Hitchens DESTROYS Anti-Palestine Pro-Israel Arguments
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- Опубликовано: 16 июн 2024
- In this clip from last week's Griscom Stream, David plays some vintage Christopher Hitchens on Israel-Palestine.
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Hitchens never had a right-wing turn, he took one position which happened to be popular on the right, once. That's it.
I think, Hitchens was more against Islamic fundamentalists then the Neo Confederate Christian nationalist southern Bush administration. To claim he was a right winger is presentism of the highest order.
Literally ALL politicians on the left or right (accept one great black lady legend) supported this War initially.
Democrats, Republicans....so at best he took a centrist position AT THE TIME.
Presentism= The tendency to see the past only from a present-day perspective, and to ignore or underestimate its difference from the present.
He was, however, a contrarian, and he seemed to delight in subverting the expectations of others. He was personally opposed to abortion and said if there's any chance we are destroying a human being, then we shouldn't be doing it. He was part Jewish, ethnically, while also a fierce critic of Israel, Zionism and the horrific treatment of Palestinians.
And while his views on religion were quite clear, he was also an admirer of religious architecture, championing a view that separates the faith from the art so we can appreciate beautiful cathedrals, mosques and temples like the Parthenon.
@@GozerTheGozerian thats just called being a sane nuanced person, its not subverting anything. The world doesnt live in extremes.
@@samuraijosh1595that’s true, but I do think he liked to keep people on their toes, surprising the expectations of many…
Which I completely understand and admire..
To see the face of someone Who thought they had you figured out, adopt that expression of absolute surprise is just pure pleasure
@@samuraijosh1595 Have you been living under a rock? Extremism, fueled by social media and ideologically-filtered "news," is destroying our country. Our Founding Fathers designed our political system explicitly to require compromise and consensus-building as a check against extremism, but these days non-partisanship and cooperation are considered dirty words, with centrists and the sane derided as "RINOs" or election-spoilers. Look at the Democrat freak-out over the No Labels effort, and the GOP's tarring of anyone to the left of Genghis Khan as a traitor.
I mean, when's the last time you heard people have a reasonable discussion on a hot-button issue like abortion, gun control or the Israel-Palestine situation?
Hitchens, regardless of leaning, was always one of the most lethal debaters and intellectual giant.
"Intellectual giant" ... but UNWISE -
@@scotthullinger4684 Actually quite vindicated. He predicted Putin's desire to recreate the USSR and coming Black Sea war, he predicted American Right's flirtation and jealousy for fascism when discussing why GOP loved Palin despite her being dumb (the proto Trump), predicted a new generation of left making a religion of vanity and empathy (now called Woke).
By 2023, Hitchens is still proven to be very wise. He didn't just guess things but had long explanations for each.
@@kayaphus4303 - If the title here says Hitchens destroys both arguments on each side, then I can only assume that Hitchens claims that NOBODY has a claim to the land mass occupied by Israel. Think about it -
Sane people are both pro Israel and simultaneously against Israel's enemies. Israel has an ancient established claim and history regarding the land which they occupy.
ALL claims against Israel are wrong, not to mention totally illogical. Hmm ... Hard to believe that it's STILL fashionable in this day and age to be anti-Semitic even a half century+ after World War 2.
@@scotthullinger4684 Balderdash. Gods can't claim rights. So what do you use as the criteria? Actual possession? War gains? History? Majority population? Through most of the 20th century before Israel received infinitely more military and financial aid than Palestine, the Palestinian claims would have been at least equally strong. And let's not forget, Palestine NEVER accepted the 1947/1948 international declaration.
Israel's claim to land is their's and their's only. Their god can say anything she wants, but nobody's god can overrule anyone else's. To think otherwise is silly. Also, you can't accept "war-gained" advances into the West Bank in one breath while denying that the region was predominantly Muslim for centuries, including the time immediately preceeding the post-war creation of the Israeli state when Palestine begrudgingly started to accept Jews into the region.
Palestine's claim is equally ambiguous, but let's look at population trends in the region during the early 20th when Palestines vastly outnumbered Jews by over 10 to 1. Also, long before the Islamic jihadists decided to push all Jews into the Mediterranean, the Jews were trying to do exactly the same to the Palestinians... and they're doing it again!
Most importantly, for the 10 millionth time, it is NOT anti-semitic to believe that a two-state solution wherein one state doesn't control the other is the only equitable option.
