‘I have no empathy’: self-Positioning in Israeli social media discourse during the Gaza war

Israeli media have mostly avoided reporting on Palestinian suffering during Israel's assault on Gaza following the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023. Social media thus became the main venue through which images of atrocities were circulated, serving as a summons to empathize with the Gazans' predicament. These calls were often rebuffed by empathy-blocking statements. In this study, we interrogate the discursive roles played by empathy-blocking acts, viewing them as a means through which Israelis position themselves within the wider debate over the country's actions in Gaza. We focus on denials of empathy towards Palestinians articulated on X (formerly Twitter), identifying three self-positioning functions. First, speakers may feel the need to justify their lack of empathy, thus signaling their engagement with the liberal moral order. Second, speakers may preface critiques of Israeli policies with ‘I have no empathy' statements, which serve as warrants positioning speakers as patriotic insiders entitled to voice critique. Third, blunt ‘I have no empathy' statements serve as a form of vice signaling, defiantly rejecting the liberal moral order. The affordances of X facilitate such discourse, due to the platform's privileging of negative sentiment, its role in reinforcing ingroup/outgroup boundaries and its championing of emotional authenticity.