Why I'm Off the Fence About Israel's War

The anniversary of October 7 is fast approaching and I have been thinking carefully about how to word this article. But first, I must confess that when thousands of Hamas militants crossed Israel’s border to engage in an orgy of mediaeval violence on that day, I knew little about Israel and had no opinion about the long-running conflict.

I have never been to Israel. I have never been to Gaza. I have never been to the West Bank. It is not a conflict I studied at university or read about extensively.
People on both sides who care passionately about this issue find my ignorance and lack of interest hard to believe but, in truth, most people are like me. 

That’s why, for many months after the October 7 attacks, I avoided commenting on the war or even discussing it on our show. Instead, I read, watched and listened to the endless commentary, debates and discussions to understand what people on various sides were saying. Having gathered those perspectives, I then did my best to apply first-principles thinking to the arguments I heard.

Thinking from first principles means stripping whatever you're trying to analyse down to its core and working back from there. Context is extremely important to understanding, but when it comes to highly emotive situations, people often flood you with emotional context which does not support the argument they are making. There are some obvious examples in this debate, which we will address shortly.

First-principles thinking helps you see the structure of arguments. The logic of an argument is like the skeleton of a body - you cannot see it from the outside, but it is usually the cause of why the body moves the way that it does. Getting to the skeleton of an argument is essential to understanding it. 

This was my approach when we had prominent pro-Palestine guests like Bassem Youssef and Norman Finkelstein on TRIGGERnometry, as well as pro-Israel guests like Ben Shapiro and Natasha Hausdorff. It was also my approach when I hosted a fiery debate on the subject at Dissident Dialogues, and when Saifedean Ammous invited me to discuss this issue on his podcast.

So what does first-principles thinking tell us about this conflict?