{"id":1288183,"date":"2023-10-23T19:09:03","date_gmt":"2023-10-23T19:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/?p=448651"},"modified":"2023-10-23T19:09:03","modified_gmt":"2023-10-23T19:09:03","slug":"gaza-and-the-empathy-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/10\/23\/gaza-and-the-empathy-gap\/","title":{"rendered":"Gaza and the Empathy Gap"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"GAZA\n
A Palestinian woman cries in the garden of al-Ahli Arab Hospital after it was hit in Gaza City on Oct. 18, 2023.Photo: Mustafa Hassona\/Anadolu via Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

This was originally published as a newsletter from Ryan Grim. <\/em>Sign up to get the next one in your inbox.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end<\/span> of 2015, I worked with Israeli journalist Amir Tibon on a long story about the devolving relationship<\/a> between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. My role was to help report out the U.S. side of that fracturing relationship, relying on my sourcing inside the Democratic Party and the White House. I still remember what a privilege it felt like to work with Tibon, whose own sourcing on the Israeli side gave us a window into the strategic thinking of Bibi and his inner circle that one simply never sees here in the U.S. Instead, all we get is a flattened gloss on Netanyahu as a tough guy and a political survivor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I did a double take when I woke up on Saturday, October 7, and learned that Amir had only narrowly escaped being murdered with his wife and two young girls by Hamas. In a story that has since become famous<\/a>, he and his wife woke first to the sound of mortars \u2014 not uncommon in their kibbutz near Gaza \u2014 quickly followed by the sound of automatic gunfire, quite uncommon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They rushed to their safe room \u2014 effectively a concrete bunker that can withstand a mortar blast, and where children often sleep \u2014 as the sound of gunfire drew closer. Group texts with neighbors soon let them know Hamas had overrun the kibbutz, and a text with a source of his told him the militants had overrun all of southern Israel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The family was hours from being rescued, and he was sure they would die. He texted his father in Tel Aviv before he lost reception, then spent the next many hours huddled with his family in the dark, gunfire ricocheting through their home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His 62-year-old father, meanwhile, grabbed a pistol and headed south, picking up another 70-year-old veteran and a handful of lost soldiers along the way. As Amir told The Atlantic: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We were just hearing the gunfire getting closer and closer. The girls had fallen asleep, but now they woke up. I think it\u2019s 2 p.m. They haven\u2019t had anything to eat since last night. There\u2019s no light, and we don\u2019t have cellphones anymore, so we can\u2019t even show them our faces, and there\u2019s one sentence that is keeping them from falling apart and starting to cry\u2014I\u2019m telling them: \u201cGrandfather is coming.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I tell them, \u201cIf we stay quiet, your grandfather will come and get us out of here.\u201d And at 4 p.m., after 10 hours like this, we hear a large bang on the window, and we hear the voice of my father. Galia, my oldest daughter, says, \u201cSaba higea\u201d\u2014\u201cGrandfather is here.\u201d And that\u2019s when we all just start crying. And that\u2019s when we knew that we were safe.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The story of Amir and his family hits me hard (I\u2019m sure it hits all of us hard) for what it tells us about love, faith, and resilience in a time of terror \u2014 and because behind it are hundreds of stories that did not end with grandfather making it. In a must-read essay<\/a>, Palestinian American journalist Sarah Aziza reflects on one of the horrifying details that Amir and other survivors relayed \u2014 that children tend to sleep in bunkers in the communities near Gaza. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I find this detail so chilling. I wonder, what kind of world does one imagine one lives in, in which such structures are normalized? What kind of status quo does one abide, in which one\u2019s children shelter each night this way? Does it really feel like peace? Does it ever occur to the architects to wonder at the reason rockets are thrown? Or has this society fully accepted that the mortars launched from Gaza are merely missiles of hate?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t their daughters miss waking up to the sun?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

