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Content

Sam Harris is someone who needs no introduction, certainly if you are a member of our audience since we recently released a full-length decoding episode! Sam generously agreed to come on to address some of the points we raised on the Decoding and a few other topics. As you will hear we get into the lab leak, the nature of self, motivations for extremism, the Israel/Palestine war and ongoing humanitarian crisis, and selective application of standards.

This is an advanced Patreon-only version so if you spot audio artefacts or think there is some waffle we should remove, the feedback would be appreciated, as we will still tighten things up before releasing it on the main feed. We did not and do not plan to edit any of Sam's responses, as we do not want to misrepresent anything he said.

Finally... some relevant sources.

Links

New York Magazine article by Eric Levitz 'Sam Harris’s Fairy-Tale Account of the Israel-Hamas Conflict'

Making Sense Podcast Episode 352: Hubris & Chaos- A Conversation with Rory Stewart

Atran, S. (2016). The devoted actor: Unconditional commitment and intractable conflict across cultures. Current Anthropology, 57(S13), S192-S203.

Kevin Drum's blog. 'I read the entire Slack archive about the origin of SARS-CoV-2. There is no evidence of improper behaviour'

Global Catastrophic Risk Institute: The Origin and Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Expert Survey.

The Israel Democracy Institute. War in Gaza Public Opinion Survey (2): See Question 15.

Comments

Jesse Rimler

When it comes to Israel, it's hard to hear him as anything other than, at heart, a right-wing racist. Sam made unsupportable essentialist claims about human nature and religion, faced reasonable criticism, and instead of refining his points, he has angrily doubled down on them to the point that he now claims Douglas Murray as an inspirational figure.

Saladus

Sam at the end talking about how you might need to ally yourself with unsavory people if things get bad enough and how only fundamentalist Christians really understand his ideas about the motivation of the people he doesn't like... is it time for Sam to become James Lindsay 2.0?

Jesse Rimler

Sam's rhetoric is a powerful argument against the power of insight meditation.

Nina Davies

This was so weird. 'Anger is fleeting', 'the ego is an illusion', 'there is no subject, just experience' blah blah ... V ..... 'I have this notion about Islam and I am going to let it warp all my opinions about conflict in the Middle East in a completely biased and simplistic way'. Sam seems certain that a belief in paradise acts like a computer virus. What about the belief that other people believe in paradise and that they have been consumed by a virus and you can't reason with them Sam? Is that a virus? And what about the virus that believes that only you and Douglas Murray are thinking clearly and everyone else isn't because that have an ego virus, Sam? That is a particularly nasty virus. Poor Sam.

Kat

So the people who founded Israel murdered about 10,000 (maybe 15,000) innocent civilians circa 1947 - 1949, their motivation was to create a Jewish majority in Palestine. I really don't get the moral argument that it's OK for Zionists to do that but not OK for people of other religions. In fact, I agree you have to be a moral monster to make that argument like Sam does. Killing 10,000 innocent civilians for a racist reason is immoral regardless of who does it. Interestingly, there is a credible eyewitness report of Zionist militia members throwing a Palestinian baby into an oven at Deir Yassein (Deir Yassein was mentioned in your linked NY Magazine article). However, it also buys the Israeli atrocity propaganda. Yes, Hamas committed atrocities, killed civilians, took civilians hostage. They didn't burn them, and there's no good evidence they tortured people in front of their families before killing them. The evidence of widespread rapes is thin at best. All those burned people in cars? The IDF fired on those cars, they destroyed houses with tank fire in the kibbutzes, all to prevent hostage taking. This is well documented. It's unknown, really, how many of the 800+ Israeli civilians were actually killed by so-called friendly fire, but no doubt a substantial proportion. I really think you guys fail to understand the level of atrocity propaganda put out by Israel. A few weeks ago, the NY Times had an article accusing Hamas of weaponizing rape. They lead with a victim by the name of Gal Abdush, who was presented as having been raped. But Gal Abdush was not raped according to her family. Her husband was on the phone to his brother immediately after the strike that killed her, and he told his brother they killed Gal. She was not raped. She died tragically and horribly, one hopes she didn't suffer, but she wasn't raped. So one had to ask, who is feeding the NY Times all these atrocity stories, and shouldn't one take a really hard look at the other allegations? One side in the conflict is committing genocide, that side is Israel. There are good arguments that their 1948 murder of 10,000+ civilians was also an act of genocide, and certainly Israel has committed many genocidal acts since. Sam is a moral monster.

