Hey Paul. Thanks for taking the time to read it.
I quoted him out of pure chance that I stumbled upon it when scrolling who I follow on Twitter. I felt it gave a different view to the general view on social media as all Palestinians as the good guys. This is not a debate that you can summarise in a tweet.
Re. Sam Harris. He certainly is part of the new-atheism that rose up around 15 years ago. I note that you say 'Muslim-hater'. I say he's authored a broadside against the equally nonsensical Abrahamic faith Christianity in Letter to a Christian Nation. He's very much a hater of the game and not the player.
As I mentioned above, I have no dog in the fight and nor do I want one. You seem to have drawn your historical line with the Balfour Declaration and that is indeed a milestone in the whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but there are hundreds of years of events and occurrences that have led here - destruction of the First Temple and the banishment of the Jews from the Holy Land, the ill-treatment of the Jewish people the world over (especially in Europe), the rise of Zionism, the land passing between Roman, Byzantium, Ottaman hands all with their own sky fairies that they went to war over and many more. It's been a twisted road here and the origins lie way before the British rocked up and got kicked from pillar to post by the Irgun and their mates. There were Jewish people in Mandatory Palestine before the mass Jewish immigration the first half of the 20th century who largely lived peacefully alongside their Arab neighbours. What may have seemed a good idea at the time in the entertaining of Zionism seems a pretty rubbish decision now.
But you can't put that genie back in the bottle and nor will you ever. What's done is done and there is little point pointing back at the past and saying 'well, that shouldn't have happened' as it solves nothing now. Now over 73 years old, Israel isn't going anywhere and will only continue their illegal encroachment into lands they have from time to time agreed the Arabs to have. A Palestinian future state (presuming everyone downed arms tomorrow and agreed that Gaza and the West Bank borders as drawn up now were to be regarded as Palestine in a two-state solution) with Hamas as influence isn't going to be sweetness and light towards their Israeli neighbours if their charter is anything to go by. It'll take some radical future thinking to solve this and not navel-gazing into the past blaming past decisions.
Just on Harris, I used to listen quite frequently to his 'Making Sense' podcast, and I think it is fairly clear that he is trying very hard to fill the hole left by the late, great Christopher Hitchens as an objective, rational atheistic voice. But, for my money, he fails. Hitchens' great genius, as I see it, is that he managed to critique the ideologies behind, and ridiculous mandates of, organised religions without being disrespectful to the (non-extremist) followers of those religions. Harris fails in this respect by often using emotive language or one-eyed, unsubstantiated claims to critique religion - and far more often than not targets Islam. For example, there's one podcast (I think the one with Russel Brand?) where he talks of 'women wearing bags on their heads', which is the kind of language that I think immediately undermines your credentials as a serious contributor on the topic. There's a great interview he does with Masha Gessen, the lesbian Russian journalist, where he is, essentially, trying to colour Islam as uniquely backwards because of the state-mandated treatment of homosexuals in orthodox Muslim states. She gives him very short shrift, and points out that she was literally driven out of Russia, an orthodox
Christian state, because of her sexuality, and that violent homophobia it is not a uniquely Muslim problem.
I've only had a chance to read the opening few paragraphs of the article you link, so apologies if he goes on to qualify his opening statements, but I think this particularly dim view of Islam does seem to colour his whole stance on the subject. For one thing, I would be very curious to know how he could hope to substantiate the statement, "There are religious extremists among Jews. Now, I consider these people to be truly dangerous, and their religious beliefs are as divisive and as unwarranted as the beliefs of devout Muslims.
But there are far fewer such people." For another, his whole attempt to frame the issue as 'Islam v Judaism' from the outset is immediately problematic, as it allows him to criticise or support the relevant 'sides' based on his level of disdain for the relevant doctrine.
I know very little about the Israel Palestine conflict, and generally don't comment on it as I am aware that my opinions (as a result of my ignorance) hold little to no value. But I do think that distilling the two sides down into their relevant religions, and ignoring the huge amount of other far more relevant factors that dictate the current dispute, is, at best, unhelpful, and at worst, an emotionally manipulative trick used by the dominant power to obfuscate legitimate criticism of its actions.