One of the cruel ironies of the Hamas assault, in fact, is that the kibbutz that was home to Amir\u2019s family, and many of the nearby villages, are populated by left-leaning Israelis who abhor both the occupation and the current Israeli government. When that right-wing government withdrew military resources from the south to help support rampaging settlers in the West Bank instead, it was understood in Israel that the political lean of the south contributed to the Israeli government\u2019s willingness to pull those resources away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve thought about<\/span> Amir\u2019s story a lot the past two weeks, and it resonated with me again when I saw a viral tweet from my colleague Murtaza Hussain about the role of culture, circumstance, and empathy. Though I don\u2019t have a safe room in my home, the fear of gun violence coming home is a real one for me and most Americans, even if our perpetrators are more likely to be lone nuts in a school or a mall rather than organized terror cells. It\u2019s much harder, bordering on impossible, to imagine war planes and drones flying over my home, firing missiles into my neighborhood. \u201cI don’t think Americans appreciate the horror of dying under bombing or airstrikes because they have no experience of that themselves,\u201d Murtaza wrote<\/a>. \u201cBeing shot or stabbed is more tangible horror to the public but dying under bombs is a completely alien experience to which they cannot relate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet even as I write these words, I recognize the trap we fall into in the West, taking an event happening to people somewhere else in the world and transmuting it into the all-important question of how we feel about it, of whether our proper feelings have been properly shared on social media. It\u2019s a sickness, but how we Americans feel does matter, since we\u2019re the ones financing all this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Most Americans who have no Palestinian lineage don\u2019t know anybody in or from Gaza, which would be the case for me if I wasn\u2019t a journalist. Through that work, I\u2019ve met a number of people who were born there and some who still live there. The stories they\u2019re telling of the past two weeks suggest an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe that is far greater than we understand. However bad you think it is there, it is probably much, much worse. One young man who I met reporting last year said that he has lost 30 members of his family on his mother\u2019s side, and seven on his father\u2019s, and this is just the beginning. A photographer I\u2019ve worked with in Gaza evacuated from his middle-class apartment building and watched as it and the surrounding ones were bombed into rubble. What does he do now? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The numbers \u2014 at least 4,000 killed in Gaza so far, and my guess is it\u2019s several times that \u2014 don\u2019t tell the whole story, because the entire concept of living in a city getting carpet-bombed is alien to us. Because Israel has cut Gaza off from energy and water, the average Gazan is down to less than a liter available<\/a> per day for all purposes. The United Nations says the bare minimum for survival is 15 liters per day. Going days on end with barely any water is literally unimaginable to me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the wake of the assault by Hamas, many in both the U.S. and in Israel were shocked that in some corners of the internet and on some college campuses, Hamas\u2019s violence against civilians was either excused as a necessary element of resistance or celebrated as a step toward liberation. Even if those reactions came from small, powerless pockets, any glimpse into that degree of inhumanity is chilling. It also exposes the depth of our crisis of empathy and disconnection. Notice that many of those who were rightly appalled at the cynical cheering of innocent lives lost took barely a breath before cynically cheering on the loss of innocent lives in Gaza. The Gazan population elected Hamas, so they\u2019re guilty, too, goes one argument. (The election was in 2006, and most Gazans alive today were not yet born or of voting age at the time.) Israel warned the million people of north Gaza to flee, so if they don\u2019t, that\u2019s on them, goes another argument. Or, rhyming with those who defended Hamas, civilian casualties are regrettable but they\u2019re a part of war. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For years, Israel has publicly promised that it does everything it can to minimize civilian casualties, and argues correctly that doing so is fundamentally different than deliberately targeting civilians. But what becomes of that argument when Israel dispenses with even bothering to make it \u2014 \u201cThe emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy,\u201d Israel Defense Forces official Daniel Hagari said<\/a> \u2014 and systematically deprives the civilian population of the basics it needs to survive? Perhaps a way to close our empathy gap a bit is to connect with the justified rage that was felt at those who refused to condemn the atrocities committed by Hamas and imagine how it feels to civilians on the other side \u2014 to imagine how it feels to see unconditional support being given to a military operation that is killing thousands upon thousands of innocent people. To see the largest news aggregator in Europe actively suppress news of atrocities<\/a> and push a narrative away from reality. How it must feel to see calls for a humanitarian ceasefire attacked as not just wrong but \u201crepugnant<\/a>\u201d \u2014 not from a college student group, but from the podium at the White House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her essay for The Baffler, Sarah (who has done much great work for The Intercept<\/a>) offers a window into that feeling: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cBut what about Hamas?\u201d I grew up with this question whipped at my face every time I declared my people\u2019s right to survive. \u201cWhat about Hamas?\u201d It didn\u2019t matter if I\u2019d just asked for clean water or the right to return to our stolen land. \u201cWhat about Hamas?\u201d they\u2019d ask, holding my humanity hostage. Their smug smiles at this question, which they saw as a rhetorical coup. I gave them hours, pages of my words. I filled rooms with my hot breath, panting, \u201cWe are not terrorists \u2014 Hamas is a symptom of oppression \u2014 yes of course I condemn extremism \u2014 this is a struggle for human rights \u2014 Israel propped up Hamas for years \u2014 please look at our children \u2014 please, don\u2019t you see our helpless elders? \u2014 please, if you don\u2019t respect us as humans, could you spare some pity?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

