Tribes and Traitors | Hidden Brain This week on Hidden Brain, the stories of two men who showed empathy for the other side and found themselves labeled "enemy" by their own people.

What Happens When You Empathize With The Enemy

What Happens When You Empathize With The Enemy

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Joel Carillet/iStock
The Israeli-built separation wall at Qalandia checkpoint, between the cities of Ramallah and Jerusalem. The watch tower shows signs of being vandalized with paint and fire.
Joel Carillet/iStock

This week on Hidden Brain we ask, what happens when you empathize with your enemy? Why does reaching out to another tribe make our tribe so angry? We talk to Avner Gvaryahu, a former paratrooper in the Israeli army, who angered his fellow Israelis for talking about his work as a soldier. And we talk with Mohammed Dajani, a Palestinian professor who now lives in the United States out of fear for his life. His crime? He led a group of Palestinian students to Auschwitz to try to help them understand the Holocaust. We also share an excerpt of a one-man play about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from Aaron Davidman.

The Hidden Brain Podcast is hosted by Shankar Vedantam and produced by Kara McGuirk-Alison, Maggie Penman and Max Nesterak. To subscribe to our newsletter, click here. You can also follow us on Twitter @hiddenbrain,@karamcguirk,@maggiepenman and @maxnesterak, and listen for Hidden Brain stories every week on your local public radio station.