This paper analyzes the depiction and promotion of the most recent escalation of the Israeli war waged on Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territory through social media by a specific “lone soldier influencer” and Israeli and pro-Israel non-profit organizations during a six-month time frame (October 7, 2023 – April 7, 2024). The research delves into the definition of a lone soldier, how they showcase the war, and their everyday experiences on the battlefield through social media.

Since October 7, advocates for Israel have swiftly utilized media channels and online platforms to voice their perspectives, aiming to defend and uphold the State of Israel in the digital realm. They are conducting a parallel battle on the Internet and are positioning themselves as a new alternative to traditional media sources with informal language and first-hand evidence. However, the web is not enough. These influencers aim at indoctrinating and inciting their audience to take matters into their own hands and move to action. For my research, I have chosen to focus on lone soldiers. Their unique nature places them outside the conventional framework, making them suitable for a new analysis of radicalization[1] within the information warfare surrounding the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Methodology

In this study, I examined the social media engagement of a prolific lone soldier influencer, Noy Leyb, by analyzing various social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X, and YouTube. I also collected data from other accounts of organizations like Friends of the IDF, Nefesh B’Nefesh, Sar-El, and individuals like Daniel Judkowicz in order to contextualize Noy Leyb’s media behavior. The selection of these accounts was based on their social media engagement, with a focus on the frequency of posts, number of followers, content type, and outreach. I considered only accounts which posted a minimum of two conflict-related updates per week since October 7, 2023, aiming to influence audience opinions. Additionally, a threshold of ten thousand followers for organizations and one thousand for individual accounts was set, and engagement rates were classified as low (up to 2.9%), good (3% to 5.9%), and high (above 6%) based on data from AgencyAnalytics. Comments were not factored in due to content creators’ control over audience interaction on social media. Only two out of seven lone soldier accounts were included due to the difficulty in confirming other soldiers’ status and other limitations such as private accounts. Noy Leyb and Daniel Judkowicz have open-access accounts. It is important to note that all data was collected manually on April 22-23, 2024, without the use of digital tools like scrapers.

Lone soldier influencer

Lone soldiers are foreign volunteers who are unique to the State of Israel and they cannot be classified as foreign fighters. In accordance with the definition of lone soldier given by the Lone Soldier Center: “A ‘lone soldier’ is an IDF soldier with no family in Israel to support him or her. A lone soldier may be a new immigrant, a volunteer from abroad, an orphan or an individual from a broken home.” The soldiers are also entitled to a monthly stipend, as stated by the Center. Moreover, individuals of Jewish descent and their immediate non-Jewish family members have the opportunity to apply for Israeli citizenship, provided they meet specific criteria.

I considered two definitions, with the first definition coming from the paper “Islamic Foreign Fighters: Concept and Data” authored by Colgan and Hegghammer in 2011, where they articulate:

“I build on this formulation [Malet’s definition] and define a foreign fighter as an agent who (1) has joined, and operates within the confines of, an insurgency; (2) lacks citizenship of the conflict state or kinship links to its warring factions; (3) lacks affiliation to an official military organization; and (4) is unpaid.”

The second definition comes from the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights (2014): “A foreign fighter is an individual who leaves his or her country of origin or habitual residence to join a non-state armed group in an armed conflict abroad and who is primarily motivated by ideology, religion, and/or kinship.”

Lone soldiers are not classified as foreign fighters as they do not meet the second and fourth requirements of Colgan and Heggammer’s definition, nor do they fit the Geneva Academy definition due to their association with the IDF, a state armed group.

The research does not exclusively focus on lone soldiers, but rather on lone soldiers who might also be considered “influencers.” When referring to influencers, I mean those who have gained popularity on social media platforms and use specialized and marketized content to influence their audience.[2] The unique status of a lone soldier influencer positions them in a new and powerful role, different from the traditional influencer, allowing them to exert influence not just through their military authority, but also through their popularity. Their content may be more inclined to propaganda and radicalization narratives compared to the average social media influencer. This new link allows for the direct dissemination of sensitive information between the military and the public, bypassing government and authorized media channels. In relation to this study, the analyzed lone soldier influencers showed a greater tendency towards radicalization.

An Active Content Creator

The most active lone soldier is the 32-year-old man, Noy Leyb.[3] He is a former Israeli soldier, now reservist, who flew to Israel on the first plane from New York after the October 7 attack and documented his experience. With 27.6 thousand followers, Leyb can be considered a mid-tier influencer.[4] He publishes an average of 49 posts a month, with 293 posts in total of which 219 were on Instagram.[5] On the latter, he received 721.288 likes (an average of 3.294 likes per post). After a revision of his posts, I categorized the content as follows: on the battlefield, critique and support, interview and storytelling, news update, companionship, celebration and rest, prayer, mourning, family, and others.[6] 71,6 percent of his posts on Instagram can be traced back to four categories: on the battlefield (67 posts), critique and support (36 posts), interview and storytelling (16 posts), and news update (15 posts).[7]

Throughout the six months and mainly through the four main categories, the influencer expressed his opinions about Hamas, the conflict, and external secondary effects caused by the war.