Jake Lawrence

I just finished the episode. My last statement is: Sam, what the fuck, man.

Sam Leeming

Well I guess if Evan Thompson couldn't get anywhere regarding the "no self" debate it's not gonna be easy. Sam's meditation manifests as more a form of self hypnosis through monologue. I wish he was a bit more curious about your points.

Jamison Shipley

Sam has the thinnest skin! I hate the way he bulldozes his points through. All he has to do is acknowledge 1) the amount subjectivity of the meditation experience, 2) his overemphasis on islamic jihadism, and 3) his association with people who are friendly to right wing populists. SIMPLE. Matt's point about the asymmetry between the israelis and palestinians causing the latter to resort to terrorist tactics is an excellent one that Sam could have easily acknowledged to make himself appear less extreme.

Kerena

Thank you for sharing the additional resources, especially the NY Mag article.

Nell Van Vorst

Squirming in my seat listening to this and muttering and squawking out loud. I work with my hands not my brain or words so I lack the skill to articulate the level of ick I feel about the ingenuousness I am sensing (not on the part of Matt and Chris…) body count doesn’t matter? The nonsense breakdown of selfhood. Wtf? Does Sam Harris get a higher score on the gur-ometer after this performance?

chuckboy

Sam’s bad heuristics are driving me crazy. I can’t abide his assumption that we know the pure intent of the leaders of any given aggressor state (ie Dick Cheney was so pure of heart, all he was seeking was a middle eastern Oklahoma) and I’m screaming at the phone with his invocation of MLK. How did that peaceful protest work out for the Black folks of the USA? I would hardly say our pluralism has been peacefully resolved. Don’t usually comment but this one has me in a bit of a tizzy.

collapsing

Demented. Exactly same talking points and analogies for years. Sad to say has never grown mainly as can never admit he’s been genuinely wrong about anything. Comments on ethnic cleansing and Gaza just bizarre to the point hard to believe if I heard correctly. He’s losing relevance in the discourse on all sides , which would be almost admirable under different circumstances. I see he had a Massive rant ( again) on his recent podcast - against Rory Stewart who schooled him on culture and history and hilariously accurately described Sam’s Jihad obsession on his own podcast with Humza Yousaf. (And got Celtic a mention on Sam’s podcast…) Hope Stewart’s politeness doesn’t mean he backs down. Then he reacted to Musk, ( while saying he agreed with him) Then Kisin- while still saying what a smart guy Kisin is -everyone misunderstands Sam 😶, everyone… Finally- this is not a man who’s near enlightenment. Has only this week realised just ignoring everything says about him online ( time no. 5400) might be a good idea. Compare his unbelievable lack of equanimity to that of Joseph Goldstein his old mentor. Real shame that he just hasn’t grown or become wise in his old age. Don’t think we need to hear that again..

Christopher McLaughlin

Any old school Sam-Harris-heads have heard him pontificate on the moral implications of auto accidents and speed limits literally dozens of times. It appears his perfectly normal brain has attached his favorite thought experiment to the Gaza War to create quite a grim analogy. Lets spell out what Sam said: We could lower the speed limit and save tens of thousands of lives but because “it would be so boring and not worth the economic costs” we won’t and we’re not monsters. So the analogy is that the Israeli government could conduct the Gaza War in a way that could save the lives of tens of thousands of civilians but they’ve got their reasons for conducting the war the way they have and they’re not monsters despite inflicting monstrous death and destruction. Anyone else see any problems with this analogy?

Lys

Wasn't as frustrating as I thought would be until it got to the Palestine/Israel issue. He is blinded by his hate for Islam as a whole on this. Like that attitude will help anything. It's clear he sees all Palestinians as jhiadists even though he attempts to differentiate to look fair, however, he slipped up several times when he was referencing Hamas and said Palestinians and same goes for jhiadists vs Islamists. He fails to see the social and cultural drivers beyond just belief systems. In any meaningful way anyway. Basically his solution for Israel is to ethically cleanse or oppress forever. Likely driving more ppl into he arms of jhiadism. Also, he's as bad as Lex wanking over Elon when it comes to Charles Murray. Whos accent makes his stupid opinions sound smarter than they are to Americans.

