Hostage executions, Sinwar's gambit, and the psychology of mental undoing
And why Israelis must not cave to psychological pressure and stay focused on defeating Hamas until Victory in Gaza (VG) Day can be proudly declared, much like VE Day was on May 8th, 1945.
I won’t repeat what has been said many times over the past few days. I have been glued to the news and commentaries even beyond the normal level as I know so many others affected by the terrible news have been too. The executions of the six hostages, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Alex Lobanov, Carmel Gat, and Almog Sarusi, who were minding their own business on October 7th, 2023, are not only tragic, but they are downright gruesome, evoking comparisons to the short-range executions of women and children by the Einsatzgruppen during the Holocaust.
We cannot help but think of the hostages’ fear and despair, of how long they suffered in dank tunnels, and for what? To end up shot at close range by Hamas terrorists who deserve so much to be eliminated. Our blood boils in anger and our hearts sink in despair at the realization that there is no positive end to their story. The end is just a tragedy. They suffered on October 7th. They suffered every day since October 7th, and then they were murdered with their bodies left in those same dank tunnels that they were forced to endure during their captivity.
If only… on the psychology of mental undoing
The minds of those tormented by this reality, like the minds of those tormented by any tragedy, reside in a realm somewhere between the factual and the counterfactual; a realm characterized by intense and often painful rumination. The inhabitants of this realm replay the filmstrip of the episodic past over and over again searching for ways in which the tragedy might have been undone. This is the so-called “hot side” of counterfactual thinking, or more colloquially, what one might call “coulda, woulda, shoulda thinking.”1 It is the type of counterfactual thinking that can be searingly agonizing if it is at all successful at finding a way of undoing the actual trauma.
Psychologists call this process by various names—“mental undoing” or “upward counterfactual thinking.” Why upward? It is because, in times of tragedy, people search for mental replays of reality that involve plausible alterations, which at least seem as if they would have been sufficient to undo the tragedy, thereby making the counterfactual world better than the factual world to which it is compared. For instance, parents of children lost to sudden infant death syndrome are prone to mentally undo their child’s death by thinking about what they might have done differently to save their child.2 Perhaps if they had checked in on the child a few minutes earlier, he or she would still be alive. Perhaps if they had laid them down in a different position, or if only…. In hindsight, there is often a myriad of ways one can imagine having plausibly undone the tragic or traumatic event.
Most of these undoing thoughts focus on interventions that the thinkers could have controlled or that could have been controlled by someone else with the power to intervene and who would also have wanted to prevent the tragedy (e.g., a spouse or a family practitioner). Thus, if a fatal shooting takes place, the family members might think of how they might have delayed their loved one’s departure from home that day by just enough time so that he wouldn’t be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Or they might think about how if only a police officer had been close by, perhaps he or she could have intervened. However, they are much less likely to think that if only the shooter didn’t want to be a shooter, all would be alright. In most cases, turning a malevolent actor into a benevolent one stretches plausibility too far, so the mind does not rush there.
Most people confronted with a psychologically painful experience search for controllable means of undoing tragedies that are either within their control or else under the control of others with whom they are somehow aligned. They are unlikely, however, to undo those tragedies by changing the behaviours of those who intended to do us or our loved ones harm.
In psychology, the generative source of work on this topic was a brief chapter on “mental simulation” by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, two well-known Israeli psychologists who, due to their seminal and largely unrelated work on prospect theory, also were the intellectual grandfathers of behavioural economics.3 Kahneman was awarded a Nobel Prize in economics for this work, but unfortunately, Tversky died prematurely at the age of 59 in 1996 after losing his battle with metastatic melanoma.
Parenthetically, I should say that I remember all of this not only as a set of declarative facts about famous psychologists but with associated personal memories since in the early months of 1996, I was gearing up to go to Stanford University to work with Amos Tversky. One day the phone rang in the lab where I worked at the University of British Columbia and the research assistant who answered passed the phone to me and said, it’s Amos Tversky. I had never spoken to him before. My postdoctoral application was all by written correspondence. Still, he called to tell me that he would not survive much longer and then spent close to an hour talking with me about alternative options for my postdoctoral fellowship (he suggested I go to Cornell to work with Tom Gilovich, but I went to Stanford where I was supervised by his colleague and friend, Lee Ross). At an event in Amos’s honour, Richard Nisbett, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, aptly noted that the intellect of other psychologists could be measured in a unit called militverskies. While true, I was always struck by his simple act of generosity towards me at the time of his impending demise. Few human acts in the many intervening years have left as indelible an impression upon me. Although I never spoke with Daniel Kahneman, we had a few intellectual exchanges over the years. I recently shared some reflections on our last email exchange before his death earlier this year.4
Danny and Amos observed that people often arrive at judgments using what they call a simulation heuristic. The simulation heuristic was one of a small set of heuristics or informal rules for reasoning that they described, along with the biases of human judgment that could result from their use. For instance, in the case of the simulation heuristic, to judge whether a certain antecedent event might have been the cause of a later event, one could mentally simulate the episode, negating or somehow mentally mutating the antecedent and then “observing” whether the effect would still occur in the simulation. If not, then support for the antecedent’s causal status would be increased.
