of the first issues that comes to mind reading your comment is the role Israel's government has played in setting the stage for Hamas to come to power, and not only by not being willing to compromise with the previous Palestinian government on crucial points, like honoring in some way the deeds to land in Israel many Palestinians still hold. Hamas wasn't always in power and Palestinians weren't always as radicalized. This is the saddest part of this conflict, because when you look into the past, you see how many opportunities there were to avoid further conflict, but how conflict often just begets more conflict until both sides believe there's no alternative but total domination.
In my mind, Hamas is such an obviously horrifically terrible organization that it feels like this goes without saying when speaking with any reasonable person. There seems to be this issue by which criticism of Israel is interpreted as support for Hamas, but it's a false dichotomy. My criticism of Israel is because their own collectivist approach often fuels a collectivist backlash, going back to the first Zionist immigrants who intentionally planned to create an ethno-state, knowing this would require conflict and division. This is the worse part of the conflict, in my opinion: no one is willing to admit the basic truth of all conflict, which is that more of the same begets more of the same.
This is why I return the issue of collectivism when critiquing Israel and Zionism, but Hamas is also a perfect example in that its ideology believes people are better viewed as groups, and thus killing innocent Jews is fair retribution for the killing of innocent Palestinians, but equally, Israel responds by killing innocent Palestinians as retribution for the killing of innocent Jews. As long as both sides are locked into a collectivist mindset, which requires defining an evil out-group partially to define their righteous in-group, they are quite literally made for each other.
I think people often view the criticism of Israel and demands that it deescalate the conflict as demands for subservience, but it's actually because Israel is the more powerful entity in this conflict that the ability to end it primarily lays with it. Israel can spare future innocent Israeli lives by using its position of power to end the conflict rather than seek retribution by continuing the collectivist battle by which innocents are sacrificed in the name of a "greater" goal.
If we're being truly honest, what other option to ending the conflict is there besides seeing the collectivist Us vs Them battle through to the end, by which one group is effectively annihilated?
Thank you! And thank you for these great questions. You’re asking exactly the right questions to better understand the conflict and move past the propaganda and sloganeering. There are answers to them; right now I’m prepping for a video response to all of Lake & Moynihan’s claims throughout the debate and any of these questions that I don’t answer there I will write back to you to answer separately after.
Haha he's been preparing his whole life for that moment in reality, but for the specific debate question with those specific debate opponents, only 3 days! Thanks for listening and for your response.
This is very hard to listen to because of Briahna Joy Gray. Her debating skills are non existent she completely derailed any useful debate. She's just dreadful and frankly a bully. Would be great to redo this with an equal to Jake as his partner so we can actually hear a rational and informative debate.
Haha I know what you mean, and thanks for listening Jane!
I worry we're a bit inclined toward bias against Briahna considering her usual politics and her disagreeable nature, so I try to give the benefit of the doubt. Honestly I think Eli Lake has been getting away with nasty behavior because he says what his side wants to hear. I found him goading Briahna and intentionally laughing loudly while the opposing side spoke very immature. In my opinion this debate needed far more structured moderation to be more informative!
Interestingly I have no idea who Briahna is, I'm sure I've come across her but I don't know anything about her. My impression was purely on her during the debate but yes agree the behavior generally was not good and the debate became quite unhinged. No doubt there was much lost without the body language and posturing, but agree laughing over others because you disagree is some of the worst behavior. It's almost impossible to find a balanced civil debate on this topic, some of us actually want to learn and develop our own position based on information not just passion.
Haha yeah her politics only make her more dislikable if you're Right-leaning! I'm trying to give her the benefit of the doubt as I've never much liked her style of argumentation and think I'm biased against her, but I agree she did NOT make Jake's role any easier.
And yeah, you've described why I don't actually enjoy most debates. It's so hard to get clarity and depth on an issue when everyone is basically just fighting! We'll be releasing a video response to this debate once the video is released and that will add some of the nuance that got lost in the heat.
Ha, thanks Jane! I don’t want to cast any shade towards Briahna, who I think did a good job against a tough crowd, but we do come from very different perspectives on this topic, her being a progressive and me a libertarian. I intend to do more debates/conversations in the near future and look forward to continuing to share my perspective.
I just finished listening, here are my thoughts. They are, admittedly, a bit all over the place but I really find myself struggling to find debates/conversations on this topic that aren't rehashes of the same polarizing talking points, a fair bit of which happened in this debate.
I agree w/other comments about debate format. Definitely not an easy topic to discuss but stronger structure/moderation would have been helpful. My irritation w/Briahna reached its peak when she had the nerve to proclaim that Hamas did not, in fact, want to eradicate the Jewish people of Israel, just the state of Israel as a political entity.
I appreciated the fact that Jake was the only one to bring up some real, valid points about the necessity for a pathway to peace which starts with making room for both sides to acknowledge the myriad ways they have contributed to violence. I agree that this is an absolute necessity if there will ever be a peaceful solution. And well done to Jake for actually giving a straightforward answer to a question from the moderator.
One aspect that I find particularly irritating in the side that criticizes Israel is the blatant obfuscation/disregard for the role of Hamas in this conflict. At this point, having listened to a fair number of in-depth interviews/debates around this topic, I find myself getting stuck on the same question: Why do people who criticize Israel always seem to leave out the tactics of Hamas? I feel as though critiques of Israel's approach NEVER acknowledge the tunnels. The proximity of military assets to civilian areas. The human shield factor.
Here's a question I that I would like someone to answer: Who cares more about the women & children of Gaza: The IDF or Hamas? If someone were going to steel-man the case that Hamas is demonstrably invested in and cares more about innocent civilians in Gaza than the IDF....how would one proceed to make such a case?
