#437 — Two Years Since 10⧸7
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Summary
Dan Sinor joins me to discuss the Yom Kippur Massacre and the impact it has had on anti-Semitism in the world, and why we should all remember the anniversary of the attack on the Temple Mount.
Transcript
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Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're
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Podcast, you'll need to subscribe at samharris.org. We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore
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it's made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers. So if you enjoy what we're
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We're doing a simulcast here, which I've been on your podcast, you've never been on mine,
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so apologies to your listeners, but I think we need to start this simulcast with you giving
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a potted bio. How do you explain yourself? How do you have strong opinions on the topics
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I spent a number of years in and out of U.S. government foreign policy positions, and I've
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spent a lot of time in the Middle East in those positions, and also a lot of time in Israel
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studying and writing about Israel, written a couple books about Israel. And since October
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7th, my podcast has been all but exclusively focused on what has been happening in Israel,
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the Middle East, and in the West's reaction to events of October 7th. So in a nutshell, that's
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Yeah. Well, I'll just tell my listeners that that podcast is Call Me Back, and I have found
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it indispensable these last two years. It's really just been fantastic. So thanks for doing
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it, and I highly recommend that people listen to you directly over there.
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Thank you. Well, I think most of my listeners are already listeners of yours, but if they're
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not, they should be and should be subscribers because your voice, while you come in and out
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of this issue, I think a number of the issues you address on your podcasts are actually like
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the surround sound of what has been going on in the issue that I've been covering. So your
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voice and your clarity have been extremely important, and I'm glad we're able to have this conversation.
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Yeah. Well, so Dan, there's a lot we could talk about. I don't really have much of an
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agenda except that there are two things that I feel like we really should touch in addition
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to anything else we might touch. I mean, one is I want to learn from you just the state
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of the landscape out there. I want to get your impression as to how bad things are on at
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least two fronts. I mean, the anti-Semitism globally and specifically the degree to which
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Israel has lost this information war with the entire world and the consequences of all
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that. So I just want to learn from you in this conversation. But also, I think it might
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be interesting to explore how we come to these topics from different angles, because I think
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you are much more comfortable in just arguing for and in defense of Jewish identity. And
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that's not really how I come to these same problems and seem to make the same noises. I'm
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much more in the business of getting out of the business of identity. And so we can talk
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about that. But beyond those two fronts, I want to talk about anything that interests you.
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Yeah. Well, let me start with, and I'll respond to both of those questions. But I guess last
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time we spoke, Sam, at least on a podcast, was a year ago, which was on the one-year anniversary
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of October 7th. And I remember in that conversation you and I had, I asked you what surprised you
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most in the year since October 7th, 2023. And you said the explosion of anti-Semitism is what
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surprised you the most. And I guess my question now, on the second anniversary of October 7th,
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what, if anything, has surprised you in this second year of the war, the second year since
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October 7th? What surprised you in year October 7th, 24 to 25?
