by Mark Harvey
Every civilization sees itself as the center of the world and writes its history as the central drama of human history. ―Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order
Watching Israel and Iran lob bombs at each other these last few weeks makes me tired. Just when the world seemed completely destabilized and clinically looney, two countries who both trace their religions back to Abraham or Ibrahim decide to make things worse. I know you’re supposed to reach for the most recent issue of Foreign Affairs or parse treaties on nuclear non-proliferation to make sense of this missile orgy, but this latest war might make you reach for your earplugs and blindfold instead.
It’s easy to come up with reasons why one of these fanatical leaders–Ali Kamenei or Benjamin Netanyahu— is right and the other is wrong, back it up with obscure historical data and tables of fissionable materials, but there might be a simpler explanation: a good portion of mankind lives in the reptilian and limbic parts of the human brain, is soaked in the desire for revenge, and is completely lacking in reason and forbearance.
In the few days since I began writing this, the United States has cast our lot into the mess with bombing sorties over Iran as well. This is all red meat for the pundits of every stripe. Along with the hypersonic missiles flying back and forth over the Zagros Mountains and the Syrian Desert, you can bet there will be a barrage of hyperbolic opinion pieces either extolling or condemning the war.
My college degree was in International Studies and I used to try to find some real logic in foreign affairs. There were a few writers and theorists like the late George Kennan and Samuel Huntington who actually did a pretty good job of breaking down international affairs into some sort of mechanics or predictable psychology. Huntington believed that the modern conflicts were determined by the clash of cultures and religions, not economics. Read more »
Once again the world faces death and destruction, and once again it asks questions. The horrific assaults by Hamas on October 7 last year and the widespread bombing by the Israeli government in Gaza raise old questions of morality, law, history and national identity. We have been here before, and if history is any sad reminder, we will undoubtedly be here again. That is all the more reason to grapple with these questions.
In November 2023, in an essay for the German national newspaper die taz, I wrote that Germany’s Jews were once again afraid for their lives. It was—and is—a shameful state of affairs, considering that the country has invested heavily in coming to terms with its fascist past and has made anti-antisemitism and the unconditional support of Israel part of its “Staatsräson,” or national interest—or, as others have come to define it, the reason for the country’s very existence. The Jews I’m referring to here, however, were not reacting to a widely deplored lack of empathy following the brutal attacks of October 7. In an open letter initiated by award-winning American journalist Ben Mauk and others, more than 100 Jewish writers, journalists, scientists, and artists living in Germany described a political climate where any form of compassion with Palestinian civilians was (and continues to be) equated with support for Hamas and criminalized. Assaults on the democratic right to dissent in peaceful demonstrations; cancellations of publications, fellowships, professorships, and awards; police brutality against the country’s immigrant population, liberal-minded Jews, and other protesting citizens—the effects have been widely documented, but what matters most now is now: the fact that the German press is still, four months later, nearly monovocal in its support of Israel and that over 28,000 civilians, two-thirds of them women and children, have died. 
I once wrote a political column for 