@scotthullinger4684 hahHahhHah you did the meme. You called people antisemitic for having criticisms of Israel. Classic
Hitches was a leftist in 99% of his stances. Calling him right wing is the kind of lazy argument he would have eviscerated.
He voted for George Bush!
@@LeftReckoning he wasn’t a citizen of the USA until 2007. He couldn’t vote. He said he slightly favored Bush. If you read why in his article in the Guardian, you’d find out why. None of it screams “right wing” especially in 2023 where the Right has completely lost it’s collective mind.
@@MeMe-bg8cicalling Hitchens right wing is like how Baptists say Methodists aren’t real Christians. It is puritanical.
@@MeMe-bg8ciNice Ratio ✅
Yea. He would have DESTROYED that. OBLITERATED it. ANNIHILATED that argument.
Shut up, dork.
The very fact that he changed his mind proved that he was a true intellectual. He dealt with the facts as he saw them, not as the zeitgeist dictated. His swing to the right of politics was, as I see it, set against his disgust of theocracy and totalitarianism in all it’s ugly forms rather than any contemporary political trend.
To me its more so that he wasnt a pascifist. He had his mindset and directed it to everyone and every movement that he disagreed with. Hitchens only seemed like a neo con cuz the zeitgeist changed. He didnt. He was always against the fundamentalist crowds. So a conflict where 2 sides wielded it he was primed to fire at both. And he did.
Hitchens didn't just change his mind. Any normal person changes their mind if the facts change.
And Hitchens was with the zeitgeist. He was with 70% of the American public. He defended a war based on lies. He defended the mindless slaughter of women and children. He called the left glib for talking about Iraqi deaths. He defended torture.
Hitchens wasn't stupid. He knew why Saddam invaded Kuwait and that Saddam was no threat to anyone in 2003. He knew that Iraq was a secular country. At least more secular than the United States.
"Theocracy" and "totalitarianism" are weasel words. The United States became essentially fascist under Bush and remain so today. Media lined up behind Bush. Those who didn't toe the line were fired. Phil Donahue, anyone? Donahue was the radical. Hitchens was the bootlicker. Media loved Hitchens because he was the most politically correct voice in America at the time.
Hitchens loved ganging up on the weak. "Sherry Johnson was raped, pregnant and married by 11. Now she’s fighting to end child marriage in America" edition.cnn.com/2018/01/29/health/ending-child-marriage-in-america/index.html
That you can legally rape children as young as 10 in the United States didn't bother Hitchens. That you can do the same in Saudi Arabia and the Saudi vassal state of Yemen did. (The only three countries where you can legally rape children.) The Taliban emerged largely as an opposition to pedophilia. Hitchens doesn't seem to have minded the pedophiles "we" support in Afghanistan. You know, the warlords and criminals that were/are branded as the Northern Alliance and National Resistance Front of Afghanistan.
To Hitchens, child rape and other atrocities are judged only on who carries them out. More specifically, whether the perpetrator is democratic or theocratic/totalitarian.
Hitchens dick rode the U.S. Constitution, except when it came to torture. If torture was justified or not was for the American people to decide, Hitchens argued.
Hitchens was the ultimate utilitarian. If Hitchens hadn't existed and you described a utilitarian just like him, you would be accused of creating a straw man. People would say that no utilitarian like that exist. That no utilitarian thinks the end justifies everything. While not using Hitchens words, he defended the genocide of the indigenous American people because it resulted in the glorious republic known as the United States.
The following is from Wikipedia and Hitchens view on Columbus Day.
_Historian David Stannard interpreted an essay by Hitchens:[55] as follows:_
_Anyone who refused to join him in celebrating with "great vim and gusto" the annihilation of the native peoples of the Americas was (in his words) self-hating, ridiculous, ignorant, and sinister. People who regard critically the genocide that was carried out in America's past, Hitchens continued, are simply reactionary, since such grossly inhuman atrocities "happen to be the way history is made." And thus "to complain about them is as empty as complaint about climatic, geological or tectonic shift." Moreover, he added, such violence is worth glorifying since it more often than not has been for the long-term betterment of humankind, as in the United States today, where the extermination of the [Native Americans] has brought about "a nearly boundless epoch of opportunity and innovation."[56]_
I think it had more to do with government and capitalist propaganda becoming more prevalent among his trusted sources of information and he bought into it like many people have.
