Federal Judges Examine the Israel-Hamas War

Debunking the “Israelis as colonists” narrative.

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Federal Judges Roy Altman, Lee Rudofsky, and Amul Thapar join Sarah and David to discuss their recent trip to Israel along with 11 other federal judges that focused on the question of the day: Is Israel complying with international law as it pursues its war against Hamas in Gaza?

The Agenda:
—The purpose of the judges’ trip
—Walking through the locations of the October 7 attack
—Gruesome tactics by Hamas
—Military authority in Israel
—Israel’s legitimacy as a nation-state
—David’s JAG experience
—Double standards and antisemitism
—The Jewish idea of gratitude

This conversation includes discussion of graphic content related to the October 7 attacks in Israel. Listener discretion is advised.

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Comments (248)
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  1. Avatar photo
    WBrisky

    One of the Judges, in discussing the legitimacy of Israel said something to the effect that no one would deny the US is a legitimate country. But that is exactly what is happening every time a meeting is opened with an apology to the native American tribe who supposedly owned the land before the white man came, or attack so-called "white culture" by which they mean individual freedom, economic liberty and democracy, or try to cancel the founders of the nation, or espouse the 1619 Project, or shout death to America at a demonstration, or advocate for an open border, or do any number of similar things. In the case of America, unlike Israel, the object of this exercise is not to give the land back to the Tribes or return to a hunter-gatherer society, but rather to replace our culture of liberty with socialism ruled by themselves.

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    Kimbaukusfitzgibbon

    The Israeli concern about releasing the video footage of the raid is appropriate. I taught at a Jewish HS and several of my former students who have been serving in the IDF for sometime IMed me about the 10/7 medieval raid and said that they would do to Hamas because what they were told happened in that raid. I had to get put on medication to stop my nightmares after what they told me. Israel will never be the same.

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  3. Sean Smith

    Great pod, and so compelling. I'm a little late in commenting, but one reason is that I've been arguing online with a few people who are accusing Israel of, among other things, "genocide." I'm at an age where I take most things in stride and tolerate differences of opinion far better than I did as a young hothead, but there's something so galling about the blood libel of accusing Jews, of all people, of genocide that I've lost my temper a few times.

    One thing I think needs to be more widely understood is exactly how close Hitler came to his goal of complete eradication of European Jews. We hear the number "six million" and most of us can appreciate its ghastly significance on at least some level, but I doubt one person in ten realizes that was almost all of them. There just weren't that many Jews living in Europe, and there were very nearly zero by 1945. Hitler came within a whisper of succeeding. I befriended an Israeli man some years ago who grew up in South Africa but emigrated to Israel after reaching adulthood. His father was the only member of his family to escape the Holocaust. Literally the only one. He described to me what it was like growing up without grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. That was perhaps 15 years ago and it chills me to this day. Another good Jewish friend of mine--a lawyer I met when he lived in Oregon who now lives in DC--told me the entire European wing of his family was wiped out to a man, woman and child. The only people on earth still bearing his name are those who'd escaped Western Europe before the start of the war.

    I'm a white Anglo/Scots-Irish protestant. If ever a people earned the right to say, "never again," to mean that, and to do whatever it takes to keep it from happening, it's my Jewish brothers and sisters.

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    Ian Fillmore

    Enjoyed the podcast, but I was expecting a little more about comparative law. Perhaps another time?

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  5. Mark Worthen

    I too was disappointed in this one-sided episode. I will not describe specifics because they have been so well articulated already by other listeners. But I did not want to skip making a comment because it really was disturbing listening to what can only be described as a biased podcast. Andrew Sullivan has discussed this issue in a thoughtful, balanced manner. I hope you (Sarah & David) strive for the same going forward.

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  6. Viki

    Hamas and their ideology is to obliterate Jewish people in Israel. October 7 was horrific. With all the sophist speak from armchairs, don’t be fooled that it stops there. Anyone that is an infidel is fair game.

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  7. William S.

