In the Shadow of Tragedy: Perspectives on Israel-Palestine | Awake at the Wheel | Ep 34

Male, female, it doesn't matter. Humans are not rational. So if someone has a strong belief and they're presented evidence that clearly contradicts that, it's unequivocal. You cannot deny it. People will still somehow find a way to get out of accepting the reality. Now, not everybody, but the majority of people, they cannot handle the truth. Hello and welcome to Awake at the Wheel. In today's episode, we're going to be approaching a very sensitive topic, but we feel it's an important one to address. So these days you can't turn on the TV or look online without seeing what's happening in the Middle East right now. So we're going to have a conversation about many aspects of it. However, we want to clarify from the get go that, you know, Oren and I are clinicians, not politicians. So we want to make it clear that we are not articulating one side or the other. Who's right, who's wrong, who's bad, who's good? That's not our goal for today. So we're going to be looking at a number of different psychological perspectives that are important to consider with regard to the response that's happening here in Canada and in the U.S.. So independently Oren I both actually came up with this topic and chatted about it a little bit ahead of time because we both noticed that a number of our clients were coming to us with a great deal of distress with regard to what's happening over there, with what they're seeing on the news and, you know, just not really understanding what to do if there is anything that they can do. But it's a very curious thing to me because, you know, people here in Canada and in the U.S. are so immersed in this conflict and it does not directly involve them and doesn't at the moment directly impact them. So, you know, not to say that we shouldn't be empathetic and not, you know, interested in what's happening. But again, the degree of distress that people are experiencing is worth discussing. So, Oren, where should we start with this? Well, I guess let's start chronologically, which is people's reactions to what happened on October 7th. Because I know that that's where a lot of my patients, a lot of people I know personally or online have been have felt the most distressed and surprised and myself and many others have been saying, what if you were listening to us before and this is not a gotcha moment, this is not a finger wagging moment, but we're saying if you had heard what we had been saying before, you would not be surprised at some of the ugly, reprehensible, unbelievable. Well, quite believable if you know what we're talking about. Reactions to the massacre that happened on October 7th. There's no other word for that. It was an outright evil slaughter of innocent people. And what's so interesting, saddening, yet interesting is that this does indeed mirror a lot of the topics that we've discussed where there is this incredible divisiveness, this desire or, you know, people feeling compelled to pick a side or the other. So much so that I've heard that kids on the playground are even saying, you know, who do you pick? Israel or Palestine? And, you know, perhaps they're parroting what they're hearing at home. But either way, it's it's it's a very bizarre response. But I suppose in some ways not surprising. Right? It's not surprising if we think that humans are social animals and we are tribal creatures. We you know, anyone who says to watch the chimp empire, to see the parallels between us and other primates, we do belong to small groups, tribes, communities, whatever you want to call them. So whether it's a sports team, whether it's a type of music or a band, whether it's a was at Twilight, you know, I think that like the the werewolves or the vampires or whatever. Right. The fact is, people most people, not all, but most people feel this need to, you know, to be part of a tribe, a team. And then it becomes this us versus them. Which politicians they? They are able to exploit that you know, quite handily. And so I'm not surprised at all that people are taking this approach, whether it's children in the playground or people online, because that's what's been fueling so much of this divisiveness that you mentioned throughout the last many decades, especially the last few years in particular. And the big challenge, too, is, as we know and not to sound nutty by saying this, but it is a fact that the media only shows us what they want us to see. So depending on what media people are consuming, you know, we're not we're certainly not getting the whole story over here. So one of the cognitive distortions that I think we can identify here is there is a lot of black and white thinking here. Right. It's it's good or evil. It's bad or good, right or wrong. So, you know, I say the word cognitive distortion because that's something in therapy that we talk about all the time when people are not viewing, you know, the whole picture or if there's something that is distorting, distorting one's view of a particular situation. Right. And that is, I think, the most blatant issue that you and I both saw, that it's an all or nothing approach. When we talk about black and white good or, you know, all good, all bad, you know, it's all or nothing. And so I know I got jumped on by a few