@@BemkyWatchesBuffy he was an on the ground journalist. He WAS a source
@@unclebobboomergames I would hardly say that being an on the ground reporter in one place for a time gives you a full perspective or that it makes you immune from disinformation that could align with whatever opinion One could be traumatized into changing
Hitch was hammered in that first clip and still casually cruising through complex ideas on that episode. His skillset was completely wasted with his regression to backing American Imperialism after 9/11.
Know what they say: No junk, no soul.
He was working through a lot of misinformation. He also condemned torture. A mixed bag doesn't make his correct takes any less correct.
Judging by his appearance, and the C-SPAN logo is pre C-SPAN3 which launched in January of 2001, I'm pretty sure this clip was way before 9/11. I remember Dennis Miller being quite funny until 9/11, after which he became a right wing-nut partisan hack. I guess you had to be there? Also, Hitch was NEVER political, only sociological, and ANTI- religion in any form. His debates with politicos were the germ for the term "Hitchslap". RIP, Man. You were one of the best.
@@MrDavidKordafter having to personally experience waterboarding did he call it torture. I'll take the win though.
Yeah his take on 9/11 really dissapointed and baffled me
Even when Hitchens had bad politics at the last inning of his life he was always good rhetorically. But as our late comrade Brooks said, this isn’t complicated. This is an apartheid state and a fundamentally right wing project of making an ethnostate rather than a state where Jews could live in peace and safety. Appreciate you and Matt as always
RIP Micheal, you were the realest. 🙏🏾
Beautiful Michael, an incredible soul, never forgotten 🙏
I have a theory that Hitch was pro-Afghanistan War in his last years, because he was applying for citizenship during the Bush administration. Other prominent figures, like Donahue, were blacklisted for opposing the war. Hitch wouldn't have stood much chance getting his citizenship application approved if he hadn't towed the line. Politics!
In the end his rhetoric was atrocious what do you mean? The last decade of his life was him just firing the same bad faith arguments back at religious zealots basically.
@@dudeman5303 Bad faith? That's a literal description of the Catholic Church. If anything, he probably could have gone harder if he were more aware of the full extent of the pdf files scandal.
Hitch was a fucking legend. The world is poorer without him.
I was 23 when he died unaware of his existence unfortunately. I discovered him a fee years after his passing. If there was a request god was willing to give, id say bring Hitchens back in the condition of him being a college professor lol let him teach us how to be as lethal of a debater as he was.
@@xray4deathhe has authored many books, you can still buy them.
I think it's a mischaracterisation to think that Hitchens was ever right wing or islamaphobic. It's understandable to thinks so, since he was in support of the Iraq war. But it was because he genuinely thought Iraqi democracy could be restored. Hitchen's ideological north star was support for democracy and opposition to authoritarianism - especially from the religous right, no matter if it was Christian, Islamic or Jewish. He would have been sick at the idea of Trump packing the supreme court with religious ideologues.
He voted for Bush & would continue to pen essays about how only the right seems to care about democracy
@@Not_Even_Wrong The waterboarding thing is definitely a point in his favour. He put his money where his mouth is and then immediately did 180 and publically came out against it. To this day, that video proves waterboarding is torture beyond all possible reasonable doubt.
@@LeftReckoning I didn't know about that, but it's true. A lot of people carry water for the right while claiming to be leftists and I wouldn't trust them either. That said I watched a lot of Hitchens when I was younger and secret rightwinger wasn't my read on the guy, he said a lot of stuff and IMO he doesn't fit the profile. May be wrong, but idk
@@Not_Even_Wrong No, in that section he is paraphrasing the pro torture position - he is stating it, not endorsing it. Afterall he does 'indict' the US for torture in the same article - he'd be calling himself out for what he'd just written.
@@Not_Even_Wrong Easy mistake to make in fairness, I reread it and I was suprised by how nationalistic some the sentiment in that article was. I can see see why people assume he's a neocon or something.
I miss that dude so much. How is it that I can so deeply miss someone that I never met?
Because you fancy him.
Low shot @ default… maybe you are the one that’s a closet sausage fan…what about his free thinking
Hitchens was no-wing. If at any stage his beliefs aligned with the right, it wasn’t due to any core agreement between him and the so-called right wing.
This was the Hitchens I admired and learned from. It was sad to see him cower to the USA, Israel and other far right pressure tactics. Nice to be reminded of the real Hitchens.
He didnt cower to anybody. You don’t know what your talking about and have never read him on this topic or you wouldnt have said some so ignorant. It actually took balls to be honest about Saddam and Al Qaeda when the left was making ridiculous excuses for them or just straight up spreading lies like their were never WMDs in Iraq.
