Episode 81 | (In)vincible Ignorance andJust Getting it Wrong About Hamas (Keith Pavlischek)

Foreign Policy ProvCast

Marc LiVecche hosts COL Keith Pavlischek, USMC (RET), long-time Providence contributor for a long-form discussion about the Israel-Hamas War. Points of focus include getting the meaning of proportionality right, the criticality of making basic distinctions between good and evil, right and wrong, causal and moral responsibility, and much else. Among the highlights is their imagined scenario in which they are talking with an honest college student who wants to know how the goal of eliminating Hamas–and the known if undesired cost in innocent lives that will go along with that–is compatible with Christian moral commitments guiding the moral prosecution of war. PROGRAM NOTES: * Photo: LiVecche and Pavlischek at the Israeli Knesset, Jerusalem, in 2017 celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Six Day War. With colleagues from the Philos Project, they had a private audience with Michael Oren, former Israeli ambassador to the United States and then Deputy Minister within the Prime Minister’s office. Check out an LiVecche’s discussion with him on Israeli history, focusing on the 6 Day War: “One-Hundred-Thirty-Two Hours and Fifty Years“ Michael Brendan Dougherty, “On Proportionality in War” National Review, October 10, 2023 Keith Pavlischek, “Proportionality in Warfare,” from The New Atlantis, No. 27 (Spring 2010), pp. 21-34 Marc LiVecche, “Just War 101,” from providencemag.com Mattias Küntzel, Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism, and the Roots of 9/11 Bob Dylan, “Man of Peace” and “Neighborhood Bully”