'Nationalism is not hate': Yuval Harari redefines the concept — and calls Netanyahu its worst enemy

Yuval Harari, the Israeli historian and author of "Sapiens" who teaches at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has offered a pointed redefinition of nationalism amid US and Israeli strikes on Iran, arguing that the philosophy is fundamentally about "caring for strangers" — and criticizing politicians, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for stoking division in its name.

On Sunday, Harari wrote on social media that nationalism is "a story that persuades us to care for strangers we will never meet in our lifetime," adding that it is "the driving force that allows us to build roads and railways we may never use, and schools and hospitals we may never visit."

"This is precisely what allows society to function beyond the unit of family and tribe," he said.

Citing a conversation he had with The New York Times in late May, Harari said nationalism "is not about hating other groups." Its essence, he said, "lies in loving and caring for countless strangers you do not personally know, and being willing to make great sacrifices for them."

In that interview, Harari said nationalism can build systems of mutual support among people who have never met — but that politicians corrupt its meaning by promoting hatred and sowing division.

"One of the most remarkable things about a nation is that you do not know 99.99 percent of the people who belong to it," he said. "And yet nationalism makes you care for those strangers — paying taxes so others can receive good healthcare and education, and in some circumstances even risking your life for them."

He added that while nationalism can sometimes devolve into hatred of others, "this is not an essential feature of nationalism." "Nationalism can exist without hatred of outsiders," he said, "but it cannot exist without love of insiders."

Harari also directed sharp criticism at Prime Minister Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump.

"Many people who present themselves today as champions of nationalism put the emphasis on hatred," Harari said. "In many cases they even promote hatred within the nation itself — dividing it from the inside."

"They think that hating outsiders makes them great patriots," he said. "Take Israel as an example: I believe no one in Israel's history has divided the country internally as much as Netanyahu."

He added that "in this sense, he has been nationalism's worst enemy in Israel."

Harari also implicitly criticized Trump's attempts to annex Greenland while discussing how nationalism becomes distorted in foreign policy.

"The Trumpian vision is that power and hierarchy are everything," Harari said. "This vision basically holds that the way to maintain an orderly international system is for the weak to always yield to the demands of the strong — and that this is how order and peace are achieved."

On the Greenland question, he said: "If the United States demands Greenland, Denmark should accept reality and hand it over. If Denmark refuses and violence, war or conflict results, then it is Denmark's fault for not facing reality and not giving the strong what they demanded. That is their logic — that is how they see the world."

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