New Book Day: Israel, Palestine, and the Trolley Problem

Some new book days are celebrations, but today’s is an opportunity for thoughtful reflection. Introducing Jack Russell Weinstein’s Israel, Palestine, and the Trolley Problem: On the Futility of the Search for the Moral High Ground. 

As most of you know, I occasionally wear the hat of a Near Eastern archaeologist and, as a result, I have friends and colleagues who are dealing with the consequences of the October 7 bloodshed first hand. Listening to conversations in my field and among my friends is what drew me to Jack Weinstein’s manuscript. Jack is a colleague of mine at the University of North Dakota in the Philosophy Department. 

It is therefore with some trepidation but also a sense of responsibility that we release Israel, Palestine, and the Trolley Problem. Books like this are unlikely to satisfy everyone and assuredly will upset some people, but they are important because they give those of us struggling to make sense of the violence in Israel and Palestine new points of entry into this tragic situation. 

Jack explains in the opening pages why this book is important to him. This is meaningful to me because since the fall of last year, my students have asked me for my perspectives on the war. More often than not, I found myself sadly responding: I don’t know. 

Jack’s book won’t change my refrain, but it gives me something to share with those students, friends, and colleagues who are also confronting the intellectual, political, and moral challenge of making sense of the war. 

The book description is below the image cover:

Arguments about Israel and Palestine are almost always accusatory and polemical. Rather than learning from one another, opponents jockey for the moral high ground trying to find that one attack they believe proves their side to be completely on the right, without compromise. This means Israel’s advocates dismiss Palestinian land claims without due consideration and Pro-Palestinian voices falsely accuse Israel of the most heinous modern crimes: colonialism, genocide, and apartheid. None of this is productive or healthy.

In Israel, Palestine, and the Trolley Problem: On the Futility of the Search for the Moral High Ground, philosopher Jack Russell Weinstein interweaves philosophy, history, politics, and personal experience to expose the argumentative mistakes we all make too often. Mapping out moral psychology—how we actually make moral decisions—and using the famous Trolley Problem as a metaphor, Weinstein paves the way for a new, more empathetic exchange of ideas about today’s most puzzling moral dilemma: how to find peace in the Middle East.