Bringing back humanity

October 15, 2023

When did we lose touch with humanity? When did we forget that all people are human?

I know humans have always been tribal, we are more likely to sympathize, to empathize with, people we consider part of our group or similar to us. Tragedies get more news coverage and even raise more money in GoFundMe campaigns when those impacted belong to certain groups.

And yet …

The dehumanizing, the demonizing of “the other” feels particularly pervasive now. I am absolutely talking about the horrific ongoing tragedy in Israel and Gaza, and I will return to that shortly, but I am not only talking about that. People with different political views are increasingly advocating for or accepting more political violence. The rhetoric used against groups of people, and specifically against ordinary people, not only leaders, is often incendiary.

When my visa was approved to stay in Spain earlier this month, or when my visa was denied in 2019, many people commented some version of me being the kind of immigrant they want and how could it be this hard for me with my top education and stellar work history while Spain is “letting in” hundreds of – insert derogatory descriptor – immigrants from Africa arriving on boats each day? I know almost all these people meant this as support for me, a compliment to my resume. And yet, it’s only due to luck, serendipity, that I was born to two parents with a college education in the United States of America. If I’d been born in war-torn Sudan or Afghanistan or El Salvador, with the exact same innate capabilities and curiosity and will, you wouldn’t want me here. I would not be the kind of immigrant “you want.”

I reject lumping all of any group of people together based on where they were born or a characteristic they were born into. It is different to vilify and condemn members of Hamas or Isis or the Ku Klux Klan. Those are chosen identities, chosen participation in a group focused on violence against and even utter destruction of a race of people. I am repulsed by these abhorrent groups and their actions.

Decades of strife in Israel and Gaza burst back onto the scene for the world (I am very conscious that it never left for those in Gaza and that it remains close to the surface for those in Israel and those with close ties to Gaza, Israel and/or who are Jewish, Israeli or Palestinian) October 7th with the horrific wonton violence perpetrated by Hamas terrorists against thousands of Israelis and people who were simply in Israel.

Around the world, we were shocked by devastating images and stories of people murdered, tortured, kidnapped; of people who survived after many hours of abject terror, sometimes feigning death while covered in the blood of murdered friends or family members. Shocked by images of Hamas terrorists, seemingly gleeful at the suffering they were inflicting, delighting in the fear they were creating, demonically showcasing to the world their gruesome actions.

The immediate reactions I had myself, and those I saw and heard were of utter shock and condemnation of the Hamas terrorists. There was widespread deep sympathy and sorrow for those either killed or who had lost someone, as well as for all Jews at this violent attack on their simple existence, as Israel is the lone sovereign territory on Earth that is predominantly Jewish.  These were my reactions and the reactions I expected from 99% of people.

I support those who want a free Palestine, I sympathize with the plight of those living there or from there, but suffering does not to me in any way justify murder, rape, torture of a population at large simply because they were in Israel at that time.

Can we not walk and chew gum at the same time? Can we not hold multiple thoughts simultaneously?

Using a horrific tragedy as an occasion to say that Israelis or those enjoying time in Israel deserved whatever violence came due to other actions by the Israeli government against Palestinians or that impacted Palestinians shocks me. It feels astonishingly close to the logic Osama Bin Laden shared on killing thousands of Americans in the 9/11 terrorist attacks: that they deserved it due to the actions of the U.S. government.

Israeli citizens are not their government any more than U.S. citizens are not our government. If you’re mad at Benjamin Netanyahu and the actions he has taken, that is not license to take revenge on anybody in Israeli territory; any more than anger at then-George Bush or since Donald Trump or Joe Biden or any U.S. President is license to take revenge on anybody in U.S. territory.

Yet I’ve heard an approximation of that far too many times. Attacks on Israel undoubtedly feel far more personal to most Jewish people than an attack on the Vatican would feel to most Catholics or an attack on Mecca would feel to most Muslims. The horrors of the Holocaust are still deeply present in memory, including of a shrinking number still alive who survived concentration camps under Hitler’s genocide against Jews. Most of us around the world have said with conviction, “Never again,” and yet antisemitism continues and has even surged in the U.S. and elsewhere in recent years. Where is the action to prevent “Never again?” Hitler didn’t seize power overnight, there were many years of escalating actions that people ignored or pooh-poohed, both in Germany and beyond German borders.

But also …

Where is the “Never again” when it comes to any genocide around the world? Where is the “never again” of not dehumanizing a race, nationality, religion or any other group, and staying silent as their survival is imperiled? This is salient in so many places around the globe, from Uighurs in China to Armenians in Azerbaijan to Haitians to Syrians to Ukrainians to Venezuelans to Ethiopians and on and on.

