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Empathy [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-06-08

I began this post on May 19th. It started with my morning coffee and the news, as most my posts do. Only now, in June, have I finally clarified what I’ve been trying to say. Initially, I delved into the history and statistics of the 80+ years of this conflict. I tallied the rights and wrongs of both sides. I weighed the historic injustices visited on the Jews. I considered the Christian West’s debt for more than a thousand years of hate and prejudice.

I also considered the suffering of the Palestinian People. They love their land as much as the Jews love Israel. It seems to me that the Palestinians and Jews share similar natures. That is why I hold both accountable. In the last 80 years, Israel has inflicted their own trauma on the Palestinians. Loss of homeland, dislocation, exile, oppression, and slaughter. Since the recent fighting began, the Palestinians have been wandering. They move back and forth in the desert wilderness created from their homes.

And I sit in my comfortable home watching the tragedy grind on. I’ve become traumatized. I have become numb. I have allowed myself to become powerless.

Now, I’m trying to connect with the fear and pain the children feel. I look back into my own life for times I experienced fear and loss. And when I touch those nerves I project their feelings on to what I am seeing or reading.

I am scrambling to reconnect with my empathy. And in turn, reconnect with my humanity. My life has anxiety, fear, uncertainty and physical pain. Naturally, this focuses my attention on myself. I push aside others needs.

This is the result of the conscience intentions of Trump, Musk, and the other powerful folks in our society. It is found in China, Iran, North Korea and Russia. It is the dehumanizing of humanity. It opens the doors to even greater depravity.

Today, with my coffee, I push to feel my own pain. I attach it to all those haunted faces in GAZA and Palestine, Ukraine, Sudan, and here in the US.

Historical facts are plentiful. Statistics can quantify the scope of the horror. But without feelings they are dry and easy to dismiss. I need to feel the emotions. It will strengthen me and focus my resolve to fight back as best as I can.

Where is our ability to be merciful?

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/6/8/2326676/-Empathy?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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