Understanding the Mind of a Hamas Jihadist | Sam Harris on Call Me Back With Dan Senor

Key Takeaway

Practice moral clarity without collapsing into collective blame: separate compassion for innocent civilians from analysis of the ideology and leadership driving violence. Today, when you encounter a polarizing conflict claim, write down three distinct questions: Who is suffering? What do the relevant leaders explicitly say they seek? What beliefs or incentives may be shaping their actions? This pause helps prevent both indifference to victims and simplistic explanations that treat stated motives as irrelevant.

Episode Overview

Sam Harris discusses Hamas, jihadism, Palestinian suffering, Israeli security, and what he argues are widespread moral misunderstandings of October 7 and its aftermath. He contends that ideology—particularly beliefs about martyrdom, holy war, and religious supremacy—must be taken seriously alongside political grievance, while also arguing that Israel should confront its own religious extremists.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Understanding the Mind of a Hamas Jihadist | Sam Harris on Call Me Back With Dan Senor from Making Sense with Sam Harris. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

sympathize with the Palestinians . Some people say, "Yes, you've heard what happened on October 7th, what I'm about to say now. Yes, what Hamas did on October 7th was atrocious. Rapes, massacres, killing children, beheadings, whatever." That means there's no need to repeat all those horrible details . First you hear 'yes' and then you hear 'but' . But, these are helpless people in hopeless situations, and it is in that helpless situation that people commit attacks. This is clearly a horrible, cruel and absurd way of expressing their outrage.

But people are angry, and angry people do terrible things . Ultimately, they are fighting for their future , for their independence , for their freedom, for their dignity . What are you expecting ? What is your answer to such people ? Well, one thing I agree with is that the destruction in Gaza is terrible, and there are so many Palestinians suffering from it, and they all deserve sympathy, right? That's it, you know, the suffering that is currently being experienced in Gaza has nothing to do with the Palestinian child there , they are innocent.

There are some moral illusions that we need to notice behind this kind of criticism , something that was pointed out almost 20 years ago in a book called 'Terror and Liberalism' by Paul Burman. That was some time after 9/11. Yes. Yes. That's a wonderful point, and I believe he made that point specifically about the suicide terrorism that Israel faced in the Second Intifada . When many people see a situation like this, they think that all people around the world are almost the same. They want almost the same things .

They want good schools for their children . They want jobs. They want security. They live a simple life and seek human development. People look at this and think, " Well, what must have happened to turn my family into such a strange death cult that rapes peaceful people at a music festival , dismembers them, celebrates it, and prays to God ?" If we analyze it in its entirety, this assessment gives a kind of false insight , namely, that these people were driven to the point of madness to behave in this way.

And who gave them that status ? Isn't that the Israelis ? So, the more you magnify the devastation of suicide terrorism , the more it seems like all the responsibility for these atrocities falls on the victims . The Jews did that. The Israelites did that. What we are seeing here seems to be a psychological experiment gone out of control, where these people are being put in very horrific situations . You know the humiliation of going through checkpoints, not having a country of their own, and all that.

This is all very terrible, which is why the nature of this violence is like this . Now, the truth is, here is a theory that can justify even someone with no political grievances. I'm thinking specifically of a guy who dropped out of medical school in London , right? And what comes after that is the same kind of psychopathic behavior of jihadism and the desire to be a martyr, right? I mean, when I saw the 19 hijackers , that was the first moment I really started to pay attention to 9/11 .

Yes. Some have families and some have PhDs . And they had the opportunity to go to Western countries . They had the opportunity to travel to America and Europe . Yes. Yes. So it is an illusion to think that the cause of this kind of devastating psychopathic violence is any genuine grievance that is forced upon this population or upon these people . Again, I'm not saying Israel is perfect. I'm not saying that Palestinians don't have justifiable complaints. But if the Palestinians were just peaceful, that's it, right?

If they put aside weapons, if they had some political movement centered around a figure like MLK or Gandhi, that's it, right? If they had gone the non-violent route, a two- state solution would have come decades ago, right ? If the Israelis lay down their weapons, there will be a massacre . How do we know that's not an exaggeration? It's in Hamas ' original charter and has been their clear aspiration for decades , even after October 7th, when they reiterated it . We'll keep doing this over and over again , right?

This has been the nature of anti-Semitic discourse in this region for as long as we have been alive . Yes. So it's not crazy for the Israelis to think it's impossible to put down their weapons. As for the Palestinians , I think, again , that aside from the small number of extremist right-wing individuals in Israeli society , Jews genuinely want peace with their neighbors . If we could convince Jews to change Palestinian culture overnight, build resorts and software companies on the Mediterranean coast, and get rich together, and turn this region into Singapore, more than 90% of Israeli society would be willing to cooperate .