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I think, unfortunately, I have the same answer. It's just, I mean, now I am even further surprised
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about the size and depth of the crater. It's a bigger problem than I imagined, and it's a bigger
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problem than I imagined a year ago. It's just, it seems to be getting worse, not better. And I keep
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finding new details that shock me. I mean, so you and I are talking in the immediate aftermath of this,
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the murders of Jews in Manchester on Yom Kippur. And, you know, that's horrible enough. But then to
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know that there were celebrations in the streets of London in the immediate aftermath, you know,
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just unabashed celebrations of the murder of Jews in the UK, it's shocking. And our tacit toleration of
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it is shocking. I mean, just the fact that we have backed ourselves into a corner, I mean, you know,
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we now is not everybody. Obviously, there are people who would resist this as stridently as
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they can at this point. But left of center, where I spend, you know, most of my time intellectually and
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politically, there's so much moral confusion about what is rational to want and to do in the current
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circumstance. And it just seems, you know, especially in Western Europe, the writing is on
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the wall. You know, it is totally rational to worry that Western Europe is completely unraveling
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culturally in a way that not just Jews, but really anyone who cares about the defense of open societies
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needs to worry about. And, you know, I don't often find myself agreeing with President Trump, as you know,
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but when he stands up in front of the UN, you know, in addition to anything else he might have said,
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which I would find indefensible, when he tells them that your, you know, your societies are going
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to hell. And what he means is you have completely failed in this project to integrate the millions
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of Muslims you've brought into your society. And you have, you know, ghettos filled with religious
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maniacs who have no inclination to assimilate into your culture. In fact, they want, they're explicit in
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wanting to overthrow your culture and replace it with their own. The situation is totally untenable
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and it is as bad as Trump or J.D. Vance or anyone else who I would otherwise not want to be aligned
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with say it is. Yeah. I guess I'm surprised by what happened and I shouldn't be in the UK. I mean,
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because it is a natural extension. It's like a logical extension of what we had been witnessing
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during the first year after October 7th and then well into the second year, the chief rabbi of the
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UK, Mervis, Rabbi Mervis, put out this statement after the Manchester attack saying something along
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the lines of, we're shocked by what happened and yet we all knew this day would come. And when I read
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that line, it was like, right, like we knew this day would come, which is if we spend two years,
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as you said, tolerating this rhetoric in the media and social media and college campuses that Israel
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is a genocidal state and Israel is an apartheid state. And you're just indoctrinating, you know,
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lots of people, young people especially, but not only young people across Europe and elsewhere,
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that this is a genocide and that these people, these Jews living in your midst, living in your
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society are supporting this country and have a love for this country, Israel, then they are
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complicit in the genocide. Then why wouldn't people start trying to kill the supporters of the
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genocide? I mean, I hate to talk in such clinical terms, but it's actually quite logical that this
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would happen. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, for me, the problem goes back much further than October 7th.
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And again, it escapes the frame of anti-Semitism or hatred of Israel. And it just, again, you know,
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my focus is more on the defense of open society. So when I think of the Manchester attack, I think
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of the previous Manchester attack at the Ariana Grande concert, you know, they killed, I think,
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22 people. And that had nothing to do with Israel or Jews, but it was the same genius of jihadism
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being expressed there. And I, you know, I think of the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris and the
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Bataclan massacre. I mean, all of these moments where the stark fact that Western Europe has imported
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a death cult into its midst and has failed to acknowledge the gravity of this fact, I mean,
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has just bent over backwards in the most masochistic way to imagine that something more benign is
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happening where, you know, on any given day, you can see people with placards saying, you know,
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behead those who insult the prophet. I mean, it's just the character of these protests, the density of
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these protests, the fact that you can get this number of people in the streets who are clearly
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calling for Sharia law. And, you know, in this case, the UK just can't figure out what to do about
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it. And this is of a piece with the grooming gang scandal that no one wanted to talk about for
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more than a decade. And, you know, because of no one wanted to be called racist, right? As though
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that made any sense. It's just the masochism and delusion, you know, it has now been turned up to
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11. And honestly, I don't, I don't know what the, the next step is. I mean, my concern has always been
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that if left of center or centrist or even just normal conservatives can't get their arms around this
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problem, fascists will. I mean, I think if we see a rise of the real right wing in, in Europe,
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it will be because of this. And, you know, that's not to be hoped for, but Mrs. You know, David Frum's
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line, which distills it, you know, if liberals won't enforce borders, fascists will. But, you know,
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honestly, this is even a deeper problem than the problem of unregulated immigration. It's the fact
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that ideas spread and become contagious. It's, I mean, you know, this, this recent jihadist was a,
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um, British citizen, right? He was an immigrant, but he was not, you know, he was not an immigrant
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yesterday. He was somebody who grew up in the UK. Yeah. But if you look at, I don't know if you've
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been following this, the Facebook, there were like Facebook posts of his father that have just been
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being examined in the British Christ. No, I haven't seen that. Where he was celebrating on October 7th,
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he was celebrating the massacre of October 7th. So this is the home, this is where, you know,
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this is where this young man was being, this is the, the water he was swimming in, you know? And so,
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I mean, this was not something that, oh, the war got really bad, the quote unquote genocide.