Views on Hamas

On Hamas, Leyb’s views alternated between personal perceptions and general statements parroting the stance of the IDF. Noy Leyb described Hamas as worse than ISIS and comprised of people who should not be considered human beings, since they carry on inhumane actions, for instance: they kill innocent people; they kidnap, rape, and behead women; they use children as shields; Hamas promotes misogyny and homophobia.[8] Evidence of the disastrous conditions in which the Gaza Strip finds itself today accompanied every post about Hamas. On January 5, 2024, Noy Leyb shared a post featuring an abandoned school with a tank in the playground, alleging that Hamas had been using schools for launching rockets and storing weapons. Considering the significant number of likes received on posts discussing Hamas (9.9% of 72,030 likes), it seems that his audience supported and agreed with the influencer’s strong opinions about those he referred to as “heartless savages.” His language is overall characterized by derogative generalizations about the enemy as well as dismissive and apologetic rhetoric about Israel’s destruction of Gaza. He reiterates a narrative – widely used by the Israeli government to justify the devastation brought to Gaza and the Palestinians – depicting Israelis as civilized heroes sacrificing their soldiers for the greater good, i.e. the liberation of Israel from Islamic terrorism.

The final point underscores the concerning polarization of his views on the enemy, revealing his adoption of beliefs that justify violence as a political tool, portraying a shift toward radicalization (Uzair Ahmed and Milan Obaidi, 2020). As worrisome as the radicalization is the high rate of appreciation from his audience.

Views of the October 7 War

His stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict suggests a potential Americanization[9] of the war. I define Americanization as the absorption and imitation of what is commonly seen as the “American way of doing things,” encompassing American-centric beliefs and exceptionalism. I am specifically alluding to the government’s efforts to win over global public opinion. In this case, I think this process occurs in two different manners: call for a war on terror legitimized at different levels, from the general public, to news agencies and state authorities; drawing parallels between a new 9/11 for the State of Israel and the patriotic sentiment which emerged from that event in the United States. The close relationship between Israel and the United States of America, which is home to the second largest Jewish population after Israel (6.3 million people in the USA compared to 7.2 million in Israel)[10], may have had an impact on the Americanization of the October 7 events. Encouraging the public to unite with the IDF in fighting Hamas included showing support during pro-Israel protests, being vocal on social media in favor of the Israeli cause, and not supporting pro-Palestine protests (because, allegedly, most of them end in violence and incite more support towards Hamas), covering (only) positive news about Israel. Two videos posted on Instagram helped me highlight these viewpoints. The first video, with 125,937 views, showed destroyed buildings in the Gaza Strip with the caption: “Gaza Roads, Take Me Home, To the Place, Where I Belong”. The caption refers to the song “Take Me Home, Country Roads” by John Denver. The song talks about the homesickness that the author feels since he is far from his native state. He is asking the roads to lead him to his origins. This post was just one of the many which displayed the State of Israel as an actor forced to intervene in the territory of Gaza to bring peace and eliminate the threat of terrorism.

The second video confirmed this ultimate and sole savior’s perspective. With 305,784 views, the video showed his military unit walking in the streets of Gaza, the caption stating:

“We walk these Gaza roads not because we want to – but because we have to. For the kidnapped. The injured. The dead. The living. And we will continue to walk these roads until we will destroy the heartless brutal killers who turned October 7^th into one of the darkest days of our history. We, the Jewish people, will continue to defend ourselves and will never, ever, EVER, back down”.

Such a caption also relates to the generation of a new 9/11 for Israelis and Jews worldwide. The rhetoric used is similar to the news coverage after the terrorist attack in New York City, for instance: sharing of other people’s stories who lost a close relative or friend, reasons for signing up with the army, classification of the event as one of the darkest days in the country’s history, and enduring recollections of their activities at the time of the attack.

Noy Leyb went further claiming that Jews have been combating two wars, one in the frontline against Hamas and the other in the streets and social media against antisemitism.[11] By October 9, the idea of the “darkest” and “bloodiest” day in Jewish history since the end of the Holocaust had already spread through the Israeli population.[12] By October 18, Joe Biden emphasized: “But for a nation the size of Israel, [the attack] was like fifteen 9/11s. The scale may be different, but I’m sure those horrors have tapped into some kind of primal feeling in Israel, just like it did and felt in the United States.”[13]

The process of Americanization has dragged Israel’s position at two opposite ends, but still related, standpoints. It borrows another country’s humanitarian disaster, known to attract public sympathy worldwide, to be perceived and endorsed through the same sympathetic lenses. On the other side, the comparison between October 7 and 9/11 deprived Israel of the ability to characterize the event based on its political, social, and cultural connotations. More importantly, it overshadowed its historical context, namely the decades of occupation and violence suffered by the Palestinian people. The extremist ideology and violence committed through the IDF mutually reinforce each other, showcasing a high degree of radicalization that encompasses behavioral, religious, and political elements (Uzair Ahmed and Milan Obaidi, 2020).

