On Failing To Bear Witness

I’m a wuss!

It’s not a secret that the Israeli government has been screening horrific footage of the October 7 massacre to journalists. I got invited by a buddy at the New York consul — the same buddy who got me on my trip to Israel last year — to attend one such screening that occurred this morning. I decided not to go.

I’d love to provide some high-minded, principled answer as to why I made this decision, but the truth of the matter is that I just viscerally don’t want to see this footage. I don’t want to watch men and women and children get murdered by terrorists enthralled by their own depravity. It would be a deeply unpleasant experience and would probably burn certain images into my brain that I would prefer not be there.

The obvious response to this is that I’m being a bit of a wuss, and a particularly unbecoming type of wuss given my own privileged position. I live in a safe neighborhood in a country that is rather safe by world-historical standards. I don’t face much violence or physical threat, and neither do most of the people I care about, usually. Here, I’ve been offered a glimpse — a two-dimensional glimpse from thousands of miles away, but a glimpse nonetheless — of what it’s like to live in close proximity to an enemy that wants to kill you, and to then experience, basically, the unspeakable nightmare of that enemy gaining direct access to you and your loved ones — and my response so far has been no thanks. (I say “so far” because my buddy implied that if I declined on this occasion, there would be opportunities in the future.)