Jake

It's frustrating, it seems like Sam would be so much better if he could calm down in these sorts of conversations, and just be willing to try to just say a few things instead of trying to get through as much as possible in a kind of unhinged charge manoeuvre. He's definitely capable of doing much better. One of the issues that really stood out to me, was how confused and random he sounded when trying to explain his position on meditation and the illusion of self. Isn't this his thing? Why isn't he extremely competent at explaining his position on this by now?

Amy S

Sam did do a lot of interrupting. That was off-putting. Interestingly though I did agree with many of his Israel points but his verbiage confused me throughout the whole interview. He uses confusing jargon and lofty language. I can’t always follow all of his points because I don’t understand what the heck he is saying. And it frustrates me because his tone is so calm, collected and seemingly clear that it’s deceptive. It’s as if someone is speaking gibberish with slow, clear, confident pronunciation. Also, I kept forgetting what the questions were because he kept carrying on and on.

Martin Pelchat

Many good points in the comments here, though I didn't find the interview that appalling, especially the first half. Sam clearly lost his cool when the topic of Israel was raised. He does tend to repeat his talking points... oh well, I still don,t find him as insufferable as many of you do and quite enjoy some the interviews on his podcast. Matt and Chris were great at letting Sam express himself and intersecting at opportune times.

Linda Sears

I just finished the whole episode. You both did admirably, and even though Sam failed to take your reasonable points seriously, I appreciated hearing them. It was good to learn that he found the settlements to be wrong- headed. The most distressing thing to me is that he doesn’t appear to understand that people can empathize with the plight of the people of Gaza and want their suffering to end while still being against the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7th. It was also disturbing to find out he would make common cause with fundamentalist Christians if need be.

John Graham

Fascinating conversation, thank you. My takeaway is ethnic cleansing is probably fine. Harris made forced relocation sound like a kind of no-fault divorce for peoples who have just decided they can't live together, which is fair. Unsure what to make of his adamantly hammering on the obvious point about intentional acts.

Brian Petersen

I’m clearly in the minority here but I think a lot of these criticisms against Sam are reactionary and interpreting his words in bad faith. The debate is about the degree to which various factors affects what in the Israel-Pal war. I also do see his point about a lot of academically minded people not having the capacity to understand how differently they perceived the world from religious fundamentalist

john statham

Chris is often told on Twitter that he has no restraint. But his ability to: A) Not bring up Tribalism & B) Not bite when Sam used the T word are very laudable. I did also love Matt’s repeated: ‘Yes, I think you’ve made your point there, Sam.’

Empty_Cognizance

This is for Chris mainly, since he seems to have a genuine interest in these things: hopefully not to sound too arrogant, but I feel like I could help illustrate the “phenomenology” (or experience) of Dzogchen to you in a way that might(?) gel with your type of thinking more than whatever your tension-riddled interaction with Sam has (not 😂) yielded. I know you like to goof on the notion of the “mind-warrior facing the hard truths of reality that all the other ‘plebs’ just can't handle”, but I do have to issue somewhat of a word of warning: it TRULY is an absolutely mundane realization, despite a lot of unnecessarily flowery talk from Dzogchen practitioners themselves, which is then compounded by the fact that people hear other flowery “Buddhist-y” things from traditions that end up having not much to do with the final realization of Dzogchen, which leads them into thinking they’re the same tradition (because why on earth would they know), so therefore the thing “this guy” said would “also apply here”, and all that glorious type of confusing minutia horseshit. Which is really to say, I can't help but feel like it's going to take the wind out of the sails of whatever you could call your “current incarnation of life”, at least a little bit. I mean, you're probably not going to turn into this 180 degree whatever thing, but I don't know… maybe the little “personal asterisk” that “hovers” over the head of your wife and kid(s) might lose a little “specialness” or “heft in the footnote that it's referring to”, if you catch my meaning, but I'm assuming you're at least semi-aware of the possibility of this, given that you're acquainted with the terrain of these things, at least intellectually (though I know you've done certain meditative practices). (1/3… yes I know this isn't Twitter, this is more for ease of use or whatever, haha)

Niels De Boer

Its kind of ironic how much his ‘jewish tribal identity’ shines through on his ideas regarding Palestine

Jeremy Stewart

Something dodgy going on with the audio here. First notices it at 01:11:00... its like the word jihadists was dubbed over after the recording. Noticed it a few more times after that

332

Jesus christ, as a european that last segment makes him sound completely deranged. "London is lost"? Entirely detached from reality.

