In this essay, I respond to Sam Harris's recent comments on Israel, Gaza, Hamas, and why he refuses to debate many of his critics. My argument is not primarily about genocide, proportionality, international law, or even the details of Israel's military response. It is about something more fundamental: the framing of violence itself.Sam Harris often frames Hamas and similar movements as expressions of jihadism—forms of violence rooted primarily in religious belief, metaphysical commitments, and interpretations of sacred texts. If that framing is accepted, then the moral conversation largely becomes a discussion about how to manage or contain a dangerous ideology. But what happens if that framing is incomplete? What if history, colonialism, dispossession, and resistance are not peripheral details but central parts of the story?Drawing on examples from anti-colonial struggles around the world, Zionist historical sources, and broader questions about moral reasoning, I explore why historical context matters when evaluating violence. The question is not whether violence is horrific—it always is. The question is whether our explanation of that violence determines the moral conclusions we reach before the discussion even begins.Pre-order my upcoming book: *Insufficient Rewards: How We Traded Integrity for Comfort and Outsourced Morality*https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Insufficient-Rewards/Jay-Shapiro/9781803419985#SamHarris #Gaza #IsraelPalestine #Philosophy #History #Colonialism #Zionism #MiddleEast #Politics #EthicsBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com00:00 Another Response to Sam Harris00:20 The Jihadism Framework02:34 Why This Leads to "Mowing the Lawn"04:59 Why Critics Can't Reach Harris07:36 The Real Disagreement: Framing Violence09:15 Can the Jihadism Frame Be Challenged?11:23 Harris's "Five Myths About Gaza" Give Away The Game & The Colonialism Question14:20 Resistance, Religion, and History and Intertwined Ideas and Motives16:53 What Zionist Sources Actually Say19:00 Reframing Hamas as Resistance Plus Other Things20:38 What Changes If The Frame Changes? & Why History Matters23:00 Peace As Emergent Property of Justice Pursued24:43 Why Genocide Debates Miss The Point26:32 Preorder My New Book

For decades, the word "genocide" has occupied a unique place in international law, collective memory, and political debate. But what exactly does it mean—and has the definition become too narrow to describe the forms of violence we witness today? In this conversation, Holocaust and genocide scholar Dirk Moses joins me to discuss the crisis unfolding within genocide studies, the fierce disputes over how the term should be defined, and why debates about Gaza have exposed deep fractures in academia, international institutions, and public discourse.We explore the controversy surrounding Moses's influential essay on Germany's "catechism," the role Holocaust memory plays in shaping political culture, and whether modern societies have become trapped by an understanding of evil that struggles to recognize violence outside familiar historical frameworks. Along the way, we discuss Anne Frank and Hind Rajab, the stigma attached to genocide accusations, colonial violence, the ICC and ICJ, and the growing generational divide over how atrocities are remembered and understood.Most importantly, we examine a little-known proposal put forward by the Dutch delegation during the drafting of the UN Genocide Convention in 1948. The proposal attempted to address what its authors called "camouflaged genocide"—forms of destruction that operate indirectly and may not fit neatly into the legal framework that ultimately emerged. Moses argues that revisiting this forgotten history may offer a way to repair a definition many scholars now see as increasingly inadequate. Whether you agree or disagree with his conclusions, this discussion raises fundamental questions about memory, law, history, and the language we use to describe humanity's gravest crimes.Pre-order my upcoming book: *Insufficient Rewards: How We Traded Integrity for Comfort and Outsourced Morality*https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Insufficient-Rewards/Jay-Shapiro/9781803419985BECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com00:00:00 Coming Up...00:01:52 Intro To the Genocide Tug-o-War00:11:34 The State of Genocide Studies Now00:15:20 Dirk Touched The Third Rail In Germany00:21:32 The Five Elements of the Catechism00:24:32 The Problems of Genocide And Can Something Be Worse?00:28:32 Israel Testimony Of Genocide00:33:24 The Stigma Of Genocide00:37:07 Las Casas on the Devastation of the Indies and Language of Outrage00:41:24 The Word As Advocacy or Legal Crime00:47:15 The Question of Intent The Rohingya and Gaza00:52:05 What The Court Says And Hind Rajab And Anne Frank01:01:34 The Symbolic Term And The Focus on Palestine01:07:18 The ICC Trial Israel Didn't Want To See01:13:52 Convincing People They Aren't Free And Hamas's Undemocratic Choice To Act01:18:55 Camouflaged Genocide The Key To the Door01:27:44 Proving Camouflaged Genocide As A TestBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

