Israel Goes to War

Not a good day.

By and
22

On Saturday morning Hamas launched a vicious surprise attack on Israel, gunning down and kidnapping civilians, firing rockets on city centers, and holding entire villages hostage. In response, Israel has declared war on Gaza and things are only about to get uglier from here. In a despondent debut of the The Skiff, Jonah and a sleep-deprived Adaam discuss the past 24 hours in Israel, Hamas’ brutal reign in Gaza, Bibi’s legacy, and what’s coming next.

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Comments (22)
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  1. Avatar photo
    The Stray Goose

    I don't understand. So the 'Skiff' is The Dispatch doing 'hot takes'? I thought TD was opposed to that.

    I learned some things in this podcast. It was good. I like Mr. Levin-Areddy. I think he's smart and personable. But tonight, I think he was too close to the topic. Getting an understanding of what's going on would have been better-served by somebody who doesn't have family in Israel right now. I hope his family and friends in Israel remain safe.

    TMD was excellent today (among their best). I look forward to more level Israeli/Palestinian conflict analysis from the TD in the future.

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  2. Biglaw_Blues

    Guys, that intro music....

    YUGE missed opportunity for a sea shanty

    YO HO on the Skiff we go,
    where the punditry freely flows,
    hot takes 'n whiskey are in our hold,
    And after five times?...
    A JACKET MADE O' GOLD.

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    1. Adaam James

      I thought it was shanty-y!

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  3. Chad.Ingels

    Looking forward to the members content on The Skiff! Quite impressed at the ease of getting the feed into my podcast player!

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    Michael Berkowitz

    I've been thinking that there's a topic of moral philosophy that I'd love to hear Mr. Goldberg take up: I've seen work done on the role of "luck" in moral calculus, like how two people can each drive drunk, but only one of gets into a tragic accident and the other one lucks out; how we sense a major difference even though their behaviors are identical.

    Well, I'm interested in the role of willful stupidity. I mean, how do we assess the Pizzagate gunman? If there really were kids being held by a pedophile ring in the basement, he's a hero, but it was so absurd a belief that we hold him liable. Same for January sixth rioters who really believed the election was being stolen. And now we have the usual gang talking about Israel's genocide against the Palestinians and so forth. You've already pointed out how even those premises don't lead to their conclusion that Hamas are the good guys, but the premises themselves are demonstrably stupid. What's the degree of culpability for adopting such beliefs?

    (And to be clear, though I have an issue with Adaam's reference to Israeli "atrocities", I'm absolutely not putting him in this category -- at least not until I hear his explanation, and I assume not then either.)

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  5. Avatar photo
    Michael Berkowitz

    Israeli "atrocities", Adaam? Really? If you don't want to argue that in the comments, I understand, but maybe send me an email with what you're referring to.

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    1. Adaam James

      I believe I was thinking about specific incidents in which Israelis (either on duty soldiers or civilians) acted in violation of what I would consider moral war-time conduct. There's no moral equivalence between that and terrorism. But one of the moral strengths of Israeli society historically has been to draw this line internally and judge itself harshly when the line has been crossed. I've been very proud of our ability as Israelis to do so, to maintain harsh self criticism, even in the face of the monstrosities that target us. Again, I'm unequivocal: there's no moral equivalence. And it's exactly our unwaivering self-judgment that makes it so, I believe.

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        Michael Berkowitz

        First, to be clear: I wasn't accusing you of claiming moral equivalence. A) I try not to make public accusations, certainly not based on mere inference, and B) I give everyone at TD enough credit that they'd have to be explicitly wrong for me to say something.

        Now, I agree both that the army should strive for moral perfection and that it doesn't always achieve it. It would be unnatural if Israeli soldiers never committed a crime in the course of their duties. I just objected to the term "atrocities", which I reserve for the kind of things that we just saw Hamas doing.

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    Seth B

    Thank you both, especially Adaam.

    I hardly know what else to say under these circumstances.

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  7. Sarah

    Thank you so much for this conversation. It was so helpful. I'm very excited about The Skiff - and love the logo! I'm keeping my fingers crossed Adaam makes more audio appearances around as well.

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    Aylene Wright

    I have been taking a break from TD commenting recently, as I have been distressed by the increasing vapidity of much of the discourse (although still less so than in other comment sections), and the superficial, evanescent, ultimately meaningless nature of much of the recent US political news.

    However, this podcast showed what TD can be at it's best. Even though Jonah described the Skiff as basically a warm-take podcast equivalent of a blog, this episode was certainly much more than that. A needed counter to the consensus by more left-leaning media that tended to downplay what happened, or even imply that the actions of Hamas were at least partially justified. There have actually been many statements from elected officials on both sides of the aisle that call it out as terrorism. But it seems most left-leaning media outlets have been afraid to call it that.

    Unfortunately the mainstream media coverage of the terrorist attack has been mostly of the nature of "this is just another episode in the ongoing war between Israelis and Palestinians in which both sides are equivalently bad, or Israel is actually worse because they are the colonialist oppressors who shouldn't be there in the first place" nature.

    It's gotten to the point that Yascha Mounk stated on X-neé-Twitter that although that platform is terrible, it still provided more of an accurate account of what's going on in Israel, than most legacy media.

    I did however find Leland Vittert did a pretty good job anchoring the NewsNation coverage yesterday. (Other than the segment with Kristi Noem's boyfriend. 🙄 But the other guests he had were serious analysts.)

    Also, although the topic was a horrific one, and hearing the obvious pain in Adaam's voice brought me to the brink of tears at times... I really appreciated hearing from him as a guest commentator.

    I have appreciated Adaam as a "supporting cast member" in a mostly background role, with the occasional appearance as a guest host. But it turns out he's good at actual commentary, too. I really hope to hear from him more.

    And thanks Jonah for the plan to eventually release this podcast as a Remnant episode. I don't think that would really hurt the business model, if the Skiff is meant to be more of an "emergency warm take" podcast. People eventually hearing it for free when it's at room temperature, hopefully will think "this is great, I wish I had heard it earlier when it was more topical, I will subscribe so I don't miss the next episode".

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      Michael Berkowitz

      Seconded. All of it.

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  9. Thejakelopan

    Thanks for uploading this!

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    Travis M

    Thank you for doing this episode, especially with it being such a hard and personal topic for you!

    Later down the road I'd love if you or someone else could do a deep dive on the history of the Settlements and the history of Gaza.

    Also on a lighter note, I absolutely love the thumbnail/album cover for this podcast on PocketCast.

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