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Empathy

Empathy is often missing in people’s approach to Palestine/Israel. Empathy is the ability to put yourself in the shoes of another person, see things from their perspective, and be willing to apply to yourself the same standards you apply to others. In short, it is core of the Golden Rule promulgated by Christianity, Judaism and Islam among others. This is lacking among most of the antagonists on the ground, but it is also equally lacking in many of their respective supporters abroad.

The lack of empathy became crystal clear this past week in the public discourses surrounding Israeli and Palestinian babies:

The entire nation of Israel was gripped by a frenzy of anguish and disgust over confirmation of the deaths and release of the bodies of the Bibas babies, Ariel and Kfir, aged 9 months and 4 years old, who were kidnapped together with their mother on October 7. The manner in which their bodies were returned (including the snafu of initially returning the wrong body of the mother) as part of the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel was also a subject of fraught discussion. Haaretz reports that the reactions of the Israeli public, politicians, and commentators were the fiercest they had been since October 7. Israeli officials further claimed that their forensic examination indicates that the babies had been “beaten to death by hand,” not killed in an Israeli air strike as Hamas claims. Neither account of their death could be verified independently. Amidst the anguish and trauma, calls for vengeance, genocide, and the killing of all Gazans have been nearly unprecedented. While I do not know a single Palestinian who justifies the kidnapping of babies and I have seen no reports of anyone making statements supporting it, the reaction by most Palestinians was to repeat the Hamas line that they had been killed by an Israeli airstrike and that Hamas had offered to return their bodies as late as November. Few offered any heartfelt regret, apology, or understanding for the horror, anguish, and utter depravity of kidnapping innocent babies in the first place. That was a clear failure of empathy.

Meanwhile, the heart-wrenching story appeared about seven Palestinian babies who died of hypothermia in Gaza from the cold weather this week. Their homes had been destroyed, and their families could not get heat in their tents or the prefabricated caravans, promised but not delivered which had been part of the agreement. There was insufficient fuel and no medical facilities. Seven babies died from the cold, and others are in critical conditions at the understaffed remains of medical facilities still operating in Gaza. These babies will be added to the long list of babies killed in Gaza, including the ones left in the incubators at the Nasser Hospital when it was forcibly evacuated and were left to die as the Israeli army failed to care for them. Israeli (and especially US) media failed to mention those babies and their deaths. Their names are not known, and their numbers are disputed (as Palestinian sources are continually treated with suspicion). Some popular Israeli social media accounts even mocked and gloated over their deaths. Again, this is a massive failure in the display of empathy.

The point is not to show who suffered more, or even to pretend there is any symmetry between the two sides. Each and every death of these babies is a tragedy of immense dimensions. One baby killed, one innocent life snuffed out is equivalent to the destruction of an entire universe. And, failure to give proper dignity to the enemy deceased is equally appalling on both sides. Rather than use these outrages as a call for revenge and justification for further atrocities, or excuse them by pointing to atrocities on the other side, there is a need for empathy, compassion and deep understanding of the sorrow of others and of their loss and grief. 

This is not just a call for fairness, justice and equity. It is a basic need for the survival of all people. Whatever the past injustices or traumas experienced by anyone, the current reality is that 14 million people currently live in the Holy Land, roughly half of them Jewish and the other half Arab, and they seem destined to live together for the foreseeable future. They cannot however enjoy any kind of life if either of them thinks of the other as subhuman or illegitimate, as totally evil, vile creatures who need to be destroyed, denied equal rights, or physically eliminated. Empathy begins the process of healing our traumas and forces us to think of new modalities of behavior that include the rights and humanity of others. 

As Palestinians and Israeli Jews struggle with the herculean task of exercising empathy, despite their own fears or traumas, there is absolutely no excuse for those of us with a little more distance from the horror to exercise empathy and recognize the humanity of all God’s children—if only for the babies involved.

Peace,

Jonathan Kuttab, Co-Founder

P.S. Ramadan Mubarak!  As the holy month of Ramadan begins, we're reminded of the sacred nights of Tarawih, filled with prayer, reflection, and community. At Nonviolence International, we extend our warmest wishes to our Muslim supporters for a blessed and peaceful Ramadan.

May this month of fasting, charity, and compassion bring us closer to our shared humanity and inspire us to work towards a world free from oppression and violence. We pray for equality and justice, an end to war and bloodshed, and a brighter nonviolent future for all. Ramadan Kareem!

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