They also observed that the counterfactual edits people make to past episodes follow certain rules. One of the most important of these is that the edits tend to restore normality. For instance, if a fellow we may call Mr. Jones (as in experiments that they and, later, Darrin Lehman and I conducted) were to drive home by an unusual route and end up in a car accident, it would be quite common to mentally undo the accident by imagining that Mr. Jones drove home by his regular route that day.5 If only! It would be unlikely for people to edit the time he left if he left at his normal time. However, if the route was normal but the time was abnormal, then the accident would be more likely undone by mentally restoring the time he left work to the usual time.
Toward the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, some psychologists proposed that the way people figure out the cause of an outcome like Mr. Jones getting into a car accident is by attending to the antecedents that get counterfactually mutated. However, as a fresh-faced graduate student, this struck me as wrong. I imagined that if the accident were caused by a drunk driver running a red light and crashing into Mr. Jones, one might undo the event by imagining that Mr. Jones took his normal route home, but they would likely identify the drunk driver as the cause. The experiments I ran supported this conjecture and I explained it in the following terms: when we mentally undo negative events like car accidents or executions, we focus on what we or members of the collective “We” might have done differently, but when we attribute causality to those outcomes, we focus on forces that would predict similar effects in other mental simulations or across other instances. We may know that taking Route A versus Route B would have changed the outcome for poor Mr. Jones on that particular day, but we also know that, in general, it is drunk drivers that predict vehicle accidents and not the decision to choose Route A versus Route B. Organisms require prediction and control. It seems that counterfactual undoing is focused on control identification, whereas causal attribution is focused on a type of predictive analysis.6
When we, as Mr. Joneses, psychologically kick ourselves for taking Route B instead of Route A, we lose track of the fact that foresight doesn’t equal hindsight. In foresight, we know that drunk drivers are dangerous to be around but we have no reason to believe that Route A is more dangerous, in general, than Route B. Losing track of that fact we can torture ourselves with what ifs that we had no sound reason to anticipate.
Sinwar’s gambit
I do not know how much of what I am about to suggest was thought out by Sinwar or others still running Hamas. However, if it were thought out, and I believe it is probable that it was thought out, then we should all be analyzing the executions in light of their probable objectives. The executions came after a long but unsuccessful attempt to reach a ceasefire deal. Hamas has no escape route through the Philadelphi corridor. Therefore, it is cut off from effective escape and resupply. Sinwar must hope for a pause, if not to escape, then to gamble on a change in diplomatic pressures that might make it difficult for Israel to retake control after a stipulated ceasefire period.
The deal, however, as Sinwar knows, could easily fail to materialize. If he were in Israel’s position would he cut a deal? Of course not. He would finish off not only the IDF but all of the Jews in Israel. However, he knows that Israelis care deeply about their hostages and many are pressuring Netanyahu to reach a deal. It is against this backdrop that we can interpret the logic of the executions for Sinwar. He knows that the executions will cause not only great suffering in Israeli society but that it is likely to cause great dissension as well.
Before the executions, a majority of Israelis wanted a deal and saw it as possible.7 The mental simulations they are prone to run focus on the controllable actions, not of the adversary (remember that it is normal for adversaries to want to harm you), but of Netanyahu (normally, leaders should try to protect their citizens). In the collective replaying of this latest tragedy, it is Netanyahu who could have acted differently to bring about a more positive outcome. Sinwar might have expected that this would increase pressure on Netanyahu to reach a deal and buy him time.
Moreover, by timing the executions with the approach of the IDF, Sinwar may have also fostered the perception of a spurious correlation. It is as if the IDF’s approach triggered the executions. As reported in The Times of Israel, senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri stated,
“Netanyahu killed the six prisoners and he is determined to kill the remaining ones. The Israelis should choose between Netanyahu or the deal.”
The message is clear. If you love your hostages and want them to live, stay back, reach a deal, ditch Netanyahu, or else be prepared to retrieve their bodies. Sinwar is signalling to the Israelis that it is their choice; their choice whether to sentence the remaining hostages to death or not.
This is an awful framing of the situation and of causal attribution for Israelis and, as tragic as the executions were and as horrible as it is to realize that the remaining hostages are in a dire predicament with poor chances of survival, Israelis should not accept Sinwar’s framing of the situation. They must realize that any framing of the situation that blames the executions on Netanyahu falls prey to the tendencies of mental undoing, which again, tends to focus on what would have been controllable from one’s perspective (in this case, Israel’s actions and not Hamas’s).
Israelis must realize that this framing and the societal discord it sows is precisely what Sinwar must hope for. They must reject it. Sinwar and his terrorist brothers need a bifurcation in the current course of events. If nothing gives—if nothing creates an opportunity for a change in propensity, then he knows that sooner or later he and whatever is left of Hamas are toast. But if he can cause a bifurcation in the current geopolitical situation, then his actions could prove to be the opening move of a new phase.
