Social media is a net negative for most of us. I don’t use it more than once in a blue moon, and I’m happier and less traumatized for that. Substack doesn’t count in my opinion. This is a salon of ideas.
And regardless of political affiliation, anyone giving a fair assessment to the American approach to this terrorism in Israel, and the necessary Israeli response (hopefully as surgical as possible), should give Biden credit. His old age is a major asset here, as is his Senate Foreign Relations committee experience, Vice presidential experience, and commitment to decency and decorum after events that aim to stoke horror. He takes his kids to a Holocaust site as a rite of passage in their education, and he “gets” the lessons of the past 80 years. I find comfort in steady, level-headed leadership from another era, the kind that is not formulated by the reactionary and fearful amygdala.
It's wonderful that in response to a heinous pogrom the US is giving full backing to what is shaping up to be a genocide and is already a mass of undoubted war crimes that will, undoubtedly, go unpunished. Even unacknowledged. But not unanswered, and probably here in the US, Israel's prime backer. At that point, when and if the terror attacks hit, the question will be, "How could this possibly have happened?" And the answer will be, "The Palestinians'/Arabs' innate perfidy." Or, as the Israeli defense minister put it, "human animals." And round and round we'll go till the core issue, the occupation, is ended, which it won't be because I don't see much "cost of care" for the Palestinians.
And I'm Jewish--and the son of a woman born on the run from the Nazis in 1944.
Immediate cease-fire; exchange of hostages for prisoners; immediate establishment of a real Palestinian state and an end to 60 years of occupation and statelessness. Something along the lines of the Geneva Accord: https://geneva-accord.org/
Israel will need to be forced by the US to do so; if it refuses, which it might, as it's a state divided between the right and the far-right, sadly enough, then it's on its own. Cut off all funds and diplomatic cover.
If, after such a two-state solution, Palestine attacks Israel, well, it's their funeral, as Israel will always be more powerful.
"Always" meaning "until we all go down via carbon," of course.
I think this Op-Ed in the NYT summarizes where we are now, and how U.S. leadership might look in the future. I agree with the Pulitzer Prize winning author that once again the way Biden is handling multiple crises of foreign policy is about the best we could hope for. There is no easy way to untangle this...
I doubt either side would accept those terms at this time. Hamas is holding out for Iran, Libya and Hezbollah, and perhaps even Saudi to attack. They think they can hold on until that happens.
The situation in the region is complicated and nuanced. The formation of Israel in 1947 and its population in 1948 didn’t bother to talk to the people already in the area, creating instant animosity toward the Jews. Suppression of the Arabs didn’t help. And the situation hasn’t improved much in the last 75 years.
The collapse of the PLO as a governing entity, and Hamas’ success at the ballot box almost 20 years ago gave them a legitimacy the don’t deserve. The attack they committed was horrific in its barbarity and demonstrated this was not done by a military force but by terrorists. Unfortunately, the Israeli response hasn’t been as measured as it could have been, either.
The Palestinian people are caught. The Palestinian Authority and PLO didn’t/couldn’t govern successfully, and didn’t manage corruption well. And their failure to control Hamas initially led to their fall. Hamas filled a void.
Yet, in light of the attacks, Israel has a right and responsibility to respond forcefully and to seek the end of Hamas as a functional military force.
That said, Israel, as soon as they declared this as a “war” required themselves to abide by the rules of Land Warfare, but that seems to have been lost on Netanyahu.
Biden has supported Israel’s right to self-preservation, but has reminded Netanyahu that he must maintain a moral high ground. That’s not been approach they seem to be following, but, they’ve done somewhat better than I’d expected.
Thank you for this. I read the piece and then decided to comment, but when I saw some of the discussion here, I decided against it and went and deleted the email. I then decided to come back and comment anyway.