Quite the biased slanderous representation of his arc.
You do get more wise with the years. If you know what I mean.
@@scottstorchfan certainly wasn't wise about Iraq.
@@1984isnotamanual bro, there *weren't* any WMDs in Iraq... we've known this for nearly 20 years at this point
@@disregardthat yes there were. Saddam had them and used them. There just werent any when we invaded. We dont know where they went. He had those weapons. He used them on the kurds. READ A FUCKING BOOK
Hi mate, just recently discovered your channel. As a '50-something' Australian male, I'm well removed from all problems pertaining to the middle-east, but I've been trying to tease apart the situation there. I've watched a lot of the talking heads ( Bill Maher, Douglas Murray, Sam Harris et.al ) but I'm always left with this feeling of an unscratchable itch, like they're all missing something, or boiling it down to an intractable religious problem. I find myself now more allied to the likes of an early Hitchens viewpoint that this was/is a humanitarian problem rather than a religious one. It seems clear now that the Palestinian people have been struggling ( to say the least ) under an apartheid regime imposed by the state of Israel. The fact that this situation seems to be overlooked or ignored is confounding. Keep up the good work
Post 9.11 did a number on the best of us.
As always, my commitment to humanity goes beyond any notion of boarders, nations, or creeds.
Cool. Are you straw manning borders nations and creeds?
@@jikkh2xto strawman a position, you have to misrepresent it, this person and I agree with them has just chosen his own values and not inherited them.
@@jikkh2x Someone learned a new word today
@@jikkh2xquit using terms you don't understand. It makes you seem stupid.
Really? Do you have family? Does the bum on the street mean as much to you as a family member? If you're like a typical no-borders, citizen of the world, your country of domicile is European or settled predominately by Europeans. Within that country, you probably live in the chief metropolis or one of the major metropolises. Furthermore, you are likely insulated - by class, by expendable income (viz. rent money), by barriers like walls, guards, or physical distance - from the lower orders, and from black and brown people.
Great listen. Keep doing what you're doing. Hitchens was a brilliant thinker and his views are still relevant.
Saying Palestinians=Hamas is like saying Americans=MAGA.
Thank you 👊🏻
As an Australian. America does indeed = maga.
Saying MAGA = Hamas is actually saying You are an absolute fool! Insult fully intended!
Perfectly said!
100%
Great video, thank you for sharing
100% correct that people do tend to make this complicated situation simplistic.
Really appreciate your acknowledgement of Christopher Hitchens rightwing switch. It was sad to see his change.
I'm going to respond here both to the vid and some comments. I don't think it's fair to say that after 2001 Hitch simply became a neo-con the same as any other. He moved the right for sure in terms of hawkishness but he was never intellectually aligned with the right. He still spoke out against things like state sponsored torture (unlike Sam Harris who justified it), he was consistent about being against every religion (including America's evangelical Christianity), and his solidarity with the Kurds gave his pro-Iraq position at least some semblance of moral rectitude. He even supported reparations for black Americans, which some leftists including Bernie don't seem to want to commit to. He was also in full support of LGBTQ rights.
I'm certain if Hitch were still around he would've hated Trump and MAGA for its blatantly fascistic tendencies. The real question is whether he would've sided with Bernie's progressive movement or with the so-called centrist Dems between 2016 and 2020 when the movement seemed to have a real chance of transforming the party. 2016 would've been especially interesting with Hillary, Bernie, and Trump.
As for right wingers claiming him (and I haven't seen this, actually), right wingers today also try to claim George Carlin just because of George Carlin's defenses of free speech, while they completely ignore all of the anti-capitalist and anti-conservative arguments Carlin also made. Personally, I don't think the Hitchens who defended the Iraq war and heavily criticized Islam in particular should define his entire legacy, though it will always be a part of it.
Was he a bigot? Maybe a little, though outside of advocating for killing Islamic militants (which may or may not be racially motivated), what I noticed sometimes were more...subtle forms of disrespect like he when he referred to Mos Def as Mr. Definitely and cracked a smile. But to be frank, there are a lot of whites (leftist or otherwise) who can sometimes give that vibe, so I think it's just a cultural bias that even otherwise decent whites may struggle with. Cornel West recently suggested that the same thing existed in the Green Party, so it is what it is.
I saw his last interview before he died (or one of his last interviews). He was asked if he still considered himself a leftist, and without hesitation he said, "Yes".
