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A
This is Philosophy Bytes with me, David.
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Edmonds and me, Nigel Warburton.
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Philosophy Bites is available at www.philosophybytes.com.
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Can philosophy make any difference at all? In times of conflict, it might seem not. But Sari Nasaibeh, a Palestinian philosopher trained in both Islamic and Western traditions, is more optimistic than most. He believes that philosophy can teach us both to challenge our own beliefs and to understand other people's standpoints, even when they are in strong opposition to us. This episode was recorded in early 2025.
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Sari Nussebeh, welcome to Philosophy Bites.
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C
Thank you very much. Very grateful for having been invited.
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We're talking today about philosophy and conflict. But before we get into that particular, perhaps you can tell us a bit about your early years, because you were born into a very famous and distinguished Palestinian family.
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Yes, I was born into a family that considers itself to be distinguished. Our family name, Nusaibi, comes from the very, very distant past. It's the name of a woman who supposedly fought alongside the Prophet Muhammad. And in theory, we actually came to Jerusalem right from that time. I was born personally in Damascus. That was during the early wars that created Israel and created, on the other hand, the Palestinian refugee problem. My parents mother was in Damascus. I was born there. But a year or two later after my birth, I came to Jerusalem and grew up in Jerusalem.
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A
And then you went to Oxford as an undergraduate at a time when Wittgenstein and linguistic philosophy more generally was dominant. Ordinary language in particular. The idea that philosophical problems, as it were, dissolve in the analysis of language, that's very much gone out of fashion. But I wonder whether its influence has stayed with you, what the importance of your Oxford philosophy was.
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C
Well, well, I think the primary importance has to do not with the theory of linguistics or the theory of philosophy of language as such, but with the way philosophy tutors are conducted. And in my case, I was very lucky to have as a tutor Oscar Wood. Although he did not necessarily like me, I was quite fond of him, and he has remained with me ever since. He was the kind of person who made you always search for good reasons for holding the view that you hold or the opinion that you hold. And this has stayed with me, you know, it's also been how I've taught philosophy courses back here.
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From Oxford, you went to Harvard. So you're unusual, I think, in that you're steeped in various philosophical traditions because you did your Harvard PhD on Islamic philosophy. And I wondered what you think Islamic philosophy can teach Anglo American philosophy and vice versa.
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C
Well, first of all, I Think one has to dispel the notion that there is such a thing as Islamic or, on the other hand, Western traditional philosophy. Philosophy has always been the same, to my understanding, starting with the Greeks and the Persians, if you like, and the Indians, going through the Arab world, coming back to Europe slowly into Latin, into the Renaissance and so on. And you had basically the same problems, perhaps dealt with differently, but the ideas, the problems of philosophy have stayed the same. And in doing the work I did at Harvard, I was focusing on a particular philosopher from the medieval period by the name of Ibn Sina or Avicenna. But at the same time, I was actually making use of the contemporary philosophy. I was very lucky to have Quine be a tutor at some point. So in my mind, you know, the whole idea of philosophy is the same. From the early period through the different epochs, the different places. You know, you can point out specific problems, things like knowledge and belief, identity of discernibles, modalities, what is space, time. All these questions have been asked throughout history.
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What was Quine like as a tutor?
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Well, he was very formidable. When you sat before him and you spoke with him, you know, his demeanor was very kind, but at the same time, you could. You were trembling because you were worried always about whether what you said was correct or not correct. But I learned a lot from him. We did philosophy of language together, philosophy of logic together, and I used all of that in the work that I was then doing, applying, in analyzing the guy that I was analyzing, Avicenna.
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A
Let's talk a bit about the intractable Israeli Palestinian conflict. I don't want to get into personalities or the politics of what a solution might be or how it might come about, but I'm interested in whether there's a particular philosophical component to this conflict. Is there anything philosophy and philosophers can contribute?