Your piece is very timely as I have been struggling emotionally with far too much access and diving into news sources about the ongoing conflict. I am a second generation American of Lebanese and Palestinian descent. I have never traveled to that part of the world. I am an American first and foremost and I love this country. Yet, it is simply unavoidable to have an emotional connection with the homeland of my ancestors. And watching what has taken place and continues to unfold pains me greatly. I will not attempt to discuss my views about the conflict, but I do need to step away a bit from the quantity of what I have been consuming, both on social media and television. I want to keep abreast of developments as the crisis is real, and it is serious. Yet at the same time, I have to maintain a sense of what I can control and the things I can control are things like being here for my family, talking with friends about how I'm feeling about what is happening, and taking care of my own health.
I wish the best for all of you here, and I'll just end here.
It’s not an “Israel-Hamas war”. It’s the Palestinian revolution and now genocide. I think it’s interesting that we call Hamas a terrorist group, but do not provide the same label to the Israeli government, who even prior to the attack by Hamas, had murdered around 200 people in 2023 alone. Israel has mass arrested, denied government IDs, controlled the movements, arrested even children (disturbing *real* images exist of Israeli armies, dragging children blindfolded through the streets during their arrests), and, they even murdered a Palestinian journalist last year, Shireen Abu Akleh. They have systematically, harassed, controlled, arrested, tortured, Palestinians for decades. Why we don’t call them a terrorist organization is because of geopolitical alliances and power dynamics. Stop calling it a war. It is a genocide. And yes, it is traumatic to watch. But what is more traumatizing, is watching everyone around us, from news organizations, PBS, to even newsletters like this mis-name and mis-represent what is actually taking place through incorrect terminology and framing. It’s mass western imperial propaganda taking place. I understand why major news corporations are doing it, but when it comes down to a single author, and a private publication such as this one, my blood boils. You had a chance to correct this historic wrong, inform your readers, and use the correct framing, and you chose not to. You chose to deny what is happening, which is Palestinian genocide. A powerful quote by a Palestinian writer, Jenan Matari, is below, “If you’ve ever wondered what you would’ve during American slavery, and how outspoken and how much personal risk and protection you’d have offered during the holocaust, or how you would have reacted during the internment camps in America, and how deeply, and how often you would have protested for civil rights, take a look right now at what you were doing for Gaza, and know, that’s exactly what you would’ve done in the times before.” Apparently, this publication would have been siding with western imperialist framing and viewpoints.
France24, Channel 4 (UK), and Al Jazeera English are all providing far more balanced coverage—including of the atrocities Hamas chose to perpetrate. Even the Associated Press is being much more balanced, especially since Israel seems hellbent on undermining global sympathy even faster than the US did after 9/11. (It probably didn’t help that Israel bombed the AP’s building in Gaza despite having (obviously) GPS coordinates for their ultra-precise munitions a couple rampages ago.)
There is no need to deny or whitewash Hamas’ atrocities—which were a choice, and a pure gift to Netanyahu and the far right—just as there is no need to deny or whitewash the historical context that got us here or the truly heinous Israeli response. If they keep this up, it’s genocide; it’s already a mass of appalling war crimes.
Hamas could have hit only military targets. They could have blown up huge chunks of the wall and let hundreds of thousands of Gazans out, daring Israel to massacre them. Etc. I think Hamas played Israel like a fiddle: they, appallingly, chose a pogrom betting that the predictably insane Israeli response would swamp disgust with their act and force the hands of the Muslim world, afraid of the rage of their own populations, to remember the Palestinians. Whatever the cost to themselves or Gazans.
It’s not at all pretty, to say the least, and it may well entirely backfire. Israel seems to be saying, “Thanks, for the excuse Hamas—we now have cover to do what we want; we have the US and nuclear weapons. Nice try; you played yourselves.”
Hard to predict but Israel is clearly taking advantage of the massacre to erase Gaza, further lock down the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and possibly even move to forced population transfer.
Two weeks ago, Israel was tearing itself apart. Now it’s tearing Gaza apart. Who voted for Hamas to take this risk?
But I do wonder how many Americans know about the actual history and context, including recent events like the Great March in 2018—and the Israeli response.
"But I do wonder how many Americans know about the actual history and context, including recent events like the Great March in 2018—and the Israeli response"
Maybe 1% considering this survey had a 6% success rate of 80%+?