And this, the only thing I would add to this seemingly one-sided argument of mine is that Israel really needs to think about how to sideline its own religious lunatics , okay? Again , they're a small minority compared to the people on the other side, but what they do is ... Look, when some religious lunatic says, "Let's turn this into a parking lot," you see exactly the same genocidal convictions, based on religious scriptures, coming out . There must be someone out there talking crazy about the Amalekites, right?

When one of those people appears , the whole conversation comes back to square one, which is, if you're talking about the role of religious fanaticism , it's on both sides . True, Israel needs to find a solution to what you're saying, but I do n't think that will solve the problem. In fact, on October 7, that weekend, the majority of Israelis killed were people, the vast majority secular, far-left, far-right, peace- seeking, young people who attended the Nova Music Festival, and residents of the kibbutzim in the south, many of whom had volunteered to provide medical care and other assistance to Palestinians .

In Gaza, they were there even during the 2014 Israel- Gaza war . They are also the ones who protested against the Israeli government to stop the war. That is, those people who were killed were completely opposed to the extreme right-wing religious mentality you are describing . Yes. Again, we need to be clear and honest about the difference between worldviews here . So the hope from the secular left is that if Hamas and the other Palestinians who committed the rapes and murders across the border on October 7 had understood the nature of the people they were victimizing, they would not have done those things in the first place .

Yes? There is a big misunderstanding here towards others , a problem at its roots . If they knew how loving and compassionate the kids at the Nova Music Festival were, if you held that moral mirror up in front of them, they would recognize it and say, ' God, what are we doing?' They thought so. These are the wrong targets we should hate . Yes? No. True. That's not the real point. They know exactly who they are targeting and it doesn't matter to them. This hatred doesn't arise at that level.

There is a belief system that involves spreading the one true faith throughout the earth, waging holy war, dying in the process of killing infidels, Jews, and converts, and letting your children die in those circumstances. That's the best thing that could happen to you. This is the only sure way to go straight to heaven without any reckoning on your account on the Day of Judgment. That means you will go straight into those rivers of milk and honey . The thing secular people need to overcome is their basic doubt.

Believing that someone would actually believe such things can become an impossible obstacle for people. For example, I have met anthropologists who firmly believe that no one believes in heaven, that it is all just an act, just politics and economics . No matter how many people you meet, when you hear a person's reasons, when they tell their reasons, when you watch videos of their martyrs, when you listen secretly in their mosques, and you know what they talk about in private about heaven, about the 72 virgins, it doesn't matter.

When they tell you unbelievers, Jews, Israelis, Americans, that we love death more than you love life , right? They are honest. Yes, you can definitely find an example where a person was forced to say that, or a person was pretending . But endless examples disprove the idea that many jihadists, at times, are not honest about their view of heaven and their expectations of heaven . And the surprising thing is, in the eyes of world opinion, or the opinion of most of the world, they can do no wrong, right?

It's like a diagnosis for this whole moral delusion . Again, this follows Paul Berman's brilliant insight , that if you want to make the violence against Jews as extreme as you want, make it as extreme as you want. As serious as it is, I would blame the Jews more for whatever caused the violence , right? That's the calculation going on in the background. And that countdown began on October 8th in our most educated institutions. It is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what Israel faces , what Western countries face, and what the Muslim world is facing with a segment of their population .

This means that this is not the end. America and Israel will eventually eliminate enough jihadists, but I honestly think it should happen in the immediate term . I think the immediate goal is to achieve military victory over groups like Hamas without any apologies . And you have to recognize that whatever talks or any other negotiations with Hamas that you mentioned, they are wasting time committing genocide when they are in power . And the thing is, they're not even hiding it . That is, Khaled Meshaal, one of Hamas' international leaders, gave an interview to an Arab satellite channel journalist after October 7.

And she asked him, what is the solution? Is there any way, if they give you something, you can say, " Okay, let's stop " ? They have a country. For us, he said, "one nation, one caliphate, not just from the river to the sea." That basically means not just from east to west, but from Rosh HaNikrah to Eilat, that is, from north to south, the whole of ours. It's all ours. Yes. The end cannot simply mean continuing an endless war against jihadists. But I think it's unavoidable .

But I think the real victory is for 2 billion Muslims to recognize that they have nothing to do with jihadism , right? And they should boycott it, isolate it, and contribute to its destruction, right? They should see it the same way non-Muslim victims of jihadism see it . Because the fact is, Muslims are the majority victims of jihadist atrocities, right? If you look at it as a global phenomenon, no one is experiencing the consequences of jihadism more than the Muslim community around the world . This reactionary and sectarian solidarity that we see across the Muslim world is very toxic and destabilizing .