Maytree

I believe Sam is wrong when he says that “we don’t know” what evidence the Dept of Energy/FBI is basing its Covid origins conclusions (with low/mid level of confidence). Congress required the Intelligence Community, including these departments, to reveal the basis for their conclusions. That basis was revealed in a report that was published last year. It appears that that the only positive evidence in favor of lab leak was based on innuendo and the report as much states that. Several claims about sick workers, etc. were debunked by the report itself. Despite belly aching from the lab leak community, I don’t know of any serious challenges to the report, whether by Congress, or in a lawsuit. I don’t think there is any reason to believe that the DOE/FBI withheld any key evidence, which would be contravening the law. It doesn’t sound like Sam read or took into account the report, which is short and accessible.

Ben Childs

I don't think I've ever heard Sam acknowledge a goot point that he hadn't already considered.

S.H

Is it possible that the loving eyes thing was meant as a joke? If in earnest, it's insane. But my first instinct on hearing it was that's Huberman being whimsical. I could be wrong. I've never consumed any of his content.

Subodh Kafle

This was one of the hardest episodes to get through tbh. The first section about self was so tedious. I quite enjoy hearing different perspectives on the self, to the extent that I enjoy learning about lacanian ideas. But Sam just has a way of expressing things that just grates. The Tiger Woods comparison was hilarious, he probably didn't mean it that way but it just comes across as "I am one of the greatest meditators ever and you should accept I know more than you." The analogy is bizarre as well, if you see Tiger making a ridiculous hole in one, you've seen it. If you hear Sam telling you something wild about the self based on his experience with meditation, well you've just heard someone claim something.

Subodh Kafle

And I have to say his talk about meditation retreats is inadvertently revealing. He has the luxurious ability to spend 3 months at a silent retreat, twice, and also do shorter stints even more times. My dad did a retreat for 10 days and thought it was a waste of time, and this is a Nepali man who constantly tries to get me to read the Dhammapada, who routinely tells me that all western ontology is derivative of ancient Hindu and Buddhist ontology. Coupled with your original mini decoding of Sam, the "I have no tribe" episode, it feels like Sam is implying that one cannot understand him or engage with his ideas unless one spends several weeks at a silent retreat.

Chandra Collins

Like some other listeners have said, it was a difficult episode to get through. It was respectful that he returned and acknowledged how you interviewed actual scientists and experts. But he got annoyed at the end and sounded defensive. When he kept saying that Muslims and Islamists were radical and wanted violence, I was offended having Muslim friends of my own who are peaceful and good Americans. Muslims are different from Hamas, just like all Palestinians are not Hamas. Comparing these things to a speed limit was quite insulting. Thank you for continuing the hard work and making us all think a little harder and learn more vocabulary.

Kgar

Matt did a great job trying to reign in the verbose Harris. Yes, Sam, you made your point. But you have no reply to Matt’s much more concisely stated rejoinder. Good job Matt. And good job Sam for showing up and joining the conversation in good faith.

Robert Andrews

Yep, fair play to all involved. Chris for raising some good points about both lab leak and Harris's one-eyed take on Israel-Palestine, Matt for battling to move the discussion along when Harris was on his soap-box, but also there was some hope where Harris acknowledged that Anne Applebaum might be a good counter to Douglas Murray's stance on Hungary. That was one of the few times when Harris seemed to genuinely warm to an idea that wasn't his own. Instead of simply saying, "Hey, how can I discuss Hungary with Murray when I don't know about Hungary?" he seemed to realize that falling back on his professed ignorance of a topic wasn't the best or only thing available to him. That said, I wonder if Murray would actually take up the offer. I don't expect he would want his trips to Hungary to be held up to any genuine scrutiny. Aside from that, although Harris accepted that there were some questions he could have asked Alina Chan and Matt Ridley if he had listened to the podcast with Holmes, Worobey and Andersen, I am pretty sure he won't revisit the topic.

