Killing Indifference

Like it or not, most of us spend considerable time on social media these days. That’s where we get to know what our wider circle of friends and acquaintances as well as a number of people we don’t know, celebrities and non-celebrities, are doing and thinking. And that is where we also get to know what they couldn’t care less about.

When two young people, Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, were gunned down on the street in Washington DC two days ago, by a man who yelled, “Free Palestine,” I was not surprised that Islamists and extreme leftists posted laughing emojis and worse, as they rejoiced in these murders. After all, these were the same people who celebrated the murders, mutilations, rapes and kidnappings of Jews, Nepalis, Thais, and Arabs on October 7, and tore down pictures of the Bibas babies whom Hamas had taken hostage. Nor was I surprised that those who never post on political matters remained silent about these murders.

I couldn’t help being dismayed, though, by the complete indifference of people who post obsessively against Trump several times a day. They continue their obsessive posts and reposts of memes about Trump and Musk as if nothing else that is important has happened. Likewise, the people who changed their profile picture to a black circle after George Floyd’s death, have nothing to say about these deaths. They continue to post about their dogs, cats, picturesque lunches, the birds in their gardens, and the landscapes that they see.

Some acquaintances of mine continue posting their ridiculous announcements about getting together to sing for peace. I am sure Hamas is impressed by their songs and will be inspired to return the hostages and to surrender. If only Hamas had heard these songs before October 7, they would not have launched their attack and started the war.

Most upsetting of all is the indifference of some Jews, who post about Trump either constantly or even occasionally but have not a word to say about these murders. A man younger than your son was killed in the blink of an eye, and a woman the age of your daughter was shot repeatedly as she tried to crawl away after the first shot, and you have nothing to say? Because you may lose some of your friends if you do? Or because you feel safe in your little enclave and can dismiss the recent astronomical increase in Jew-hatred, saying that anti-Semitism has always been around?

Why do the deaths of a young American and a young Israeli not matter? Is it because the American was a Jew (the Israeli was a Christian) or is it because both worked for the Israeli embassy? The reasons for indifference vary. But what is clear is that not all lives matter.

One could argue that what we post or do not post makes no difference. The pro-Hamas people will continue their blood libel campaigns, and there is nothing particularly new about those. For more than 1500 years in Western and Eastern Europe and Russia, people have been falsely accusing Jews of thirsting for non-Jewish children’s blood. And in the Middle East, Jews have been persecuted and vilified from the seventh century onward.

The persistence of Jew-hatred is the primary reason why the heads of several European countries do not call on Hamas, who started the war, to end it by surrendering and returning the people, both Israeli and others, whom they kidnapped and are holding in tunnels or have already murdered. Instead, they try to bully Israel into throwing the hostages to the wolves. Once again, because not all lives matter.

Posting about all this matters because, first, the barrage of Jew-hating lies and misinformation that fills the virtual sphere needs to be countered. Most people do not know anything about history and they believe the lie that Jews occupied the land instead of the truth that the land was originally inhabited by Jews from about 1250 BC and was colonized by others, including Babylonians, Persians, Assyrians, Romans, Arabs, Turks (the Ottoman Empire) and finally the British. The Jews decolonized the land.

More recent lies are those propagated by bodies like the UN, who treat as Gospel truth the propaganda that Hamas puts out, for example, that almost all the Gazans killed in the war are women and children. Adult men and Hamas fighters apparently never die. And never mind that Gaza’s population has actually grown during the war.

The latest such lie put out by the UN is that 14,000 babies would die of starvation in two days if Israel did not stop the war and feed the Gazans. Yaron Lischinsky’s last social media post condemned this lie. The UN took back its lie as it has several others, but most people do not read the retractions. Nor does everyone see the many videos of flourishing grocery stores and restaurants in Gaza, and of Gazan women complaining that Hamas controls the food, gives some to their cronies and sells the rest at exorbitant prices. The biggest lie is that Israel continues the war for no reason. This lie depends on forgetting about the captives held in Hamas’ cruel clutches and forgetting that all Hamas needs to do to end the war it started is surrender and release the captives.

Another reason to post is to tell your Jewish friends and neighbours that they are not alone. The fact is that most Europeans and Americans support Israel. The Eurovision vote showed this. Europeans voted overwhelmingly for the Israeli singer as No.1. A noisy and hateful minority gets all the attention because most people are silent, not wanting to appear contentious.

Edmund Burke did not say that all it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing (this line is often wrongly attributed to him). But he did say, “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle” (“Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents,” 1770). As another philosopher, Iris Murdoch, suggested, however, there is a difference between being good and being nice.

Many people who strive for goodness or at least strive to understand the truth are not nice in the sense of being agreeable and getting along with everybody. Those who stand up for the truth always pay a price. The price is generally higher if you are famous. But even if you don’t face death threats or aren’t stabbed, mutilated or killed, you pay the price of upsetting or annoying some people, and losing others who might be able to help you get ahead in your career. You may be labelled and vilified behind your back or even to your face, and thought of as a killjoy and a curmudgeon. You may be cancelled or deplatformed. We tend to forget that both these phenomena occurred for decades, perhaps even centuries, before these ugly terms were coined.

Indian poet Abdur Rahim Khan-e Khanan (1556-1627), generally known as Rahim, confronts these risks in one of his marvellously succinct couplets that I quoted in an earlier post. Rahim was a nobleman in Mughal emperor Akbar’s court so he knew about political intrigue, envy, and rivalries. He was a Muslim but also a devotee of Krishna. That combination was possible in his era.

Ab Rahim mushkil pari gaarhe do'u kam

Saanche se to jag nahin, jhuthe mile na Ram

Now, says Rahim, it's difficult – both are hard to do -

Tell the truth and lose the world, lie and lose Rama [God].