The Weaponization of Empathy Against Humanity

It was a realization I had not long after October 7th. In all the suffering, sorrow, and unimaginable tragedy of that day, not a single human being with a soul looked on without being moved to tears at the great injustice of it all. The things I saw just in the immediate aftermath will forever haunt my dreams. How could I ever forget Shani Louk…monsters among humanity took her life and the lives of so many others far before their time. They just wanted to dance at Nova; they just wanted to live peaceful lives in Kibbutz Be’eri or Nir Oz. I have such deep sadness for the suffering they endured; and such immeasurable rage.

This is the natural human reaction to atrocity. We are supposed to feel this way when our fellow human beings are slaughtered like animals, raped, tortured, burned alive, physically and systematically dismantled in front of their parents or children, beheaded, and kidnapped for over 300 days before being executed in cold blood. Human emotion induces rage and sorrow at such events, as well it should.

And it should also induce such against all who cause such evil, who lead us to inescapable war and suffering. Sinwar, Khamenei, Putin—these are the Hitlers, Mussolinis, and Stalins of our time (maybe giving too much credit to Sinwar here, but Haniyeh is already in hell). Their crimes of aggression and crimes against humanity are apparent for all to see. And they will pay as dearly as the leaders of the prior ‘Axis of Evil’ did. What is so puzzling about our current parallels to history is not in the nature of the repetitions we see; rather, it is in the world’s reaction to seeing them, or “seeing” but not recognizing them for what they are. 

Because the truth is that Hamas (and Hezbollah, and Iran…) want us to feel this way. They want us to be hurt. They want us to be outraged. They want to cause as much misery and suffering to the Jewish people and their allies as is possible. To that end, they take hostages which they will hold alive for almost a year, torture, starve, and then execute. Because the goal was never really to use them as a “bargaining chip”—only to use their lives to inflict maximum damage on those they wish to see exterminated.

I cannot tell Israelis that they are wrong to seek their people returned by any and all avenues. If it were me in your place, I would be right there too. I must warn though that the goal of the terrorists is not to safely return your hostages or to return them at all. Any “negotiations” with what’s left of Hamas’s leadership is nothing more than stalling tactics by the terrorists, and they will not hesitate to hurt you in the ways that hurt you most. They do not care about anyone’s life except insofar as it can be used to take someone else’s away. Any deal made with them is by definition a ‘deal with the Devil’. Exercise the highest level of caution, and then go beyond it.

Also, I find it somewhat ironic that the very much Chamberlain-esque ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu has found himself at the same time accused of being a genocidal maniac, a callous self-centered narcissist, and also of being too cowardly and hesitant to rescue Israel’s hostages. Bibi’s entire tenure as Israel’s head of state has been one long period of nonengagement with evil in the hopes that the future of the Middle East will outshine the present. It turns out that good times cannot be forged from nonaction by decent people. Evil will always find a way to infiltrate the unsuspecting. Proactive vigilance is the only real solution; and even that is not an absolute defense.

There is also a second way in which our emotions are used as tools by terrorists. If it is not as directly barbaric as the first, it is just as insidious: the weaponization of human empathy to turn people against those who suffered the atrocity of October 7th. Such cynical use of genuine tragedy should shock the conscience of all decent peoples. Somehow, the evil that was unleashed on October 7th has been twisted in the minds of many into the most perverse victim blaming of the 21st century. How anyone could accuse the Jewish people of “genocide” AFTER the Einsatzgruppen of the 21st century carved their bloody way through southern Israel…it’s unspeakable. It’s unforgivable. The fact that the Palestinian people in Gaza are suffering is undeniable, as is the culprit of their suffering: Hamas—and only Hamas.

It’s an evil genius move to invert the reality of October 7th against the Jewish people; or at least evil. Using our own human emotions to manipulate the world into capitulating to yet more evil, because the immediate cost is too much to bear. It is highly deceptive, both for the fact that the terrorists want as many civilians to die as possible while claiming a “humanitarian crisis”; and, because despite the best efforts of Hamas, the IDF has managed to protect the civilians in Gaza to an unprecedented level in modern urban warfare—and against a terrorist enemy embedded in a civilian population to such an extent as has never been seen before on Earth. One of the largest and most complex tunnel systems on planet Earth was dug directly underneath the civilian infrastructure in Gaza, underneath a hospital. These are unprecedented conditions to fight a war in, and the defenders of Israel have gone above and beyond the call of duty. But you wouldn’t know that from popular culture. Almost everyone you see from ‘The Hulk’ to the Pope demands a “ceasefire”, without a thought as to the fate of Israelis both in captivity right now and for generations to come.