I've seen multiple right wing social media accounts use Hitchens clips talking about Islalm.
Hitchens was anti-totalitarian left. Harris did not just outright justify torture, you need to read his essay. The complexity of the subject is framed quite well by Harris.
@@hawkerdooI don't think we need to pretend there's a ton of nuance to the torture discussion the way Harris did. He used ridiculous hypotheticals to justify the use of torture, period.
ETA: He loved using out of pocket hypotheticals. One of his faves was built on the assumption that a Muslim-majority nation with nukes would use them in a first strike because Islamists do suicide attacks. I distinctly remember that. Absolutely insane take, and it demonstrates the attitude he had toward Muslims.
@@SouthCom1917
Toward Islam is what I think you meant to say. Yes, hypotheticals based on real world events. You are ignoring the reality of the conversation.
Well done compilation. Watching it again after reading/seeing more debates. As to CH rightward turn -- less so than some folks think. He was always very adamant about religious fundamentalists being a danger to society/civilization (no matter the belief). His 'neo-con' seeming support is due directly to some states being run by religious fundamentalists and their more active role in supporting violence.
Thank you David.
Yorkers ago back in the day a friend of mine said, imagine being at home one day doing some house chores and with a knock on the door some guy sez... hey it sez here in this book that your in my house get out, and it sums up everything I have come to know about this conflict
When are we going to see one day a President or Prime Minister who has the fierce intellect as the late Christopher Hitchens possessed. You see , to me that is the mind and intelligence that a typical political head of state should have themselves . A country's commander in chief should always be it's scholar in chief too ..don't you think ?
Not really. I'd rather have a plain-spoken communist over someone with a dazzling intellect whose politics are garbage. He's genuinely fun to listen to though.
A atheist.... Never.
Not practical to have such lofty expectations of a politician. Besides, they wouldn't get elected to high office if they hold views which are contrarian to the population or corporations.
Thanks for sharing these clips along with your thoughts at the end of the video, David. I totally agree, we need to have a Litmus tests for human rights within leftist/left-leaning organizations
Absolutely.
This came up my feed twice already. I guess the algorithms working 💪 😅
His "Hitch Slap" compilations are legendary.
Did anyone else get an ad from ONE FOR ISRAEL Ministry? It was asking for monetary support or their occupation. I already give them more than I would care to through taxes. I immediately blocked them.
Hitch was a masterful intellect w an uncommon gift to bite to the undeniable core of an issue
Important.
In Hitch in Washington, Christopher Hitchens states he holds no allegiance to any party.
Change, growth and development should be seen as a mark of personal honesty and true to thine own self. The man was ahead of his time
thank you thank you thank you. I have been radicalized by the past week's events in Gaza. i was already a big supporter of Palestine, but seeing how the international community cares so little for the people of Gaza sickens me. The left must uphold our principles and there's not been as big a test as this in a long time.
with Hitch cult followers, they just go where the Hitch Spirit blows them; CH was a red-dyed socialist all his life -
of course he was against Jews & Israel, those bearing the DNA being the greatest minds historically behind commerce, capitalism;
Nobel winners, peace, science, lit. - more than any other nation, pro-rata, as even Dawkins admitted - yes more that Athe-Trotsky-ite commies like Hitch & friends who take a minute number.
Current 'Palestine' is actually northern Syria. There is no DNA even relating todays palestinian arabs to the Philistines of Roman times - they were wiped out
No one treats the Palestinians worse than Hamas in this world! Please consider that? FYI, if/when, the religious zealots behind Hamas care for the people there, they would put down their weapons and sacrifice themselves for all Palestinians. For them, they are sacrificing to a god taking them to paradise, along with the innocents of Gaza. Peace
@@Brian-os9qj Utter nonsense. Hamas is a militant organization and there's plenty to not like about them, but Palestinians are being killed by Israeli weapons. Murdering innocents is a choice Israel continues to make. This is on them.
I clicked on this clip to hear Hitchen speak as he does in a simple way that requires no interpretation by a narrator who does now what the breeze sounds like in the forrest because he doesn't know what a tree is...
Know thy Enemy is how I saw Hitchens approach to islam.
When Hitchens cut an opponent, it was done so deftly the victim didn't know they'd been cut until it felt warm.
I really enjoy watching Hitchens' videos from the 80's and 90's.
One thing I have never gotten to any level of understanding with was the eventual disconnect between Christopher Hitchens and Noam Chomsky
Yes this is the Hitchens I admired 🇵🇸
You've said a few times in the comments that Hitchens voted for Bush, but I'm confused. Hitchens became a US citizen in 2007, so when could he have voted for Bush?