Thanks. Vicarious trauma is part of our culture and heritage, and I hope there will be more awareness...though so often, awareness doesn't seem to bring change. Our movies and TV reflect the high level of violence in the world and the nation, so getting away from exposures requires a lot of practice.
On another note, it's very white supremacy of everyone to decide that the cost of caring burden is too high and that we should "look away" for our own mental health.
This is an excellent overview on vicarious trauma. I direct a program -- the Witness to Witness Program -- for people who are over exposed to stories/images of trauma both on social media and in their occupations (journalists, health care workers, for instance) and we believe there is a more general response we call empathic distress. We have abundant resources on our web pages:handouts, archived webinars and blogs in English and Spanish. https://www.migrantclinician.org/witness-to-witness
The other factor is an actual connection. There are tens of thousands of American Jews who live in Israel and/or are dual American-Israeli citizens. And I would assume there are a large number of Arab and Palestinian Americans with friends and family in the impacted countries. That increases stress immeasurably.
Life is complicated. Having to sign in via an email authorization demonstrates this.
Whether the association of exposure to threats/trauma is causative or a confounder remains very difficult to tease out. That does not invalidate efforts to decrease suffering. Thanks to those compassionate souls seeking to do so.
Just a reminder: there is much more violence in our world than makes the news. TK
So, I get this, and I understand it’s meant as a matter of degree but to the extent that people believe that *individual* mental health requires ignoring both the current suffering of others and the future suffering of oneself and one’s children, grandchildren—against a background of widespread denial about all kinds of truly existential threats and the *collective* ability and moral necessity to meet them—such advice (or sanction) is problematic.
There is a difference between being aware and being continually exposed. A daily news update is enough for the former. I don't see how constantly scrolling the news in Israel helps anyone who is there. If anything, being inundated with images makes us feel helpless and paralyzed and less likely to act.
Obviously it's a matter of degree, so to claim I am recommending continual exposure or constant scrolling avoids the point. It's a bit chilling that the term is "cost of care." There should be a cost of caring. My worry is that such recommendations as this essay's, which are couched in terms of degree, become interpreted in terms of kind: as a sanction to turn inward and ignore, all sanctified by the overarching need for self-care. Especially when the resting state, as far as I can tell, is denial--of things that will kill us all, like carbon, nuclear weapons, rising fascism around the world, inevitable pandemics that could easily be far worse than the awful Covid.
The only hope is clear-eyed facing of reality and collective action.
I come late to this, but wanted to weigh in to add my thanks. I really appreciate this post. I don’t think we really realize how much media can affect us in such situations, and it is very helpful to have it laid out as Dr. Jetelina does so usefully here.
Thank you for this article as social media can cause so much negative and confusing emotions. It is hard to feel fear and pain and there are ways to make space for them in a healthier way. Again, thank you for sharing.
This all brought back memories of Ireland pre-1998, being pulled by sides. It was the US that helped, and the US took risks. It's easy now to take John Hume and David Trimble and that generation for granted. It cost them. Hume's party declined. Trimble faced a powerful base and reaction.
Biden is from that generation.
I heard talk recently about mental health issues that remain in Northern Ireland, even 25 years after the Good Friday Agreement. Thank you for the article. It strikes the memory chords.
“But what experience and history teach is this – that peoples and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.” - Hegel, The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree, Batoche Books, 1900, p. 19.
In my experience, that list of bullet points applies to news in general and both new and pseudo-news on social media. I now generally ignore my "news feed" on FB and other sites and limit myself to seeing what my friends are up to.
This is a very helpful article.
Social media is a net negative for most of us. I don’t use it more than once in a blue moon, and I’m happier and less traumatized for that. Substack doesn’t count in my opinion. This is a salon of ideas.
