Commentary: In war and peace, the fates of Israel and the Palestinians are inextricably bound together
War and conflict are almost invariably zero-sum games. What makes war so unforgiving, even oddly unifying, is that there is a shared experience of irreparable pain, loss, trauma and destruction. Even the victor emerges a loser. The cruelty of war is that those shouldering the greatest loss are often the ones left abandoned, wondering, futilely, whether it was all worth it.
Conflict must be understood through its catalyzing force: the collapse of empathy. We silence the human impulse to switch places by rationalizing animosities that enable us to strip