Supported, not voted. People get confused.
@@BenjaminWalburn Even "support" can be confusing. Judging from an article he wrote about it in 2004, it seems like his support is barely lukewarm.
I like my Hitchens like I like my wine: 13% alcohol by volume
As an Italian I feel like you could have spared us the line about wine, dude…
Well put
He was a force in the past. Never quite a Gore Vidal or a Chris Hedges as these last two never changed. But still a great journalist. I use to wade through all those underwear ads in Vanity Fair to read him.
Agreed, except Chris hedges is nuts now though.
You enjoyed the underwear ads thoroughly.
Chris Hedges?
All I heard in the intro was 'I used to favor logic, but now I feel different.'
*HITCH:* "I think it’s a bad idea. I think it’s a messianic idea, I think it’s a superstitious idea. I think that-” *ROSE:* “So the idea of Israel’s right to exist is-” *HITCH:* “Many states are founded on injustices or foolishness and bad ideas, *_that doesn’t mean that anyone can just come and evict or destroy them._* I’m not saying that. But I think I have to say, so as not to seem shady, I’ve always thought it’s a silly, messianic superstitious nationalist idea and it’s a waste of Judaism."
_Charlie Rose,_ November 6 2001. Emphasis mine.
I’ve never thought of myself as oblivious but I’ve never heard Hitchens described as a neo-con.
What is a neo-atheist???
As a Gen Xer….i guess I’m old now?!
Not sure how “right wing” hitchens got? He was on the side of conservatives for 1 big issue, but not even for the same reasons. Also, “new atheists” are the ppl i hear most saying that hamas does not equal Palestinians
He voted for Bush lol
@@LeftReckoningthis isn’t true. He supported him but couldn’t vote. I know it’s not very different but you’re spreading falsehoods.
Don't think he was a US citizen then.
Anything with "DESTROYS " in the title typically has no destruction at all.
His uncanny intelligent well informed voice is like Shakespeare in a way. Like Honey in the ear and so often fun.
Hitchens never changed his views on Israel being an intolerant apartheid state.
Thank you
Any person worthy of his or her salt will eventually abandon the process they're trying to push forward. One can become disgusted, over time. Just try making an effort, and you'll find out, as they say...
That was Hitch. In a nutshell. And I think he loved discussion, challenging anyone to participate in an intelligent, well informed and intellectual debate.
It’s not about left or right. It’s a question about factual issues.
Whatever topic.
Remember, Hitchens’ mother had Jewish roots.
First of all Hitchens was committed to scepticism.
What if you were forced out of Los Angeles but the state of Colorado would NOT take you because they can't be certain whether of not your an extremist?
Watched Hitch when he was a good person, then 9/11 slowly pushed him into Islamophobia. I miss him. What a writer and speaker.
Here's a snippet of Hitch from the Guardian Sept 13th 200.
"With cellphones still bleeping piteously from under the rubble, it probably seems indecent to most people to ask if the United States has ever done anything to attract such awful hatred. Indeed, the very thought, for the present, is taboo."
*200 sb 2001
Maybe you should look up Richard Dawkins' comment on the concept of 'Islamophobia'.
@@post_hit_invincibility9940 "Christopher Hitchens Ripping Islam Apart is a compilation video of some amazing moments of our beloved and dearly missed Christopher Hitchens." Search youtube for this video.
Christopher Hitchens Ripping Islam Apart
Bin Laden said it was revenge for bombing the middle east
He was always a good person. Wether he aligned with your narrow political views or not . What a awful way to judge a man's life & morals
Being Left means you critique ALL injustices. EVEN IF injustices are perpetrated by Israel.
Hitchens was way more based when he was younger.
he used to be a trotskyist
They say people get more conservative as they get older.
Hitchens was not in the habit of speaking on issues he knew little about. He clearly thought long and hard on the subject of Israel, its right to exist, its actual borders, and how this relates to the Palestinians, etc. Most other people, including the interviewer at the beginning of this clip, have no business leading any discussion they are not familiar with. Hitchens did in fact know his subject, but also knew what others might know or pretend to know. At the end of the day, Hitchens was a contrarian and a superb stylist, on the order of, say, Oscar Wilde. By the look of things, he took some pride in clearing the field of self-righteous morons, and dullards. He left us too soon. I would have traded him for that long-lived bastard Henry Kissinger any day.
