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Home » Peter Hitchens on Israel and Hamas

Peter Hitchens on Israel and Hamas

The New Neo Posted on by

A month or two ago I watched a video interview with Peter Hitchens about Israel/Palestine. In it, he said that Hamas was popular in Gaza because it was not corrupt. And that wasn’t just a passing remark, either; he went on for some time about it. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

In a quick look right now I haven’t found the clip – the interview was long, and I’d have to listen to the whole thing, but my guess is it was with John Anderson. Here’s a different short excerpt from that interview in which Hitchens shows more stupidity, or perhaps it might rightly be called naivete. I’m really not sure what to call it, but here he says that you can’t destroy an idea by killing Hamas terrorists.

Well, of course not; whoever said you could? Jihad is an idea in more places than Gaza and it comes from more groups than Hamas; would that it were limited to them, but it’s not. However, strangely enough – and Hitchens should know this – war can destroy an idea and/or much weaken a particular group acting out that idea. Just take a look at Germany and Japan today as an example. Of course, it wasn’t just the waging of a bitter and bloody war but also how the peace afterwards was dealt with, but that’s too big a subject to tackle in this post except to say that it’s part of the picture. But the picture starts – unfortunately – with killing people, quite a lot of them if it’s a big group of perpetrators.

Hitchens states another stupid/naive idea here, which is that if only Israel hadn’t started the kind of war its waging in Gaza in retaliation for October 7, it had an opportunity to unite the Western countries in its favor to somehow stand together against Hamas et al. Dream on, Hitchens; dream on. He seems to think that anti-Israel sentiment is caused by Israel’s defending itself in this manner, and that if they desisted then there wouldn’t be so much anti-Israel opinion. But it’s the other way around – no other country would be widely criticized for a counter-attack such as Israel’s under like provocation. Israel is treated differently because of leftist propaganda combined with anti-Semitism, not because of anything it does or doesn’t do.

Of course, if Israel would just lay down and die I suppose the world would praise it. But as a commenter to the Hitchens video at YouTube writes [typos corrected by me]:

So Hitchens’ plan is to do nothing and be pitied. I think Golda Meir’s comment on the matter is pertinent. [Paraphrase] “Given a choice of being dead or unpopular, then we choose unpopular.”

I’ve read quite a few comments there, and the vast majority disagree with Hitchens. Here’s a sampler:

Peter’s naivete on this is astounding. If Israel did not respond it would be seen as vulnerable and weak by its own people – never mind the world. They had no choice.

No country on earth would tolerate having Hamas in power next door to it after what Hamas did on October 7th.

I respect and understand Peter’s opinion here, but how else is Israel supposed to deal with Hamas?? If you have thousands of terrorists next door that want to completely annihilate your nation and your people, how else are you supposed to respond?

Sorry Peter, I disagree with you on this, something I very rarely do. Even great minds (and hearts) such as yours can be wrong. God bless you.

An interesting perspective but erroneous. The world has always been fickle with respect to support of Jews and their country. Israel was caught off guard and if it does not respond decisively Hezbollah and Iran will most certainly attack – and that would pose an existential threat. In this region the only currency that matters is deterrence by force.

What planet is Peter on?

What planet indeed – the planet “British intellectual.” Or, as another commenter there writes:

… when Peter finishes his talk, where is he going? home or hotel? where do Israelis who live up to 50 km from Gaza should go? what about their normal lives? I’m Israeli, I’m a left minded person and still – we should throw Hamas out now! why? cause everybody else just talks and thinks – see what happens to people to “talk and think” – they get killed. It happened to us in Europe and now at home – no more!!!

Another point at which Hitchens shows his naivete is when he says that the left turned on Israel because of the 1967 war. He ignores the influence of Russian propaganda, which used that war to turn the Western left against Israel. I wrote about that in this post.

[NOTE: Also please this about Gandhi and the Jews.]

Comments

Peter Hitchens on Israel and Hamas — 52 Comments

  1. Dear Peter Hitchens, the Zionist movement got started because some Jews reasoned that if they were a nation, like other nations, and not just a religious and ethnic group spread out all over the world in smallish numbers, the world would respect them. It turns out that some people in the neighborhood and some people all over the world don’t think Jews, among all other groups, can have their own country.

  3. Kate:

    I suppose it depends what is meant by “respect.” I belive that by the time Israel actually became a country, the idea was more that, as a country, Israelis would be able to defend themselves and not be small dispersed groups of Jews at the mercy of the people in the countries in which they resided.

