Elon Musk Suggests That Israel Can Defeat Hamas With ‘Conspicuous Acts of Kindness’

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, owner of Twitter/X, and a man of ideas whether you like them or not, has some thoughts about the Israel-Hamas War and how Israel can defeat the murderous terrorist group Hamas: be nice, in public, a lot.

Musk sat for an interview with Lex Fridman on his titular podcast, and the conversation kicked off with Musk whistling the theme to The Godfather, some martial arts talk, and then veered sharply into the war — a subject Musk takes very seriously. His segue was to bring up how Musk is a “proponent of peace,” and that being said, what did he think was “the path to peace” in Israel and Gaza:

Fridman: How do you hope the current war in Israel and Gaza comes to an end? What path do you see that can minimize human suffering in the long term in that part of the world?

Musk: Well, I think that that part of the world is definitely, like if you look up the, there is no easy answer in the dictionary. It’ll be like the picture of the Middle East and Israel especially. So there is no easy answer. Or what my, this is strictly my opinion of, you know, is that the goal of Hamas was to provoke an overreaction from Israel. They obviously did not expect to have a military victory, but they really wanted to commit the worst atrocities that they could in order to provoke the most aggressive response possible from Israel, and then leverage that aggressive response to rally Muslims worldwide for the cause of Gaza and Palestine. Which they have succeeded in doing.

So the the counterintuitive thing here, I think that the thing that I think should be done, even though it’s very difficult, is that I would recommend that Israel engage in the most conspicuous acts of kindness possible ever. Everything. That is the actual thing that would thwart the goal of Hamas.

Musk explained that this was not “turning the other cheek,” as Fridman suggested, it was just a way of defeating a genocidal terrorist group. Which, Musk assured, Israel had every right to retaliate against:

I think it is appropriate for Israel to find the Hamas members and, you know, either kill them or incarcerate them. Something has to be done because they’re just going to keep, keep, keep coming otherwise.

So, how does one defeat Hamas? Musk explained what a “conspicuous act of kindness” was:

Musk: There’s some talk of establishing, for example, a mobile hospital. I recommend doing that. Just making sure that, you know, there’s food, water, medical necessities. And just be over the top about it and be very transparent so that so that people can’t claim it’s a trick. They just put a webcam on a thing, you know, or 24/7.

Fridman: Deploy acts of kindness.

Musk: Yeah conspicuous acts of kindness that are unequivocal. I mean that can be somehow because Hamas will then their response will be “Oh, it’s a trick.” Therefore you have to counter how it’s not a trick.

Fridman: This ultimately fights the broader force of hatred in the region.

Musk: Yes.

This part of the interview is near the beginning, and you can watch the full interview via Lex Fridman on YouTube above.