people, not literally, but online, where I said, look, you know, again, I'm not going to be equivocal about this. What Hamas did was evil, No doubt. There's no other word for that. However, at the same time, I said and I wasn't here's the problem. So some people said that, yes, it's evil, but and the timing was so terrible. Hours after the attack. Minutes. Okay. And this was when they knew what happened. It wasn't just an incursion. There wasn't that they were fighting a number of soldiers on the border. They knew that these horrors were being perpetrated. So people were using really bad timing and then immediately jump in and say, but look how the Palestinians have suffered all these years and everything. And, you know, factually they are correct. But A) timing, optics. Right. And, you know, you wait. Right. Just call it out for what it is later. Step back, have the discussion. And so I didn't say that. What I did say was and I waited a bit again, I unequivocally called out the evil it was. And I said, but let's not pretend that many innocent people on both sides are going to suffer. That's all I said. I didn't talk about the history of the Israel, you know, Israeli-Palestinian conflict or Palestinian conflict. I didn't say that. I just said any time something like this happens, people are going to suffer, as all I said. And still some people found that was just to, you know, to say to both sides, all right, it's not both sides. It's nuance. So when you said, you know, and I said or sorry when I said I'm not surprised that people are taking this, you know, Team A versus Team B approach. Right. Because that's our you know, our DNA seems to be programed to be, you know, tribal. The fact is we also have huge prefrontal cortexes. So we should be able to show and to or to to process and to show some nuance. We should be able to say, you know, again, take this approach is not all or nothing A or B, it's here's a reality and here's a reality. And both of these things can be true at once. And then once again, I just want to reiterate this, the timing showing some tact, showing sensitivity, knowing that many people either lost somebody directly or know somebody. You know, Israel's a tiny country. You know, if there is a Jew around the world, there's a pretty good chance you of seven some small degree of separation that they know somebody was affected or they had people living there wondering what the heck's going on and not being able to reach out. So having a bit of tact and diplomacy, that's what the prefrontal cortex should allow us to be able to do. Yeah. And with with all the ugliness of war and not just this one specifically, I mean, sadly, history has shown us this in some way, shape or form over and over again. But what's really startling to me, again, is just the response that is happening over here, the news report of a terrible instance of Islamophobia. I think it was somewhere in the U.S. I can't remember what state it was in, but the six year old and his mother were murdered. Sorry, the mother wasn't the son the boy was, because this individual felt that because they were Muslim, they were evil and somehow had something to do with this situation. So I think it's important for us to talk about that a little bit. And of course, that is an extreme situation that's not happening left and right, thank goodness. But people do truly believe that they're doing something right. When engaging in actions like that. Right. And whether it's a horrific murder or whether it's posting a horrific, ugly signs, chanting, you know, people are saying, I've got to put this out here, okay? When people say, no, no, we're not supporting Hamas. We're supporting the Palestinians. Well, my father, who's his he's Israeli. His family goes way, way back. And he's always from since I was a young age, because he saw you know, he fought in the army. He you know, he's very compassionate. And he saw what was happening to Palestinians back in the fifties and sixties and even before that. But that's when he was old enough to start, you know, articulating his views and to understand what was going on. So he's been very pro-Palestinian, very pro Arab for his entire or most of his entire life, because his father was an engineer, a scientist. It was like, put aside the religion. Let's look at the reality. Let's look at the facts. That's the science. I say humanity, which I'm not saying religion can't do all that. I'm just saying that instead of taking this well, we are Jews. Therefore, his father never took that approach. So he saw people for who they are as human beings and he saw what was happening to them. So, you know, I was raised from a young age to see that perspective as well. Right. So it's not people are all good or all evil or anything like that. It's, you know, people are people and sometimes either their actions are terrible or they're being misled by certain beliefs or certain people with evil intentions or power and so on. So, you know, again, from a young age, I was taught to analyze this. So what I was going to say was, so there is so my father, you know, again, I was raised not to be this reactionary person pro-Israel or anything like that. It was to be very critical and skeptical, open minded. But everything is going on. That's what a critical thinker does. But this chant