  4. Well, yes, but the original idea was that as a country they would be treated like other countries. This often hasn’t been the case, but at least they do have the option of self-defense. This is what Hitchens would strip from them.

  5. Well, I would say that he, wittingly or not, gives intellectuals a bad name among people who tend to think on a less nuanced level.
    OTH I sometimes wonder how one earns the sobriquet intellectual? Is it the ability to quote extemporaneously from the writings of other intellectuals. (No peeking.) It probably helps if you write in intellectually approved jargon yourself. I know that is simplistic, but I can’t help but wonder what weight is assigned to the ability to connect dots, or even process reality.

    On another level, I am recently curious as to how one qualifies to be an “influencer”? The term has become, unfortunately to my mind, virtually ubiquitous. Is there a quota for how many people you have to influence in order to be recognized?

  6. Well the fatah plan in 1969 was essentially the same as hamas they just never had the resources but we see in palwatch what the authority believes

  7. People like Hitchens like their Jews the old fashined way. You know, the ones you see in all the death camp liberation photos from WW II; emaciated, sunken eyes, clothing in tatters. That way they can work up a big helping of self-congratulatory empathy. Not so much a healthy, muscular, ass-kickin Jew. They find them rather … distasteful, don’t you know. They feel the same way about gun-totin’ ‘Mericans as well. We’re just too unrefined for their hifalutin sensibilities.

  8. Peter Hitchens has earned his sign (“I’m with stupid”).

    The comedian says “Here’s your sign!”

  10. What Hitchens doesn’t understand, as Gandhi before him also did not understand, is that if you are dealing with a moral, rational and compassionate people, nonaggression is definitely a viable option.

    If you are dealing with crazed psychopaths, not so much.

    The countries that do not have crazed psychopaths on their borders lobbing missiles at them for years on end and who then cross their borders to commit unspeakable atrocities, and can’t put themselves in the shoes of a country that does, don’t have an opinion that should matter one whit.

  11. I’ve always found the Hitchens brothers to be insufferable blowhard jerks. The thankfully departed Christopher was worse than Peter, but that’s matter of degree, like saying pig shit smells worse than cow shit.

    Show of hands if you feel the same.

  12. He certainly doesnt feel the same way about the ira and the british govt has castigated those who fought them

    There was something about the clintons that had to meddle in thd affairs of allies the us and israel

  13. I’ve had a love-hate relationship with both Hitchens brothers, with Christopher’s shilling for the Viet Cong being aggrevating. It took me a while to realize Peter could be almost as bad. In particularly his fatalistic, post-national “Do Nothingism” even applying to the UK is something I dislike.

    And for those who are interested, this is something I cobbled together with replies from his claim that sending tanks to Ukraine was an escalation.

    Firstly: The link I was responding to.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-11661589/PETER-HITCHENS-Sending-Ukraine-tanks-turn-Europe-one-big-radioactive-graveyard.html

    “This was the moment at which we began the unstoppable descent into terrible danger which so many of us will bitterly regret in times to come.”

    BEGAN??

    Have you been conscious for the past decades?

    “I won’t waste time here going over the question of who started the Ukraine war, or even why.”

    Because it really isn’t up for serious debate.

    ” Most people don’t want to know and refuse to think about it, or to look up the facts. They defame and abuse anyone who tries to tell them. So to hell with that. I’m bored with trying.”

    Seriously bruh? This isn’t really in much dispute. People like Girkin don’t work for free. They also don’t show up with modern Russian Federation military equipment out of the blue. Putin encouraged Yanukovych to quash all dissent with increasingly brutal and violent fashions, and when he overreached so much even for the oligarchs in the Regionnaires and got deposed by parliamentary vote, Putin reacted like he usually does. Violently.

    “The Government claims to be in favour of free debate in universities, so all the stage army of ‘Right-wing’ thinkers and scribblers whoop with admiration that we can now perhaps discuss the transgender issue. Well and good.”

    Indeed. Though honestly that might be pushing it

    “But the Government and its tame thinkers are not in favour of free debate on crucial national policy, and nor is anyone else much.”

    It’s just that there is nowhere near that much to debate and you lot keep making bad arguments. And unlike in the case of Iraq the clown show doesn’t have the benefit of the MSM loudspeaker so they can claim that Sarin Artillery Shells aren’t WMD

    “When the Defence Secretary announced that British tanks were going to Ukraine, not one MP raised any doubts or opposed the move. Not one. To read the record of the non-debate is like reading the proceedings of some Communist fake parliament, supine and brain-dead.