Merely a Second Point of View

The second influencer, Daniel Judkowicz, is a younger man who had already established himself as a prominent TikTok figure when he started posting about the war. Reaching more than 167,000 followers, he posted only 4 posts, 3 of which could be categorized as “on the battlefield” and 1 as “companionship.” Based on the content available, he did not expose his opinions about the war and his account is less political than that of the first influencer profiled in this article. The captions contained the only illusion that approached a political message, half of which said the same phrase: “We only have one country… we must protect her”. Of the 25,454 viewers he reached, 6.9 % of them liked his posts. The same pattern could be stressed about Noy Leyb. Of 767,046 viewers, up to 7.1 % of them showed appreciation to the content.

Amid the controversial posts relating to the conflict and the considerable number of interviews by pro-Israel US American news agencies, only Leyb presented a complete depiction of the daily life of a lone soldier. Starting from an early morning with a quick breakfast, the soldiers spend the day between patrolling shifts and training sessions. Meanwhile, on the battlefield, they apply what they learned when training while their only sources of nutrition come from canned food and homemade meals that the soldiers brought with them.

War crime influencer

The emergence of a new type of influencers has been observed in connection with Putin’s aggression in Ukraine – they are referred to as “war crime influencers.”[14] These individuals are military influencers who actively promote and endorse warfare. According to a 2024 BBC article on War Influencers, these influencers tend to downplay the human suffering resulting from the conflict while showcasing the “frontlines and the trenches of war.” They adhere to a specific set of guidelines centered around the dissemination of information and often resort to “joke and devalue the plight” of the enemy (Shado Magazine, 2024). Even though Noy Leyb does not publish explicit content on the people murdered and humiliated by the IDF, his social media engagement checks on every other criterion for war crime influencers. He uses a pseudo-journalistic professionalism to narrate one ideological vision the war while antagonizing pro-Palestine supporters and justifying the Israeli “war on terror.”

Even considering a more generic definition for such influencers, given by Shoda Magazine – “Anyone who uses social media trends to taunt the Palestinians as they are being slaughtered can be deemed a war crime influencer, as they are building their own brand on crimes against humanity and the misery of others.” – I cannot classify the second content creator as a war crime influencer because of the lack of data needed for the assumption.

Non-profit Organizations’ Role

I learned from the online posts of pro-Israel non-profit organizations, including Sar-El, Nefesh B’Nefesh, and Friends of the IDF, that combatants are not confined to army camps and the frontlines. They also participate in recharge programs, such as SOULdier Recharge, BBQ4IDF, and Operation Hug, with SOULdier Recharge and Operation Hug being the longer-lasting programs that allow fighters to temporarily leave their camps for some rest. For instance, SOULdier spans a week and is designed to divert the combatants’ attention away from the war, assist them in managing mental health challenges, and equip them for the future ahead.[15] Hence, the aim of this program is to help Israeli soldiers process their traumatic experiences. As some Israeli troops rotate out for rest and rehabilitation, they are quickly replaced by others, leaving little time for internally displaced people in Gaza to seek medical attention and cope with their trauma. By engaging in activities to address their emotional responses to combat, Israeli soldiers should come to understand the significant impact of their actions on the majority of the population in Gaza, who are living in extremely dire conditions and on the verge of survival. This understanding should lead to a certain level of accountability for their actions and a greater recognition of the humanity of Palestinians, which is currently lacking.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is concerning the power held by a single lone soldier influencer. His position, next to the work of algorithms, brought him closer to the masses, and the masses further away from traditional news outlets. The divisive content surrounding the conflict has drawn in an extreme audience, with the high levels of interaction indicating that tens of thousands of individuals on social media support an extremist narrative and actions. This conflict has escalated beyond online disagreements and spilled over into the streets of foreign lands.[16]

When it comes to lone soldiers, I identify two primary factors contributing to the radicalization of Israel’s backers: propaganda, which is the idea that the enemy is obstructing their ultimate goal, a strong Israeli state; group influence, meaning that, even when they should be resting, they are spending their time in the same circle of people, discussing the same topic, and within the same perspective. Additional elements pushed over the limits of the narrative of radicalization. The elements are the Americanization of October 7 and a savior complex condoned by a victimized position within the conflict. The victimization has allowed them to redefine self-defense and, simultaneously, to avoid any accountability related to the humanitarian disaster caused in Gaza by Israel.