from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. I don't know if anybody can, let's say, validly argue against this claim made by many people. I don't know. I'm sure if it's accepted fact, but most people I know accept it as fact that that is a call to exterminate Israel, to terminate, to get rid of Israel because of the geography of the river to the sea. All right. That means there should be no Israel. Hamas's own charter states that there will be no Israel. Right. No country called Israel. And and then if you saw many of these protests around the world, some of the truly anti not just Israeli anti Jew, anti-Zionist, Zionist, I mean there's just so much anti-Semitism, true antisemitism. And here's where nuance comes again. Unfortunately, many people say, you know, if you make a criticism against something that Israel has done, whether it's the soldiers, the politicians, a civilian, if you make a criticism because they did something really ugly against the Palestinians, people say anti-Semitism and they use that as a shield to do some really terrible things. Again, nuance requires someone to say, no, no, no, I am calling out this action. I am not condemning all Jews or all Israelis or whatever. I'm just saying this action that happened in this moment, this was bad. That doesn't make me an anti-Semite. But people have been hiding behind that. But then on the flipside, like I say, these chants like from the river to the sea, and you see high school students, you know, going through that recording this. And these kid, I don't think these kids really know what they're saying. No, no. But somebody is leading them. There are teachers there. And imagine and you just have to imagine if somebody was if people are chanting this, you know, again, anti-trans or anti-black or anti-women or anything like that, people there would be an uproar, rightfully so. No teachers would allow that to happen. And if they did, they would be suspended or fired on the spot if they ever promoted such anti something like that. But when there's this, you know, this again, this chant and I'm assuming that children have good intentions, these are for the children. They don't exactly know what they're doing. Children are not supposed to be critical thinkers --It’d be nice, but they're young. So, again, the fact is somebody is feeding it, whether it's their parents or the media or most likely a bunch of teachers who are trying to radicalize their children. That's not an exaggeration. So that's the kind of stuff that's really concerning me. And if we say a word that, you know, maybe a thousand years ago had some meaning and we in some, you know, niche group says you should know what that means if you say that word, oh, my gosh, you're terrible if you live on a street with the name of somebody who was once a colonialist, you know, thousand 200, 500 years ago, whatever, somehow you're bad for living on that street, right? These things are used to to to to chastise, to cancel people. Yet when someone is chanting something as blatantly anti-Jewish or anti-Israeli or anti-Semitic as that, somehow people are going to try to justify that. So I think, again, this is what I'm seeing so many people just being shocked about saying, A, how is this happening? And B, how are these double standards being applied? And then then I say, well, to counter that, like I said at the beginning, many of us have been saying the people who have been jumping on the BLM bandwagon or the trans rights bandwagon or the whatever bandwagon, right. These people, many of them, not all, some of them have good intentions, even if they're misguided, some of them, but others, they don't have values. They don't have principles. Either they're chasing clout or they need to be part of a team or they need to signal their virtue, whatever it is these are signs of somebody without a good sense of self, someone whose sense of self self-worth, self-esteem, validation comes from these cheap, you know, slacktivism, basically. And sometimes that's slacktivism when you're not a critical thinker, when you're not that intelligent, we're not that informed leads you to say and do some horrific things like we've been seeing for the last two weeks. And there's something I mean, yes, that that is all very true of all of those situations. But there's something especially I don't know what other word to use, but. GROSS about people jumping on the bandwagon when it comes to war like these are and all of these situations and all of these things that we're discussing do involve human lives. But this is the loss of human lives. So for for me, it just feels like it's it's so much worse that people are using this as a way to signal virtue. And I think that, you know, to go back to what you were saying before, that, you know, sometimes with kids, but I think with adults as well, they really don't know. They don't know what they don't know. They don't know what they do know. They don't have the whole story. And I think that in large part, their response of picking one side or the other perhaps comes from a discomfort with admitting, well, I don't know the whole story because our listeners may notice that I've said basically nothing about one side or the other because I am empathetically observing what I'm seeing as far as on the news and media. But