    The country where political freedom was born has decided not to bother being free any more.”

    Please, observe things like the proceedings around things like the declaration for war in WWI.

    Unity of purpose does not equal unfreedom. And while the UK has been dubous about being free for a long time, that is hardly because of this. Rotherham called

    “So it is left to me to tell you that it is an act of grave stupidity for the West to supply Ukraine with modern tanks.”

    According to who? And why?

    ” Unlike everyone else in the media and politics, I am not a military expert.”

    That much will become painfully evident soon, even in comparison to myself.

    ” But I know what tanks are for, and it is not defence.”

    Then you’re a fucking idiot. Tanks are meant for the tactical offense, but the tactical offense can be used for the STRATEGIC DEFENSE. This much was evident since at least the French sent the first FT tanks to fight the German offensive in Spring 1918.

    The power to advance on an enemy position and push through it can be used to both break through the last defenses before its capital, or to deal with forward positions trying to consolidate the gains of an offensive.

    I’ve actually been helping to design some (very loose) scenarios about the maiden combats of FT tanks for a war game and have researched

    I’ve also studied things like the first Tank on Tank battle at Villers-Bretonneux, where the British Tank Corps defeated the German ones and helped their infantry retake the eponymous village and consolidate their lines

    This shit was in 1918.

    This is NOT New.

    And there’s a reason why modern Western strategy has always focused on mechanized mobile defense

    Tanks are just a tool of that.

    In any case, Ukraine has to fight its way back to liberate its territory.

    “What we have just decided to do is to prolong and deepen the war. ”

    No, that would be Vladimir Putin. Who I might note started this war in 2014 and then decided to escalate it by sending some of the most modern tanks into Ukraine in 2022.

    “Maybe Ukraine’s new tanks will sweep all before them. Maybe they will bog down. Maybe they will try to take Crimea. Maybe they will soon be taking part in a Victory Parade in Red Square. I don’t know. ”

    I don’t know either but I can guess they won’t be doing a victory parade in Red Square. Ukraine’s been consistent in wanting to defend and reclaim its territory.

    “But if they cross into what Russia regards as its own territory, then do not be surprised by anything which happens.”

    True, but the issue is the Kremlin needs to feel pressure.

    Ukrainian troops and tanks have already crossed over into “what Russia regards as its own territory” in Kherson. Putin has malded, seethed, and threatened but done little else.

    “Look, Vladimir Putin is obviously a sinister tyrant and, in my view, went off his head completely during the Covid panic (look at those huge tables he sits at).”

    Good we agree.

    ” I think he is probably capable of authorising the use of battlefield nuclear weapons if cornered.”

    I’d say he is capable of much worse.

    “But it could be worse.”

    Sure, but it could be much better. And Putin has shown he cannot be trusted.

    ” If he is overthrown in a midnight putsch, he will not be replaced by some jolly, liberal-minded chap. He will be replaced by someone who might view it as a positive pleasure to press the red button.”

    Unlikely. For one he might be replaced by some jolly, liberal minded chap. He might be replaced by those claiming nuclear apocalypse. He might be replaced by the kind of “pragmatic” tyrant he positioned himself as who decides to start cut losses and de-escalate. We can only control so much about that. What we can do is apply pressure. In any case he certainly DESERVES to be replaced.

    And Ukraine deserves to return to the borders WE guaranteed in 1994 at Budapest.

    At which a friend of mine pointed out:

    This is to say nothing as well of the great flexibility tanks offer commanders in a purely defensive context. You have very powerful weapons platforms that are mobile and can be directed or redirected to support more static positions as needed.

    To which I replied:

    Exactly

    Again. This shit was fairly clear in 1918

    1918

    The tank originated as an almost purely offensive tool, but by 1918 at the latest it was being used in the strategic defense.

    “So there is the real possibility that a large chunk of Europe might be turned into a radioactive graveyard and that American conventional retaliation for this (which will be furious and powerful) will take us a stage further into the world of horror, loss, flight, pestilence and poverty which always follows war.”

    There’s always been that real possibility. Russia didn’t denuclearize even when the Soviets crumbled, and while the West limited its nuclear arsenal they didn’t eliminate it.

    The question what outcomes and policies are most likely to DECREASE that real possibility.

    I dunno about you, but after studying centuries of Russian autocracy and expansionism and about most of a century of Kremlin nuclear brinkmanship, I say that is a world where any autocrat in the Kremlin has their power and ability to endanger Europe be as limited as possible. Which involves destroying the Russian conventional military in Ukraine or any other that.