    It's not clear why AO bothered with this episode; very little actual legal discourse, extended guest expositions with little probing by David and Sarah (did Sarah even engage with the guests?), lots of pathos, etc. It's too bad, typically AO puts in a bit more effort for a more insightful podcast.

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    1. Ken Motamed

      It was very insightful and enlightening. Your loyalties obviously lie with the murderous Hamas.

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      1. William Boag

        You keep replying to people's comments accusing them of supporting Hamas. I don't understand why you'd even like listening AO as a podcast because you're treating any disagreement as evidence that the other person is bad and dumb. AO is usually very good at steelmanning arguments. The person youre replying to made empirical observations (eg there was not much legal discourse on this episode of the legal podcast) and your response is to call them a terrorist sympathizer. What is wrong with you, dude?

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    Witt Case

    I know we must be vigilant against antisemitism. I remember when the local synagogue was vandalized. But you know what other building was vandalized in the same time frame, the mosque.

    There is rising Islamophobia here too.

    https://www.npr.org/2024/04/02/1242021356/anti-muslim-bias-skyrockets-after-oct-7th-hamas-attack-on-israel

    We can look at the magnitude of this and how it affects our discourse in more than one way. The fact I only here about the antisemitism of the far left and campuses, not right wing antisemitism or the simultaneous rise of anti Muslim attacks makes me worried we’re turning too tribal here and not addressing this as wide eyed as we can.

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    1. Ken Motamed

      Antisemitism and (the misnomer) "Islamophobia" are qualitatively different. Any criticism of Islam is dismissed as phobia. With "Islamophobia" the hatred is directed at a violent, misogynistic religion. Antisemitism, however, is directed at individuals.

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        Witt Case

        I'm talking about outright vandalism locally. There was a recent murder of a Muslim child motivated by hate. It's not just directed at a religion. To narrow the view of the issues in such a limited way only creates more and more division.

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          Harry Paget

          There's no justification for this type of group violence, whether it's antisemitic or Islamophobic (though I agree with Ken the latter is a misnomer). However, there are a couple asymmetries here that complicate your point. First, antisemitic violence vastly outnumbers anti-Muslim violence in the US, as a matter of statistics, notwithstanding the troubling anecdotes you mention. Second, jihadists deliberately inflict this violence on innocent people all over the world (mostly other Muslims, as it happens) justified, according to them, by their religion.

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  9. Helbock

    Israel not only has an obligation to its citizens to kill Hamas it has an obligation to the world to annihilate this cult of murder.

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    Lisa.Lohnes

    I am having a very difficult time reconciling some of the comments from this podcast. It was made abundantly clear that the IDF have "supposedly" more concern surrounding targets than the US. Yet, from Reuters today (4/2), Chef Andres clearly provided evidence that the IDF tracked the WCK vehicle over the course of 1.5-1.8 miles/km and the team tried diligently to state their case they were a humanitarian convoy as the vehicle they were in was marked as such. They resorted to moving to "three vehicles" to while trying to communicate their role and intent and yet, the IDF did this.

    I'm sorry David; you need to seriously consider your strong emphasis on the IDF being "soldiers of conscience" because from where I sit, this was deliberate; avoidable and in the court of public opinion in the US, very damning.

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      Harry Paget

      There is no way this was deliberate and you know it. One imagines a culinary podcast where “Chef” opines on the way the French make great bernaise and the one of comments quotes an Israeli lawyer talking about how the bernaise he had in Paris sucked so maybe “chef” needs to do his homework.

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    2. Ken Motamed

      Where you sit is clearly on the Hamas side. Everything we know about how Israel is conducting this war suggests the attack was a tragic accident resulting from faulty intelligence. Your belief in Reuters's impartiality is naive.

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    3. Israel.D.Gale

      Not to justify the attack, which was not justified, but Hamas routinely uses humanitarian vehiclesnfor military purposes. The idea that Israel has a policy of deliberately targeting aid workers is preposterous. Even if you view Israel cynically (wrongly in my view), such a policy is blatantly against Israel's interests, since international condemnation and pressure is the number one threat to Israel's victory.

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