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C
Well, I think to go back to what I said right at the beginning to do with asking questions, philosophy in the general sense can actually contribute a lot in making people in the educational system and at home and in their communities ask questions about their beliefs and try to see how such beliefs that they have correspond or not with the life they see about them around them. I mean, we grew up as Palestinians, as Israelis, as Jews, as Muslims, and clearly have different narratives about who we are and what our rights are and so on. And it's actually only possible to get over the conflict with each other by somehow asking ourselves the question whether it is possible to get our political wills to correspond with one another in order to be able to live a common A decent, a good life. That's a kind of challenge. It's a kind of soul searching. It drives you to look into yourself, to try and see the other and what they think and help them to see into their own beliefs and to see whether those beliefs can hold drill water. So, I mean, philosophy can do things in that way, in the sense of challenging one's opinions, one's beliefs, asking questions, making sure one knows what it is one wants, making priorities, what it is that one prioritizes over what else. These are questions that's very important in order to determine eventually what your political aims are and whether those political aims that you have can in fact coexist with the political aims of the other. And I'm glad to tell you that it is possible to do that. You can start off with having a lot of opinions about a lot of things. And when you are actually challenged to think about them, you are actually made to try to look for good reasons. And by good reasons, I mean reasons that can be accepted not only by yourself, but by the other. Now, the soul searching is to do it in oneself, for oneself, but it's also to do it by trying to go into the other, to see or understand how the other sees themselves and sees you. In fact, it requires a kind of constant openness of mind. So I grew up believing that all of Palestine is mine. And across the divide, before 1967, I got to know Israelis who earlier had believed all of the country is theirs. And then once you start talking, exchanging ideas, you begin to develop sympathies. You begin to understand the feelings that the other has, which are human feelings. You begin to recognize them as human beings. And once you do that, you go one step further to see how you can therefore build bridges between yourself and the other based on the fact that you're both human beings. And that's very important, turning enemies into friends.
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You've personally participated in Israeli Palestinian negotiations. There's a lot of talk about the ethics of war, but there's almost no literature on the ethics of negotiations. And I was interested to know whether you have any thoughts about whether there are ethical principles about how to reach a deal or compromise.
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C
You know, I have actually grown very pessimistic about ethics or morality in the context either of war or of negotiations. People use negotiations as they use war primarily in order to realize, to bring about their political wills. And the political aims are often not in line with the aims of the other party. That's why what we were saying earlier is more important to go behind the articulation of your own narrative for yourself or your political aims, and to do some soul searching concerning whether those aims in particular actually are good in themselves. And I think only when the political Wilson correspond one with the other, can negotiations between the two sides become fruitful. And there are good examples. For example, we had, in the context of the Israeli Palestinian conflict, times when our political wills were totally contrary to one another and, you know, whatever negotiations you had just didn't work. And times when people on both sides felt that there was a common aim, a common political will, and where negotiations were serious and were actually fruitful, though unfortunately so far unsuccessful. But I still have hope that in the future there will come a time when we'll get back to that again.
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A
I'm always struck by your optimism about the future. Is that just your personality or is that optimism informed by philosophy?
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C
I'm an optimist, yes, by nature, but also if you look at the history throughout the world, you see the conflicts that have taken place, you see the murders, the massacres, the wars, and you see how things then somehow find a way to settle again, things that were held to be very important cease to be so. So I look at our conflict and I tell myself, and I can see it actually in real life at the level of normal human relations. You are at war, Israelis are at war with the Palestinians. But then, you know, you see Palestinians and Israelis actually in various circumstances, in various places, on the roads, in hospitals, just being normal human beings interacting perfectly well with one another. And you think to yourself, well, yes, there is a ray of hope. It is possible to create a world in which Israelis and Palestinians can coexist peacefully.