    Also, the world of horror, loss, flight, pestilence, and poverty is ALREADY present in Ukraine and the Donbas. Just ask Kharkhov. What is remarkable is that the people in Kharhov WANT TO CONTINUE ON TO VICTORY in not a way unsimilar to the Blitz Spirit in Britain.

    And do you propose to know better than they do?

    In what way is this injurious to US or UK interests?

    ” If this happens, maybe more people might want to find out why it began. Maybe not. I will help, if asked.”

    I’m skeptical you are capable of doing so.

    “But why is Britain in this affair?”

    Let’s start with Budapest 1994.

    https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/Part/volume-3007-I-52241.pdf

    Please note the points committing the US, UK, and Russia to respect Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity and to support Ukraine against a defense.

    Then let’s go back and back through the annals of the Anglo-Russian Great Game.

    ‘”I know that a lot of voters in key states in America hate Russia because their forebears came from lands Moscow had oppressed. ”

    Oh go fuck yourself. As if hereditary animosity was responsible for policy rather than sober analysis?

    It’s also ironic that a Britishman is writing this shit when British suspicion and hostility to Russian strategic expansion PREDATES that of the US.

    Hitchens, I know you are not this stupid or naive. I know you know your country fought a war in response to what amounted to a coal powered Russian Naval Pearl Harbor by going to Crimea to destroy the large Russian Naval Base there in the 1850s.

    So please shut the fuck up and stop acting as if enduring and real concern about Russian strategic power and expansion was not a concern for Britain, is not a concern for Britain, and has not been that way for a Long Fucking Time

    “I know that some neo-conservative fanatics in Washington have long desired to dismantle Russia and ensure that it is never an important country again.”

    And I oppose those mostly- straw-men. But I absolutely oppose the Neo-Tsarist and Neo-Stalinist fanatics determined to recreate a “Russian World” over the ashes of the rest because Moscow’s government has apparently lost the ability to do the Carrot part of Carrot and Stick diplomcy some time after freaking Catherine the Great.

    “I even understand their points of view.”

    I doubt it.

    “But they are at least 3,000 miles away and will not be personally affected by their own policy. ”

    You do realize that Russian Boomers are a thing, right? Ditto the Arctic approach?

    Or at least that they tend to have family in the military?

    “By contrast we are not 3,000 miles away. And I have absolutely no idea how Britain will become safer, happier or more prosperous thanks to following this strategy. Rather the opposite.”

    Again. Fucking Study the Crimean War. Actually Study it.

    Actually Read Budapest 1994.

    In what way will allowing Russia to start major conventional wars in Europe on nakedly fallacious pretexts make Britain safer, happier, or more prosperous?

    Rather than the opposite?

    “Two countries are in a furious grapple because their deep, hard and unalterable interests conflict.”

    Oh please. Russia has deep interests in Ukraine and I do not see them being altered, but that does not mean the manner in which they approach said interests have to divert. Putin could have opened a book of diplomacy and tried to woo Ukraine. But he apparently sucks at that.

    Likewise he could have worked to link Russia to NATO. But he didn’t want that unless he could have his way. So here we are.

    “The sane and decent policy for any outside power is to help push them into a lasting compromise, as the world did to France and Germany after 1945. ”

    This is fucking hilarious on multiple levels.

    Firstly because France and Germany did not have much of a compromise after 1945. France got most of what it wanted at Germany’s expense, with the Saarland and lessened reparations being the two main exceptions.

    Secondly: Outside powers DID try to push Russia and Ukraine into a lasting compromise AND IT WOUND UP FUCKING STILLBORN AT MINSK. Primarily because Putin perceived he had no reason to honor it.

    They also brokered things like Budapest 1994 and Astana 2010. Both of which Putin rejected when he viewed them as having no value.

    As such, the rational logic is to cripple Russia’s military and political capacity to violate any future agreement. Which involves support for Ukraine

    “Instead, we send tanks. It is as if the fire brigade went about starting fires.”

    This is rather fucking ironic considering how “Fire Brigade” is an actual term coined by the Nazi Germans to refer to mobile armored-centric tank forces used in a mobile defense.

    https://www.feldgrau.com/ww2-german-13th-panzer-division/

    so the fact that of all the terms Hitchens tried to use that is fucking hilarious

    So quite literally one reason we are sending modern tanks to Ukraine IS to make Fire Brigades that help put out fires on the battle line.