Born in Iran in 1974, just years before the Iranian Revolution transformed the country forever, Trita Parsi has spent his life at the intersection of some of the most consequential political conflicts of the modern era. In this conversation, we trace his journey from childhood in pre-revolutionary Iran to exile and life in Sweden, exploring how displacement, identity, and history shaped his understanding of power, nationalism, and the Middle East. Along the way, we discuss the rise of the Islamic Republic, the experience of the Iranian diaspora, and how growing up between cultures influenced his worldview.From there, the conversation turns to Israel, Zionism, American foreign policy, and the decades-long struggle to reshape the political order of the Middle East. Parsi reflects on the assumptions that have guided policymakers in Washington and Tel Aviv for generations, the repeated efforts to isolate or transform Iran, and why so many of those strategies failed to produce the outcomes their architects expected. We explore the deep historical roots of today's conflicts, the changing balance of power in the region, and the gap between political rhetoric and geopolitical reality.Finally, we look ahead. What happens when the world's most powerful countries fail to achieve their stated goals? What new order emerges from that failure? Has the era of unchallenged American influence come to an end? And what does the future hold for Iran, Israel, the United States, and the wider world? This conversation is not only a look back at one remarkable life, but also an attempt to understand a historic turning point whose consequences will shape the decades ahead.00:00 Coming Up01:05 Intro to Trita Parsi 05:08 Parsi Born Into a Political Earthquake in Iran07:17 Growing Up In Sweden And Accepting It08:31 An Enemy of the Shah and The Islamic Republic10:06 Not Going Back To Iran13:48 What Don't We Get About 1979?18:01 The Simmering Revolution, Delayed By Intervention22:05 Dispersed Power of the Islamic Republic24:52 Iran's Incentives For Prolonging War28:40 Israel's Intentions Revealed About Turning Iran Back34:00 What About the Iranian Women's Freedom?40:48 Does Iran Care About the Palestinians?44:16 Zionism And Israel's Capacity Problem of Friends and Enemies47:01 Zionism Is The Problem47:57 The New Reality for the GCC and Saudi52:03 Who Would Be The Problem Then?52:47 Like, Subscribe, Share, Comment, And Next GuestsBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

In round two with Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro, the conversation expands far beyond politics into morality, theology, identity, and the strange psychological world created by modern Zionism. We explore the deep divide between Judaism as a religious covenant and Zionism as a nationalist political project, asking whether the modern state of Israel fundamentally transformed — or even replaced — Judaism for millions of Jews in the diaspora. Along the way we discuss figures like Benjamin Netanyahu and Itamar Ben-Gvir, the rise of religious nationalism in Israel, and why some Orthodox rabbis see Zionism not as the fulfillment of Judaism but as a revolt against it.The discussion also turns surprisingly personal and philosophical. We debate veganism, eating animals, moral obligation, atheism, divine command theory, and whether morality comes from God, reason, empathy, or something deeper built into consciousness itself. Rabbi Shapiro lays out the highly legal and covenantal logic of traditional Judaism, while I push from a humanist and philosophical perspective shaped more by moral intuition and existential questions than religious law. What follows is not a hostile debate but a genuinely curious and wide-ranging exchange about free will, suffering, identity, tradition, and the uncomfortable contradictions many modern Jews feel when trying to separate Judaism from Israel.We also get into antisemitism, pro-Palestine activism, Holocaust memory, diaspora identity, and the growing confusion around what words