Consider looking into the book The Arc of a Covenant about the history of geopolitical relations of the US and Israel. It has been much more complex than even Hitch seems to allude to. Though in the most recent decades it does appear to have boiled down to a much more black and white dynamic.
Miss Hitch. He was the tip of the spear. Fought for humanity.
Well said
Thank you for creating the perfect question. We have one for MAGA GOP "Do you believe Biden won the election" Now we have another exacting question "Do you believed Palestine should have their own (independent self governing sovereign) state?"
No country has a right to exist. It either exists or it doesn't. It's a pragmatic issue, not a moral issue.
Very good.
Never heard Hitchens be naive! That Israel doesn't have a lot of influence on American mideast policy is laughable, even back when then. I
Israel only has influence bc Israel aligns with America's imperialism and is their outpost in the Middle East. As Joe Biden said "if there wasn't an Israel, we would have created one"
Our maybe you and the boogeyman people are just wrong. I know, crazy thought.
@5:32 Its not a covert hand but a overt hand in the form of the AIPAC and the ADL.
Well it was gonna be somebody so might as well be the jews
Hitchens was not a politician, and he didn't feel compelled to form his opinions based on a list of "left" or "right" documents.
Rather than "aging into different opinions", I think Hitchens actually used his brain and decided different issues by using his own research and reasoning.
good shit guys
The interesting thing is that his views did not change even after he found out he was jewish, his mother had hidden her identity.
Hitchens always prided himself on being a contrarian.
Maybe being a contrarion is completely devoid of political insights.
Hitchens' first point sounds exactly like Utah.
The less said about Hitchens, the better. He was one of the most vicious islamophobes on earth, a pathological liar and cheerleader for Bush's massacre in Iraq.
That adage about living long enough to become the villain isn't exemplified in many as much as it is with Hitchens. What good ideas he use to espouse doesn't measure to the incalculable harm his rationalizing bigoted ideas did.
I've always attributed his right turn to Wernicke-Korsakoff. It used to be called wet-brain. You simply can't drink heavily all your life without sustaining a very strange kind of brain damage. It can make you certain of things that are not real. A brilliant person could easily hide the bizarre effects. Perhaps I'm delusional. Perhaps I have it myself. But I just can't let go of his earlier life largely due to clips like this. I have read and watched almost everything he did. When he tacked from just being a rational and humorous but compassionate atheist to the man that condemned the religion, and very culture, whatever the flaws, of over a billion people, I was shocked.
Pearls amongst swine... we didn't deserve him
Great 😔 I am trying to find this guy - and you said, "He was..." and mentioned 'legacy'.
I need desparately to weigh in on this sitiation over 'there'.
I don't know 'who to call'... and please hold the 'ghost busters' jokes, I've had - as many have - enough 'write offs'.
Thanks in advance.
I met Hitchens once. I was very familiar with Hitchens going after the Muslim religion. It is shocking indeed.
Left / right is merely a divide and conquer concept which seems to work flawlessly . To quote the late George Carlin " it's a big club and we're not in it ".
Nice to see Hitchens not bashing Muslims for existing like he normally does
Gazans would garner more sympathy if they were not so fundamentalist
@@latinexus i don’t think they want sympathy they want to not be murdered for being Palestinian.
@@latinexus That's why the Israeli government armed and funded Hamas to take over form the more secular PLO, because they knew lazy people like you who can't be bothered to understand these issues would have less sympathy for the Palestinians.
@@latinexus Damn Warsaw ghetto uprising extremists!
@@bke8073 whatever man. I will listen to Christopher hitches instead. i don't need to be lectured by you about sympathy.
I like my Hitchens like I like my wine, young + red🍷
End the Occupation ✊ End the Apartheid
a little knowledge is a dangerous thing
Why one should be left or right.
Be on the right!
Wow. I was not familiar with Hitchens, though I believe I've heard his name mentioned on this channel before. How the heck does somebody like that, go right?
I just think it’s crazy that ppl choose to ignore the ramifications of ww2 and the consequences that had to transpire before bringing religious zealotry back into their reasoning
The UN had no right to donate land which is not theirs. The truth is that it is convenient for the West to have an ally within this region. There is no historical or religious right, if there was the USA would have to be run by indigenous tribes, but we are where we are at this point in time.
Hitch is neither right or left, he's just a truth seeker. You're the one putting the labels on him.
Old school hitchens was on point. Too bad he swerved to the right, as you said.