And regardless of political affiliation, anyone giving a fair assessment to the American approach to this terrorism in Israel, and the necessary Israeli response (hopefully as surgical as possible), should give Biden credit. His old age is a major asset here, as is his Senate Foreign Relations committee experience, Vice presidential experience, and commitment to decency and decorum after events that aim to stoke horror. He takes his kids to a Holocaust site as a rite of passage in their education, and he “gets” the lessons of the past 80 years. I find comfort in steady, level-headed leadership from another era, the kind that is not formulated by the reactionary and fearful amygdala.
Cope with the cortex.
It's wonderful that in response to a heinous pogrom the US is giving full backing to what is shaping up to be a genocide and is already a mass of undoubted war crimes that will, undoubtedly, go unpunished. Even unacknowledged. But not unanswered, and probably here in the US, Israel's prime backer. At that point, when and if the terror attacks hit, the question will be, "How could this possibly have happened?" And the answer will be, "The Palestinians'/Arabs' innate perfidy." Or, as the Israeli defense minister put it, "human animals." And round and round we'll go till the core issue, the occupation, is ended, which it won't be because I don't see much "cost of care" for the Palestinians.
And I'm Jewish--and the son of a woman born on the run from the Nazis in 1944.
A completely valid perspective, what do you think would be a solution at this point, and what would you do by way of response?
Immediate cease-fire; exchange of hostages for prisoners; immediate establishment of a real Palestinian state and an end to 60 years of occupation and statelessness. Something along the lines of the Geneva Accord: https://geneva-accord.org/
Israel will need to be forced by the US to do so; if it refuses, which it might, as it's a state divided between the right and the far-right, sadly enough, then it's on its own. Cut off all funds and diplomatic cover.
If, after such a two-state solution, Palestine attacks Israel, well, it's their funeral, as Israel will always be more powerful.
"Always" meaning "until we all go down via carbon," of course.
I completely agree with you! It’s an easy solution, but one that the Israeli government will never agree to
I think this Op-Ed in the NYT summarizes where we are now, and how U.S. leadership might look in the future. I agree with the Pulitzer Prize winning author that once again the way Biden is handling multiple crises of foreign policy is about the best we could hope for. There is no easy way to untangle this...
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/17/opinion/biden-israel-leadership.html
I doubt either side would accept those terms at this time. Hamas is holding out for Iran, Libya and Hezbollah, and perhaps even Saudi to attack. They think they can hold on until that happens.
Scraping and posting in Israeli media.
The situation in the region is complicated and nuanced. The formation of Israel in 1947 and its population in 1948 didn’t bother to talk to the people already in the area, creating instant animosity toward the Jews. Suppression of the Arabs didn’t help. And the situation hasn’t improved much in the last 75 years.
The collapse of the PLO as a governing entity, and Hamas’ success at the ballot box almost 20 years ago gave them a legitimacy the don’t deserve. The attack they committed was horrific in its barbarity and demonstrated this was not done by a military force but by terrorists. Unfortunately, the Israeli response hasn’t been as measured as it could have been, either.
The Palestinian people are caught. The Palestinian Authority and PLO didn’t/couldn’t govern successfully, and didn’t manage corruption well. And their failure to control Hamas initially led to their fall. Hamas filled a void.
Yet, in light of the attacks, Israel has a right and responsibility to respond forcefully and to seek the end of Hamas as a functional military force.
That said, Israel, as soon as they declared this as a “war” required themselves to abide by the rules of Land Warfare, but that seems to have been lost on Netanyahu.
Biden has supported Israel’s right to self-preservation, but has reminded Netanyahu that he must maintain a moral high ground. That’s not been approach they seem to be following, but, they’ve done somewhat better than I’d expected.
Thank you for this. I read the piece and then decided to comment, but when I saw some of the discussion here, I decided against it and went and deleted the email. I then decided to come back and comment anyway.
Your piece is very timely as I have been struggling emotionally with far too much access and diving into news sources about the ongoing conflict. I am a second generation American of Lebanese and Palestinian descent. I have never traveled to that part of the world. I am an American first and foremost and I love this country. Yet, it is simply unavoidable to have an emotional connection with the homeland of my ancestors. And watching what has taken place and continues to unfold pains me greatly. I will not attempt to discuss my views about the conflict, but I do need to step away a bit from the quantity of what I have been consuming, both on social media and television. I want to keep abreast of developments as the crisis is real, and it is serious. Yet at the same time, I have to maintain a sense of what I can control and the things I can control are things like being here for my family, talking with friends about how I'm feeling about what is happening, and taking care of my own health.