    So yeah

    I’m also not a military expert

    I am however a historically minded autist and war gamer

    Oh also

    Hitchens has never ever explained why sending tanks would be a bad idea here

    Especially since to the extent he articulated an argument, it is “we should not send modern battle tanks to Ukraine out of fear of what either Putin or someone who replaced him in power will do.”

    NOT DOING X BECAUSE OF FEAR OF WHAT PUTIN WILL DO IS HOW WE GOT INTO THIS FUCKING SITUATION IN THE FIRST PLACE!

    LIKEWISE GEORGIA IN 2008!

    OBVIOUSLY, HESITANCY TO ACT IS NOT A WINNING STRATEGY WHEN DEALING WITH PUTIN!

    So yah

    Thus endeth the fisk of Hitchens, who I generally liked

    Suffice it to say, I have not seen his commentary on this issue but I worry it will be about the quality of this.

  15. The EU has bad judgement all around in small things like their energy policy and larger ones have we established that point

    Borell their foreign policy chief is terribld with regards to china iran cuba et al

  16. Hitchens offers advice that he wouldn’t follow if he were in Israel’s situation. That is a clear demonstration of intellectual dishonesty.

  17. I too am disappointed in Peter Hitchens. However, does being “smart” mean not making mistakes, even large mistakes?

    Once upon a time I was a leftist hippie. After 9-11 I became conservative.

    Was I dumb before and now I am smart?

  18. Say what ye want, it’s all true…but C. Hitchens had an awakening…
    And the book reviews, the book reviews….
    (They’re extraordinary…)

  21. Say what ye want, it’s all true…but C. Hitchens had an awakening…

    Barry Meislin:

    Amen. CH was far from perfect, but to go from a Trotskyite leftist writing for “The Nation” to standing with George W. Bush and Christian snake handlers is quite a move.
    _______________________________________

    I don’t think you’ll get a snake-handler in Oklahoma to say he feels sorry for bin Laden and his grievances. You just somehow won’t. You can count on him not to do it. I’m with that guy on that point. I’m against the people who say, oh, but you have to feel sorry for bin Laden’s grievances, because I don’t.

    –Christopher HItchens
    [dead link]
    _______________________________________

    Hitchens lost a lot of friends, supporters and outlets for his work on that account.

  22. huxley:

    Peter Hitchens is now 72 years old. He doesn’t have the excuse of youth, or even relative youth. And his views as expressed here seem to be nonsense to me, not just slightly mistaken. Plus, he’s not on the left, so he doesn’t have that excuse either.

    Not only that but these views on Israel are consistent with his views on other wars, including WWII. For example:

    He believes that the UK should never have participated in World War I, and is very critical of the view that World War II was “The Good War”. His view on World War II is laid out in his book The Phoney Victory, in which he argues that the UK entered World War II too early, and that the UK overly glorifies World War II. He argues that while the allies were fighting a radical evil, they sometimes used immoral methods, such as the carpet bombing of German civilians. He believes that Britain’s entry into World War II led to its rapid decline after the war. This was because, among other things, it could not finance the war and was not prepared for it. As a result, it had to surrender much of its wealth and power to avoid bankruptcy. Hitchens’ views on the UK in World War II have been met with criticism by historians, with Richard J. Evans describing his book The Phoney Victory as ‘riddled with errors’.

    No doubt Britain did some bad things during the war, as happens in all wars. But it really was fighting a GREAT evil. And no doubt it was expensive and contributed to England’s decline. But what on earth does Hitchens thinks would have happened if Britain hadn’t opposed the Nazis?

    At least he’s consistent, I suppose. Consistently stupid on the subject.

  23. What were bin ladens grievance how did killing 3000 mostly civilians solvr anything

  24. neo:

    So is being smart a function of not making mistakes, especially mistakes which are obvious to you?

    My programming mentor and about the brightest guy I’ve known — I figure his IQ close to 150 — was big on disputing the intelligence of anyone who disagreed with his conclusions.

    Personally I don’t find that “smart.”

  25. Hitchens believes that the last century of war was the pity of war to cite another author that rebounded negatively to the uks detriment

  26. The other thing I dislike about Peter is ignorance. He correctly identifies the massive costs of the world wars as a reason why Britain declined, but he has no answer about what the alternatives were. A totalitarian continental power dominating the channel ports and ideologically and culturally adverse to Britain would have been a mortal weakness for British interests, and even rather dovish British leaders identified that. Which is precisely why they rose to confront it. That is one reason why it was not acceptable to surrender to Wilhelm or Adolf.

