John Mearsheimer: belief

Transcript context

…But is there capacity for that or from your offensive realism perspective, it’s just the odds are really low? From my offensive realist perspective or my realist perspective, that’s what you should do. My view is states are rational actors, they should be cunning. They should think about the strategic situation they’re in and choose the appropriate response. And what happens, and this is why my theory is not always correct, is that sometimes states are not rational and they misbehave. I would argue in the Israeli case that it would’ve been good after October 7th, or starting on October 7th, if the United States had tried to hold the Israelis back and countenanced a more moderate response. Take some time just to think about how to deal with this problem instead of lashing out. I think given what happened to the Israelis, given how shocked they were, given the level of fear, given the level of rage, they were going to lash out and I don’t believe that was in their interest. I think it would’ve made sense to think about it and to think about a smarter strategy than they’re now employing. And I think the Americans blew it. The Americans gave them a bear hug and a green light and said, “We’ll give you all the weaponry you need and go out and do it.” And I don’t think that was the smart thing to do. Look, in the wake of October 7th, the Israelis had no good strategy. It’s not like there’s a magic formula that they just didn’t see and we should have told them what the magic formula was. That’s not true. They were, in a sense, caught between a rock and a hard place in terms of what to do. But there are smarter things than number things and I think the Israelis lashed out in ways that are counterproductive. I think going on a rampage and killing huge numbers as civilians, it’s obviously morally wrong, but it’s also just not in their strategic interest because it’s not going to buy them anything. And in fact, it’s going to cost them because people all over the planet are turning against Israel. I saw an Israeli think tank today that has been tracking protests around the world, gave some figures for what it looked like between October 7th and October 13th in terms of the number of protests around the world that were pro-Israel versus pro-Palestine. And then it looked at the numbers from October 13th up to the present and I think the numbers were 69% were pro-Palestinian in the first six days after October 7th, 69%, and I think 31%… Take these numbers with a grain of salt. 31% were pro-Israel. So I think it was 69 and 31. hink the numbers were 69% were pro-Palestinian in the first six days after October 7th, 69%, and I think 31%… Take these numbers with a grain of salt. 31% were pro-Israel. So I think it was 69 and 31. And since then, since October 13th, if you look at the number of protests around the world, 95% have been pro-Palestinian and 5% have been pro-Israel. And what this tells you is that public opinion around the world has shifted against Israel. And if you look at some of the demonstrations in places like London and Washington, DC, it’s truly amazing the number of people who are coming out in support of the Palestinians. And all of this, again, is just to support my point that it was just not smart for Israel to launch this bombing campaign. You can make an argument for going after Hamas and doing it in a surgical way or as surgical a way as possible, but that’s not what they did. And again, my point to you is I think that this punishment campaign is not going to work strategically. In other words, they’re not going to beat the Palestinians into submission, they’re not going to finish off Hamas. And at the same time, by pursuing this strategy, they’re doing huge damage to their reputation around the world.…

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