like “Jew,” “Zionist,” and “anti-Zionist” even mean anymore. Can someone reject Zionism without rejecting Jews? Did Zionism “steal” Judaism and redefine Jewish identity around nationalism and the state? Why do so many secular Jews feel trapped inside an identity they no longer religiously believe in? And what happens when a centuries-old spiritual tradition becomes fused to military power and ethnic politics? It’s a dense, funny, provocative, and deeply philosophical conversation that moves from Talmudic reasoning to modern propaganda, from theology to vegan ethics, and from suburban American Judaism to the crisis unfolding in Israel and Palestine today.For more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com 00:00:00 Coming Up…00:01:43 Roadmap To the Conversation00:05:28 A Strange Debate About Veganism and the Jewish God00:07:53 Golda Meir’s Masada Complex00:13:25 Dear Palestine, on Jewish Pacifism and the IDF00:18:35 Amalek and Canaan00:25:40 Interpretation of Texts00:29:06 How Flexible are the Texts00:37:41 How Popular Are His Views? Can You Tell By Looking?00:47:00 The Zionists Have A Country, What Do We Have?00:53:49 The Illusion of Zionism00:59:12 Real Jews and Rabbi Shach01:03:31 Palestine or Zionism? The Moral Character of the Jewish God01:09:59 1967 and The Diaspora Jew01:13:53 Jonathan Pollard and the Diaspora Jew01:21:11 DEBATE: Is Judaism Pacifist?01:28:02 David Hume, the Is-Ought Problem, and the Uncaused Cause01:34:07 God, Perfection, and Free Will01:41:03 Child Drowning in a Shallow Pond01:47:33 Humanism, Veganism, and Human Access to the Oughts01:54:40 If the Theology is Right The Slaughterhouse Disgust is a misguided Feeling01:58:08 Rabbi’s Daughter Stopped Eating Chicken02:01:13 Feelings Versus Theology And the God Question02:06:43 Why Is There Something… Moral? And Literal Torah02:13:13 Why Does This Moral Grounding Difference Matter?02:17:26 Rabbi Calls Me Authoritarian02:18:16 Rabbi Choses Veganism All Things Being Equal02:25:07 Rabbi’s 51st State Solution Actually Ends Yaakov’s Problem02:27:53 Alex Hershaft Holocaust Survivor Turned Animal Rights Activist02:29:14 OUTRO Moral Philosophy Response - Steel manning God02:33:53 What Humanism Actually Means02:39:30 Strange Bedfellows Against Zionism

In this conversation, Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos reflects on surviving Nazi-occupied Hungary, the trauma of the Holocaust, and why he believes Israel’s actions in Gaza amount to genocide. Kapos describes the terrifying atmosphere of Budapest in 1944, the yellow star houses, the deportations to Auschwitz, and his family’s connection to the infamous Kastner rescue train, one of the most morally controversial episodes of the Holocaust. Together, we unpack the legacy of Rudolf Kastner, the negotiations with Adolf Eichmann, Bergen-Belsen, and the impossible moral dilemmas faced by European Jews under Nazi rule.But this conversation goes beyond history. We explore how the Holocaust shaped Zionism and the creation of a “new Jew” in early Israel, one that rejected weakness, compromise, and even many Holocaust survivors themselves. Kapos explains why some survivors became fiercely nationalistic while others, like him, came to see the dehumanization of Palestinians as a tragic repetition of history. We discuss Hannah Arendt, the Eichmann trial, the discrimination Holocaust survivors faced in Israel, and the psychological transformation of trauma into permanent militarization and fear.This is not a simple conversation, and it is not always comfortable. It is about memory, nationalism, survival, collaboration, propaganda, and the moral weight of history. Whether you agree or disagree, Stephen Kapos offers a perspective that is increasingly rare: a firsthand witness to the Holocaust speaking openly about Gaza, Zionism, and the lessons he believes humanity failed to learn. If this conversation matters to you, please like, subscribe, and share it so these stories are not lost.00:00 — Coming Up...01:21 — Intro Essay: Why This Conversation Matters06:18 — The Story of Rudolf Kasztner & the Rescue Train09:22 — The Moral Dilemma of the Kasztner Deal11:47 — Eichmann, Hannah Arendt & the “Banality of Evil”18:00 — Interview: Why Stephen Speaks Out at 88 Years Old22:15 — Nazi Occupation of Hungary & the Fall of Budapest28:13 — Jewish Life in Hungary Before the Holocaust30:22 — Why Stephen’s Family Rejected Zionism34:33 — Adolf Eichmann Arrives in Hungary38:45 — Who Was Rudolf Kastner?42:30 — “Blood for Goods”: Negotiating With the Nazis44:29 — Inside the Kasztner Holding Camp Columbus Street Camp46:35 — Escaping