I wish the best for all of you here, and I'll just end here.
It’s not an “Israel-Hamas war”. It’s the Palestinian revolution and now genocide. I think it’s interesting that we call Hamas a terrorist group, but do not provide the same label to the Israeli government, who even prior to the attack by Hamas, had murdered around 200 people in 2023 alone. Israel has mass arrested, denied government IDs, controlled the movements, arrested even children (disturbing *real* images exist of Israeli armies, dragging children blindfolded through the streets during their arrests), and, they even murdered a Palestinian journalist last year, Shireen Abu Akleh. They have systematically, harassed, controlled, arrested, tortured, Palestinians for decades. Why we don’t call them a terrorist organization is because of geopolitical alliances and power dynamics. Stop calling it a war. It is a genocide. And yes, it is traumatic to watch. But what is more traumatizing, is watching everyone around us, from news organizations, PBS, to even newsletters like this mis-name and mis-represent what is actually taking place through incorrect terminology and framing. It’s mass western imperial propaganda taking place. I understand why major news corporations are doing it, but when it comes down to a single author, and a private publication such as this one, my blood boils. You had a chance to correct this historic wrong, inform your readers, and use the correct framing, and you chose not to. You chose to deny what is happening, which is Palestinian genocide. A powerful quote by a Palestinian writer, Jenan Matari, is below, “If you’ve ever wondered what you would’ve during American slavery, and how outspoken and how much personal risk and protection you’d have offered during the holocaust, or how you would have reacted during the internment camps in America, and how deeply, and how often you would have protested for civil rights, take a look right now at what you were doing for Gaza, and know, that’s exactly what you would’ve done in the times before.” Apparently, this publication would have been siding with western imperialist framing and viewpoints.
It’s interesting that the two leading establishment foreign policy journals are publishing articles like these:
1. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/invasion-gaza-would-be-disaster-israel
2. https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/10/13/hamas-israel-massacre-gaza-vengeance-is-not-a-policy/
France24, Channel 4 (UK), and Al Jazeera English are all providing far more balanced coverage—including of the atrocities Hamas chose to perpetrate. Even the Associated Press is being much more balanced, especially since Israel seems hellbent on undermining global sympathy even faster than the US did after 9/11. (It probably didn’t help that Israel bombed the AP’s building in Gaza despite having (obviously) GPS coordinates for their ultra-precise munitions a couple rampages ago.)
There is no need to deny or whitewash Hamas’ atrocities—which were a choice, and a pure gift to Netanyahu and the far right—just as there is no need to deny or whitewash the historical context that got us here or the truly heinous Israeli response. If they keep this up, it’s genocide; it’s already a mass of appalling war crimes.
Hamas could have hit only military targets. They could have blown up huge chunks of the wall and let hundreds of thousands of Gazans out, daring Israel to massacre them. Etc. I think Hamas played Israel like a fiddle: they, appallingly, chose a pogrom betting that the predictably insane Israeli response would swamp disgust with their act and force the hands of the Muslim world, afraid of the rage of their own populations, to remember the Palestinians. Whatever the cost to themselves or Gazans.
It’s not at all pretty, to say the least, and it may well entirely backfire. Israel seems to be saying, “Thanks, for the excuse Hamas—we now have cover to do what we want; we have the US and nuclear weapons. Nice try; you played yourselves.”
Hard to predict but Israel is clearly taking advantage of the massacre to erase Gaza, further lock down the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and possibly even move to forced population transfer.
Two weeks ago, Israel was tearing itself apart. Now it’s tearing Gaza apart. Who voted for Hamas to take this risk?
But I do wonder how many Americans know about the actual history and context, including recent events like the Great March in 2018—and the Israeli response.
