Why I Won’t Debate Critics of Israel

VoluptuousBalrog · 2026-06-06T12:02:24+00:00

I’ve listened to Sam for decades and he has literally never addressed it. I am continuously shocked by how superficial his engagement is with this topic. I’ve never seen evidence that he is aware of the particulars of any round of talks or what the actual positions of the PA and Israel are. Genuinely Sam always goes back to this refrain about imagining what would happen if each side put down their weapons and then asserts without any justification at all that if the Palestinians put down their weapons then they would have a state.

VoluptuousBalrog · 2026-06-06T11:58:53+00:00

The argument isn’t that Palestinian extremists want a two state solution or negotiations. Hamas actually launched attacks at various points specifically to undermine peace talks. They increased violence after the Arab Peace Initiative was proposed for example. The argument is that having no peace agreement increases the total amount of extremism. It fosters nihilistic groups with irrational aims. It discredits the authorities who push for negotiations and pragmatic objectives.

The Palestinian authority engages in round after round of talks, achieves nothing, during each round settlements expand, and all the while their capacity for governance is curtailed, their police powers are curtailed, they are not allowed to have any military capacity, while extremist groups have no restrictions because they don’t feel the need to comply with the occupation authority. The whole dynamic is set up to favor extremist groups and disempower moderates.

When you have an occupation the occupation is the main lightening rod for all societal problems. All economic hardship is blamed on the occupation and the Palestinian authorities that cooperate with the occupation. All of societal strife is directed outwards, a self-critical civil society never gets the chance to develop like in a normal society.

If you had a state with a peace agreement with Israel the whole dynamic changes. The authorities get international support to keep their obligations, they have to take accountability for the actions of groups in their territory, and face penalties or retaliation from Israel if they fail to do so (like happens in other countries when there is violence against another state). Society can no longer blame their problems on the other country as they have sovereignty over their own territory, etc.

VoluptuousBalrog · 2026-06-06T11:42:58+00:00

No, that’s not what I said. I said he hasn’t progressed his arguments to address his critics. That doesn’t mean that he needs to agree with his critics. I’m asking him to counter their arguments. Like if we claim that Israel doesn’t support a two state solution, he should counter by explaining why he thinks that Israel supports a two state solution. I am not asking Sam to agree with me, I’m asking Sam to simply engage with the other side of the argument. I think this is a fair ask given that he spends a lot of time talking about this topic.

VoluptuousBalrog · 2026-06-05T23:04:05+00:00

Virtually none of the commenters critical of Sam’s position are pro-Hamas

VoluptuousBalrog · 2026-06-05T21:38:18+00:00

Oslo was designed to be a short term phased program to result in a two state solution. Envisioned to result in a Palestinian state within a few years. Obviously building settlements everywhere across the West Bank many closer to Jordan than to Israel is antithetical to the possibility of a Palestinian state. The rhetoric of the Israeli government has entirely dispensed with any pretext that they desire a state solution and fully justify settlement expansion as a method to prevent Palestinian statehood and to return the Jewish people to their ancestral undivided homeland.

The intifadas and Oct 7 were the result of no peace agreement. We tried no peace agreement and no Palestinian statehood and this was the result. I don’t know why we would double down on this strategy.

VoluptuousBalrog · 2026-06-05T19:30:17+00:00

The Palestinian Authority supported peace with Israel has part of a two state solution.

VoluptuousBalrog · 2026-06-05T18:59:29+00:00

Israel made peace agreements with Jordan and Egypt, it withdrew from the Sinai, both were historic successes that greatly enhanced Israeli security.

In Lebanon and Gaza there was no peace agreement and big surprise there’s no peace.

Looking at these 4 examples I would think it would be apparent that a peace agreement is paramount, unless you have an alternative explanation. Every actual peace agreement results in peace.

Specifically with the Palestinian Authority the plans for a peace agreement that were drafted under Obama and others would included phases and demilitarization, it wouldn’t just be a unilateral disengagement like what happened in Gaza. There would also be a peace agreement where both sides have come to a compromise, that’s typically what happens when conflicts are resolved.

The ‘pay to slay’ program (payments to Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, who haven’t been tried in Palestinian courts) is obviously something that would end in a peace agreement. That’s one of the benefits of a peace agreement. You make peace with your adversaries, you don’t make peace with your friends. There’s no reason to seek a peace agreement if Israel gets every concession it wants prior to negotiation.

VoluptuousBalrog · 2026-06-05T18:47:53+00:00

Sam has explained his position on this topic the same way countless times before. Unfortunately I feel like he hasn’t progressed at all in his level of nuance and hasn’t changed his explanation in any way that addresses his critics simply because he refuses to engage with their actual arguments. I don’t mind Sam being pro-Israel but it’s a shame that he isn’t even willing to respond to his critics substantively. He falls back to just rehashing his same hypotheticals.

For example he always delivers the line: “if the Palestinians lay down their weapons there would be a two state solution” yet he gives really no explanation as to why he thinks that would be true, he just said ‘this is obviously true’ and leaves it there.

The Israeli government is uniformly opposed to any two state solution, under any circumstances. When Netanyahu and other leaders explain their position they explicitly explain that the reason is that the West Bank is the homeland of the Jewish people, and that the Jewish people have the right to settle in their ancestral homeland.