I really don't know. I don't I don't know what the answer is. I, I don't. So as such, I don't really purport to have, you know, an opinion on strong opinion on the matter on one side or the other, because I'm okay with saying, well, I don't know what's happening. I don't know the whole story. But I do think that gives a lot of people discomfort. Yes. And that's something first of all, I think, you know, I've talked about this numerous times in therapy. Our job is to help people learn to tolerate the discomfort. And when it comes to having a nuanced, balanced, let's say, proper or accurate knowledge of something, it does require discomfort because, as you say, it requires you to say, I don't know and I don't know what the solution is. I can't speak to, let's say, when that horrible bombing or the hospital or the explosion in the hospital happened. Right. I watched as much as I could. I watched analysis. And I'm from both sides. Right. And I kept seeing there's like lots of false videos, false. You know, it was there were so many claims. And here's the problem again, with tribal mentality or we have the, you know, a confirmation bias. If someone has a belief or a feeling that they need to validate, they are going to seek out. And this is a common thing. People do this most people do it. They seek out information that confirms it. It makes them feel good. It makes the world make sense, makes them one of the good guys, not the bad guys. So I was watching people saying, you know, how can you take this person's or this organization's word at face value? Don't you know ABC this is what's bad about them. Which fair play exactly. But at the same time when they saw evidence that confirmed their beliefs or what they needed to see or wanted to see, they didn't apply the same scrutiny. So this hypocrisy in dealing with information and I was doing like I was saying the same thing, I was posting stuff and I say, I can't verify this. If I find something that shows that this is wrong, I will repost. I was asking questions online saying, Can anyone, you know, verify this, this or that? I want to know. And if the information goes against what I believed or what I want to be true, then I need to be able to accept that. And that's even more uncomfortable than not knowing. Is knowing that something that you wanted to believe or needed to believe was wrong, or it says something about your side or your self or humanity. Right? And I don't expect most people to be able to handle that when it comes to the ugliness of the human condition. And as you're saying, war. There's I don't know if there's anything worse aside from, you know, just outright murder. I don't know if there's anything more obvious or about the human condition than war. And by the way, just I mean, this is these the I think was Lindsey Graham in the States, just this war hawk, basically saying, you know, bomb Iran better bomb this bomb that these are supposed leaders saying these kinds of things. So when your own leaders are displaying such idiocy, such, you know, being so bellicose, being so just it's it's so wrong. But again, people need that team. They need that leader. They need that tribe. So they're going yes, yes, yes. Rather say, whoa, whoa, hey, wait a second. Okay? If you start attacking countries randomly or you start going after the wrong country, you do the wrong thing. This could lead to the end of everything. And thinking about the end of all beings is the most terrifying thing that one can imagine. So people shut down and they either just withdraw from the, you know, the discussion or the realities in front of them, or they just blindly jump on a side that, you know, somehow they think magically, if I'm on this path that I'm Ebro, or somehow this is going to be good for me, rather than looking at the potential consequences in this case, which would be the obliteration of all humanity. And I really want to emphasize the point that you made as far as you know, people need to develop a level of comfort with, you know, being okay with. If you found out that what you thought was true isn't true, you know, you don't have to stick to that. And I think that flexibility in our ability to view a situation, you know, if you want to pick a side, fine. I don't necessarily condone or suggest that, but, you know, be okay with understanding that maybe I was wrong, maybe I didn't have the full story. And that's okay. But we're, you know, identifying cognitive distortions here is we talk about black and white thinking, confirmation bias, you know, being comfortable with not knowing, and then also having the flexibility to understand that maybe you didn't have the whole story right. And when we talk about cognitive distortions, the most important, the most relevant and one of the most powerful is cognitive dissonance reduction. And everyone throws that term around. Not everyone understands it fully. So I just, you know, basically, at least in the West, because not all countries have this phenomenon as powerfully as we do. It's this need the average person, unless they're depressed or if they come from a collectivist society or culture, the average person needs to see him or herself as good and smart. So if they do something that goes against that, if it makes them not feel good or not smart, then they need to