the Holding Camp & Going Into Hiding47:47 — Bergen-Belsen & Waiting for Switzerland51:14 — Hiding From the Nazis in Hungarian Villas53:31 — Was Kastner a Hero or a Collaborator?56:45 — Why Holocaust Survivors Were Discriminated Against in Israel59:32 — Stephen Kapos on Kastner’s Guilt01:02:55 — How Trauma Turned Into Israeli Nationalism01:04:30 — Fear, Propaganda & the Creation of Racism01:06:18 — “I Was Just Happy to See a Jewish Soldier”01:08:13 — When Zionism Became Impossible to Defend01:09:03 — Gaza, Dehumanization & the Failure to Learn From History01:11:35 — Trauma Loops and Seeing Nazis Everywhere01:15:22 — Germans Platoons Avoiding Children01:19:20 — Stephen Kapos On Hope And What Has Changed01:22:00 — Become A Monster To Avoid Monster01:25:00 — Why Are The Palestinians So Forgiving?01:27:40 — Palestinians Understand The Holocaust01:31:07 — "I Am Not Risking Anything At This Stage"01:32:28 — Outro And Next GuestBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

Philosopher Justin Smith-Ruiu joins me for a deep conversation on Metaphysics, Consciousness, Philosophy of Science, Anthropology of Mind. Psychedelics, Ritual, Religion, Phenomenology, and the limits of modern materialism, centered around his new book ON DRUGS. Drawing on thinkers like Plato, Heidegger, Husserl, Descartes, Leibniz, Huxley, McKenna, and Claude Lévi-Strauss, Smith explores whether psychedelic experiences merely distort reality or instead reveal hidden dimensions of consciousness that modern Western philosophy has trained us to suppress. We discuss qualia, synesthesia, dreams, analogy versus truth, and the strange inadequacy of language when attempting to describe altered states. Along the way we explore object-oriented ontology, mysticism, the “excluded middle,” and why psychedelic experience often feels more real than ordinary waking life.The conversation moves far beyond the usual clichés about mushrooms and self-help. We discuss Aldous Huxley, R.C. Zaehner, Gordon Wasson, shamanism, cave paintings, ritual dance, Scythian burial mounds, Norse berserkers, Aztec peyote ceremonies, and the long human history of using drugs not merely for pleasure but for metaphysical exploration, warfare, revelation, and meaning-making. Smith argues that psychedelics do not contain some universal message, but instead “release a latent discourse,” amplifying symbols and structures already embedded within culture and consciousness itself. We explore why Western modern secular realism became so hostile to inner experience, why dreams and visions were downgraded in Western thought, and whether technological modernity flattened older modes of awe, transcendence, and participation in the cosmos.Toward the end, the discussion becomes deeply personal: atheism, ritual, Judaism, nostalgia, political religion, collective belief, and the moral dilemma of disenchantment. We talk about the difference between icons and idols, why ritual may possess value independent of literal belief, and whether humans—as Smith beautifully puts it—are creatures who “need the unnecessary.” From Apollo astronauts experiencing cosmic consciousness to psychedelic experiences that dissolve the boundary between self and world, this conversation asks a difficult question at the center of Smith’s book: do psychedelics actually help us think more clearly about reality, or do they simply force us to confront how mysterious consciousness already is?00:00 Coming Up...01:52 Intro to Justin Smith, Caveats on Drugs05:04 Mind and World: Philosophies Biggest Puzzle08:38 Some Channel Organization10:41 What Problem Is This Book Trying to Solve?16:13 Psychedelics, Synesthesia & Consciousness19:54 Breaking the Hallucination22:38 Plato vs Heidegger on Psychedelic Experience29:55 Phenomenology, Qualia & Reality33:24 Auto Experimentation39:46 Psychedelics and the “Excluded Middle”42:51 Oneiromancy vs Aristotle and Modern Science49:43 Witchcraft and Taking Seriously the Non Scientific52:48 Psychedelics as Rediscovery and Coming Home01:00:23 Levi-Strauss & “Latent Discourse”01:03:50 The Ethnographic Wassons01:09:45 “Humans Need the Unnecessary”01:15:21 Drugs In History01:19:03 More Than a Feeling01:21:31 The Apollo Astronaut Psychedelic Experience01:21:09 Galaxy Brain & Cosmic Consciousness01:25:05 Liebniz and Christianity01:30:52 Icon vs Idol01:40:46 Ritual, Religion & Collective Experience & The Moral Dilemma of Disenchantment01:48:00 Theology and Belief Commitment Variations01:54:40 Final Thoughts on Thinking Through PsychedelicsBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