    Also, much the exact cost for Britain came from strategic failures. For instance, I find it hard to find too many things wrong with overall British grand strategy in WWI but they did make a number of offensive blunders, especially passing up a golden chance to seize Constantinople after the first naval expedition. But early WWII was disasterous, and Britain missed many opportunities to defeat or at least check the Nazis, whether with the Rhineland Crisis, the Sudetenland, or in Norway and the West in 1940. The result would have been costly had the Allies won in those campaigns but it would have been nothing like the overall war they got and it helped encourage the likes of Mussolini and the Japanese to enter the war and nearly brought the Soviets into the Axis. At a minimum Allied victory in 1940 would have lessened the war and made Britain and its’ colleagues diminishment more gradual and smooth, and might have prevented it altogether.

    Sometimes there are no truly good options, but fighting is the least worst.

  27. So looking at the big picture who won the great wars who runs europe and for which purpose a dyspeptic german economists with mad scientist notions with a bond villain wardrobe to match

  28. Why is unwra allowed to do these horrible things as enabler of hamas of qatar not only in the levant

  31. @Miguel Cervantes

    So looking at the big picture who won the great wars who runs europe and for which purpose a dyspeptic german economists with mad scientist notions with a bond villain wardrobe to match.

    That situation is still bad, but as bad as it is I would prefer it over having dyspeptic German militarists, economists, and autocrats with mad science notions, Bond villain wardrobe, and rhetoric that would make Ian Fleming’s Soviets look saintly. The Davoise have little on the Potsdam crowd, and as diabolical as the WEF is they have to stop short of openly embracing genocide in those words.

    Besides, many times you have to fight the evils in front of you, or you get so hung up on what might emerge or what might be you let evil triumph.

    Besides, I do not believe the emergence of the WEF/Club of Rome Globalist style goons in the shape they were was inevitable just because of WWI, and I refuse to think totalitarian dictatorship that explicitly rejects the idea of democracy, constitutionalism, the free market, and civilian accountability would be better for the world compared to what it got. People ignore how much time Wilson spent praising the Prussians.

  32. Although it is no doubt possible to wipe out an idea with violence, as in World War II, it requires offering an alternative idea. The Allies were able to offer the ideal of emulating American liberal democracy, or alternatively the ideal of establishing a Communist utopia (which latter didn’t work out so well, but plenty of people found it appealing in the mid-twentieth century). Israel doesn’t have an alternative to offer the inhabitants of Gaza, since establishing a Jewish state isn’t exactly a viable option for them, and Israel would never accept the establishment of a Muslim state.

    I’m a strong supporter of Israel, but it’s fanciful to think it will have peace with the Palestinians in our lifetimes. The best that Israel can hope for is to keep it down to a dull roar, as my grade school teachers used to say.

  33. huxley:

    Were you dumb before and now you’re smart? For that matter, was I dumb before and now I’m smart?

    There are a number of reasons people can change their minds about politics (or anything). Sometimes, for example, their values and opinions change because of life experiences. This is often the case for people who have one opinion as students or young adults, and different opinions after some years out in the world of work, marriage, parenthood, etc.. That doesn’t have much to do with dumb vs smart. It has to do with life experience – not being a callow youth anymore.

    Other change experiences – and this is mostly what happened to me – happen later in life as a person gets more interested in a topic and learns more, and the new facts cause a new evaluation of the situation. This isn’t a dumb vs smart issue either so much as an uninformed vs more informed situation.

    Hitchens – whom I never referred to as “smart”; I said he’s a British intellectual – is more of a puzzle. He clearly has a great deal of native intelligence, and yet is espousing an idea I referred to in these ways: shows stupidity, is consistently stupid on the subject, states another stupid/naive idea. So no, he’s not a stupid man. He appears on many issues and in many ways to be smart, but on this particular topic (and perhaps others, but I’m not familiar enough with all his ideas to know) he demonstrates stupidity and/or naivete.

    I base that not on the fact that I disagree with him. As you must know from reading this blog, I disagree with people all the time without calling them stupid. But stupid ideas are stupid ideas, and Hitchens is floating some very stupid ideas on this particular topic, and also on the topic of WWII. He has not been paying attention if he thinks Europe would have united in some way against the Gazan endeavor if only Israel wouldn’t have fought back. He gives no reasonable alternative to Britain’s fighting Hitler, and yet he doesn’t think they should have. He ignores what he doesn’t want to face, even if what he’s ignoring is obvious. And “Turtler” has described how incredibly ignorant Hitchens actually is about something so basic as the use of a tank.

