When American president George W. Bush and his warmongering cabal found enough “evidence” to support their wild, self-serving theory on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, they launched an invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003. Five weeks prior, in many major cities across the globe, demonstrations against the imminent war were organised and for the first time in my life I decided to take to the streets. Like many others, I was convinced of my righteousness.
I was resolute in my belief that the American war in Iraq was illegitimate, yet once the invasion took place, it became an undeniable reality. Persisting in opposition to the war seemed nonsensical at that point, but the question remained: how does one confront this new reality? Shouting slogans and demanding immediate withdrawal may have served my moral indignation, but in doing so, I would have failed to engage with the situation on the ground. The complete dismantling of Iraqi governance under American control rendered any swift withdrawal unfeasible, highlighting the boundaries of moral certainty. Consequently, I acknowledged the war as an established fact and tried to recalibrate my moral compass in light of this new reality.
The expression: “When facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, Sir?” has always been one of my most cherished proverbs. Attributed to economists like John Maynard Keynes and Paul Samuelson, this statement eloquently captures the moral quandary described earlier, regardless of who actually said it. It recognizes the complexity of the world and the desire to navigate it with clear-eyed pragmatism. This may involve difficult choices and uncomfortable compromises, but it also opens up space for engagement and progress.
Take the most recent of moral quandaries: the Israeli war in Gaza. After Hamas fighters went on their killing spree on October 7th 2023, it was obvious that Israel would respond with extreme prejudice. 1160 men, women and children were slaughtered and 240 men, women and children were abducted. In my opinion, it gave Israel the right to act with vindication. Yet, soon after the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) invaded Gaza, it became clear that Israel’s punitive expedition wasn’t based on strategic retaliation but intent on the annihilation of Hamas, with a total and utter disregard for the loss of lives among Palestinian civilians.
Eight months into the conflict, with over 34.000 Palestinians dead, the situation is beyond comprehension. Yes, Hamas uses people and hospitals as cover and does not fight according to any rule, book or principle. It, as many other poor man’s armies, have learnt that this is the only viable way to fight a country like Israel, which is backed financially and militarily by the United States. It’s ironic that Ireland today supports the Palestinians in their fight against Israel, while it supported the Haganah, the Israeli fighters, in their fight against the British, almost 75 years ago. The Israel-Palestinian conflict has once again captured global attention, but this time, mainly because of Israel’s unhinged reaction and the almost unconditional American and European support, it may lead to significant long-term repercussions.
When the president-elect of the largest Muslim state in the world, Indonesia, calls out the hypocrisy with which the West seems to favour the plight of Ukrainians over the plight of Gazans, you can rest assured it will have serious effects. Countries like Egypt, Turkey and Jordan are holding their breath, largely because they fear a wider conflict, but even its more moderate inhabitants are slowly becoming fed up with their placating governments. Yet, the most striking consequence of Israel’s actions in Gaza, is the massive pro-Palestinian stance of the world’s youth.
According to its critics, almost every video on TikTok is pro-Palestinian. This is seen as sufficient evidence for many American lawmakers, who are already eager to ban TikTok, to conclude that America’s Gen-Z is “being brainwashed” by China. However, there is no proof yet that the pro-Palestinian skewness on TikTok is orchestrated by Beijing. The hasty conclusions drawn by these American politicians lend credence to the suggestion that these right wing, conservative politicians are concerned not so much with their children’s mental health as they are with being pro-Israel, anti-China, and opposed to anything associated with woke culture, gender issues, or climate activism. Influencer and activist Emily Ratajkowski is convinced that the push to ban TikTok is primarily motivated by fears that TikTok has become a hub for progressive activism. Moreover, to discard the statistic as propaganda is to fail to grasp the major shift in public consciousness. According to Peter Beinart of the New York Times this change in perspective is caused by a reevaluation of Zionism. “In an era of youth-led activism, the Palestinians have turned to social media to combat their exclusion from the press. Meanwhile, Israel, under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu for most of the past two decades, has lurched to the right, producing politicians so openly racist that their behaviour cannot be defended.” Alienating the very youth who are fighting for inclusivity and justice.