References

“Influencer, N., Additional sense.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/4737815373.

Grigor Atanesian. Ukraine War: Putin Influencers Profiting from War Propaganda. BBC. September 2, 2023. Ukraine war: Putin influencers profiting from war propaganda (bbc.com)

Hamas’ October 7 Attack: The Tactics, Targets, and Strategy of Terrorists. Center for Strategic and International Studies. November 7, 2023. Hamas’ October 7 Attack: The Tactics, Targets, and Strategy of Terrorists (csis.org)

He left NYC tech startup to rejoin Israel’s military. CNN. October 11, 2023. He left NYC tech startup to rejoin Israel’s military | CNN

Jen King. Guide to Influencer Marketing: Trends, Tactics, and KPIs. eMarketer. January 26, 2024. Influencer Marketing: Audiences, Platforms, Strategies, & KPIs (emarketer.com)

Jewish Population Rises to 15.7 Million Worldwide in 2023, The Jewish Agency for Israel, September 13, 2023. Jewish Population Rises to 15.7 Million Worldwide | The Jewish Agency

Meet two of the Canadians who’ve returned to Israel to join the war effort. The Canadian Jewish News. October 13, 2023. Meet two of the Canadians who’ve returned to Israel to join the war effort (thecjn.ca)

Nell Irvin Painter. The History of White People. W. W. Norton and Company. 2010. p. 300

Never Again Mean Now. The Algemeiner. October 10, 2023. Never Again Means Now – Algemeiner.com

Remarks by President Biden on the October 7 Terrorist Attacks and the Resilience of the State of Israel and its People – Tel Aviv, Israel. October 18, 2023. Remarks by President Biden on the October 7th Terrorist Attacks and the Resilience of the State of Israel and its People | Tel Aviv, Israel | The White House

SOULdier RECHARGE. Friends of the IDF. July 27, 2023. SOULdier RECHARGE – FIDF

The CBC’s Marianne Dimain speaks with Noy Leyb, a Canadian-Israeli Reservist. CBC. January 14, 2024. The CBC’s Marianne Dimain speaks with Noy Leyb, a Canadian-Israeli Reservist | CBC.ca

Uzair Ahmed and Milan Obaidi. What is Radicalization? C-REX – Center for Research on Extremism. September 7, 2020. What is radicalization? – C-REX – Center for Research on Extremism (uio.no)

Was Hama’s attack on Saturday the bloodiest day for Jews since the Holocaust? The Times of Israel. October 9th, 2023. Was Hamas’s attack on Saturday the bloodiest day for Jews since the Holocaust? | The Times of Israel

What must be done, no more excuses for the CIA. New York Post. September 12, 2001. WHAT MUST BE DONE ; NO MORE EXCUSES FOR THE CIA (nypost.com)

Witness to Apocalypse. The New York Times. September 8, 2011. The 9/11 Decade: Witness to Apocalypse. A Collective Diary. – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

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[1] The definition I am using is taken from Uzair Ahmed and Milan Obaidi. What is Radicalization? C-REX – Center for Research on Extremism. September 7, 2020: “Behavioral radicalization, on the other hand, encompasses the behavioral outcome and refers to the process of participating in extreme activities, which could be either violent and illegal or non-violent and legal. Thus, behavioral radicalization can be defined as a ‘collectively defined, individually felt moral obligation to participate in direct action’. Consequently, radicalization can be seen as a social and psychological transformation whereby an individual increasingly adopts an extremist belief system, regardless if it ultimately results in actual violence or not.”

[2] According to the Oxford English Dictionary, an influencer is “A person who has become well-known through use of the internet and social media, and uses celebrity to endorse, promote, or generate interest in specific products, brands, etc., often for payment.”

[3] He left NYC tech startup to rejoin Israel’s military. CNN. October 11^th, 2023; The CBC’s Marianne Dimain speaks with Noy Leyb, a Canadian-Israeli Reservist. CBC. January 2024; Meet two of the Canadians who’ve returned to Israel to join the war effort. The Canadian Jewish News. October 13^th, 2023.

[4] According to Jen King. Guide to Influencer Marketing: Trends, Tactics, and KPIs. eMarketer. January 26, 2024. There are five types of influencers: nano-influencers (1000 to 4.999 followers); micro-influencers (5.000 to 19.999 followers); mid-tier influencers (20.000 to 99.999); macro-influencers (100.000 to 999.999); mega-influencers (over 1 million followers).

[5] Most of which is cross-posting.