Of course, it does not help that terrorist propaganda is churning nonstop to produce the results we see. Every single “protestor” for a “free Palestine” is working towards the same ends as the Islamic Republic of Iran and by extension Putin and the rest of the autocrats of the world in the orbit of the ‘Axis of Evil’. Qatar’s state media network Al Jazeera produces endless literal fake news; ‘Pallywood’ as Hamas propaganda is known as features on their “news” feed nonstop. It is safe to assume that practically everything on Al Jazeera (AKA ‘Völkischer Beobachter’) or Putin’s Russia Today (AKA ‘Pravda’) is either egregiously false or contains juuust enough truth to be surface-level plausible; and we all know that practically no one reads the full story or searches for outside information. The best lies contain a kernel of truth, and the ‘Axis of Evil’ and their proxies like Qatar work nonstop to produce the most convincing propaganda in the world.

This is the most serious problem facing liberal democracy in the 21st century. Autocrats, dictators, and despots use the mechanisms of liberal democracy to destroy liberal democracy. Just look at the “United” Nations, a supposedly “democratic” body wherein many member states are not themselves democratic. They use the free press against the free press. Linguistic audience capture by Al Jazeera and RT is but one of the major issues we are faced with: the free peoples of the world need to reach out with a truly free and fair press in both Arabic and Russian. I know of no current alternatives as big that are fighting the lies in the field of public opinion.

The first rule of geopolitics is that: to understand anything in geopolitics, you need to understand everything in geopolitics. The first World War proved the interconnectedness of our planet—and the second proved it all over again. Everything affects everything; we are simply too small to comprehend the totality of it all.

Generally speaking, autocratic states gravitate towards each other; and democracies do likewise. There are also those that break the rules. Hungary’s PM Viktor Orbán is notoriously pro-Russia, and also (seemingly) a remarkably staunch ally of Israel. I wonder how he sleeps at night knowing Russia’s war in Ukraine was possibly the largest impetus for Hamas’s October 7th attack. Azerbaijan likewise is perhaps the most pro-Israel Muslim-majority country on Earth, and they have infamously icy relations with their democratic neighbor Armenia. For the most part however, autocrats like each other; at least more than they hate the free peoples of the Earth.

It is not necessarily the case that helping one autocracy helps another; we can imagine humanitarian aid for example that doesn’t contribute to any war effort anywhere else. In practice, however, every dollar spent on Russian oil is a dollar sent by Russia to Iran to purchase Shahed drones to kill Ukrainians with. That dollar then goes from Iran to one of their many terrorist proxies for them to purchase arms or ammunition, and then probably sent at several thousand feet per second in the general direction of civilian populations in Israel or elsewhere. It is all connected. If you ever feel powerless, just remember that even a small donation to UNRWA can purchase dead civilians in Israel.

And as I mentioned above, Russia’s stagnant incursion into the sovereign territory of Ukraine was very possibly a motivating factor for Iran to plan and execute October 7th via their terrorist proxies in Gaza—proxies that Iran has invested much time and energy into, proxies that Iran really doesn’t want to lose. The ultimate aim of the “ceasefire now” movement (which began on October 8th if you’ll recall) is to somehow keep Hamas in power in Gaza so that Iran doesn’t lose their toehold for terror in southern Israel. It’s actually entirely possible that Hamas was too successful in the eyes of the Mullahs’ regime—on a smaller scale, Hamas very well could have “gotten away” with it. But October 7th required the full force of Justice in response.

We will need to reckon with the billions of dollars Qatar gave in “donations” over the years to universities in America. They have bought an unquantifiable amount of propaganda and brainwashing of our fellow Americans—against Israel and against America. The useful idiots “protesting” on our college campuses and creating ‘Judenfrei’ zones of “occupation” are a direct result of Qatar’s significant investments in our higher education. Lord only knows the extent of their corruption of the fundamental pursuit of truth academia is supposed to represent. They would like nothing more than for the entire American system to collapse in on itself. From their perspective, it is the only real option to take down our democracy. We cannot be defeated from the outside; therefore, we must be defeated from within.

Are we strong enough, smart enough, brave enough to do what needs to be done to save our democracy and all democracy?

Time will tell. I can only write it as it happens. Until the next one—take care of yourselves.

עם ישראל חי