Linda Sears

Something that bothers me about his comparison of the optic blind spot with the non-self revelation is that I can learn about the optic blind spot by reading about it or listening to people who have studied the eye. There is physiological evidence one can point to. I don’t have to experience it myself to know it is true. The non self, apparently, can only be experienced. Anyway, I may be being obtuse on this subject. I am actually quite interested in the non self concept, but I want evidence that does not rely only on a person’s subjective experience to be convinced.

Amy S

I have actually listened to the second half of this episode several times now and put certain conversations and statements on repeat because the subject interests me. I needed to process Sam’s verbose style and his large vocabulary. I also needed to understand both arguments fully. As someone who is usually on who has listened to a LOT of DTG (I consider myself a big fan), I am usually on Matt and Chris’ side. But this time I actually side with Sam on many of his statements. Not all but many. And I am stuck on some of the things that Chris said. For instance, Chris brought up Hamas’ updated treaty and how it eliminated anti-semetic statements. And said, doesn’t that contradict the notion that their motivations are purely about extreme religious fanaticism? I think Sam’s rebuttal was very good. First of all, he isn’t saying that their motivations are purely religious fanaticism. He’s saying that religious fanaticism (particularly Jihadism) is a huge factor to take into consideration and it tips the scale on the Palestinian side. Second, there is the concern of safety and whether or not Israel should trust the treaty. A big concern about the newer treaty was that Hamas was not only evasive about how they view the final borders of Palestine, but on top of that, they never denounced their call for Israel’s destruction. If you actually read the treaty, it explicitly denys Israel’s right to exist. So when Sam says, I think I have a right to mistrust Hamas and the new treaty, I get it. The thing is, I think Chris that your point is moot. Like, why even bring up the treaty as if it were a factor? The new treaty proves that Hamas’ motivations are not solely religious? Sam never said that their motivations were solely religious. There’s another part that I wanna mention. Chris says, why would Hamas hide behind conspiracies if their goal is to kill everyone that doesn’t believe in Islam? Why don’t they just outright say it? The answer to that is, because if they did, then the rest if the world would definately not support them. They have to be savvy and tactical if they want support from the rest of the world. Anyway, I as I said I am a big fan of this show but one of the reasons I am a fan is because I like to hear other sides debated. So I am open to even debating against you, yes you Matt or Chris if I think your arguments are not as strong as your “opponent” (for lack of a better word). And you have hilariously demonstrated your ability to have the piss taken out of you when you read those negative reviews at the end of your episodes. Anyway, this isn’t really me taking the piss out of you. This is me just saying how I see it.

Matt Dear

yeah, I do not like this guy

Artemis Green

I am up to the section where Sam raises the 'unarguable' example of the mass killing of civilians by the Allies during WW2 and the subsequent behaviour of the allies once WW2 was over. I am genuinely baffled by Sam's argument, which seems to be that the massive suffering inflicted on the civilians of Gaza by Israel is somehow different in moral quality because Israel doesn't 'want' to hurt take civilian lives and because Israel's political values are closer to Western liberal democracy than Hamas's values. Firstly, why do modern-day citizens of Allied countries have to agree with every decision of the Allied powers during WW2? In truth, I actually don't know enough about the history to form a view, but my starting assumption is that a military act that results in mass civilian deaths is unjustified - whether that is an act of my own country, or an enemy state. I might then shift from that assumption when I know more - for example, if the deaths were genuinely unforeseeable, or necessary to prevent greater suffering. And by 'necessary', I don't just mean 'strategically helpful' - I mean something exceptional. I mean the highest of high bars. I mean a decision made carefully with profound seriousness and profound sadness. I mean taking moral responsibility by taking every option available to reduce civilian suffering and then taking moral responsibility some more by providing ongoing support to survivors. Call me idealistic and naive but that is the world I want to live in so that is what I am going to stand for. Secondly, Sam Harris, I wish I could ask you this: Do people hurt less when they're dying at the hands of a power that doesn't actively want to harm them? Is there something about a missile from a 'good' country that affects the human nervous system differently? Does it hurt less to be riddled with bullets if you are governed by terrorists than democrats? If you voted for terrorists rather than democrats? Why do I have to care about intent to harm civilans here? What matters is that civilians are being harmed, horribly, on a mass scale. And I will start from the position that that is wrong and barbaric, and insist on being convinced that it is absolutely necessary. And I am not hearing much convincing from Sam here. For the record, I made this argument to pro-Palestinian supporters who said I 'had to understand' Hamas's motivations too.