[6] The categorization relates to the most prevalent topic covered by the post and its caption. Some posts deal with two or more topics but for simplicity it was decided to define them based on their most relevant theme. The category ‘other’ refers to every activity which is not military and war related and includes everything not indicated by the other categories, for example donations, social media collaborations, shoutouts to other influencers, and so on.

[7] The category ‘other’ was excluded from the count. It amounted to 32 posts on Instagram and 11 on TikTok.

[8] Video posted on January 11^th, 2023, addressed to Western minority groups supporting Hamas.

[9] I am not referring to the traditional definition of Americanization which relates to foreigners residing in the USA and assimilating the so-called US American standards, values, and beliefs according to Nell Irvin Painter. The History of White People. W. W. Norton and Company. 2010. p. 300.

[10] Jewish Population Rises to 15.7 Million Worldwide in 2023, The Jewish Agency for Israel, September 13, 2023.

[11] For better reference: Never Again Mean Now. The Algemeiner. October 10, 2023. Witness to Apocalypse. The New York Times. September 8, 2011. What must be done, no more excuses for the CIA. New York Post. September 12, 2001.

[12] For references, see Was Hama’s attack on Saturday the bloodiest day for Jews since the Holocaust? The Times of Israel. October 9th, 2023; Hamas’ October 7 Attack: The Tactics, Targets, and Strategy of Terrorists. Center for Strategic and International Studies. November 7, 2023.

[13] Remarks by President Biden on the October 7 Terrorist Attacks and the Resilience of the State of Israel and its People – Tel Aviv, Israel. October 18, 2023.

[14] Grigor Atanesian. Ukraine War: Putin Influencers Profiting from War Propaganda. BBC. September 2, 2023.

[15] According to the website of Friends of the IDF: “SOULdier Recharge is a week-long educational program that takes soldiers out of their day-to-day operational activities and provides them with a chance to process their experiences and mentally prepare for what inevitably lies ahead”. The program is run by the IDF’s Education and Youth Corps.

[16] Noy Leyb shared some videos on Instagram documenting protesters’ clashes in the USA on March 31, 2024, April 01, 2024, and April 09, 2024.

Il 26 gennaio 2024 la Corte di Giustizia dell’Aja ha accolto la denuncia presentata dal Sudafrica e ordinato a Israele di prendere misure immediate per evitare il genocidio dei palestinesi a Gaza.

Nonostante il cessate il fuoco rimanga un obiettivo complicato, è stato un momento importante perché l’ordine della Corte ha confermato quello che diversi rappresentanti delle Nazioni Unite hanno ripetuto negli ultimi tre mesi, cioé che quello che sta avvenendo a Gaza non può in nessun modo essere considerato una campagna militare di difesa ma, anzi, potrebbe configurarsi come un genocidio. La Corte ha ricordato alcuni dati essenziali, tra i quali l’elevato numero di vittime civili, inclusi migliaia di bambini, la distruzione di case, scuole e strutture sanitarie, lo spostamento forzato della maggioranza della popolazione della Striscia di Gaza, il tutto in un contesto nel quale il governo e l’esercito israeliano hanno continuamente rivendicato il proprio diritto di bombardare, spesso utilizzando un linguaggio deumanizzante nei confronti dei palestinesi, come quando il Ministro della Difesa Yoav Gallant ha detto “stiamo combattendo contro animali umani,” oppure quando Ron Prosor, ambasciatore di Israele a Berlino, ha affermato: “Questa è civilizzazione contro barbarie. Bene contro male.”  

E l’Europa? Silente e complice. Nessun paese occidentale ha supportato la richiesta del Sudafrica presso la Corte dell’Aja. Ora che la Corte ha deciso di accettare il caso, l’apatia politica europea si fa ancora più imbarazzante. Perdipiù, a seguito delle accuse mosse nei confronti di alcuni operatori di UNRWA (l’agenzia delle Nazioni Unite per i rifugiati palestinesi) di aver collaborato con Hamas per gli attacchi in Israele del 7 ottobre 2023, paesi come Stati Uniti, Regno Unito, Germania, Italia, Olanda, Svizzera, Finlandia, Australia e Canada hanno deciso di sospendere i finzanziamenti all’agenzia, di fatto contribuendo alla punizione collettiva della popolazione civile di Gaza. L’esatto contrario di quanto ordinato dalla Corte di Giustizia. UNRWA ha aperto una indagine interna ma, al di là di quel che emergerà, l’agenzia non è certamente priva di aspetti critici e problematici. In generale, le varie agenzie delle Nazioni Unite, incluso UNRWA, sono tutt’altro che perfette. Ma il punto ora non è discutere i termini di una necessaria riforma strutturale delle Nazioni Unite. Le proporzioni della catastrofe umanitaria a Gaza sono tali per cui, tagliare gli aiuti ora, equivale a esacerbare la portata e la sofferenza di tale catastrofe.   

