A New War. And Everything That Comes With It.
A New War. And Everything That Comes With It.
A message from Wisdom of Crowds co-founder Shadi Hamid.
This has been a difficult time. Many of us have friends or family either in Gaza or Israel. Muslim-Jewish tensions are flaring across the globe. It’s sometimes hard to know what to say. Damir and I are both, at least in our original incarnations, foreign policy people. But the events of the past few weeks don’t feel like mere “foreign policy” developments as much as they feel like a harbinger of bad things to come, both at home and abroad.
Israel-Palestine is not any old conflict. People often ask me things like: well, Shadi, why aren’t people paying attention to Afghanistan, Congo, or the genocide of Muslims in China. I actually don’t think it’s all that complicated. Israel-Palestine is a proxy for a deeper set of foundational concerns and civilizational fault lines. All the big moral, political, and ideological questions—many of them first principle questions—are implicated in Israel and Palestine. My hope is that we’ve been able to help illuminate some of these questions.
From my own standpoint, I’m really proud of what we’ve been able to do here at Wisdom of Crowds over the past month. As per usual, we didn’t go into the events in Israel and Gaza with any particular agenda. But we did go into it with an ethos. We’ve tried to be as frank as possible about our starting premises. In attempting in good faith to understand the views of those with whom we disagree, surprising things can happen.
Our conversation with Robert Nicholson—a Christian, a Zionist, and (most importantly) a friend—was a model of what we try to do here. It was an epic and often emotional episode, and it raised a set of questions that have stuck with me since. Are the things each of us believes simply irreconcilable? Honestly I think this is one of the best episodes we’ve ever done. Seriously, do try to listen to it if you get the chance. As with all of our episodes, the full conversation is for paying subscribers, so if you’ve been waiting for the right moment to join the Crowd, we’d love to have you.
That was one of the highlights for me, but we’ve done a lot more—and some of it has helped shape the broader public debate around Hamas, ceasefires, and the left’s response to October 7.
’s essay on Hamas’ bid for “revolutionary legitimacy” is, I think, one of those rare, defining pieces that can completely alter your understanding of a political moment.
To make it all a bit more digestible, we’ve assembled in one place below a collection of our recent work that delves into both the geopolitics of the Israel-Hamas conflict and the first principles that it’s prompted us to reexamine.
If you’re interested in trying us out, here’s a special offer for a 14-day free trial. And, without further ado, scroll down for the best of Wisdom of Crowds, Israel-Palestine edition.
The End of the World As We Know It
🔴 Also check out our podcast episode with writer as well as the episode of and ’s first reactions after the October 7 attack.
🔴 Do not miss ’s other recent Monday Notes, including “Biden's Happy-thinking in the Middle East.”
🔴 In addition to Elisabeth’s column, read ’s essay, “The Case for Honesty in Foreign Policy”.
Ceasefires, Plans, and Activism
🔴 Relatedly, read ’s latest column in The Washington Post, “Reducing Hamas’s terrorism to a problem of ‘evil’ is a mistake”.
I don't know how this Israel-Hamas conflict will play out. But I was struck today by the truth of the title of Steve Marriott's piece in The Times today: 'You Don't Need to Share Your Views on Gaza'.
The bald fact is that Israel has been fighting for its existence for 70+ years. And the Arabs have never at any time accepted its existence. Weeks - in fact decades - of commentary about negotiated 'solutions' etc etc is (and has always been just politico and media blah blah). Yes, the Israelis have handled some things better than other things but whatever they did (or did not) do - nor whoever was in government or not - would have altered that fundamental (and intractable) impasse.
The awful truth is that, for Western publics and commentariats who don't have to actually fight them, wars have long since become another grim part of the media entertainment industry....like gripping horror movies and with the same insatiable audience appetite.
Shadi: You took the words out of my mouth; the last three WoC podcast episodes (and Damir's epic take on "revolutionary legitimacy") have more than fulfilled the project's promise. I have a pad full of notes and reactions, but these are far less important than my deepened perspective. It's a great idea to package these features and I hope they get the audience they deserve. TB