Selective Empathy

Roberto De Vogli teaches Psychology of Power at the University of Padova and he is also a Visiting Professor at the University of London. He is the author of numerous scientific articles and two books.

“The original proposed publisher of this book provided a graphic illustration of its argument, when they refused to allow Roberto De Vogli to even use theword ‘genocide’. Since this is the only term which adequately captures whatIsrael has done to the Palestinians, we must be grateful that he refused and found a more principled publisher. Selective Empathy provides a passionate, incisive and scrupulously documented explanation of the West’s complicity,and deserves to be widely read.”– Martin Shaw, Emeritus Professor of International Relations, Institute of International Studies, Barcelona, and author of The New Age of Genocide and What Is Genocide?

• Preface ixIntroduction 1Prologue 31 The Gaze of Gaza 71 A Denied Genocide 92 A Genocide Foretold 113 “Nowhere Is Safe” 134 The War on Children 154.1 “We Are All Complicit” 164.2 The Highest Number of Child Amputees Per Capitain the World 175 History as if It Began on October 7 186 The West’s Heart of Darkness 202 Selectively Empathic 221 Empathy and Its Discontents 221.1 Crimes of Solidarity 251.2 The Dark Sides of Empathy 282 Compassion for Some 303 35 Minutes and 300 Hours of Silence 343 Why We Fail to Feel 371 State of Collective Psychopathology? 381.1 “The Most Moral Army in the World” 401.2 The Cabinet 441.3 The Public 482 Selectively Indifferent 512.1 Our Brain on Nationalism 522.2 The Long Shadow of the Holocaust 533 The Banality of Complicity 554 When the West Incites Genocide 574 The West and the Rest 591 Partners in War Crimes 592 Western Civiliesation 622.1 Genocidal Legacies 642.2 Year 533: the Conquest Continues 692.3 Superiority Complex 713 When the Perpetrator Plays the Victim 734 Emotional Decolonization 754.1 Pedagogy of the Oppressors 775 Manufacturing Exclusive Compassion 801 Israel’s 9/11: Hamas’s Crimes against Humanity 802 “Lied Into Genocide” 833 “Have You Condemned Hamas?” 844 The Engineering of Selective Indignation 854.1 Hostages and Prisoners 894.2 “They Look So Much Like Us” 924.3 The More You Read, the Less You Feel 925 When Will the Night End? 946 The Herd of Free Thinkers 971 “Inescapably Genocidal” 991.1 As if There Were No Humans 1012 Believing the Unbelievable 1032.1 Algorithmic Gaslighting 1042.2 “Anti-Semitic” Evidence 1063 Jewish Voices for Truth and Justice 1074 Stenographers of Power 1094.1 Selective Silence 1115 When Your Enemy Is the Truth 1127 The World’s Conscience 1151 Conscientious Protesters 1161.1 Not in My Name 1171.2 US Elections 2024: “I Can’t Vote for Genocide” 1192 Medics in Gaza’s Last Hospitals 1213 “Stop the Genocide!” 1253.1 Students Teaching the World a Lesson 1253.2 The Academic Witch-Hunt 1274 Just for a Cause 1314.1 Poetic Injustice 1338 On the Brink 1351 A Crisis of Selective Humanitarianism 1352 Vital Crossroads 1372.1 89 Seconds to Midnight 1372.2 No Environmentalism without Pacifism 1402.3 War and Peace: Cooperation or Annihilation? 1423 Between Good and Evil 1433.1 Born To Be Selective 1433.2 Fair Instincts 1454 Imagine There Is No Other Land 1484.1 We Are the World 1504.2 Just Epiphanies 152References 155Index 195