Empathy for the oppressor?

What are the limits of grace in the face of the horrors of Gaza? How do we build bridges in a polarised world? 

You know an article has touched on something truly important when it sparks a contentious and meaningful conversation with your family. That’s what happened recently when I shared a piece from Sapan News (now renamed Global Southasia) titled ‘How to find love and tolerance in a post-truth world’, which resonated deeply with me. 

The article explored the Israel-Palestine conflict through a lens of empathy. The writer argued against taking partisan views, like Norman Finkelstein who condemns Israel as a “lunatic society,” and Sam Harris who condemns Palestinians as “genocidal.”  

Rather than condemning millions monolithically, the writer asked us to look inwards at our own flaws and give others the same grace and empathy that we give ourselves. 

When I shared the article with my nephew Haroon, a senior at a university in California, it sparked a passionate and thoughtful discussion.  

Haroon understood the algorithmic bias-reinforcement of social media and the importance of extending grace. Yet, the cruelty of the footage he saw — ordinary Israelis “advocating for the killing of children” and IDF soldiers in “abandoned school or house playing with the toys of the Palestinian children and laughing, taunting the lives lost” — led him to ask:  

“Will there ever be an instance where we can safely say that this society is definitely a lunatic society?” 

“Is grace still the primary response at that point, or do we need to also pair it with a bit of a firmer, corrective stance?”  

Empathy and justice 

We didn’t arrive at easy answers, but Haroon and I eventually found our way to some shared, common-sense ground. Since others may also be wrestling with the same tension between extending grace and demanding justice, I wanted to share where we landed.  

Where does empathy end and corrective action begin? Short answer: Empathy and justice — corrective action — can and must overlap. In fact, justice without empathy is, at best, vengeance. While in Biblical times the notion of “eye for an eye”, equal harm, was considered justice, today, the notion of justice includes rehabilitation.  

This shift isn’t just about the societal benefit of producing a rehabilitated individual; it is rooted in a fundamental belief in human potential, the capacity to change for the better — an empathic view, even for criminals.   

This hadith (a saying of the Prophet Muhammad) offers a framework for action: “Whoever among you sees an evil, let him change it with his hand; if he cannot, then with his tongue; if he cannot, then with his heart [by hating it and feeling that it is wrong]”. (Sahih Muslim, Book 1, Hadith 84). 

The Hadith, while exhorting us to action as the highest ideal, also recognizes that the moral landscape can be complex; fighting with our hands or speaking may be neither possible nor desirable. Importantly, the Hadith does not even condemn silence. Silence is not always violence – as some claimed in Black Lives Matter movement — and it is not necessarily a sin. 

What if we start with silence? Today, the journey to action often begins with conviction and outrage. The dead body of an emaciated child rightly makes us angry. The question, however, is what can we do about it? How to stop the next child from dying?  

Often, the knee-jerk response is to lash out at the most obvious target. Perhaps whoever the online mob has identified as culpable. Some hurl abuse. Others find weapons and go on physical rampages.  

But how will such actions save the next innocent from death? Or do they add to the body count?  

Truth and humility  

In most real-world situations, teasing apart good and evil — in sufficient detail so that one may take net-positive corrective action — takes time and effort. So, we begin in the silent recognition of our own ignorance — begin with humility.  

There is no formula for getting to the truth. Serious truth-seeking requires undertaking journeys of discovery. An example: Prosecutors and defense attorneys learn everything they can about the accused; they walk in his or her shoes, starting from childhood.  

The point is, whatever your journey of discovery, check in with your conscience. Understand your motivation. Anyone who wants to act against the perceived enemy must first acknowledge their own bias and ask themselves whether they are forcing a complex conflict into simplistic categories of oppressor and oppressed. 

Often, there is no way to be sure what the truth is. That’s why humility must be at the core of our standing on any issues. A judge who’s relative is implicated in a case recuses himself. Humility is our recusal.  

Brashness often passes for truthfulness. At the other extreme, language police and ‘political correctness’ often reduce speech to empty platitudes.  