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A
Let me talk a bit about language, which is what you initially studied at Oxford. There are some very contentious terms in the Israeli Palestinian conflict. So here are some terms that the Israelis resent and resist. They're accused of carrying out genocide in the most recent conflict in Gaza. More generally, terms like apartheid, settler, colonialism are bandied about. And of course the Israelis and many Jews don't regard Zionism as a colonial project, but a return to home and given a history of discrimination, a need for a safe country of their own. Do you have thoughts as a philosopher about the use of value laden terms, whether they're inevitable, whether they're helpful or an obstacle to progress?
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C
Well, I think a lot of politics or political language in conflict situations has intentions that are not necessarily what you might call objective or factual, but are intended to cause something or the other. I mean, let me just take us away from the Israeli Palestinian conflict. And look at the statement that Trump made recently, President Trump, to the effect that he wants to own Gaza, make that American. And you ask yourself the question, what kind of statement is that? Does it betray a serious intention, or is it simply a red herring? Is he trying to sort of make people think in different ways about different things? My sense is that a lot of the politics of the political language is, in a sense, perlocutionary, to use a linguistics term. It is intended to convey something to create effect in your audience. In the war that we have between Hamas and Gaza and Israel at the moment, for instance, both sides claim victory. And you ask yourself, does victory really mean victory? Or is it being used that term in order to create an effect either on your own audience or on the other side? Political language actually is a very good example of what may be described as a perlocutionary operation, if you like, with terms like genocide. I've read a lot of articles, some by Israelis, some by lawyers, some by politicians. You know, there are ways in which you try to describe what you believe, your narrative, the things to describe, definitely. But if I were to try and understand, let us say, Zionism, I realized a lot of people call it a colonialist movement, which it probably in some sense is, but in some sense it isn't. You know, it's not just a normal, say, colonialist movement. There are aspects of it, but there are also other aspects having to do particularly with Jewish history, with Jewish narratives and so on. You know, I've come to terms with accepting Zionism myself, not as a colonialist ideology, but as a kind of way of seeing things by Israelis, of seeing themselves that can be actually made to be compatible with what I call Palestinian nationalism. Zionism and nationalism, and all these terms are not things that are God given or God sent. They are made by us, by human beings. And I can make of Zionism what I, the human being, wish it to be. And I can make of Palestinian nationalism what I, the Palestinian, wish it to be. And this is what I meant by saying one has to do some soul searching here, not give up, not give in to sort of these absolutist definitions that people give to terms like this, but to try and go deeper and see what it is people really want and whether what people really want is something that you can bring together to make them live the good life.
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A
Trying to persuade each side of the alternative narrative. It sounds like you're fighting a losing battle there at the moment. Perhaps it's not a philosopher's Battle. In any case, it's a battle for educationalists or for politicians rather than for philosophers. But it seems to me that both sides are becoming more entrenched in their particular narratives, which are incompatible with the narrative of the other.
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C
There you go being a pessimist again. Things go up and down, they change. I've lived long enough in this part of the world to see how things have changed. There were times when the two narratives were totally incompatible, and then stages when they seem to be less so. Now things are certainly in a dark situation. We're in a dark place at the moment. But what this tells me is that how you see things can change. And it is you, the person who in fact can influence how you see things and how therefore things can change. And to go back to your comment about philosophy and education, I don't personally separate between philosophy and education. I think one of the primary roles of philosophy is in education and education, not only on a one to one basis like the case was, say in tutorials I used to have in the past with my students, but education in society. You create a society, a decent society, through in fact education and using the method of philosophy or philosophical questioning to decide what it is that people should be looking for, what it is that we need.
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A
Where does identity fit into this? Philosophers have written a lot about identity and it seems to me that one of the things that's going on in the Palestinian Israeli conflict and many similar conflicts is that one identity becomes central to everything. So you become an Israeli or a Palestinian or a Jew, or rather than a philosopher or a stamp collector or a father or grandfather or whatever. I was interested in your views on what philosophers have written about identity and how that plays into the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
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C
You know, like with the other terms that we're talking about, and they're having different meanings. I personally believe that something like, say, a Zionist identity or a Palestinian nationalist identity identity, or indeed a Muslim identity or a Jewish identity, is something that is not necessarily given, but is something that you can actually mold. And this is the challenge we have as human beings to be able to create the acceptable form of identity that we have now. People are embedded in their contexts and circumstances. But the challenge is to try and come out of this, to, on the one hand, maintain whatever internal deep feelings you have about yourself, maintain them while actually opening up and making sure that the public identity you have is one that is consistent with the being of other public identities.