Nei salotti della politica internazionale così come negli ambienti culturali istituzionali e nella comunicazione di massa, molti rappresentanti dei paesi occidentali continuano a percepirsi come protettori e promotori di valori come la dignità umana e il rispetto dei diritti fondamentali, spesso con un atteggiamento di superiorità e arroganza nei confronti di altri paesi e culture. Questa narrazione autocelebrativa, di fatto sempre contraddetta dalle guerre e dai saccheggi perpetrati dai paesi europei e dagli Stati Uniti in tutto il mondo, è oggi nuovamente smentita dalla storia. Portando Israele davanti alla Corte Internazionale di Giustizia con l’obiettivo di porre fine ai massacri in corso a Gaza, il Sudafrica ha di fatto messo ancora una volta in luce l’intrinseca ambiguità della moralità umanitaria occidentale e l’insostebibile logica per cui a volte (quando conviene) è giusto battersi per i diritti umani e per il rispetto del diritto internazionale, altre volte no.

È molto significativo che sia stato proprio il Sudafrica, un paese che ha vissuto la traumatica esperienza dell’apartheid, ad avere avviato la procedura presso la Corte di Giustizia. Dopo oltre tre mesi di bombardamenti ininterrotti, e nonostante la devastazione documentata da operatori umanitari e giornalisti che hanno pagato con la vita, gli alleati occidentali di Israele rimangono indifferenti o, addirittura, apertamente solidali con la violenza in corso.

Significa che il Sudafrica o gli altri stati che hanno supportato il caso all’Aja siano senza problemi politici e sociali? Ovviamente no, ma in quanto europei, dovremmo imparare a essere più coscienziosi nel guardarci allo specchio, soprattutto in momenti storici come questo.

L’11 gennaio 2024, Ronald Lamola, il ministro della Giustizia del Sudafrica, ha iniziato il proprio intervento di fronte ai giudici della Corte citando Nelson Mandela: “tendendo le nostre mani al popolo palestinese, lo facciamo con la piena consapevolezza che facciamo parte di un’umanità che è una.” I membri della delegazione legale del Sudafrica hanno espresso, in maniera efficace e poi ribadita dalla Corte, un chiaro monito nel considerare la capacità genocida della campagna militare in corso a Gaza, ma hanno anche palesato la loro vicinanza e solidarietà nei confronti del popolo palestinese. Il Sudafrica ha anche ricordato l’importanza di collocare gli eventi attuali in un più ampio orizzonte storico contraddistinto da una situazione di oppressione e violenza strutturale che hanno portato al lento ma costante soffocamento dei palestinesi preparando il terreno per i tragici eventi di questi giorni.

Mentre la Germania, di nuovo dalla parte sbagliata della storia, dopo le prime sessioni della Corte  si impegnava a prendere posizione e sostenere Israele in sede di udienza, la Namibia, che agli inizi del XX secolo subì il genocidio degli Herero e dei Nama inflitto dai colonizzatori tedeschi, ha suggerito al governo tedesco di riconsiderare la propria decisione: “Nessun essere umano amante della pace può ignorare la carneficina commessa contro i palestinesi a Gaza”, ha dichiarato la presidenza della Namibia.

Il Sudafrica ha offerto all’Europa una lezione che va ben oltre gli aspetti giuridici legati alla Convenzione delle Nazioni Unite sul Genocidio (che pur rimangono assolutamente importanti). Quello che è in gioco oggi è il valore stesso del principio di umanità. La violenza, l’instabilità e la distruzione che le cosiddette guerre umanitarie, i tentativi di esportare la democrazia e la “guerra al terrorismo” hanno prodotto in Afghanistan, Iraq e Libia, per fare alcuni esempi, sono crimini della storia con cui l’Europa deve riuscire a fare i conti. L’idea sempre latente che il massacro o la sofferenza dei “civilizzati” siano più traumatici del massacro o della sofferenza degli “altri”, non può più essere accettata da nessuno.

Gli ex colonizzati sono ora potenze globali emergenti o in molti casi ampiamente consolidate che non solo mettono in discussione la retorica occidentale di una superiorità morale proclamata sostenendo il massacro dei palestinesi, ma agiscono ridefinendo (o in altri casi negando) quei valori di cui l’Europa voleva farsi baluardo.

Le gerarchie globali si stanno significativamente riconfigurando e c’è molta incertezza sulle prospettive di pace in diverse regioni del pianeta, ma le sfide che tutti noi abbiamo davanti richiedono un cambio di mentalità, non solo azioni e riparazioni ad hoc. Infatti, il grande rischio è che, di fronte ai fallimenti e all’ipocrisia dell’Europa nel contesto internazionale, anche valori come la pace, la diplomazia e i diritti umani vengano messi in discussione. Se i paesi occidentali sceglieranno di ignorare le decisioni della Corte Internazionale di Giustizia, a farne le spese, oltre ai palestinesi, sarà la credibilità stessa del diritto internazionale.