I prefer the middle ground, to speak carefully, honestly, and empathetically. Here is my middle ground on Israel and Palestine, that I shared with Haroon: 

What Hamas did on 7 October 2023 was horrific. What Israel did in retaliation, in the name of self-defense and releasing hostages, was no less horrific. The two are not the same but are similar in inflicting suffering. The resemblance doesn’t end there.  

Hamas rose from a cauldron of displacement, occupation and alienation. Israel bears some responsibility for creating the suffocating conditions that catalyzed its birth.  

Isreal and Zionism rose out of millennia of persecution, culminating in the horrors of the Holocaust in which much of the world participated or simply watched.  

Just as Israel points the finger at Hamas while sharing in the responsibility for its rise, the global community points the finger at Israel while bearing responsibility for the trauma that forged it.  

We are one community on this planet. We interact, we react, and our unhealed wounds ripple outward. When we point a finger in condemnation, our hand points back at us.  

When is a society a lunatic society?  

My short answer is: Never. Making broad pronouncements is brash and lacks nuance. To speak of a society, or individuals, as being gripped by a lunatic emotion would be more accurate, emphatic and productive. Tommy isn’t bad. Tommy is behaving badly. This framing doesn’t condemn. It offers hope for dialogue and persuasion. 

Real self-defense is about understanding the enemy.  

Half the battle 

Speech is the first step in a democracy like America’s. From here, actions like writing to your representatives, marching peacefully, voting for your candidate, and other options all make sense to me.  

Condemning and trying to stop evil is only half the battle. One can also fight evil by promoting good. For example, we fight evil — the killing of innocents — when we make the case for peace between Israel and Palestine, when we see the good in the “other”, and find ways to heal and bring people together. This way to fight evil is not in vogue. I’m trying to change that. 

Some justify the war in Gaza by arguing that mass death and destruction is a necessary price to pay for peace, as with World War II and America’s dropping of atomic bombs on Japan. The implication is that once the Palestinians are on their knees, peace will prevail.  

This argument overlooks the crucial point that peace cannot exist when hate remains. In this framing, Pakistan and India haven’t found peace. Nearly 80 years after the bloodbath of Partition, ongoing conflicts, economic, political, and social costs continue to plague the region. This is not peace. This is not America and Japan becoming friends.  

In the 1940s, America’s enemy was an ocean away; in Israel, the perceived enemy is a neighbour who has competing claims to the same holy land. Add a century of relentless, multi-generational bloodshed, and the mechanics of reconciliation seem impossible.  

The “peace through war” claim also sounds hollow because, as sociologist John Paul Lederach argues, ceasefires and formal settlements, though necessary, cannot by themselves make peace durable. Reconciliation requires what he calls “the restoring and healing of torn-apart relationships” and must create a space in which “Truth, Mercy, Justice, and Peace can truly meet and thresh things out.” 

I want to ask those who promote the hatred that’s hardening hearts against Israel: What is the end game? The complete destruction of Israel — a genocide? What is your plan for peaceful coexistence?  

Here’s mine: Fight the enemy while you empathize with them. We can hate what they say or do. But never lose sight of their humanity, of the infinite potential for change. We must hold these two opposites in our hearts.  

Abraham Lincoln is my favorite example of this. Even during the bloodiest days of the American Civil War, he said: “We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.”  

As Dr. Martin Luther King said about his fight against oppression: Hate can’t drive out hate. Only love can do that.  

Thanks to Haroon, my amazing nephew, for engaging with me on this topic. Let’s keep fighting evil by promoting good. Let’s recognize our connectedness and humanity — even with those we perceive as the oppressor. 

Taimur Ali Ahmed grew up in Lahore and lives in the Bay Area. He posts on X (formerly Twitter) @TaimurAliAhmed. This Friday, 19 Sept., he will moderate a panel discussion post-screening of a new documentary, ‘Seat at the Table’ that charts the rise of Southasians in American politics, at the South Asian New Works Festival at San Jose University. 

This is a Global Southasia (formerly Sapan News) syndicated feature available for republication with due credit to sapannews.com. 

Why ‘Southasia’ as one word? Because our histories entangle, our struggles intersect, and our futures are bound together.

This article was written and edited by humans. Click here for the Global Southasia AI policy.

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