Selective Empathy, Win–Lose Games, and the Israel–Palestine Polarization Nuke

Reflections on the Sharp Edge of the Great Unraveling by an ex-soldier turned regenerative aRtivist

I write these words with the weight of the world pressing on my chest. I was a soldier in the IDF serving in Gaza between 2002 and 2005. Those days, I was armed not only with a rifle but also with the certainty that I was on the “right,” that this was “necessary,” that I was protecting my people, my home. Now I am a social artist, facilitator, a father working and living in Italy, re-weaving the torn fabric of my soul. On the 7th of October 2023, “chance had it” I was at my mother’s home in northern Israel, with my partner and two daughters, visiting my family. During the unfolding event of that terrible morning, I was teaching Newspaper theatre online to a group of German students, and our evening flight to Italy was cancelled. The wounds reopened.

Now, almost 2 years after that day, with so much suffering that has been inflicted, so much rage being expressed, we can surely these wounds echo with the world’s deepest fractures and fear. We are living with selective empathy. An image of a suffering child circulates online, but whether we cry or scroll past depends on the flag above (or in) our heads. Algorithms, politicians, ones, and journalists hijack our compassion, our grief channeled into outrage that fuels the very divisions that perpetuate this suffering. Selective empathy is in some way a natural part of human behavior; it is what allows many of us to feel disgusted with imagining eating a dolphin or a dog, but be ok with eating a chicken or a cow. It's why it affects and hurts much more to lose loved ones or family members than to hear of the death of a stranger. But in regard to how it goes with Israel-Palestine and the global politics of war, selective empathy becomes integrated into the operating system of social polarization—it builds walls in the mind long before the concrete walls on the land. It drops bombs and burns whole cities in our imaginations, and so enabling the actual bombs and destruction to occur.

At the heart of this is the win–lose paradigm: the belief that for one people to live, the other must die; for one to thrive, the other must be crushed. It is the logic of war, occupation, and genocide. And yet, it is also the logic of extractive capitalism, of climate collapse, of every system that feeds on domination. The Israel–Palestine conflict is not an isolated fire; it is a flare signaling the global unraveling.

I know the sharp edge of this unraveling. I have seen the displaced, the demolished, the uprooted, lives reduced to rubble. I have seen those who justify the unjustifiable in the name of security. And I have also seen humanity's dignity rising again and again in a world eager to erase it. To stand silently in the face of genocide is to be complicit.

Yet I also know another truth: a win–lose game is ultimately a lose–lose game. Occupation corrodes not only the oppressed but also the oppressor, feeding cycles of fear, denial, and moral blindness. To dismantle the machinery of occupation and genocide is not the work of the mind alone; it is the work of the heart. To maintain complexity is a necessity for the survival of all people, for the existence of humanity.

Yes, I am an ex-Israeli combatant, yes, I am an activist, yes, I am a jew, yes, I am European, yes, I seek healing for my ancestors and for my descendants. I have, since October 7th, experienced for the first time being professionally excluded and attacked for my past life, and for my identity. It was hard to receive and process. I choose not to be the victim of it, to be close to those who love and see me, to send healing to those who hurt so much that they can not stand my presence, to love them in their pain.

The path forward cannot be built on selective empathy. It must be built on a radical recognition: every life matters, and no future worth living can be built on the erasure of another. This means action: calling for an end to occupation and apartheid, supporting regenerative projects led by Palestinians, and building alliances that honor both historical traumas and future possibilities between all people of all places.

I dream of a win–win–win paradigm: where land is regenerated, communities restored, and justice made real. Between the river and the sea, I see in my mind’s eye a future not of domination but of belonging. A land where former enemies plant trees together, where the diaspora returns not with weapons but with stories, where children grow up learning languages of care rather than commands or acts of war.

This is not naïve. It is the only realism left. The unraveling has shown us that survival through domination is an illusion. Regeneration through justice is the only path that holds. I was once trained to see the world as enemies and allies, targets and shields. Now I train myself to see and be soil, roots, breath, kinship. My weapon is no longer a rifle but a story, a gesture, a seed. May these words join others in breaking the spell of selective empathy and in weaving a future where all can breathe, belong, and thrive.