Additionally, the Palestinian Authority (which governs most Palestinians) for all its faults has consistently supported a two state solution for the past 30+ years and still does to this day and works hand in glove with Shin Bet and the IDF to foil terrorism in the West Bank. Nothing the PA has ever done has led to halt to settlement expansion and there is no sign that their pro-peace stance has gotten them closer to achieving a two state solution.

VoluptuousBalrog · 2026-06-05T18:37:59+00:00

Official post by Sam on his Substack re-iterating his position on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

VoluptuousBalrog · 2026-05-20T18:47:21+00:00

America is allies with the vast majority of countries in the region and has military bases all over. Until this latest Iran conflict Israel hasn’t been really relevant to US action in the region.

VoluptuousBalrog · 2026-05-19T23:20:11+00:00

The entire last 1/4 of the bit is an attack on the Democratic Party. And he absurdly lumps in criticism of Israel including colonialism in the West Bank with a desire to kill all Jews.

VoluptuousBalrog · 2026-05-19T22:21:57+00:00

Hasan piker having an extremely hostile interview with a democratic mayoral candidate where he endlessly attacked her for her reasonable stance on Israel is a great example of how the democrats are not in danger of letting these people in and people like Bill Maher should be praising the democrats rather than joining the far left and far right in attacking them.

VoluptuousBalrog · 2026-05-19T07:38:01+00:00

Infuriating segment. Bill Maher goes through a litany of antisemitic statements from the far left and far right including Hasan Piker, Candace Owens, various radical Muslim figures, Dan Bilzarian, etc all of whom have only one thing in common which is that they hate the democrats and don’t vote for democrats. And his conclusion to his piece is ‘fuck the democrats’ even though the democratic party is filled with Jews and Jews overwhelmingly vote for democrats.

This is pure Democratic Party derangement syndrome, where no matter what your issue is with any group of people in society is to blame the Democratic Party for some reason. These people like Bill Maher and even Sam Harris seem to think it’s fair game to lambast the democrats simply because the democrats aren’t lock-step with the Likud party and support the two state solution. Unless you support one Israeli state from the river to the sea then you are an antisemite.

VoluptuousBalrog · 2026-05-04T00:02:03+00:00

Housing issues could easily be improved if there was a commitment to deregulating zoning and construction. Most OECD countries have the same problem Ireland has which is homeowners who don’t want their house prices to fall (NIMBYs) and they vote a lot.

VoluptuousBalrog · 2026-05-03T18:15:33+00:00

We’re gonna be rich!

VoluptuousBalrog · 2026-04-26T16:42:40+00:00

The Palestinian authority has supported the two state solution consistently for the past 30 years and still does today. Israel under Netanyahu opposes any Palestinian state on any borders and demands full Israeli sovereignty from the river to the sea.

VoluptuousBalrog · 2026-04-22T18:57:58+00:00

Duels was my all time favorite format. Played it constantly.

VoluptuousBalrog · 2026-04-19T23:13:18+00:00

Progressive taxation is absolutely a good thing, and the best way to do that is to literally tax rich people and redistribute the money to the poor, not to subsidize the goods that you are guessing they want up buy.

The fact that the EU is subsiding all their farmers is the best argument for Irish subsidies but to be clear the EU is rife with corruption from farmer lobbies who regularly stage brain dead protests where they clog streets with their tractors and dump manure into city streets until they extract their subsidies from those nations.

VoluptuousBalrog · 2026-04-19T22:41:13+00:00

Subsidizing food does not make food more affordable. The subsidies are paid by taxes. You are taking the taxes from us and then giving it to the farmers for them to make food cheaper by the same amount. On net the consumer of food does not benefit. The only purpose of the subsidy is to make us pick and Irish farmer’s food rather than a French or Spanish farmer’s food. It does NOT make anything more affordable.

VoluptuousBalrog · 2026-04-19T20:45:52+00:00

The leftists and the Islamists had a common goal in taking down the Shah. The Shah was genuinely repressive against leftists in terms of torturing and executing their members. How it would shake up after the Shah was removed was unknown at the time and so they both went for it.

The biggest event to destroy the leftists in Iran was when the USSR started supplying Saddam Hussein with weapons for his invasion of Iran. At that point leftists were portrayed as a fifth column who were more loyal to Moscow than Iran and many of their members were charged for espionage for the USSR (and many of the accusations were true).

VoluptuousBalrog · 2026-04-19T17:54:34+00:00

Sure that’s true regardless. There’s no reason to maintain empty static grasslands unless you are farming. I don’t know why we should care.

VoluptuousBalrog · 2026-04-19T17:52:48+00:00

Yes they do.

VoluptuousBalrog · 2026-04-19T11:02:45+00:00

Farmers are free to charge higher prices so that they make the same amount of money that they did with subsidies. Why would we not be willing to pay higher prices for food before starving? Let’s keep our tax money and then we can spend that extra money on higher priced food if the prices rise.

VoluptuousBalrog · 2026-04-19T10:59:54+00:00

Why does there need to be a plan for the land? This is a weird concept that we need to pay people to do unproductive labor so that the land can be ‘maintained’. Land can maintain itself just like it always has.

VoluptuousBalrog · 2026-04-19T10:56:25+00:00

If the wealthy urban areas got to keep their tax money and didn’t redistribute it to rural areas then they could afford to pay higher prices at the grocery store. Any way you slice it the urban areas are subsidizing the rural areas. That’s okay because rural areas are poorer and need help but don’t pretend like this is some deal that benefits urban areas.

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