There is such an emphasis on the unnecessary civilian casualties, but the entire world seems hellbent soley on blaming Israel. Dropping 2000lb bombs on apartment buildings is awful, but what about reports of Hamas firing on their own civilians and deliberately blocking evacuation routes to the south when the IDF invaded northern Gaza? What about the unprecedented efforts to alert the civilian population of the imminent threat despite it being a strategic disadvantage to do so? How can such a fact go totally unaddressed or ignored by the pro-palestine side? If these reports are true (maybe they are not?), it seems that it would seriously undermine ANY serious attempt to paint Israel as the prime aggressor in this situation.
Israel is accused of turning Gaza into a concentration camp, but why is there no acknowledgement of the billions of dollars that has been poured into Gaza by the international community that has been stolen by Hamas to build rockets and terror tunnels under the very civilian population that the entire world suddenly seems intent on saving? These are things that I genuinely do not understand. Maybe I am mistaken? Maybe reports of the IDF dropping millions of leaflets turned out to be false? Maybe the publicly available phone recordings of IDF encouraging Palestinians to leave their homes due to an imminent airstrike are fake? Has Hamas been launching rockets from established military bases, isolated from the civilian population like the rest of the world all along?
If Hamas cares so much about their civilian population, why does the Gaza Health Ministry refer to civilians killed as "martyrs"? To me, it seems that Hamas doesn't actually view the population of Gaza as "civilians" as much as they are fodder for a millenia-old religious conflict centered on eradicating the Jewish population.
I guess now that I'm writing this out, I feel like none of the debates/interviews I've seen are even asking the right questions that get to the heart of the matter. I'd be interested to see a vigorous debate about the appropriate level of analysis through which we should even attempt to understand this conflict. Is the war in Gaza best understood as a political dispute over stolen land and occupied territory? Or is it best understood as a religious conflict between Radical Zionists and Radical Islamists? Or is it something else? Obviously, the situation is comprised of many dimensions, but what is the lens through which we can explore the situation that will lead to the highest likelihood of real solutions and lasting peace in the region?
Anyway, my position before the debate would have been "yes" that Israel is waging a just war against Hamas, and it would have been "yes" after the debate as well. I think Jake made some very compelling points that I have no problem accepting, particularly around the ratio/numbers of civilian casualties. The criticism of Zionism as an ethno-nationalist movement is also a refreshing breath of fresh air that deserves more attention. That said, if Zionism is going to be critiqued in that manner, it also becomes necessary to criticize whatever ideological forces are motivating Hamas. If those criticisms of both sides are fully articulated, I can't see a situation in which Hamas and its radical islamic roots are not clearly dramatically worse than those of Israel. Happy to be proven wrong though.
Hey James! Really appreciate your thoughtful comment and questions; these are excellent points that I agree warrant more attention. I'm going to let Jake give you the full answer because the details of the conflict and its history are his strength, where I'm more focused on explaining how ethno-nationalist ideologies like Zionism lead to more conflict than other philosophies, like individualism or classical liberalism, and particularly why it's not useful for us in classical liberal societies to adopt this ideology in a kind of "solidarity" with Israel.
I will say, one of the first issues that comes to mind reading your comment is the role Israel's government has played in setting the stage for Hamas to come to power, and not only by not being willing to compromise with the previous Palestinian government on crucial points, like honoring in some way the deeds to land in Israel many Palestinians still hold. Hamas wasn't always in power and Palestinians weren't always as radicalized. This is the saddest part of this conflict, because when you look into the past, you see how many opportunities there were to avoid further conflict, but how conflict often just begets more conflict until both sides believe there's no alternative but total domination.
In my mind, Hamas is such an obviously horrifically terrible organization that it feels like this goes without saying when speaking with any reasonable person. There seems to be this issue by which criticism of Israel is interpreted as support for Hamas, but it's a false dichotomy. My criticism of Israel is because their own collectivist approach often fuels a collectivist backlash, going back to the first Zionist immigrants who intentionally planned to create an ethno-state, knowing this would require conflict and division. This is the worse part of the conflict, in my opinion: no one is willing to admit the basic truth of all conflict, which is that more of the same begets more of the same.
This is why I return the issue of collectivism when critiquing Israel and Zionism, but Hamas is also a perfect example in that its ideology believes people are better viewed as groups, and thus killing innocent Jews is fair retribution for the killing of innocent Palestinians, but equally, Israel responds by killing innocent Palestinians as retribution for the killing of innocent Jews. As long as both sides are locked into a collectivist mindset, which requires defining an evil out-group partially to define their righteous in-group, they are quite literally made for each other.
I think people often view the criticism of Israel and demands that it deescalate the conflict as demands for subservience, but it's actually because Israel is the more powerful entity in this conflict that the ability to end it primarily lays with it. Israel can spare future innocent Israeli lives by using its position of power to end the conflict rather than seek retribution by continuing the collectivist battle by which innocents are sacrificed in the name of a "greater" goal.
If we're being truly honest, what other option to ending the conflict is there besides seeing the collectivist Us vs Them battle through to the end, by which one group is effectively annihilated?
Also big up again for getting on stage with ~3 days to prepare. It certainly didn't sound like you had such short notice!
Thank you! And thank you for these great questions. You’re asking exactly the right questions to better understand the conflict and move past the propaganda and sloganeering. There are answers to them; right now I’m prepping for a video response to all of Lake & Moynihan’s claims throughout the debate and any of these questions that I don’t answer there I will write back to you to answer separately after.
Haha he's been preparing his whole life for that moment in reality, but for the specific debate question with those specific debate opponents, only 3 days! Thanks for listening and for your response.