21/06/2026
Sharing with you Op-Ed I wrote:
“Choosing Humanity Over Hate”
Ben Harel
In the final days of life, everything becomes clear.
The arguments fall away. The labels lose meaning. At the bedside of a dying person, there is no politics, no ideology, no division. There is only a human being who needs dignity, presence, and care.
It is one of the last places where truth does not need to be argued. We are human before we are anything else.
That clarity makes the world outside feel increasingly strange.
We are living through a time when hate is not only resurfacing but spreading with force.
Antisemitism, one of the oldest forms of hatred, has found new life in a world built to reward outrage, flatten complexity, and turn identity into a weapon.
But antisemitism is not the only problem. It is part of a larger moral failure, one in which people are pushed into rigid camps and taught to see one another not as fellow human beings but as categories to defend or reject.
In such a world, empathy does not disappear all at once. It is worn down. Slowly, steadily, until contempt becomes easier than curiosity and loyalty to a side becomes more important than loyalty to the truth.
This is not simply the mood of the moment. It is the product of systems we have built and allowed to harden.
I learned that lesson early. Forty years ago, as the only Jewish student at Louisiana College, I was required to study the New Testament and attend chapel.
I was told that if I accepted Christ, life would become easier for me, that even my chances of getting into medical school might improve.
The message was clear. Belonging came with conditions.
And yet that was not the whole story.
Beyond the institution, there were people. Classmates who chose curiosity over judgment. We talked honestly.
We listened. We found ways to meet one another as individuals, not as symbols.
That experience left a mark on me because it revealed a truth I have seen ever since: systems divide, but people do not have to.
I carried that understanding with me for decades.
In every setting, from my studies to business to healthcare across more than sixty countries, the pattern was consistent: politics, politicians, and systems divide; real leaders and people connect.
That contrast has followed me across a lifetime. The machinery of public life rewards separation. It thrives on grievance, performance, and short term advantage.
The horizon is the next election, the next headline, the next ideological battle.
The result is leadership that manages division rather than overcoming it.
But there is another way to lead, and it begins with something very simple: paying attention to what human beings actually need.
This requires a different measure of success.
Not slogans. Not tribal applause. Not moral posturing. Real outcomes. Do people suffer less. Are they treated with dignity. Are families supported when they are most vulnerable.
It also requires spaces where cooperation is not optional but natural.
Healthcare is one of those spaces. When a person is in pain, ideology loses its authority.
At the bedside, no one asks first who voted for whom or what camp they belong to.
The first question is whether they are suffering, and what can be done to ease it.
That is one reason I have chosen to focus on end of life care.
In those moments, all that is artificial falls away. Status does not matter.
Public identity does not matter. The need for compassion does. Families who have been estranged sometimes find their way back to one another.
Old bitterness loses its grip. A different set of truths takes over. Presence matters. Tenderness matters. Human dignity matters.
These moments are quiet, but they are not small. They reveal what remains when performance and ideology lose their power.
They also reveal something else. The better world people say they want is not a fantasy.
It already exists in fragments wherever human beings choose care over contempt, responsibility over rhetoric, and dignity over division.
We do not need to wait for grand political transformation to begin. We can build smaller systems that embody different values.
We can create institutions, communities, and habits of care that refuse the logic of dehumanization.
We can teach the next generation not only what to think about history and politics, but how to resist manipulation, how to recognize propaganda, and how to remain human in a culture that profits from emotional hardening.
After decades of experience across very different worlds, one conclusion feels inescapable.
Systems built on power and ego divide. Systems built on dignity connect.
The question is not whether our shared humanity exists. It does.
The question is whether we are willing to build around it.
Because in the end, when everything else falls away, only one thing remains.
Our humanity.
And we still have a choice to honor it.
Ben Harel, Chairman
Walk of Life Foundation R.A
+972-3-648-0550
[email protected]
https://wol.org.il
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-harel-10530
With a seasoned background in executive leadership and a strategic focus, my current… · ניסיון: CIRCLES OF LIFE LEGACY · חינוך: IDC Herzliya · מיקום: Tel Aviv District · 500+ חיבורים על LinkedIn. צפה Ben Harel בפרופיל של...
