Coleman Hughes Special: Israel, Hamas & the Myth of Moral Equivalence

Conversations With Coleman

The Free Press

Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.8 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2025

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this special episode, I take on probably the most controversial and emotionally fraught topic of the moment: the Israel-Hamas conflict. I think war crimes have been committed on both sides. But that doesn’t mean I think the two sides are morally equivalent. Today, I argue that there’s a fundamental asymmetry between Israel and Hamas, one that’s too often blurred or ignored by the mainstream media. Israel’s actions, while sometimes flawed or tragic in consequence, are ultimately rooted in a defensive logic. Hamas, on the other hand, has explicitly genocidal goals. But where does that leave us when we see images of children starving and hear reports that Israel is responsible? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey listeners, this week we're dropping the paywall at the free press. That means everything that is
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0:10.5	to anyone with a registered account. All our columns, videos, commentary, and investigations will be paywall
0:16.7	free. The team here is also curating a collection of some favorite archival essays,
0:22.2	timeless stories we think are worth revisiting, that you'll be able to browse freely in one place.
0:27.3	So subscribe to the free press today at vfp.com.
0:31.9	Welcome to another episode of Conversations with Coleman.
0:35.5	Today I'd like to share a few thoughts about what's happening in
0:38.7	Gaza.
0:47.3	This is a difficult topic and there's no way to say anything meaningful about it without offending
0:52.6	people, but I think it's important to discuss
0:55.2	nonetheless. As I've said on this show and on a few of my Joe Rogan appearances over the past
1:01.6	few years, I believe that in the war between Israel and Hamas, the Israelis are the good guys,
1:08.6	and Hamas are the bad guys. That may seem like a cartoonish way to describe the situation, or it might seem like an obscene
1:16.4	opinion given the images of emaciated children that you've probably seen over the past
1:21.0	few weeks, but it's still the truth.
1:24.0	And it's a truth that's incredibly easy to lose sight of amid the day-to-day coverage of this war.
1:30.2	In my view, the deepest tragedy in the war right now is that both sides have committed war crimes,
1:37.4	and in both cases, those war crimes are falling on Palestinian civilians.
1:43.3	The truth, of course, is that every war features war crimes,
1:47.0	but usually each army commits those crimes against the enemy's population.
1:53.0	In this case, the Palestinians of Gaza have received a double dose of the excesses of each side.
	...

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