These days the news is messy. Having an opinion on the same can be messier, but expressing it is the messiest experience of all. Expressing opinions is like showing the red flag to waiting troll armies who could flood your feed with the most vicious rebuttals, threats, and personalised aspersions.
Also, anyone with a semblance of public importance cannot afford to be indifferent, oblivious or ‘without an opinion’ especially if matters can somehow link back to an individual’s personal credentials. Basically it is a case of damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. If having an opinion is a problem, so is not having one.
But by its nature, the opinion voiced on any social media platform, be it Twitter or X, Facebook or even a WhatsApp ‘forward’ necessitates the unfair squeezing of history of thousands of years, deep societal complexities, and layered perceptions into cryptic ‘either-or’ positions that can never be as nuanced, balanced, or tempered with caveats.
They are therefore open for immediate interpretation and vilification. A combination of platform constraints along with predisposed partisan minds, and crude attempts to simplify the complicated, can lead to heads-you-lose-tails-I-win inevitabilities. The recent crisis and the binary positions adopted by individuals (voluntarily or forcibly) within the realm of the Israel-Hamas conflict is an example of this quandary.
There is ample toxicity on both sides of the conflict to inflict the ‘other’ with impromptu indignation, abuse, and aspersions of insensitivity. Cherry-picking of facts, whataboutery, (un)warranted contexts and sheer falsehood are all part of the reactionary admixture that drive the most polarising discourse. It harks back to a former US President’s simplistic “You are either with us, or with them” refrain ~ there is simply no space for reason or measure that attempts to go beyond binaries.
Celebrities are now divided into the opposing camps of ‘ProIsrael’ or ‘Pro-Palestine’ stands. Many with Arab ethnicity like Bella and Gigi Hadid (Americans of Palestinian ethnicity) were quick to insist, “I have deep sympathy and heartbreak for the Palestinian struggle and life under occupation”. They were joined by others like Bassem Youssef, Fifi Abdo, Yousra, Cherihan, Elisaa etc., but were also joined in by others who do not necessarily have nativist emotions e.g., Susan Sarandon, Jessica Chastain, Mark Ruffalo, John Cusack, etc.
Many of them had supported the Palestinian rights for long and have earned the ire, angst and pointed rebuttals by many from the other side. Amy Schumer criticised the local press for promoting ‘lies’ on the accusation of Israel being responsible for the horrific bombing of the Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza Strip ~ whereas Sarah Silverman went to the extent of justifying Israel’s decision of cutting power and water to Gaza Strip (she later deleted her justification following the reaction).
Many others like Gal Gadot, Madonna, Josh Gad etc., who had expressed outrage on the initial Hamas attack carnage were soon called out for selectivity in outrage. The melee that accompanies opinions was further vitiated by the curse of our times i.e., fake pictures from some other events.
Certain photos posted by celebrities like Justin Bieber and Jamie Lee Curtis, of suffering children in difficult conditions in Israel, turned out to be pictures of children from exactly the opposite side of the conflict i.e. from the Gaza Strip! Instead of promoting dialogue, engagement and thaw in the situation, the deluge of binary opinions, photos and so-called ‘supportings’ added to the confusion, chaos and hardening of stands from both sides.
Sovereign support to either of the sides reignited biases and confirmed old stereotypes of the proverbial ‘Western’ position and of the ‘Ummah’ (Islamic world) on the other side. It was not a case of excess information to resolve a crisis, but one of disinformation-overkill that led to even higher walls. Amidst all this, even the Indian social media scene and celebrities assumed expected positions that played up and conflated their own partisan biases and preferences, with creative contexts and suppositions.
That the Government of India navigated its own stand from an initial reaction that was decidedly pro-Israel, to that of a more nuanced/traditional one that was sympathetic to the plight of Palestinian civilians in Gaza Strip was ignored by cadres who liked the binary-unilateralism of positions.
Public emotions ran ahead of Governmental restraint. In divisive times like this, all forms of reasonableness take a back seat, e.g. supporting the Palestinian cause does not tantamount to justifying the Hamas attack, or that condemning the Israeli government does not equate to antisemitism.
That Hamas is not necessarily Palestine or Benjamin Netanyahu’s reactionary politics is not reflective of every Israeli, is completely lost. Thankfully there were a few like Senator Bernie Sanders who refused to slot themselves in a ‘either-or’ binary and recognised the complexity for what it was, as opposed to picking a side, blindly.
A Jew himself, Sanders rightfully slammed Hamas as a “awful terrorist organisation” that had “slaughtered 1400 people in cold blood” but also tempered the same with, “What Israel does not, in my view, have a right to do is to kill thousands of thousands of innocent men, women and children who had nothing to do with that attack”.
Clearly his stand as a flagbearer of the progressive side of Democrat ranks is at variance with the official stand adopted by his own Democrat Government ~ but that is the brilliance of true democracy in action, where even partisan folks can readily question their own. Sanders asserted the layered reality when he said, “This is a horrendously complex issue,” and then added, “You got a right-wing government in Israel, which is racist.
I saw only 18 per cent of the people of Israel want Netanyahu to stay in office. I hope they get rid of him. I hope they put in a government, which understands the severity of the crisis.”
But such nuanced views that overcome historical perceptions, wounds and biases are indeed very few and fleeting. Perhaps the new-age mediums of communicating opinions (especially on so-called ‘social media’) are inherently not amenable to non-binary and reasoned positions ~ it is the nature of the beast to prefer the provocative and the hateful to generate traction and resonance. While it is important to opine, it should not be in a fixated (partisan), bigoted and unqualified manner that adds more fuel to fire, as opposed to dousing tensions and encouraging engagement.
(The writer is Lt Gen PVSM, AVSM (Retd), and former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry)