Welcome to the Making Sense podcast.

This is Sam Harris.

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So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one. Okay, well, this is the first of two podcasts I'm going to be releasing in the coming days on the topic of jihad.

Early next week, I'll release a solo podcast on all that we've seen in recent weeks in response to the unfolding war in Gaza,

the global eruption of anti-Semitism and support for Hamas,

and all the moral confusion suggested by that response.

But first I want to bring you a conversation I had with the Atlantic writer Graham Wood.

Graham has been in Israel since a few days after the October 7th attacks.

He is a staff writer for the Atlantic and the author of the Way of the Strangers encounters

with the Islamic State, which is well worth reading.

He joined the Atlantic in 2006 and has since reported from every continent except Antarctica and on a very wide variety of topics. He's also

a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and he teaches at Yale University.

Graham has been on the podcast several times before.

He really has been my go-to resource on the topic of jihad

in a way these ancient ideas of martyrdom and holy war

have been playing out in the modern world.

...