Ps, your closing comments really resonated with me and prompted me to subscribe. Keep up the good work. Thank you.
Hitchens' image doesn't need sanitizing. He was a contrarian, and consistently intellectually based. People tend to forget that his stand on Iraq was related, at least in part, to his deep relationship and affinity for the Kurds in Northern Iraq.
I don't believe Christopher changed his mind on Palestine/Israel problem.
The land of Transjordan was given to the League of Nations by the Ottoman Empire. The League of Nations had a mandate to create a Jewish state on that land after the Holocaust. The land was not Arab land. Arabs got the vast majority of the land (all of what is now Jordan and most of the other land). Jews just got a small bit of shitty land (that they legally were allowed to have). Arabs didn't want to make *any* concessions and tried to commit the second Holocaust. They lost. Being pro-Palestinian is insane. They have been rejecting two state solutions and promoting genocide ever since.
Yes you are!you can’t let go of your hero 😅
He was right about the Israeli occupation of the West Bank at the time, but he did accept the right of Israel to exist. For the current situation a bit of background might help. In the 1920s after Britain kicked out Turkey there was a partition proposal. The Jewish leadership at the time agreed saying they would accept a land "the size of a tablecloth". The Palestinian leaders refused absolutely and demanded the expulsion of all Jews. Their leader declared "It is impossible to live alongside the Jews" and threatened "A river of blood".
In 1937 there was another proposal in which 'Israel' would have been the small region from Tel Aviv north to the Lebanese border. The Palestinians rejected it out of hand.
In 1948 the Palestinians were granted considerably more land than they have now for their own independent state, but refused partition as unacceptable. Five Arab nations attacked Israel with the intention to destroy it completely. The leader of the Arab League, who personally orchestrated the attack declared the intention of the war was "An extermination and a momentous massacre". This was the context in which the expulsions of Palestinians you refer to took place.
Jordan and Egypt annexed the West bank and Gaza for the next 2 decades during which the Palestinians had no political rights or freedoms. The Palestinian leaders never pushed for the formation of an independent state during this time, and Israel took both regions during the Six Day War.
So if we include the Oslo accords, the Palestinians have been offered an independent state of their own four times, and every time they have rejected it completely as unacceptable. "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" literally means free of Jews. Over and over, the Palestinian leadership have made that crystal clear. An independent state of their own alongside Israel in any shape or form, in their own statements and openly declared intentions has always been, and remains unacceptable to them.
But that's just the Palestinian leadership right, what about the people? In a 2023 poll 57% of Gazans said they support Hamas, which has declared many times that the only Palestinian state they consider acceptable includes the entire territory of the current state of Israel. They also played a pivotal role in wrecking the Oslo peace process, which they considered an utter betrayal by the PLO for even engaging in talks.
You wrote this to people who think that Hamas are romantic heroes of liberation.
And that math textbooks have secret, magical, invisible racism in them.
Hitchens a Neocon is laughable .
I call BS. Hitchens never moved to the right. I did not agree with his views about Iraq but he was soundly left wing on almost every issue. I am appalled that you would impugn his reputation by claiming otherwise.
Has anyone read Ben Burgis’s book on ‘Hitch?’
Not that one, but I did get 'Give Them an Argument: Logic for the Left.' a few years back when I thought I was very left wing, you know the Bernie/Corbyn wave times. His writing style was far too academic for me. I struggled through a few pages and never picked it up again.
Since then, I realised "the left" have some very bad takes eg- this video.
Live and learn eh!
I'd imagine his book on Hitch might be more readable?
Back when Hitchens was cool.
Hitchens was cool until the day he died. We need more like him but they are in short supply.
@@grahamhodge8313 Hitchens become the top supporter of Iraq invasion and war on terror, later.
@@marufahmed3416 Hitchens had first-hand knowledge of Iraq from having visited there that most other people lacked. He felt very strongly that Saddam Hussein needed to be overthrown. I disagree with his assessment but to call him a neocon on this single issue is nonsense.
@@grahamhodge8313 and the death of million Iraqis, torture, and destruction of entire country doesn't matter, got it.
And you came across the clip "a moment ago"?...............I prefer someone who can do more than 'moments'
8:10 I want that face on a t-shirt
Ugh! "Destroys" in a video title tends to have the opposite effect these days. It only has the effect of letting us know who the maker is in aggreement with.
I got into Hitchens through atheism but i'm pro Palestine myself.
thanks for putting that together - subbed