President Joe Biden<\/span> and Netanyahu spoke by phone yesterday and, according to a readout<\/a> provided by the White House, discussed the handful of trucks that have finally been allowed into the enclave of what was, at the beginning of the siege, some 2 million people, but by the end of it may be considerably fewer. \u201cThe President welcomed the first two convoys of humanitarian assistance since Hamas\u2019s October 7 terrorist attack, which crossed the border into Gaza and is being distributed to Palestinians in need,\u201d according to the readout. \u201cThe leaders affirmed that there will now be continued flow of this critical assistance into Gaza.\u201d The pair also discussed the two American hostages freed and \u201congoing efforts\u201d to secure the release of the rest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s shifting, though, is that the world\u2019s population does not seem unconditionally OK with what\u2019s happening. Stunning polls in the U.S. show a majority oppose arming Israel\u2019s assault; major protests have broken out in the U.S. and Europe. In Israel, much of the public has put the blame for the catastrophe at Netanyahu\u2019s feet. \u201cThe protests that Israel saw in the last year are going to be a children\u2019s game compared to the anger of the public after this,\u201d said<\/a> Tibon, who, like his news outlet Haaretz, has been unsparing in his criticism of Netanyahu. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the U.S., support is growing for a ceasefire. More than 400 staff members on Capitol Hill have circulated a letter urging their bosses to back one. Sen. John Fetterman\u2019s former campaign staff have done the same<\/a>. And a ceasefire resolution introduced by Reps. Cori Bush and Rashida Tlaib recently picked up support<\/a> from some important corners: Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, along with Reps. Maxwell Frost and Greg Casar, who had been the targets of fierce AIPAC lobbying during their primaries, plus North Carolina Rep. Alma Adams. (That lobbying campaign is a big focus of my new book “The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution<\/a>.”)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adams’s decision to sign on should scare AIPAC, as she\u2019s gone on multiple AIPAC-sponsored trips to Israel \u2014 most recently last month. Her decision to step out on the issue turned a lot of heads inside the Democratic caucus. Perhaps ironically, it is the political element described in Washington as anti-Israel that \u2014 in calling for a ceasefire \u2014 is working to save Israel from the looming catastrophe of a ground invasion.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This weekend, the House Armed Services Committee was briefed by the Pentagon on the status and prospects of Israel\u2019s war effort. People who were in the briefing tell me and my colleague Ken Klippenstein that the Defense Department is far more pessimistic about the upcoming ground invasion than has been allowed publicly. If you were also there and can share some details, you can reach Ken on Signal at 202-510-1268 or me at 202-368-0859. <\/p>\n

The post Gaza and the Empathy Gap<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on The Intercept<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How we Americans feel about Gazans living under Israeli bombs does matter, since we\u2019re the ones financing it.<\/p>\n

The post Gaza and the Empathy Gap<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68890],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288183"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/93"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1288183"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1292797,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288183\/revisions\/1292797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1288183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1288183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1288183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}