distort what they’ve said or done or believed in order so that that they still can maintain this image. Oh, no, no, no, I didn't say that or I did do that. But here's why I did that. I'm not dumb. I'm not smart. Instead of saying I am a good, smart person who made a mistake or I'm a good, smart person who maybe did something foolish instead of saying that they just they distort reality in order to prevent themselves from having the extreme discomfort that comes with realizing, Oops, I made a terrible mistake. So even when you bring evidence and this is the crazy thing about humans that we are not rational. We've talked about this before, I think many times. Male, female, it doesn't matter. Humans are not rational. So if someone has a strong belief and they're presented evidence that clearly contradicts that, there's no it's unequivocal. You cannot deny it. People will still somehow find a way to get out of accepting the reality. Now, not everybody, but the majority of people, they cannot handle the truth. They really can't. And this is what we're seeing. So no matter how much evidence presented, they're going to double down, you know, and just dig even deeper or they will start attacking the person who brings the information. They're going to shoot the messenger. They start going into all of these conniptions. And if you're aware of this, if you see them, we see it in therapy. We can see what people are distorting. They're really uncomfortable, and we try to provide a safe space for them to be. We try to contain them. We try to contain their emotions. We try to help them be able to process properly. But online, especially if you're getting into some heated fight, especially if you feel that so much is on the line, whether it's you, your team, your wellbeing, whatever it is, people are just going to be fighting to the end. And it's such an irrational fight and it's a destructive fight and it's a divisive fight. Yeah, so imagine that some of our listeners are wondering, okay, so what do I just ignore or do I plug my ears and not listen to any of this? Of course not. As far as the cognitive distortion that I notice comes up the most with regard to this with my clients. And I'm wracking my brain to think of another term for it, but it's the one of blowing things up. Well, gosh, no, no pun intended here at all. No insensitivity intended either. But what I mean by that is people tend to look at this as such a huge, insurmountable, giant thing that is so outside of their control. And that is what can often lead to this feeling of, you know, abundant distress that that, you know, they just cannot grasp on to. So what I often recommend is, you know, look at it more on a micro level as far as day to day, how can you manage this? What can you do about, you know, the media that you're consuming? Is there anything that you can do to maybe donate to humanitarian efforts? Is there something in your immediate reality that you can do that can help to alleviate some of this discomfort? Because the fact remains with us being on this side of the world, there really isn't a whole lot that we can do. Right. And so I'm going to add to that. And, you know, we always have this, you know, what can you do? So this is part of it. So I use the key word. It's all about control. I think I've said this before. The most important goal of human functioning of all species is to try to control or master our environment. And our environment also includes at least for humans, our minds. So I've been saying this to so many patients. A couple of things. One is energy that people are blowing it up. Okay, let's keep it proportional. So I said, look, first of all, as horrible as this is, sadly, something like that happens all the time around the world. We're just not aware of it because it's not relevant to us. The media aren't providing it to us, but it does happen. Or if it's somewhere on the periphery, we just do choose not to look at it because it's not causally relevant to us. And so I say it's always happening. And the fact is the world, as whatever as it is, has not come to an end. Despite these conflicts. And I will point out to people that at 26 I could tell you to my patients in 2016, when Trump was elected, almost every single one of my patients was so worried, except for conservatives. But I have a lot of liberal and centrist people, even even someones who are some or slightly conservative. They're like, Oh my gosh, this is going to be the end. And I was having to contain all of their fears and anxieties, and I was doing the same thing. I saying, Look, there's nothing you can do about the election. There's nothing you can do about what's going to happen for the next four years. Focus on things that you can control. What is it within your realm that you can have a sense of control over? And as you said, whether it's donating or whether it's joining groups, you hope groups that aren't fomenting more of this. But, you know, like buyer beware, find good groups, okay. Whether it's okay, I can't do anything about this, but I'm going to make darn sure that I am, for example, educated on this, even if it's uncomfortable or I'm going to get in the best shape of my life because for whatever reason, you know, even if if there's going to be an apocalypse, I'm going to be in the best, you know, condition