"But I do wonder how many Americans know about the actual history and context, including recent events like the Great March in 2018—and the Israeli response"
Maybe 1% considering this survey had a 6% success rate of 80%+?
https://www.cfr.org/report/us-adults-knowledge-about-world
Been my experience that Americans are historically illiterate. Unless their history is channeled in simple sound bites or via social media.
110% agree with you.
Thanks. Vicarious trauma is part of our culture and heritage, and I hope there will be more awareness...though so often, awareness doesn't seem to bring change. Our movies and TV reflect the high level of violence in the world and the nation, so getting away from exposures requires a lot of practice.
On another note, it's very white supremacy of everyone to decide that the cost of caring burden is too high and that we should "look away" for our own mental health.
This is an excellent overview on vicarious trauma. I direct a program -- the Witness to Witness Program -- for people who are over exposed to stories/images of trauma both on social media and in their occupations (journalists, health care workers, for instance) and we believe there is a more general response we call empathic distress. We have abundant resources on our web pages:handouts, archived webinars and blogs in English and Spanish. https://www.migrantclinician.org/witness-to-witness
The other factor is an actual connection. There are tens of thousands of American Jews who live in Israel and/or are dual American-Israeli citizens. And I would assume there are a large number of Arab and Palestinian Americans with friends and family in the impacted countries. That increases stress immeasurably.
Life is complicated. Having to sign in via an email authorization demonstrates this.
Whether the association of exposure to threats/trauma is causative or a confounder remains very difficult to tease out. That does not invalidate efforts to decrease suffering. Thanks to those compassionate souls seeking to do so.
Just a reminder: there is much more violence in our world than makes the news. TK
Thank you for this❤️
So, I get this, and I understand it’s meant as a matter of degree but to the extent that people believe that *individual* mental health requires ignoring both the current suffering of others and the future suffering of oneself and one’s children, grandchildren—against a background of widespread denial about all kinds of truly existential threats and the *collective* ability and moral necessity to meet them—such advice (or sanction) is problematic.
There is a difference between being aware and being continually exposed. A daily news update is enough for the former. I don't see how constantly scrolling the news in Israel helps anyone who is there. If anything, being inundated with images makes us feel helpless and paralyzed and less likely to act.
Obviously it's a matter of degree, so to claim I am recommending continual exposure or constant scrolling avoids the point. It's a bit chilling that the term is "cost of care." There should be a cost of caring. My worry is that such recommendations as this essay's, which are couched in terms of degree, become interpreted in terms of kind: as a sanction to turn inward and ignore, all sanctified by the overarching need for self-care. Especially when the resting state, as far as I can tell, is denial--of things that will kill us all, like carbon, nuclear weapons, rising fascism around the world, inevitable pandemics that could easily be far worse than the awful Covid.
The only hope is clear-eyed facing of reality and collective action.
l no longer receive YLE news letters on a regular basis. HOw can this be fixed.
I come late to this, but wanted to weigh in to add my thanks. I really appreciate this post. I don’t think we really realize how much media can affect us in such situations, and it is very helpful to have it laid out as Dr. Jetelina does so usefully here.
Thank you for this article as social media can cause so much negative and confusing emotions. It is hard to feel fear and pain and there are ways to make space for them in a healthier way. Again, thank you for sharing.
This all brought back memories of Ireland pre-1998, being pulled by sides. It was the US that helped, and the US took risks. It's easy now to take John Hume and David Trimble and that generation for granted. It cost them. Hume's party declined. Trimble faced a powerful base and reaction.
Biden is from that generation.
I heard talk recently about mental health issues that remain in Northern Ireland, even 25 years after the Good Friday Agreement. Thank you for the article. It strikes the memory chords.
Sadly this is but one example of a pattern that repeats throughout history: https://snyder.substack.com/p/terror-and-counter-terror
“But what experience and history teach is this – that peoples and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.” - Hegel, The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree, Batoche Books, 1900, p. 19.
In my experience, that list of bullet points applies to news in general and both new and pseudo-news on social media. I now generally ignore my "news feed" on FB and other sites and limit myself to seeing what my friends are up to.