How do we know what is real anymore?In this conversation with Professor Siwei Lyu of the University at Buffalo, one of the leading researchers in AI generated imagery and deepfake detection, we explore the unsettling world of synthetic images, cloned voices, fake influencers, and manipulated video. From AI girlfriends and scam artists to political propaganda and fake breaking news, we are entering a world where seeing is no longer believing.We talk about why “AI detectors” may be the wrong solution, why most people are already past the point of spotting fake images with the naked eye, and how verification itself is becoming unstable. If every image is already a processed representation of reality, what does authenticity even mean? We also discuss deepfake scams, revenge pornography, misinformation, metadata, provenance systems, and whether regulation can keep up with a technology that mutates faster than anyone can track.This is less about robot apocalypse fantasies and more about the quieter, more immediate danger, the erosion of trust, truth, and human connection. If AI is our generation’s splitting-the-atom moment, the real question is not whether the technology is good or bad, but whether society is prepared for what comes next.00:00 Intro01:43 The Real AI Threat Nobody Is Talking About03:38 Real or Fake? Entering the Deepfake Rabbit Hole06:01 AI Influencers, Fake Lives, and Digital Seduction08:09 Why AI Detection Is Failing10:47 Political Deepfakes and the IDF Hoodie Example12:04 Truth Is Slipping Away13:21 Testing AI Bias with Pro Palestine vs Pro Israel Images16:43 Why AGI Panic Distracts From the Real Problem17:00 Meet Siwei Lyu, Deepfake Forensics Expert18:21 How He Got Into AI Detection34:32 “Are You Real?” The Human Detection Problem44:22 Deepfakes as a Mutating Virus46:41 Can Machines Still Detect Synthetic Images?53:13 Authenticity vs Is It AI?59:00 Can Regulation Solve This?01:02:52 Voice Cloning, Scams, and Revenge Pornography01:07:17 How to Watermark Your Own Reality01:08:22 Politics, Propaganda, and the Collapse of Trust01:12:58 Can Society Adapt?01:15:08 Is This Worse Than Covid?01:18:05 Final Thoughts: Slow Down and BreatheBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

What is “Muskism”? In this conversation, I sit down with Ben Tarnoff and Quinn Slobodian to unpack the political and moral philosophy behind Elon Musk—not just the man, but the ideology forming around him. Instead of another biography, we explore Musk as a symbol of a broader Silicon Valley worldview shared by figures like Peter Thiel, Alex Karp, and the Palantir elite: a fusion of techno-utopianism, libertarian rhetoric, state power, surveillance, and anti-democratic ambition.We discuss Musk’s South African upbringing and its collaboration with Israel, the idea of “fortress futurism,” apartheid’s psychological legacy, and how those ideas evolved into a worldview obsessed with conquering politics rather than solving it. From simulation theory and Nick Bostrom’s superintelligence to the “woke mind virus,” transhumanism, and the erasure of the human person, we examine how Muskism turns morality into math and justice into an irrationality. Why does empathy become a threat? Why does “wokeness” become a virus? And what happens when billionaires start seeing themselves as the bootloaders for post-human civilization?We also explore Peter Thiel, PayPal, Thank You for Smoking, Sam Harris, Jared Kushner’s Gaza fantasies, AI hype, and whether Muskism is already collapsing under its own contradictions. Is Elon Musk a nihilist? A capitalist realist? A techno-messianic prophet? Or simply the final form of capitalism itself? This is a deep philosophical conversation about power, morality, technology, and what kind of future we are actually being asked, or forced, to accept.00:00 Coming Up...02:00 Intro to Muskism08:00 Finding a Through Line in Musk Madness11:21 Methodology to Understand the Chaos12:58 Psychological Profile of the Non-Introspective13:57 The Trouble with The Intellectual Portrait of the Digital Capitalist16:28 South Africa, Fortress Futurism, and Elon Musk's Childhood20:20 The Mecha and Transformers22:18 Beyond Musk, What Happened to the Utopian Internet Libertarianism27:04 Karp's Manifesto and the Honesty of the New Moment31:44 Thank You For Smoking and Post 9-11 Nihilism37:50 Soul Searching and Moral Philosophy42:44 Shadow People and NPC's49:09 Simulation Theory, Bostrom, and Transhumanism52:55 The Woke Mind Virus, Origins and Obsessions59:50 San Francisco as a Musk Microcosm 01:02:08 Steelmaning Musk's Future01:05:47 Wokeness as Justice or Legitimacy and Class Consent?01:11:18 Other "ism's" That Can Fight Muskism - Socialism01:17:35 End of Binary of the State and the Market01:23:13 Muskism is Hitting It's Limits01:25:58 The Answer At The Back of the BookBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

