The conflation trap

Where empathy goes to die

I am Jewish. But that is not all that I am, not by a long, long way.

It is all that strangers will know of me. When I walk out of a synagogue on a Saturday, that is how I present. As a Jew. It has encouraged conversation, learning and curiosity. All too predictably, there have also been far less pleasant experiences. You can imagine.

Enter conflation

The assumptions go like this: if you’re Jewish, then you must slavishly support absolutely everything that Israel represents — if you’re Jewish, you’re a Zionist — if you’re Jewish you’re a rabid right wing supporter of Benjamin Netanyahu — if you’re Jewish, you hate Palestinians and think Palestine shouldn’t exist — if you’re Jewish you hate Muslims… and so on, and so forth, ad infinitum.

I am Jewish. None of these conflations are true of me. Nor are they true of any of the people in my circle of friends, Jewish or otherwise. I have marched, shouted and yelled, waved Palestine flags, waved Lebanon flags and protested at what has been visited on the people of these countries over the years.

I am not the only Jew to have done this, who continues to do this, not by a long chalk.

Enter the keyboard warriors

I have read some horrendous online attacks on an Israeli friend since 7 October. She is reeling and hurting from losing friends and colleagues to the Hamas attacks, is in shock, trying to work out how to look after her family, trying to somehow make sense of what is happening.

She is none of the conflations I listed above. And yet supposed friends of hers who are safely outside the Middle East have been haranguing her for not adopting just the right tone in her choice of words.

Exit empathy

They have told her she is arrogant, rabidly Zionist, that all Israelis are the same and deserve everything they get, that they are a brainwashed dreadful bunch of devils who take advantage of our kind world.

They demand she have empathy, insist that she should live, laugh, love (good grief).

They tell her how to feel, how to speak, how to treat other people… the list goes on (and on) in a vile and cruel tirade.

My Israeli friend is no supporter of the Israeli government, of the treatment of Palestinians, of any of the unholy mess that decades and decades of conflict, war, oppression and more have created. She is traumatised.

Every civilian who has suffered and continues to suffer in the ongoing aftermath is in shock. I imagine each and every one of them has PTSD.

People in glasshouses

I don’t understand why it seems so impossible for some people to give my friend grace at this time, provide support where needed and most of all, to extricate themselves from their self-righteousness for just one moment and show the empathy they criticise my friend for not having.

Every civilian in Israel and Palestine is suffering.

Every one.