They are entering into conflict with non-Muslims , Israelis , Jews, or Westerners who should apologize for colonialism and imperialism simply because they are Muslims . If you look closely at what they want, it's not what the majority of Muslims around the world want, but they are uniting with others by default . That is, the majority of Muslims around the world do not want to live in a caliphate-like system, as envisioned by the Islamic State or Hamas. For now , an uncomfortable number of people want it that way .

That is, this is the big social and political problem we have to face. But it also includes a significant number of secular, liberal, moderate Muslims, and simply conservative Muslims who have nothing to do with Islamism or jihadism . You can break this down into a more complex Venn diagram . But we must win the ideological battle with the Muslim world in 100 countries , recognize and draw the line at this religious fanaticism that exists only in Islam. This type of death penalty culture is found only in Islam.

Only in Islam, whether you are inside the religion or outside, can you risk your life if you criticize the religion . Look at the Salman Rushdie experience; He spent 30 years on the run from religious fundamentalists , only to be stabbed on stage in a place that was a center of secularism and tolerance . This happened in the peaceful politics of America. The concept that prevents us from honestly discussing the scope of this problem is ' Islamophobia '. This word is immediately brought up when someone makes the kind of criticism I made on this podcast .

This should be seen as it is. This is a deliberate attempt to link any criticism of specific tenets of Islam to this 'Islamophobia'. These are ideologies that are leading to a type of violence not seen anywhere else. Especially the theories surrounding martyrdom, jihad, and apostasy. True. And this is trying to draw a certain analogy with anti-Semitism . True. On the one hand, there is anti-Semitism . Yes. Or racism, that's all? That's not true, is it? I mean, so explain this. Well, why is n't that true?

Well, there are several reasons for this . First, you need to note the differences between these two religions . That is, anti- Semitism, hatred of Jews, is a real thing, because Jews generally see themselves as a race and a group, right? And you know, even if there are some converts to their religion, it's very few. And even their enemies who hate them see them as a race and a special group . The Nazis certainly saw them in terms of race. Much of that thinking has also penetrated the Muslim world .

So there is a lot of influence from Nazism in the anti-Semitism in the Muslim world . So, most anti-Semites, most of the time, hate the idea of ​​what they imagine Jews to be like as a race, as a group. They are not concerned about the specific tenets of Judaism or how those tenets are being translated into politics and the behavior of extremist Jews. When no one boards a plane, they do n't have to worry that a Jewish suicide bomber will come and blow up the plane, right?

Nothing like that is actually happening, right ? There is concern about Islam and about certain specific ideas within Islam ; They are encouraging death-worshipping behavior in the name of jihadism and increasingly threatening tendencies in the name of Islamism that are contrary to modern secular pluralist values . That is, it is a concern about those specific ideas and what people in a hundred countries are doing because of them . And this is where the difference between a missionary religion and a non-missionary religion becomes very important, because Islam is an aggressively propagandizing religion.

It is perhaps the fastest growing religion in the world. Saying a person is Muslim doesn't say anything about their ethnicity or their origins, so we can now convert and become Muslim in 5 seconds on this podcast, right? This will be the first time for the 'Call Me Back' podcast . As surprising as it may be , we can do it. Islam is a collection of ideas. It is not a species. That is not a category. This has nothing to do with a person's nationality . All of my criticisms of Islam apply as much to Western converts like John Walker Lind of Marin County, who fought with the Taliban, as to those who come from countries like Pakistan or Somalia and have no connection to this ideology .

Yes? So calling this racial pride is completely illogical. When I talk about Islam as a religion, as a way of thinking, being a particular concern , the criticism I face from supporters of Islam is that he is simply called an Islamophobe, a bigot, and a racist, and that's it ? I mean, that's why I got hurt , you know, with Ben. Ben Affleck. I saw it. That means there are no limits to your ability to provoke people. We have since forgotten the old quarrels, but yes, that is what happened 10 years ago .

Yes. So what we need to realize is that we don't want more jihadists and Islamists in our society . And what does that mean? This means that we do n't want people like that...we don't want people who come into our society without the intention of sharing our values, who actually use the values ​​of tolerance and diversity to destroy those values . Yes? That is, coming in and saying that you have to put up with my religious intolerance , to the point where even that is unbearable, right?

And this happened a lot in Western Europe, which is clearly unsustainable , right? And this is clearly creating reactions like right-wing bigotry and intolerance . You know, this is what David Fromm said , and I think it's true . So, if liberals don't protect the borders, fascists will , right? And ultimately, you know, the failure of Islamic integration , the left-wing secularist confusion over bringing jihadists and Islamists into countries like the UK, those failures lead to a right-wing reaction, which in turn creates support for the real fascists .

Okay.