Tribes and Traitors

Hidden Brain

Hidden Brain Media

Arts, Science, Performing Arts, Social Sciences

4.6 • 40.4K Ratings

🗓️ 21 May 2021

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the past weeks, headlines around the world have focused on the violent conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. In this favorite episode from our archive, we hear from a former Israeli soldier and a Palestinian man who asked a radical question: what happens when you empathize with your enemy? They found that showing such empathy can be powerful — but also carries risks. If you like our work, please consider supporting it! See how you can help at support.hiddenbrain.org. And to learn more about human behavior and ideas that can improve your life, subscribe to our newsletter at news.hiddenbrain.org.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedanta.
0:07.0	In recent weeks, people around the world have watched with anxiety as tensions between
0:12.0	the Israelis and the Palestinians exploded once again into violence.
0:17.0	Top story for you this morning.
0:18.0	Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in Gaza have exchanged their heaviest bombardments in years.
0:24.0	Angry posts about hurt and injustice fill social media feeds.
0:29.0	News reports feature the voices of traumatized people.
0:33.0	You see all the kids around me, they're just kids.
0:36.0	Why would you just set a vessel to them and kill them?
0:40.0	I'm Israeli and my son David was killed by a Palestinian sniper.
0:47.0	Supporters of Israelis and supporters of Palestinians both have the same demand.
0:52.0	Just look at what we are going through.
0:55.0	If you opened your eyes, you would empathize with us.
0:59.0	People are dying every day because of Israeli occupation.
1:03.0	This was not like peaceful protests. It was just violence against Jews.
1:08.0	Why do we deserve this? It's not fair. It's not fair.
1:15.0	The plea for empathy stems from a basic psychological desire.
1:27.0	If we can just make others understand what happened to us, we think, they would care.
1:33.0	And if they cared, they would do something to help.
1:39.0	Our need for empathy is often not matched by our own capacity for empathy.
1:47.0	Usually we are too consumed with our own traumas, our own need for empathy, to direct our attention outward.
1:54.0	This week on Hidden Brain, I want to share with you two stories from the archive
	...

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