Losing face in the Facebook war

I like the status update facility on Facebook. Since I signed up it has helped me to keep up-to-date with friends who have just become engaged, moved home, found a new job, or given birth. It has kept me up-to-speed with bad news too – I’ve found out about friends who are about to go in for surgery, who have split up with partners, who have been made redundant, or who are just feeling low. Occasionally, it is simply entertaining. My favourite status update of all time is “Michael is stuck in an elevator at work between the 34 and 35th floors. If anyone has a moment, could they call 212 467 3019.” But most of the time, it simply reflects general day-to-day stuff: x is tired, y is about to get on a plane, z is having a productive day, etc. – normal, routine feelings and actions that are part of all our lives.

However, over the past couple of weeks, people’s status updates have started to change. More and more of my friends have “donated their status” to Qassam Count, a facility designed to inform everyone they know of the precise number of Hamas rockets that have been fired from Gaza into Israel each day. What this effectively does is allow http://qassamcount.com to fill in people’s status update for them. Tali is no longer “going out for a drink tonight.” David is no longer “looking for a greater sense of fulfilment.” And Noa is no longer “hoping that people finally come to their senses.” Instead, all three of them have become “12 Hamas rockets fired from Gaza hit Israeli civilian areas on Thursday morning.”

I get the motivation behind this. For eight years Hamas has fired rockets into Israel, and for eight years the international media has barely mentioned it. The rockets are the primary reason behind Israel’s military action in Gaza. It’s essential that the world knows this, and Qassam Count is a clever public relations device designed to share it.

What I didn’t immediately realise is that Qassam Count is not alone in this virtual war of statistics. My sister, a social anthropologist currently doing doctoral work on a remarkable grass roots organisation designed to build trust and understanding between Israelis and Palestinians (The Sulha Peace Project), told me that opponents of Israel have been doing exactly the same. They too have donated their status, but to “Support Gaza,” a Facebook facility for the other side. As a result, Mahmoud is no longer “enjoying Barack Obama’s first novel.” Nadira is no longer “looking for love.” And Hassan is no longer “at a complete loss.” Instead, they have all become “In 21 days 1170 Palestinians have been killed by Israel including 368 children & 105 women, 5220 injured.”

There is something deeply disturbing about this that goes way beyond the handful of mouse clicks required to allow either facility to function. It is not simply that the war has become diminished to simplistic statistics. It is not even that the battle over numbers targeted and killed suggests moral equivalence between the terrorists targeted by Israel and the civilians targeted by Hamas. It is that on both sides of the divide, people are losing their humanity. Instead of being human beings living lives full of hopes, disappointments, humour and normality, they have become entrenched political positions bent on simple point scoring. On Facebook at least, they are no longer real people, but numbers standing on either side of an ever-greater divide.

War does that. It diminishes humanity. And peace, if we really desire it, doesn’t come from point scoring. Neither does it come from voluntarily conceding our humanity to become political statistics. It comes from holding onto our humanity – at all costs – and seeking out the humanity in the other. Tali, David and Noa, and Mahmoud, Nadira and Hassan may well have much to talk about, much to share, and much to learn from one another. Who knows – they might even have the potential to become Facebook friends. Hopefully one day soon they’ll get a chance to find that out.