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These were the ideas that were being incubated with these people in the days after October 7th.
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Yeah. I would also just add to that. I do think we're going to see a big right wing swing
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in European politics from the UK through France, through, you know, Germany, through elsewhere
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for the reasons we're talking about here. But what's so incredible to me is I think these politicians
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in Europe, Starmer, Macron, they knew they had this problem that you're describing and they have
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wanted to try to keep the temperature, you know, from spiraling out of country, you know, from just
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keep it at like a relative level from spiraling, completely unraveling society. And the approach
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they took was we can kind of feed the beast by criticizing Israel, by attacking Israel, by
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criticizing the Jews. I mean, I was just in France a few weeks ago and I was meeting with leaders of
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the Jewish community and they said, Macron after October 7th was fantastic. They said, first of all,
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he was one of the first leaders in the West to travel to Israel. He glued Israel to show solidarity
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with Israel. And he even was proposing a response to October 7th that is actually unimaginable now,
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which is he said, we need an international, a global response to October 7th, like we did to
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ISIS. We need to treat Hamas like ISIS. And then there was this, you know, 50 nation plus coalition that
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responded that took on ISIS. We need to do the same thing to Hamas. That's what he was talking.
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I mean, just imagine that now. It's like, it really is unimaginable. And that's how he was
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talking. And then a couple of weeks later, after that, there was a solidarity, the Jewish community
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in France held the solidarity march or solidarity event, similar to the one in November of 23 that
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was held in Washington where, you know, in the US, something like 300,000 plus people came to the
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mall. And so France had its own version of that and they just assumed Macron would participate.
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And then he was a no-show. And they were like, wait a minute, how did he swing from showing up
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in Israel, talking about this robust response, and then just a couple of weeks later, nowhere to be
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found. And when leaders in the Jewish community went to his advisors, he said, well, we need to
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show some balance. We're concerned about showing balance. Now, what balance is he's talking about?
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The balance he was talking about was not between Israel and Hamas. The balance he was talking about
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was the seven and a half plus million Muslims that live in France and that represent something like
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10% of France's population. Yeah. I think it's 8%, yeah.
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Yeah, 8%. So it's just this idea that, oh, we'll pull back on support for Israel. We'll pull back
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on showing solidarity with Israel. No, we'll actually go farther than that. We'll participate in calling
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what Israel's doing a genocide. And we'll cut off arms supplies to Israel. And we'll go ahead and
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recognize a Palestinian state with no conditions or calls on anything for Hamas. So there was this
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hope, I think, that they could just continue to pander to their local population, and that would
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kind of keep things quiet. And of course, the opposite happens, right? It's not like the people
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who are on the front lines of these attacks against the Jews are going to be mollified by these foreign
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policy positions that their leaders are taking. Yeah, this is what is often referred to as feeding the
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crocodile, right? Right. In the hopes that it's not going to eat you. Well, here's my question,
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though. So what happens now? I mean, so clearly, Starmer in the UK is rattled. And I've got to
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believe Macron is rattled, because he knows that this kind of thing could have easily happened in
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France. These things like this, as you just said, have happened in France. So what do they do now?
