Group-think in Gaza

It would almost be comical if it wasn’t so desperately tragic: Much of the informed world is again splitting into two halves with one half detesting the other. The occasion this time is the Hamas-Israel conflict, which has split the world into supporters of Hamas and the State of Israel, respectively. Or – as it is in danger of becoming – into one half supporting Arabs and another half supporting Jews.

Those who lean to the left politically tend to support the Palestinians and those who lean to the right politically tend to support the Israelis. Those who go against the grain and support the side that their political tribe does not are asking to be cancelled, de-platformed, or worse.

The Anti-Defamation League in New York reports that antisemitic incidents in America rose by 388% between October 7th and 23rd compared with the same period of the year before. In Dagestan, an antisemitic mob of hundreds of men recently attacked the main airport in order to hunt down random Jewish passengers who had arrived on a flight from Tel Aviv. Meanwhile, Israeli counterattacks on Gaza have claimed a death toll amongst Palestinians exceeding 8,000, with 1.4 million having been displaced. The often-indiscriminate killing of people from the other side, who are always demonised and de-humanised, thus continues apace.

Taking sides in the Hamas-Israel conflict means that you align yourself with people carrying out some fairly horrendous things. If you side with Hamas, you thereby endorse the killings and hostage-taking of politically clueless Jewish teenagers and old grannies. If you side with Israel, you will find yourself having to defend the deaths by bombing of thousands of innocent civilians – including children and pensioners – who had absolutely nothing to do with the actions of Hamas.

Unfortunately, the large extent to which people choose to take sides in the Hamas-Israel conflict is just one of a long list of examples where there are deemed to be only two sides to any issue. For those who take sides, one side is deemed unequivocally good and saintly while the other side is deemed unequivocally bad and evil. Some other examples of binary group-think that immediately come to mind are the following:

• Trump vs. Biden
• Foreigner vs. non-foreigner
• Russian vs. Ukrainian
• Left-wing vs. Right-wing
• Muslim vs. Christian
• Hutu vs. Tutsi
• White vs. Black

Mindlessly dividing humanity up in good people (your own tribe) and bad people (everybody else) is a problem as old as humanity itself. This is what most people resort to in matters of politics, religion, sport, and other matters where logic and reason carry little weight. However, I simply refuse to accept that the human brain is incapable of considering non-binary options. Is there another way? Yes, there is, but that involves engaging the brain in order to stop falling for the temptation of group-think, i.e., thinking in collectivist terms.

Group-think – the judging of people according to which group they are deemed to belong rather than their individual views, qualities, or guilt – is the direct route to the killing of innocents. Especially when the levers of a strong state fall into the hands of group-thinkers who can then realise their bigoted antipathies by carrying out genocide in the name of the nation, the people, the King, and/or God. One of the precious few things that states are really good at are genocides.

History is replete with examples of this happening. In recent times, some that come to mind are Nazi-Germany, India in 1947, Cambodia under Khmer Rouge, Rwanda in 1994, and the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar, to name but a few. Conversely, I can think of no genocide that was not perpetrated by a state. Separate individuals seldom have enough power to orchestrate an undertaking as huge as a genocide.

The alternative to collectivist group-think is, of course, individualism. I.e., always judging a person on the basis of his or her individual qualities, opinions, and actions. Consistently applying individualist principles is harder than it sounds, though. For instance, many people happen to identify with a state. They speak of “we” and “us” when they refer to the foreign policy actions of the government of the state in which they live. They even speak of “we” and “us” when they refer to historical events predating their own birth by hundreds of years. Or when they refer to sports events involving the local national team. But the state is not them, and they are not the state. To avoid group-think it is necessary to be absolutely clear about this.

If you want to avoid punishing innocents for the actions of others, you must use an individualist approach. Applying an individualist approach to the Hamas-Israel conflict means not identifying with either side. An individualist approach involves prosecuting individuals accused of having killed other people – whether Jews or Arabs – and punishing them or acquitting them accordingly. With thousands engaged in the killings, it is a huge task to hold each individual to account for his or her actions. However, expediency is hardly a very good moral argument against that approach.

There are often – perhaps even always – more than two sides to any issue. Moreover, your enemy’s enemy is not always your friend. Just because the Israeli military is evil, that does not necessarily mean that the Hamas militia is nice. Or vice versa. The fact that Trump is a scumbag does not necessarily mean that Biden is a saint. Or vice versa. I could go on. However, suffice to say that always putting the individual first would avoid an unfathomable number of gross injustices and deaths in the world. The world is not just black and white. There are many more colours than that.