And it is particularly salient in Gaza, in Palestine. The fury at Hamas is justified; it shouldn’t extend to the entire population of Gaza or Palestine. Yet many are saying, they elected Hamas. Even to the extent that is true, voting for someone doesn’t mean you agree with or support everything they do, and the entire population that voted in that election did not vote for Hamas. Again, back to the demented Osama Bin Laden rationale for attacking the United States on 9/11. But it’s far more acute in Gaza, where the last elections were held 17 years ago and where 47% of the population is under 18. So 47% of the population was no more than 1 year old at the time of the last election, let alone being anywhere near voting age or having voted for Hamas.

Pursuing justice against the Hamas terrorists is absolutely warranted. And Hamas indeed uses not only hostages kidnapped from Israel but Palestinian citizens as human shields, which makes going after Hamas a much trickier quest for Israel and its allies than it would be otherwise. No matter how strategic and laser-focused a response is, there might well be unfortunate victims who have nothing to do with Hamas.

Cutting off water and electricity and food supply to a population of 2 million people, telling them they have 24 hours to flee northern Gaza, that is not only pursuing Hamas. That is knowingly taking actions that will lead to thousands of deaths. And cheering that on is as appalling as cheering on the deaths of those Hamas murdered at the music festival in Israel.

Again, where is our empathy? Where is our ability to take in nuance?

This is undoubtedly made worse by the state of social media these days, from the rampant disinformation to the way most social media platforms amplify extreme views. Even so, I see many friends, acquaintances, public figures who I have respected for their capability to react to complexity with grace and subtlety publicly calling for or supporting mass violence. Even when not doing that, many lash out at reactions that don’t go as far on whichever side they want with vitriol. What we post on social media matters, as it influences norms, as David Epstein eloquently voiced this week.

Again I ask, what happened to our humanity? I read a good piece in The Atlantic this week by Xochitl Gonzalez, a piece not focused on the tragedy in Israel, that suggested we (at least in the U.S.) have a “lack-of-people problem.” … A snippet: “Empathy is cultivated through interactions with people we don’t know well, those glimpses into other interior worlds. We have, over the past two decades – slowly and then quickly – ‘optimized’ other people out of our lives. One app at a time, we’ve greatly reduced our need to casually engage with anyone we don’t know – or even to meaningfully engage with those we do. … What if the human race has deteriorated? And what if we’ve deteriorated because we’ve begun to resent not only human interactions, but humans period?”

We need to see one another as human. People in Gaza aren’t animals. People in Israel aren’t faceless. Suffering isn’t only valid or worth our caring if we like where somebody comes from or their religion or their cause. And while children, the disabled/ill and the elderly surely warrant extra care, pleas to rescue the women and children still fall short. Healthy adult men matter as well. We should be able to separate terrorists from ordinary citizens in our minds.

It's time to bring more human interaction back into our lives. The quest for utter efficiency can leave us cold, uncaring beings. It may be short-term “less productive” to walk down the block to pick up takeout food for dinner than to order from a food delivery service, but maybe over time, those quick conversations with strangers or almost strangers at a café or the grocery store or on the subway help us to view people as more than caricatures and as complex individuals not able to be summed up in one piece of their identity.

Six years ago, in the wake of Trump’s “Muslim ban” for entry from seven countries to the U.S., I volunteered with a movement called Displaced Kitchens organized by Palestinian-American Nasser Jab and Yemeni-American Jabber Al-Bihani; bringing together diverse groups of people to eat dinner and listen and talk at a meal cooked by a refugee or asylee. The idea was that people often harbor ill will against other groups partly because they don’t know them, and that familiarity, closeness, could bring understanding and break down barriers. This week, I saw New York investor Josh Wolfe (who is Jewish) call for “’global Gee Wilikers’ day’ for people around the world to target anyone they demonize in their mind and exorcise that by doing One act of shocking kindness.”

Let’s do more of that. My heart breaks and I have cried for those killed in Israel – at the music festival, in their homes, in their communities – and for those for whom that depraved violence brought fear to their hearts for past and current atrocities committed against Jews, from the worst evil in the Holocaust to everyday antisemitism. My heart also breaks for those in Palestine who wish only for freedom, freedom from Hamas, freedom from Israel, freedom to live a safe and dignified existence.

I am not naïve to think it’s possible to get through this with no more violence, no more death. It is war, and when one side like Hamas is willing to use its own people as human shields, it is an even narrower tightrope to walk.

But we can be human and see others as humans. Pete Davidson, whose firefighter father died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks when Davidson was 7, opened Saturday Night Live last night with a beautiful call to humanity.

Reads of the week
Books

  • Pulitzer Prize winter Wilmington’s Lie on an all but covered up violent mass lynching in support of white supremacy in 1898, by David Zucchino

TV

  • Beckham on Netflix