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I mean, you know, because to truly deal with the issue means to confront big political
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constituencies and their own governing coalitions? Well, what's amazing is it's not that big. I mean,
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so we just said that France is 8% Muslim. The UK is 6% Muslim, last I looked. So the depth of this
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problem, the fact that you can get hundreds of thousands of people in the streets exerting what
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seems scarcely tolerable pressure on the political system and the need to pander to it. All of this
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mayhem is the result of 6% of the population making itself noisy, right? I mean, can you imagine what
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it would look like with 30% of the population? I mean, it's just, it's completely untenable to not
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confront it at this stage, right? I mean, honestly, there's no, and this is, this is going to sound like
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bigotry to anyone who's not actually doing the moral algebra here. I mean, so first, everything
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I'm saying is addressing the consequences of certain deeply held ideas, right? This is nothing that I'm
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not talking in principle about any race or ethnicity, or I mean, the color of a person's skin is completely
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irrelevant for this conversation. But left of center, all of this gets coded as xenophobia and racism and,
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you know, white supremacy, the moment you begin making noises like this. But you have to think about
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Islam as a set of ideas that is analogous to any other set of ideas like, you know, communism,
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right? I mean, so to criticize communists, to worry about having more communists in your country,
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to not want more of them, to want to be able to point out that certain fundamental ideas within
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communism are inimical to how you want to organize your own society. All of that conversation could be
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had without any sense that you are expressing bigotry toward people based on their indelible
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characteristics acquired at birth, right? The same attitude has to be taken when discussing the
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differences between our religions, especially religions that are religions of conversion,
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right? That are, you know, aggressively missionary faiths that are spreading in a hundred countries,
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right? I mean, so Christianity and Islam are unlike Judaism in this regard. When you're talking about
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Jews and Judaism, you are almost by definition because Judaism is not a missionary faith and
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because there are only 15 million Jews and virtually all of them are Jews by virtue of being born to a
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woman who was herself born to a woman who was herself born to a woman who was Jewish. When you're
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talking about Jews, you are talking at least implicitly about an ethnicity and a race. And it's not to say
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people don't convert to Judaism, but it's just not that common and the Jews don't make it easy,
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et cetera. So, and they don't seek it out. We don't seek it out. Right. And, and so it's,
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there's a big difference here. And that's why you can't just swap the terms, you know, anti-Semitism
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and Islamophobia into various sentences and, and pretend that they're functioning in the same way.
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There's no such thing as Islamophobia. There's such a thing as racism. There's such a thing as
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xenophobia. There's such a thing, but Islamophobia is a word that has been made up to prevent
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criticism of Islam and, and to conflate it with bigotry. So any secularist who wants to argue
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against creeping Islamic theocracy, or to even just argue for the, the human rights of women and girls
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in the context of Islamic theocracy, that person gets painted as a bigot and as an, and as Islamophobe.
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And it's just not true. It's just a rhetorical trick that has been foisted on the left half of our
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society and everyone left of center has been taken in by it. And that's why they're uniquely unfit to
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even participate in this conversation at the moment. Unfortunately, as you go right of center,
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you begin to meet people who are, you know, rather eager to have this conversation for some bad
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reasons, right? Then you begin to meet real racists and xenophobes and white supremacists and
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Christian identitarian lunatics and proper Nazis. And then the guilt by association police come out of
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the woodwork and you get, you know, defenestrated for having talked to somebody who talked to someone
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who was himself, you know, untouchable. And so there's a problem here in just how we talk about
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this, which is to say that, you know, so, I mean, there's a reason, for instance, why I haven't had
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Tommy Robinson on my podcast. It's not because Tommy Robinson is wrong about most of what he says.
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He's absolutely not wrong about most of what he says, but he's just rough enough around the edges
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and just has enough of a colorful history that I'm uncomfortable being directly associated with
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him. And frankly, I'm right to be uncomfortable given the consequences of being associated with
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him. But I can talk to Douglas Murray and yet Douglas Murray for many people left of center is beyond,
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considered beyond the pale. And, you know, because he'll talk to Pete, he'll talk to Tommy Robinson
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without hesitation, right? So the landscape here is a mess, but what is, what is real is that we have
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to deal with the reality of religious fanaticism and its consequences. And the problem here is
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especially acute in the Muslim community, wherever it has anything like influence, right? The more
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influence it gets, you know, even at the 6% level, you start hearing demands for, you know, not just
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Sharia law being observed by Muslims, but everyone outside of the community bending the knee to their
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religious strictures, right? None of us can draw a cartoon. If you'd like to continue listening to
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