Gaza is Breaking our Minds

I finished grad school at the height of the Arab Spring. Tunisia and Egypt had overthrown their presidents and Libyans had just killed theirs. Syria and Yemen were descending deeper into civil war and the Gulf states were expanding their efforts to sabotage democratization and further entrench authoritarianism in the Middle East. Often dubbed the Facebook revolutions, the social and political movements of the Arab Spring were creatures of the internet and fluent in YouTube, Twitter, Google, and everything in between. Along with the Arab Spring came a large demand for digital sleuths versed in these new mediums. Open Source intelligence, or OSINT, was all the rage in the government, non-profit, and policy sectors and that was where I got my professional start.

Between 2012-2014, I bounced around to a couple of internships at think-tanks where I largely read the Arab press and scoured social media to provide insight into the latest breaking news. My first government job was as an OSINT researcher covering the Syrian Civil War during some of its most brutal years. From ISIS propaganda and chemical weapons attacks to sectarian massacres and engineered starvation, I witnessed it all online. As one can imagine, it was not easy to watch and there were times where it took a toll on my mental and emotional health. There are only so many videos of parents mourning their innocent children, barbaric executions, and civilian first responders digging through the rubble of war in hopes of rescuing its victims that one can take. Yet I persevered, because at the very least, I was fighting to end the individuals and institutions that committed those crimes against humanity.

During my years working for the US government, I had plenty of criticism for its policy toward the Middle East, but in general I saw the US as fighting on the right side of history. Whether it was supporting programs meant to counter Islamic extremism or those meant to support civil society or economic development I felt at its core the US government’s intentions toward the region were good. As the Syrian Civil War ground down, ISIS was pushed back, and the ferocity of the war cooled, the barbaric images and videos that dominated my work were reduced to trickle. The war continued, but the tremendous human suffering decreased and my work became much more pleasant.

I left the government in 2020 for the cushy life of an academic and I had thought I had left the unpleasant images of my previous career behind. That is until 7 OCT 2023. The atrocities committed by Hamas in the name of resistance unleashed a hell on Gaza and its people that are reminiscent of the worst of the Syrian Civil War (as evidenced in the juxtaposed images of Gaza and Syria below). Each day new images of bombed out cities, lifeless bodies, and child amputees, and now starving civilians flood my social media feeds (probably as the result of carefully curated algorithms). These images are often followed by Israeli officials and pundits justifying their crimes claiming there are no innocents in Gaza, or referring to Palestinians as animals, and even justifying the legitimacy of rape in war. To put it bluntly, Israel has come to resemble in many respects the worst elements of the Assad regime in Syria.

In the early days of the Gaza War, I could see the Israeli military’s excess through the lens of the trauma of 7 OCT but as Palestinian deaths soared into the tens of thousands it became clear that something much darker was at work and unlike the Syrian Civil War, my government and tax dollars were enabling the death and destruction and not attempting to put a stop to it. As a long-time student of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I’ve long been aware of the under reported radicalism in segments of Israel’s Jewish community but it took the events in Gaza for me to fully understand how widespread and commonplace those views are today in Israeli society. For many Israelis (to be clear there are many who advocate for peace and an end to the war) this war is about much more than revenge or the destruction of Hamas but rather about power, expelling Palestinians, and expanding Israel’s borders and many like myself are watching it all happen online.

The asymmetry of the war in Gaza and its online visibility is taking a toll on those exposed to constant feeds of maimed and emaciated children, burning tent camps, and news reports describing the blockade of humanitarian aid and the killing of medics and humanitarian workers. There are no shortage of videos of Israeli officials defending the actions of the IDF, denying its hand in massacres, or claiming the victims were Hamas only to later acknowledge that some IDF officer “failed” to follow operational protocols or that the incident was simply a result of the chaos of war. Over the past 20 months, Israel’s credibility has significantly eroded among the international public. Things have devolved to a point where apolitical voices like the social media influencer Ms. Rachel and the once staunchly pro-Israel media personality Piers Morgan have come out against Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Nearly twenty years ago, a generation of Muslims watched the horror of the US invasion of Iraq and toppling of Saddam’s regime play out on the airways of cable TV. Al Jazeera broadcast all the gory details of a war that the US should have never waged. The Al Jazeera broadcasts also convinced many Muslims of the righteousness of the cause of Islamic extremism in fighting imperialist invaders and “Christian Crusaders.” To be clear, Al Jazeera did not call for Jihad or encourage Muslims to fight, but the injustice of the war was all they needed. Nearly a decade later, the Syrian Civil War was broadcast on social media and helped create a new generation of radicals who flocked to Syria and joined the ranks of ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and other Islamist militant groups in their efforts depose a brutal Arab autocrat. While watching this unfold a common trend found among those joining these groups was not a devout commitment to Islam, but rather a sense of righteousness in fighting against injustice. For many (not all) their primary motivations are similar to what you may hear from an American that has gone off to fight alongside Ukrainians or Kurds against Russia or ISIS.

I personally believe we are seeing some of the same elements at play in relation to Gaza here in the US. The steady stream of information coming out of Gaza via social media and the more mainstream press is contributing to incidents of radicalization here in the US. On 21 May, Elias Rodriguez, a man with a history of activism, shot and killed two Israeli Embassy workers outside a Jewish Museum in Washington, DC. Just over a week later, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, violently attacked a pro-Israel protest in Boulder, Colorado. These incidents are tragic, inexcusable, and likely do more to harm efforts of pro-Palestinian activists than to help them. However I believe the continued war in Gaza and the war crimes committed there make them more and more likely.

In my experience, the human mind isn’t meant to deal with the chaos and inhumanity of war, especially as brutal as Gaza. Today the war in all its horrific detail is broadcast to our phones, PCs, and TV screens. The war in Gaza has eroded the country’s global image. More and more scholars are concluding that Israel is committing genocide and/or war crimes in Gaza. The steady stream of images of dead Palestinians, child amputees (Gaza has the highest per capita number of amputees in the world), and starved corpses is pushing many to their breaking point. Since FEB 2024, four Americans, most notably Aaron Bushnell have self-immolated in protest of the Gaza War and the US role in it. The Gaza War has weighed heavily on my mind over the past 20 months. In many ways I feel a profound sense of frustration with the American government and its feckless policy toward Israel and its actions in Gaza as well as an immense sense of powerlessness to do anything about it. More often than I care to admit I’ve seen videos of Palestinian parents mourning the loss of their innocent young children and felt resigned to the feeling that at least I can go home and hug my sons. As the war has seemed less and less likely to end, I have wondered in recent weeks what is more likely to break first, Israel’s genocidal fever dream in Gaza or my mind . . . .