    Nor is Hitchens just some guy spouting off at the local bar. He IS a public intellectual and has been for many many years. He owes it to himself and his public not to be so ignorant. He does not have the excuse of needing more information or of lacking interest in the subject, nor is he a callow youth.

  34. y81:

    Many people believe that if some group other than Hamas and UNWRA took over the education of the Gazans, they wouldn’t be nearly as steeped in Jew-hatred and glorification of Jew-killing “martyrs.” The entire society is geared towards killing Jews as their highest calling, and that is a direct result of their educational system. Years ago they were still angry and there were still wars, but the motive wasn’t Jew-hating jihad.

  35. neo:

    We agree PH is wrong and shows stupidity on this subject. You seem to expect PH ought to be less stupid on this subject.

    I don’t. People are way complicated and not all that rational.

    Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown. It’s the Planet of the Apes.

  36. I’m going to demur that the ‘cost of the war’ was the cause of Britain’s decline.
    ==
    Britain had a large portfolio of overseas dependencies. These were an ongoing expense the response to which required prudent retreat. (Britain was more thorough than France in this regard, arguably unnecessarily so).
    ==
    British public policy during the period running from 1945 to 1979 was also injurious to economic dynamism. It took the British government nine years to get around to ending food rationing. One productive sector after another was assigned to state agencies and state-owned corporations. They maintained an overvalued currency for 22 years. Macroeconomic policy was dictated by the imperative to defend the exchange rate. Their model of industrial relations was wretchedly confrontational.
    ==
    Did I mention immigration policy? Ulster?
    ==
    Assigning Britain’s decline to reconstruction costs and the costs of servicing war debts is just gratuitous. (BTW, war reconstruction was complete all over non-communist Europe by 1959). Here’s a suggestion about Hitchens: he’s a common type in the word-merchant sector, a self-aggrandizing contrarian. Nothing he says is serious.

  37. neo:

    We’ve discussed the radical leftist Israelis, who in the face of 10/7 broke with their previous beliefs, even though to you and to me a more accurate assessment of Hamas should have been obvious long ago.

    Ought Peter Hitchens be judged any differently? He’s just not there yet.

    A mind is a difficult thing to change.

  38. Nor is Hitchens just some guy spouting off at the local bar.
    ==
    He’s a 72 year old Brit. There might be some blood left in his alcohol stream.

  39. huxley:

    I hold 72-year-old public intellectuals with a condescending air to a higher standard than the proverbial “man in the street.” Plus, I wouldn’t call the pre-10/7 views of Israeli leftists the least bit smart, either. In addition, this interview with Hitchens occurred AFTER 10/7, so he doesn’t have the same excuse he might have had before that. Funny thing, but most of the YouTube commenters to that clip seem much smarter on the subject than he is. He’s also not a leftist, so he doesn’t have the excuse of being steeped in that mindset. For all those reasons, I say that on this particular subject his views are stupid and naive.

  40. neo:

    I don’t disagree, but I don’t assume he could do better. You cite his age and political orientation as indictments that he should have done better.

    Again, I don’t. I find most people inconsistent, hypocritical and struggling for any light towards which they aspire.

    A mind is a difficult thing to change.

  41. Steve (retired/recovering lawyer) on February 1, 2024 at 5:00 pm said:
    “People like Hitchens like their Jews the old fashioned way.”
    Except I believe he learned as an adult that he (along with his brother) were 1/4 Jewish through his mother. I presume he was thus ethnically Jewish but still religiously a Christian (since his boyhood).

    Huxley: “Was I dumb before and now I am smart?” Probably. Are there any of us otherwise “smart” people who have not thought, said, or done a few really dumb things in our lives? Especially between ages 10 and 30? Or during 30+ years of married life?

  43. huxley:

    No, I don’t assume he could have done better. I am saying that his errors are so elementary that he should have done better.

    Yes, we’re all flawed human beings. But I find his errors in these cases to be especially egregious. Are they cognitive, emotional, or what? I don’t know. I’d need to know him better – really well – to know that. But it isn’t of great import to me when I call his expressed ideas stupid.

  44. R2L:

    Actually, both Hitchens brothers learned they were 1/32 Jewish, at least according to Peter’s Wiki page:

    Hitchens was brought up in the Christian faith and attended Christian boarding schools but became an atheist, beginning to leave his faith at 15. He returned to church later in life, and is now an Anglican and a member of the Church of England.