to outrun the zombies, whatever the case may be. Right. It's finding something within your control. And I tell all my patients, I mean, they know from day one, I say, that's the lens through which we need to see everything, because everything boils down to either too much control, not enough control, unhealthy control. And again, what's in front of you? What's around you, immediately around you, that's potentially what's in your control or what you can exercise some control over, even if it's 5% more do even exercising, because that's just the fact that now I am going to say I'm going to eat a little bit better. I'm going to get up in the morning and do this or that even that is a form of control and it's more than you had the day before. If you commit to doing it. So that's really important. And I think the other one was and it's is not if it comes if it said the wrong way, it comes across the wrong way. So being careful what you're saying, like as I said earlier, these things are happening all the time to different people, right? So I said, I know it's so hard in a moment like this to to to kind of step outside of yourself. But I said and I know it sounds selfish and I say it, I know it sounds terrible. I say, But we're doing this for your sake. No one needs to know. I say, But if you're in Canada, I say, Just find gratitude. Say thank as I am in a country or in a town or, you know, situation where I'm not having bombs drop in my head or, you know, terrorists coming at me and stuff like that, I say, find the gratitude right? Or if it's your people in a certain country, whatever, you know, find just it's I know it's hard. I know there's so much loss and the source of tragedy, I say, but just try to find a bit of gratitude. You know, even if you're if you're family, some of that, you know, they were attacked or whatever, if they survived it, try to be grateful for that. And I say it's only words right now. I know it's just words. I say it. But if you commit to everyday trying to find something that you be grateful for, I say that gratitude, once it becomes deeper than just words, I say neurologic. We emotionally speaking physiologically, it helps to create a buffer against the negative feelings of fear, uncertainty, anger, you know, futility, sadness. So that's one of the things that you can do. Absolutely. Yeah. So we'd like to hear from our listeners as far as, you know, what are the things that you're grappling with the most as far as some of the topics that we've discussed today? And I don't mean about, you know, the war itself, but reflecting on your own cognitive biases and distortions, your own need for control. I really encourage listeners to reflect on that and, you know, perhaps put in the comments what some of your thoughts are on this and like subscribe, we want to hear from all of our listeners and we hope that you were able to, you know, take away some pieces of reflection with this episode. And, you know, we could go on and on about this because there are so many layers to it, There are so many factors. But again, as you said at the beginning, we're not politicians, we're not experts in these things. And that's not what we're trying to do. We're trying to help people gain perspective. We're trying to help people gain a sense of, as I said earlier, control healthy control, realistic control. And we're trying to help people become more self efficacious, having a sense of self agency, even in some of these wild and crazy times. What can I do? And I hope people, as you talk about, you know, what they're getting from this, one of the things is I can't change what's going on over there. I may not be able to change that person's view of, you know, either side of the conflict, But I can try to, you know, improve on how I process things, on how I approach things, how I view how I conduct myself. I can improve on myself that's within my control. Again, the huge prefrontal cortex that allows us to do some amazing things. So I hope people will take heart from this and we'll really try to focus on themselves what they can do. And if we've as always, when you focus on yourself, when you improve yourself, that allows you then to do right by others in whatever form that takes. Speaking of which, one of the things I've told many people that they can do because they are feeling an existential threat to their very existence, whether it's them directly, whether it's their friends or family, or whether it's the people that they feel that they belong to. So I say find a sense of connectedness. Either establish it, reestablish it. Just go out there and find, you know, again, connect with family, friends, community. Volunteer at a place where, you know, there are like minded people. But in these terrible times, because we are social animals. As we were talking about, we really need to find that again, sense of connectedness. And that does really help out in many different ways, whether it's psychological or whether it's practical, whether they are getting some resources, whether they're finding ways that they can feel that they're doing something about whatever's going on, whether they just can are able to get out of their heads and just find that sense of belongingness. So with that, until next time, keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the