AnnieB

Would “analogy as proof” be a good category for the guruometer? Even terrible analogies? There are multiple measurable ways to prove the “blind spot”. There are ZERO ways to prove the reality of the elusive self other than assertions. The closest testable observation I can think of is that a specific experience tends to produce specific experiences. It would be interesting (scratch that, it would be tedious) to count how many times Sam’s sole evidence for something was an analogy. They just.wouldn’t.stop.

toby cokes

There is no sin of moral equivalence morality is personal not an objective fact. Sam despite his strongest protestations is racist. He racistly assumes that a large proportion of the Muslim world are Jihadi or Jihadi prone. This is horse shit

Gray

Oof. 10 minutes in and I'm already struggling. On the lab leak theory I find Sam's unapologetic stance of 'I wasn't aware of that information prior to the interview I did, I just read their book' really annoying. But Sam is not a investigative journalist, or a scientist. I am expecting too much that he would actually critically research the topic of his episodes rather than selecting subjects that align with pre-existing beliefs he's inclined to accept without skepticism.

Bertrand Sperling

Matt blocked me on Twitter because he is a thin-skinned little bitch! I’m cancelling my years

Emma

I know I'm preaching to the choir here. But I think the bit I hated the most from Sam was when he kept saying that what Israel is doing is fine because their motives are pure and all they want to do is defeat hamas rather than wanting to kill civilians on purpose. Israel has been lusting over Palestinian land for decades. I'm pretty sure it's not a tragedy for Netanyahu that he conveniently just "needs" to kill 10s of 1000s of Palestinians who are, in his mind, squatting on land he considers rightfully his. And even aside from the numbers killed right now, they are also bombing the shit out of critical infrastructure which has the side effect of making the place likely uninhabitable in the future. You have to be very, very credulous to believe Israel has no additional motives other than killing hamas. I hope this is not against the rules, but I am doing my tiny little bit to try and fight back by supporting the oxfam Gaza appeal: https://www.oxfam.org/en/what-we-do/emergencies/gaza-crisis-appeal

Daniel Reed Miller

I had already become a lot less of a fan of Sam over the last half decade, but wow… he really tanked whatever remaining respect i had for him here. The coup de grace was his saying he’d essentially ally with Christian nationalists in opposition to the (sheerly delusional hypothetical) threat of an Islamist takeover of America. Incredible. His blindness to the *actual* present moment threat of fundamentalist Christian terror and autocracy is truly something to behold, given the values of rationalism and liberalism he professes to have. And never before this did i grok just how actually (howsoever unconsciously) racist he is. My God Sam, time for another year-long meditation retreat to hunt down those blind spots of your illusory self!! (And not to mention his seeming incapability at having an *actual* conversation and not just endlessly monologuing, and interrupting every time someone raises the briefest contrary point. Oof. So tedious.)

collapsing

Thinking about this more. Harris was fairly outrageous in his comments. His recent interview with some dude John Gray was way more measured. Don’t think you do yourselves any favours by letting crazy stuff pass. You’re genuinely serving a function in online space but sometimes hard to know how seriously you feel about it.

Shawn

Usually I can’t wait to listen to a new episode of DTG. This one I’m consuming in bite sized segments, it’s rough. You guys don’t get enough credit for your patience, it’s admirable.

Nicholas Williams

In days gone by I would’ve gobbled up Sam’s thought stream like fried rice. Glad that I’m out of that hole now - I still think he has some decent things to say about certain topics (eg. free will) but this interview was a really good demonstration of how stubborn and poor a conversationist he can be. I think what makes him really intolerable at times is how ‘above it all’ he seems to think he is, when from the outside it is so clear that he’s just as ideologically entrenched as the next person. I don’t know if anyone here has listened to his interview with Rory Stewart, but he got butt-hurt that a guy who has way more direct experience of the Middle East than he does didn’t agree with him. His response was essentially to dig in and seem surprised: ‘I would have thought Rory of all people would understand my point’. Yes, Sam, maybe it’s time to change your mind, or at least your emphasis.

Rod Hodges

The Tamil Tigers learned terrorism from Hezbollah like the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide and the genocide in the Guatemalan mountains learned from Israelis.