Letters to the Editor: Empathy is totally missing from the Israeli-Palestinian discourse

To the editor: I gave up trying to write about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict years ago. Insensibility by both sides seemed to rule the discourse.

The Hamas-Israel explosion of late forced my hand. I am most glad that it forced the hand of Daniel Bral, who has written perhaps the most compelling single piece about the subject I have read in 20 years, “In war and peace, the fates of Israel and the Palestinians are inextricably bound together.”

Bral points out the “collapse of empathy” on both sides as the source of the devastation we are witnessing. He writes with acuity, “An insufficient amount of people understand that it is not just possible to be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian, but that it is impossible not to be, for their destinies are inextricably bound together.”

He also is astute on what I used to call “a hierarchy of suffering” that infected people on both sides: The “irreparable pain” is a “tragic thread” all these years, but “also the refusal to hold space for the other’s pain out of an insecurity that it invalidates ours.” There will be no peace without “disabusing ourselves of that notion.”

Kudos to Mr. Bral.

Gregory Orfalea, Santa Barbara

..

To the editor: Bral beautifully and accurately describes an important truth in personal relationships as well as relationships between adversaries.

There are no constructive outcomes in human interaction without the capacity and willingness to put yourself in the others’ moccasins. I’ve learned this lesson over 47 years of practicing psychiatry with individuals and couples and observing world affairs.

The breakdown in empathy is expressed in our 50% divorce rate, perpetual wars throughout the world, the dramatic degradation of political discourse and the lack of shared facts and truth. This must change if we are to survive as a species, let alone as a democracy.

Irvin Godofsky, Manhattan Beach

..

To the editor: As Bral points out, “It is not just possible to be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian, but ... it is impossible not to be, for their destinies are inextricably bound together.”

Unfortunately, however, intransigent elements on both sides seem to have adopted the following as their theme song:

“Whose land this is I think I know./ Some other people claim it though./ My forebears lived here long ago. So it’s all mine — I’ll make it so!”

Felicia Nimue Ackerman, Providence, R.I.

..

To the editor: Bral writes the obvious (although it’s disheartening that so many refuse to see it). But none of it suggests a way forward.

The right-wing Israeli government is dedicated to a one-state approach, inevitably meaning apartheid and a birth-rate war.

Hamas, dedicated to Israel’s destruction and profiting handsomely from the conflict, controls the Gaza Strip, and the weak and corrupt Palestinian Authority has nominal authority over the West Bank.

Even if there was an external power that could invade both areas and institute a just government (which there isn’t), the track record of such efforts is dismal.

Randall Gellens, San Diego