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A
I think it's fair to say that the term Zionist over the years has become, for Many people, a dirty word, a slur. But you're saying that you should try and persuade Palestinians, you've got a tough battle here. You should try and persuade Palestinians that Zionism should not be seen in that way as a slur.
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C
Well, it's not difficult to persuade them because there are a lot of Israelis who are Zionists, right? In fact, most of them are Zionists. Nonetheless, in spite of all of this, we've been able Palestinians in the past to find a way to live with that. As on the other hand, a lot of the Israelis who are Zionists found a way in the past to see a way to live with us as Palestinian nationalists. And this is how you make peace. You do not make peace by denying entirely who the other is, but by accepting them to be the kind of person you are able to live side by side with as equals. I mean, even if you look at Zionism and the origins and birth of Zionism, there have always been different views about it going back to the 19th century. What it is, is it religious, is it to do with a spiritual home, is it this, is it that now it's gone into becoming expressed in state form. But even having come to exist in state form, it's still possible. And a two state solution, for instance, is just one way to address both the statist Zionism with the Palestinian nationalism.
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A
Probably Israel's most famous philosopher is Avishai Margalit. Tell me about your very long friendship with him.
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C
Well, it started first in Oxford. He's more senior than me. When we met at Oxford, he'd already been part of the 67 war, I think on the Syrian front, But we met in Oxford. He'd come with his wife Edna, and they were both studying philosophy. I think he was definitely working with Isaiah Berlin. We met and we started having a relationship. It started over coffee, discussing war, saying each of us how much better we are than the other. That's how it started. How much more rights we have than the other has. That's how it began. But. But then, you know, day after day, meeting after meeting, you know, with Hamus as well included with more people involved. I met other Israelis that had come to do their PhDs there. We got to know one another. And then of course we parted. He went his way, I went mine. I then came across him at Harvard, you know, he was already of course a professor, but he was at Harvard, I think, doing a year, a sabbatical, and I was doing my PhD and we met in the same seminar rooms, we listened to the same people I remember attending a class by Nozak on freedom. And of course back home I knew him as one of the founders of Peace Now Now. You know, he's a good example of somebody who is very much a Zionist and believes in Zionism and believes in statistics Zionism, but at the same time has come to see that it is possible to accept Palestinian nationalist statism. He was always senior to me and I often went to him at the Vandalier to ask him about a paper I'd written on this subject or the other. I appeared with him once or twice, here and there, but he is someone I respect both as a human being and as a philosopher.
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A
And during the ups and downs of the conflict, there have been some terrible low moments and we've been going through one very recently. Has the fact that you're a Palestinian nationalist, he's a very liberal Zionist. But has that ever come between you? Has that ever led to tension between the two of you?
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C
You know, right at the start, I think into the Israel, Hamas or Gaza war, they asked us, I think it was in New York University somewhere, I can't remember, or the New School, to appear together on a panel. And we could have fought against each other or shouted at each other, but we already respected each other as human beings. And so we carried out what I believe was a decent conversation, which shows that in fact, philosophers can get above the emotion driven swordsmanship that exists at the level of politics. Of course, if the thing was over theory or about philosophy, we might have clashed with one another, but it wasn't.
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A
Another optimistic note on which to end. Sai Nusseibeh, thank you very much indeed.
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C
You are welcome. I was happy to see you.
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You've been listening to Philosophy Bites. This episode was made in association with the Institute of Philosophy and supported by the Ideas Workshop, part of Open Society Foundations. For more Philosophy bites, go to philosophybytes.com.