In this long-form conversation, I sit down with Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro—one of the most outspoken anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox rabbis—to explore one of the most misunderstood questions in modern politics: what is the relationship between Judaism and Zionism? Raised in suburban American Conservative Judaism with Israeli flags on the bimah, Hebrew school, bar mitzvahs, and an unspoken expectation to support Israel, I wanted to understand what exactly I inherited—and whether it had anything to do with Judaism as a religion at all.We begin with my own family story: my great-great-grandfather, a Satmar Jew in Hungary, was murdered in Auschwitz, while his daughter had left that world decades earlier for America. A few generations later, I inherited a version of Jewish identity shaped less by theology than by Holocaust memory and Zionist politics. Rabbi Shapiro argues that Zionism fundamentally transformed Judaism from a religion of covenant, law, and exile into a political nationalism—and in doing so, created deep moral and philosophical confusion for Jews like me who never believed in the theology but were still expected to defend the state of Israel.From the Holocaust and 1967 to female rabbis, the orange on the Seder plate, chosenness, antisemitism, and whether Judaism is a religion or an ethnicity, this conversation goes far beyond headlines. We discuss whether Zionism is a form of idolatry, why many religious Jews see Israel as a theological violation, and why the phrase “let Judaism be a religion and let Israel be a foreign country” might be the clearest way to understand the crisis. A serious philosophical conversation about faith, identity, history, and the moral catastrophe of Zionism... for the world... and for Judaism.00:00 Coming Up...01:46 Intro My Family Story: Satmar Roots, Auschwitz, and America11:27 My Opening Question: What Did I Actually Get Growing Up?21:13 What Do I Have To Do To Be A Jew?32:14 Jabotinsky and the Zionist Rejection of the “Exile Jew”39:19 I Didn’t Get Judaism—I Got Israel42:11 “Let Judaism Be a Religion, Let Israel Be a Country” Rabbi Shapiro’s Definition of Zionism57:06 Chosen People, Christians, and Jewish Identity01:04:00 Who Gets to Define Who Is a Jew?01:10:29 Are Religious Zionists Actually Religious?01:19:21 Holocaust Identity and Postwar American Judaism01:21:18 Moral Philosophy vs Divine Command01:27:12 Different Roads, Same Conclusion: Zionism Is Wrong01:44:18 The Best Zionist Argument: The Fear of Another Holocaust01:51:24 Would You Go Quietly? Zionists Killing Jews: The Case of Jacob de Haan01:55:48 1967 and the Zionist Transformation of American Judaism01:58:18 Final Thoughts: Obligation, Opportunity, and Another RoundBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

The attitudes in American on Israel and Palestine have flipped, we can't ignore the fact that violence may have "worked."There’s a deeply uncomfortable question at the center of political history: is violence ever justified—or even necessary—in the pursuit of freedom? In a widely shared debate, Steven Pinker argues that nonviolent movements are not only more moral, but more effective, citing a dataset from Harvard’s Kennedy School as empirical proof. But when you actually examine that data, the argument starts to unravel. In this essay, I take a close look at how complex resistance movements are reduced to simplistic binaries—success or failure, violent or nonviolent—and how that kind of “counting” can distort reality to produce clean, convenient conclusions... which might be very wrong.Along the way, I explore the psychology of cognitive dissonance, the narratives we build to justify violence, and the difficulty—perhaps impossibility—of measuring something like liberation. This isn’t an argument in favor of violence, but a challenge to the idea that history, morality, and revolution can be neatly captured in a spreadsheet.00:00 Intro00:47 Is Violence Ever Justified?05:18 Pacifism and Violence What is Moral and What Works?07:23 Cognitive Dissonance Explained12:04 Three Pieces of the Argument on Liberation17:03 The Harvard Database25:11 Palestine Liberation and October 7th28:30 The Oppressors Know What They Are Doing31:40 Ghassan Kanafani: Poetry and Armed ResistanceBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com