Whatever the root of this remarkable statistic, it appears evident that young people globally tend to overlook historical contexts, especially the Holocaust. Yet, it would be erroneous to dismiss their political views as anti-Semitic simply because they may lack a comprehensive understanding of Jewish history. Indeed, many students occupying American campuses might not fully grasp the difference between Zionism, the state of Israel and being Jewish. If they were more aligned with established definitions, their fundamental political positions might not be so readily misinterpreted as antisemitism, nor so quickly dismissed by critics eager to label them as such.
Unfortunately, that is precisely how the critics have responded. It compelled the speaker of the American House of Representatives Mike Johnson to suggest the National Guard should intervene during the student occupation of college and university campuses. A bold suggestion, not least because it reminds people of May 4, 1970 when the National Guard fired into an unarmed crowd of Kent State University demonstrators killing four and wounding nine. According to Wikipedia the impact of the shootings triggered a nationwide student strike and hundreds of colleges and universities to close. However, Wikipedia overlooks the fact that a Gallup poll revealed over 58% of Americans held the students responsible for the violence, compared to just 11% who blamed the National Guard.
To give some context: the American war in Vietnam was already six years old. Running for president, Richard Nixon, aware of the anti-war sentiment in the country, had promised to bring an end to the war in Vietnam and proposed a policy of “Vietnamization”. When two years later president Nixon revealed he was invading Cambodia, thus widening the war in Vietnam, students all over the United States started protesting. Governor James Rhodes wasn’t having any of it. He ordered the National Guard to intervene. How was that even possible? Even though history was staring Rhodes right in the eye, and after all the evidence clearly suggested the students were right, he still couldn’t change his mind.
Jonathan Haidt, psychologist and author of The Righteous Mind, is convinced we were never designed to listen to reason. “When you ask people moral questions, time their responses and scan their brains, their answers and brain activation patterns indicate that they reach conclusions quickly and produce reasons later only to justify what they’ve decided. The problem isn’t that people don’t reason. They do reason. But their arguments aim to support their conclusions, not yours. Reason doesn’t work like a judge or teacher, impartially weighing evidence or guiding us to wisdom. It works more like a lawyer or press secretary, justifying our acts and judgments to others. So, if you want to change people’s minds, don’t appeal to their reason. Appeal to reason’s boss: the underlying moral intuitions whose conclusions reason defends.”
Haidt’s ideas on people’s ability to change their minds, has changed my interpretation of my favourite proverb: “When facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, Sir?” If Haidt is right, the changing of the facts has no impact on the decision-making process. “What do you do, Sir?”, has turned into a hollow, rhetorical question.
I have always been a staunch supporter of the state of Israel. In my opinion, the legitimacy of the state of Israel is anchored in various international treaties and the inherited European guilt we call the Holocaust. The reality that British and French decisions shaped the fate of Palestine, leaving Palestinians at a disadvantage, appears inevitable in the broader historical context. The State of Israel, although flawed from its inception, is a fact. Still, Israel is committing a crime of biblical proportions in Gaza. Why is it so hard to commit to this fact? To do so doesn’t deny the Holocaust nor does it threaten Israel’s right to existence. The students who occupy the university campuses in the United States may be ignorant of certain historical events, they do know that Palestinians were dispossessed of their homes. They can see that Israel is powerful and Palestine is weak. They witness the Israeli government destroying Hamas and killing tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians in Gaza. And they can read what David Nott, a British general surgeon who voluntarily works in war zones, wrote in the Economist about his experiences in Gaza.
“Even in the midst of vicious wars such as in Yemen or Syria, people had access to basic life-saving medicines. Not so in Gaza: all pharmacies had closed down and there were no drugs. As a result, there was no access to daily medications for people with chronic illnesses, such as diabetes, and those with cardiological, renal, oncological and hematological diseases. With no access to routine medical or surgical help it appeared that the hundreds of thousands of people squeezed together were on their own; it was the grimmest of tests for Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest. The effects of communicable infectious diseases were cruelly apparent: some children could not breathe owing to the effects of simple chest infections that had progressed and turned their lungs into pools of pus, known as empyema. For the first time in my life, I found myself clinically diagnosing this awful condition in young children —something you would read about in a medical book in the 19th century. Next to one six-year-old I found half a litre of pus in the drain bottle.”
The voices of today’s youth are likely to significantly redefine future support for the Palestinian cause. As Washington Post contributor Eugene Robinson suggests: “Young adults grow up to be middle-aged adults with money and authority. In coming years, the Palestinian cause is likely to have more powerful supporters in the United States than ever before.” For that to happen, not a single mind needs to change.