Manifestazioni di solidarietà con il popolo palestinese si stanno svolgendo in tutta Europa, ma la maggior parte dei leader politici non sembra essere toccata dallo sterminio di migliaia di civili a Gaza. Persiste un clima repressivo in cui la libertà di espressione e l’autonomia intellettuale vengono messi seriamente in discussione. È un momento storico chiave in cui è necessario che la coscienza europea si risvegli attraverso una comprensione rinnovata del concetto di umanità, non più espressione di asimmetrie e gerarchie globali, ma fonte di un umanesimo postcoloniale.

Since the creation of the United Nations, and in line with the civilizing mission’s rhetoric used to justify colonialism, racist arguments about the African continent as halting, obstructing, defying and subverting accountability for mass atrocities have been rehearsed in major political and academic circles in the West. In international diplomatic arenas as well as in institutional cultural environments, Western countries tend to perceive themselves as the protectors and promoters of human rights, responsible for showing other – mostly non-Western – countries the path toward ethical and democratic behavior. This self-celebratory narrative, always contradicted by wars and plunder perpetrated by European countries and the United States around the globe, is now again proven wrong by history. By bringing Israel before the International Court of Justice, the world’s highest court, with the objective of putting an end to the ongoing massacres in Gaza – while the West continues to side with and provide military supplies to the oppressor – South Africa (with the support of its partners, all of which are exclusively from the Global South) is challenging the West’s moral high ground and exposing its double standards.

It is symbolically significant that of all the 193 United Nations member states, it is South Africa, a country that has made the painful experience of apartheid, and therefore understands too well that ‘our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians’ (Nelson Mandela), that is initiating this procedure. After more than one hundred days of uninterrupted bombings, and in spite of killings being livestreamed as they occur, the Western allies of Israel remain unshaken. Biden and Trudeau, Sunak and Macron, Borrell and von der Leyen continue to marshall pretenses to excuse the violence of ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’ and ‘the most moral army in the world’ and the atrocities it is committing with their help.

‘In extending our hands across the miles to the people of Palestine, we do so with the full knowledge that we are part of a humanity that is at one.’ It is with this quote from Nelson Mandela that Justice Minister Ronald Lamola opened South Africa’s statement before the ICJ, perfectly encapsulating the essence of their intervention. Because what stood out in South Africa’s intervention was precisely their humanity. Each member of the South African legal team went beyond presenting a legal case and, instead, offered a genuine expression of sympathy for the suffering of the Palestinians and solidarity with their struggle.

Whereas most human rights mechanisms tend to focus on contingent facts and limit the room for broader contextualization and discussion about root causes, South Africa took the opportunity of this hearing to emphasize the importance of placing the current events in a longer history marked by ongoing denial of self-determination and right to return, Nakba, and occupation, all of which have led to the slow but consistent suffocation of Palestinians and prepared the ground for genocidal acts to take place. It stated that decades of impunity have emboldened Israel to intensify its crime.

As Germany committed to take a stand and support Israel in front of the Court, Namibia, which at the beginning of the 20th century suffered the Herero and Namaqua genocide inflicted by the German empire, cautioned Germany to reconsider its decision. ‘No peace-loving human being can ignore the carnage waged against Palestinians in Gaza,’ the Namibian presidency declared.

Already in 1961, Franz Fanon concluded his essay The Wretched of the Earth, by saying: ‘If we want to meet the expectations of our peoples, we have to look beyond Europe’. This statement can be read as a prediction of the role South Africa is taking today. His call to ‘look elsewhere’ in the quest for a true humanism, where concern for humanity is no longer eclipsed by the interests of dominating nations or the identities of conquering peoples, is reflected in South Africa’s outstretched hand to Palestinians at the very moment when Western hypocrisy is exposed.

South Africa is presenting the West with a lesson that goes far beyond legal aspects in relation to the United Nations Genocide Convention. The different degrees of humanity that so-called humanitarian wars and attempt to export democracy have produced, whereas the massacre or the suffering of the ‘civilized’ is considered as more tragic than the massacre or the suffering of ‘others’, can no longer be accepted. The former colonized are now emergent or in several cases largely consolidated global powers that question the Western rhetoric of a moral superiority proclaimed while supporting the massacre of the Palestinians. Global hierarchies are being reconfigured and much is uncertain about the prospects for peace in several regions. But the challenges we all have before us require a change of mindset, not only ad hoc actions and reparations.

Demonstrations of solidarity with the people of Gaza are taking place around Europe but most political leaders remain untouched by the cry of thousands of innocent civilians. It is a key historical moment for European conscience to wake up and, inspired by South Africa, protect the idea of humanity, before it is too late.