    Hitchens has Jewish descent via his maternal grandmother, a daughter of Polish Jewish migrants. His grandmother revealed this fact upon meeting his wife Eve Ross. Though his brother Christopher was quick to embrace his Jewish identity following the principle of matrilineal descent, Peter noted that they were only one-32nd Jewish by descent and has not identified as Jewish himself.

    I find this very odd, because if the Hitchens brothers’ grandmother was the daughter of 2 Jews, their grandmother would be 100% Jewish and they would both be 1/4 Jewish, as you write. At any rate, whether 1/32 or 1/4, Christopher was more into being Jewish and Peter is not. On the other hand, despite what I call Peter’s “stupid” point of view in the body of this post, Peter is far more kind to Israel than Christopher was. As an atheist, Christopher rejected the religious Jewish claim to Israel – thinking I guess that was the main claim or even the only basis of the claim, which it definitely is not. (I could go into that, too, but it would be a long long post). He remained true to his leftist roots in siding with the Palestinians for the most part. Of course, he didn’t live long enough to see 10/7. So I don’t know whether that would have mattered to him or not.

  45. @Art Deco

    All fair points, but I do think at a minimum the costs of the wars was a major contributing factor to the decline of the Empire. In particular it made Britain financially dependent on many of its colonies and dominions, and that made it much harder and ultimately untenable to hold onto India. Likewise the manpower losses, which were absolutely devastating and utterly scarred British demographics and psychology (and probably led to the rise of Labour and its feel good Cradle to Grave poison).

    Also I’d argue war reconstruction wasn’t all over in the Communist Space of Eastern Europe, it’s just that the regime said “Good Enough” and pushed things in other directions, leaving some lasting holes such as Vistula rehabbing to rot. But the British certainly had one of the absolute worst post-WWII recoveries.

  46. @Neo

    One issue I do pride Peter on and criticize Christopher on was the latter’s romanticism and whitewashing when it came to anti-Western totalitarian savages, so long as they were of the “Right” shade of identity and politics. Be Red and “Progressive” enough and he would defend you to the end, most famously with the Viet Cong. That he never seemed to have drawn the connection others correctly did to modern Islamism is a grave flaw in his judgement. Sure, I imagine we all have them in our world view, but on this issue it is even harder to defend.

  48. Also

    @Neo

    I did not focus as much on it because history, politics, and war are more of my wheelhouses and were more cogent to the point of the essay, but…

    It is as if the fire brigade went about starting fires.

    Of course, almost any competent fire brigade or warden would tell you that there ARE times when you want the fire brigade to go about starting fires.

    https://www.qtacfire.com/blog/what-is-a-control-burn-why-is-it-a-firefighting-technique

    https://dnr.illinois.gov/content/dam/soi/en/web/dnr/conservation/crep/documents/other-firebreaks-prescribedburns.pdf

    Whether it is doing a burn to remove a lot of the deadwood and combustibles, or doing it to try and pre-emptily contain a fire. It was a trite and lazy analogy, but even as a lazy analogy it falls flat on its face. And the fact that Peter did not know this is all the more jarring.

  49. I was speaking of the deeply anti human forces anti farmer meaning pro fAmine anti birth et al that is who predominate the enarques and other mandarins in the EU

    The ones who funded the wuhan lab and then pushed lockdowns who make crimethink a reality maybe the village from the prisoner is more apt an analogy

    Yes i took strong exception to hitchens making excuses for the comandante as with the irish revolutionaries

    Labour was part of the technocratic movement chsmpioned by wells and shaw

  50. I really do wish that- the UK, [political commentator], Peter Hitchens would:

    1) buy a house in [Tel Aviv, Israel], + live in it, permanently/with permanent status…for the next 10 years,

    and THEN [ponder his opinons]…after he has lived in Tel Aviv…[with the shooting war happening between the Israeli military and the Hamas, terrorist group] around him,

    and THEN, 2) tell us [what] he thinks the Israeli government, and the Israeli military [should do]…to protect all of [the Israeli citizens, and the non-citizens], who are living in Israel.

    Do you think that he’ll take up that challenge?

    I doubt that his [current views on this war] would last for four days.

    After living in that war, for just a week- he would probably be asking for a MILLION tanks, and an army the size of China’s army, to come and defend him.

  51. He lives in londinistan where govt ministers can be driven out of office and afghan sex offenders can throw acid without consequences

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