Somewhere not too far away.

“Are you ready?” the operator asked.

“Affirmative”, came the reply.

Mr. Whitman was watching his favorite morning talk show justifying the bombings in Gaza. “We have no choice, it is not a war we want, you see. These terrorists use hospitals, houses, schools, UN shelters….what can we do? Tell me, what army in the world warns with leaflets before they bomb. Collateral damage is inevitable, and every life is tragic”.

Mr. Whitman closed his eyes and felt a sadness well up in his heart at the inevitable nature of ‘collateral’ damage. He felt empathy with the ‘collateral’ people, and he felt good about the fact he felt it. And in his mind he felt he was a good man because of this. Then he thought about all of his fellow Israelis, and he felt they also felt the same way. It felt good.

His son David was sitting beside him when the show started, and they were crunching some popcorn. He looked at him. What a young beautiful boy of four. He was kind, smart, and already knew he wanted to be a scientist like his father.

“David, some popcorn please.” Mr. Whitman extended his hand over without turning his head. Five seconds went by and his open palm felt no popcorn. “Daayvaaiid” he said. Always generous, David never hesitated to give food. So when five seconds later still no popcorn dropped in hands still, he turned his head expecting to see perhaps a distracted or sleeping boy. But to Mr. Whitman’s bewilderment, he saw a boy of about the same age as David n the far corner of the couch. Surprised and afraid, he was dirty from his head to his bruised feet, and he was so gaunt and frail it seemed he may have had no food for a while. Mr. Whitman swiveled his head around the room like an owl, then looked back the boy with a quizzical look.

“Who are you? where is David?”

The boy pulled back further into the couch, his arms pulling his legs into his chest. ‘Ma ba3rif’, he said. Mr. Whitman worked with several Arab Palestinians long enough to have picked up a few words. He was certain this was an Arabic word, and it meant ‘I don’t know’.

Then the a news alert suddenly came on the screen.

“We interrupt this program to report a most bizarre event being experienced across all of Israel. In an event that could only be out of a science fiction movie, about 1.1 million Gazan children have been swapped with Israeli children. We cannot begin to understand or imagine how could this might have happened, but the IDF has confirmed that all the children in Gaza being encountered speak Hebrew, and there are reports coming in now that parents are recognizing their children on cameras. Prime Minister Netanyahu has just issued an order to stop all bombings. We are unsure how many Jewish children have been killed so far. I repeat, a ceasefire has been declared. Stay tuned.”

A Sci. Fi. Story.

In a profoundly bizarre event on the morning of March 30^th, 2024, an F-16 pilot on his way to drop 2000 pound bombs on a terrorist target in Jabalia refugee camp violated orders and returned with bombs still on board. An investigation later that day by the pilot’s incensed and bewildered superiors revealed that a hacker calling himself ‘Mr. Empatik’ had tapped into the sophisticated helmet of the pilot and played a highly realistic visual of the target on their visor. The pilot said he first saw a dark room crammed with ‘terrorist’ families, with many children scurrying about like ‘little filthy rats’. Then a very strange thing began to happen. A yamaka appeared on a child’s head, then another, then another, and what was a cacophony of painful Arabic gibberish to his ears began to sound like the sweet sounds of Hebrew. A burning lantern in the middle of the table morphed into a menorah. On a closer look, he saw the faces of two children suddenly turn into his two beautiful boys David and Joshua. Apparently the scene was so realistic it activated all his mirror neurons, stirring empathetic feelings so strong a revulsion set in at the thought of his objectives, followed by a paralysis of the right thumb poised over the red button. A minute later the nose of the plane turned 180 degrees and headed back north.

Information on the hacker remains limited, and the government has officially denied any reference to this event.  However, leaked reports say fear has spread rapidly through military and political ranks in Israel, the USA and Europe, and a coordinated effort to identify and neutralize the hacker has begun. In the words of one anonymous senior US official, ‘Empatik’ poses a serious threat to all future military operations.