This paper was published simultaneously on both Allegra Lab and Public Anthropologist.

Summary: Conversational artificial intelligence is often a form of storytelling, and underlying some of AI’s stories is an artificial ethos that could be insidious. 

I am a cultural anthropologist and I’ve been ruminating on the cultural impact of artificial intelligence. I recognize AI’s potential for increasing knowledge, productivity, and generating medical breakthroughs. There is no question in my mind that AI will be a collaborative, indefatigable partner for humanity. I am so galvanized by it that this fall I will incorporate AI into the curriculum of my Columbia Business School course, Market Intelligence: The Art and the Science. At the same time, I am acutely aware of AI’s threats, among them job displacement, data breaches, and the annihilation of humanity (a 50-50 chance according to BCA Research). 

I am not writing here about the list Google Bard furnished when I asked it to outline AI’s impact on culture: Democratizing media, improving our quality of life, changing how we work, and challenging our concept of identity. All are worth considering. However, my focus centers on a topic that has long fascinated anthropologists: storytelling and the role of stories as behavioral models and meaning makers. AI’s impact there could be more insidious than the topics it provided. AI’s well documented racism is one concern, but my purview is broader.

For eons, only human beings crafted stories. Anthropologists have observed that stories express the ethos of a culture, epitomizing shared ideas and values, codifying social rules, and encompassing a world view. This essay is a musing – and a provocation – based on the notion that knowledge produced by the conversational AI many of us are now accessing is often a form of storytelling. If we look hard enough, we can discern a kind of artificial ethos underlying some of AI’s stories. 

At its most basic, a story imparts information. Sometimes it is difficult to know when a story is real or imagined, and AI is not aware of the difference. Historical fiction blends fact and fiction by design. If you subscribe to multiverse theory, all stories can be true everywhere all at once. The reliability of stories as information has been fraught and fought over for years. Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories contained tales on the origins of animals’ physical characteristics that aimed to amuse children. Decades later, geneticist Lewis I. Held Jr. was moved to publish a scientific account of animal evolution. In the film, Rashomon, different people witness a horrific event and provide conflicting accounts of what occurred. One interpretation of Rashomon is that facts are subjective and depend on one’s perspective. Science fiction author Ted Chiang writes about the truth in contrast to the feeling of a story, contemplating the merits of what is correct historically versus what is valuable for a community in the present.  Several years ago, comedian Stephen Colbert coined the term “truthiness” to denote the sense that something feels true even if it is false. “Fake news” gained currency as a political cudgel in the past decade but dates back to the late nineteenth century. The variability of truth telling was cringingly demonstrated by political consultant Kellyanne Conway when she referenced “alternate facts” regarding the crowd size at Donald Trump’s Presidential inauguration. Need more be said regarding George Santos’ fabrications about his family, ethnic heritage, education, employment, finances, residences, health, and charity work?

What are we to make of stories crafted by a non-human? How can we untangle fact from fiction when we ask AI for accuracy, are provided with fantasy, and the author’s judgement is absent? That is what occurs when AI “hallucinates.” I asked ChatGPT: How can I be sure the information it provides is true? Here is part of its response:  It is important to note that ChatGPT is not infallible and can make errors or provide incomplete or inaccurate information…while ChatGPT can provide useful insights and information, it’s always a good idea to exercise critical thinking and verify information through multiple sources.

Good advice. The problem is that many of us won’t heed it. We’re too busy, too lazy, or too trusting. While AI promises efficiency for knowledge generation, its errors of fact and interpretation can be problematic. My apprehension is elevated when I think about AI’s subtle, unfettered impact on our culture-based ideas, sentiments, and behavior. AI is not yet imparting an ethos consciously but latent meanings and biases can be discerned in much of its content. If AI becomes sentient, will a purposeful ethos follow? Will enough of us decode the ethos embedded in its stories? What impact might an AI ethos have on its human users? How might it alter the character of our cultures? Are we prepared for the possibility that the stories AI concocts and the artificial ethos they convey implicitly could have profound and pervasive effects on who we are as human beings? These questions, which go beyond falsehoods per se, are not only for anthropologists to ask; they are questions for every one of us.

Our reliance on AI’s stories will proliferate the more we tap its breadth and depth of knowledge and relish its speed in providing it. Even if purveyors of AI pause its technological advances to mitigate its risks there is little doubt that AI will permeate our lives. Much of that will enable humanity to live smarter and better. This is a moment when we should reflect on AI’s storytelling facility, be cognizant of the artificial ethos conveyed in some of its stories, and take seriously their cultural implications. Before we buy into AI’s stories, we should recall the ancient Roman who, after being told a compelling but false tale by a market vendor, probably thought, caveat emptor.