I bet that Sinwar is hoping that the executions prove to be a successful gambit and not the prelude to an endgame.8 Right now, the rippling effects of Sinwar’s gambit are still reverberating. If the shockwaves enter into a positive feedback loop, with an expansion of strikes, social unrest, or even the fall of the government, his plan might just buy him the time he needs to escape, restock, or await new international pressures that bind his Jewish adversary.
It’s Israel’s move
Israelis must not let their ruminative emotions and counterfactual thoughts enable Sinwar’s gambit to succeed. If they do, then the lives of those who were murdered by Hamas on October 7th and since will be in vain. For them to mean something, Israel must emerge from this nightmare with Hamas defeated. Israel is, by far, the stronger power. In peacetime, the empathic potential of Israelis is a collective strength, but in war, it can be exploited and Sinwar and his henchmen are doing just that.
Israelis came together after the October 7th attacks and vowed that Hamas would be destroyed. They must remain together to fulfil that vow, and to do that, they must overcome the natural inclination to focus on what they or their leadership might have done differently. They must bear in mind that hindsight isn't foresight and this is especially true in the fog of war. They must refocus their thoughts from ruminative counterfactual undoing to causal attribution and blame ascription, and there, they must realize that Hamas is the direct and proximal cause of their immediate suffering. Hamas is directly to blame.
The only outcome that can and must be guaranteed is the defeat of Hamas. Doing so is within Israel’s grasp since Hamas is encircled and cut off from Iran and resupply through Egypt. The only real power they have over Israel is the power to unleash psychological warfare on Israelis by executing hostages in such a way that spuriously correlates their deaths with Israel’s military advances. They cannot hope to win the war through military means. Their only hope is to so utterly demoralize Israelis that the country tears itself apart. If Israelis allow themselves to be played like this, they will have a sound reason to kick themselves psychologically.
Although Hamas’s days are numbered, it has one source of extraordinary power. It has fate control over the lives of the remaining hostages, just like the Nazis had fate control over the lives of Jews in Nazi-controlled territories during the Holocaust. Appeasement did not work with Hitler and ceasefires will not work with Hamas. Sinwar understands that Israelis face a terrible taboo tradeoff. Prosecute the war on Hamas to the fullest and win, but in so doing, likely seal the fate of the remaining hostages. At the end of the day, Israelis must come to terms with the fact that fate control over the hostages was forfeited on October 7th. The illusion of having more control over this than they do is dangerous to the State of Israel itself.
I cannot deny that prosecuting the war against Hamas implies a necessary evil: a hopeless Hamas will have no reason left to keep the Jews it despises with a vengeance alive any longer, and so, it will likely execute them in the hope of wearing down its enemy’s resolve. It will not abide by any international rules of war. It will continue to commit crimes against humanity until it is destroyed.
In the hierarchy of goals, its destruction must reign supreme. If Hamas is not utterly defeated, Israelis will not counterfactually replay their tragedies. They will factually replay them as they have for far too long. This cycle cannot be permitted to continue in perpetuity. This was resolved if not on October 7th then certainly by the 8th. Israel must achieve its VG (Victory in Gaza) Day. This is only one front in a multi-pronged war, but it is the one that is within sight if only Israelis can bring themselves to absorb the terrible cost of victory.
VE (Victory in Europe) Day was achieved on May 8, 1945, with Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender to the Allies. May Israel celebrate VG Day well before May 8th and may they, too, accept no less than unconditional surrender.
See, for example, D. R. Mandel, D. J Hilton, & P. Catellani (Eds.), The psychology of counterfactual thinking. New York: Routledge. ISBN 9780203963784
Davis, C. G., Lehman, D. R., Wortman, C. B., Silver, R. C., & Thompson, S. C. (1995). The Undoing of Traumatic Life Events. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21(2), 109-124. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167295212002
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1982). The simulation heuristic. In D. Kahneman, P. Slovic, & A. Tversky (Eds.), Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases (pp. 201–208). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Buttliere, B., Arvanitis, A., Białek, M., Choshen-Hillel, S., Davidai, S., Gilovich, T., Haran, U., Jiang-Wang, Á., Kang Teo, Q., Kotrba, V,. Liu, C., Mandel, D., Pennycook, G., Rebholz, T., Schulte-Mecklenbeck, M., Schwarz, N., Shtudiner, Z., Sloman, S., Sundh, J., Sunstein, C., Västfjäll, D., & Weick, M. (2024). Kahneman in quotes and reflections. Psychological Inquiry, 35(1), 3-10, https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2024.2366813
Mandel, D. R., & Lehman, D. R. (1996). Counterfactual thinking and ascriptions of cause and preventability.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(3), 450–463. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.71.3.450
I expand on this idea here: Mandel, D. R. (2003). Judgment dissociation theory: An analysis of differences in causal, counterfactual and covariational reasoning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 132(3), 419–434. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.132.3.419
For instance, listen to Haviv Rettig Gur in conversation with Dan Senor on Episode 261 of the Call Me Back podcast.
Gambit might seem like an inappropriate term. What upfront cost does Sinwar incur? The answer is six of his remaining hostage chips, which are his only remaining currency.
Thank you for speaking this so clearly. It’s sickening, but true, and as much as I despise Netanyahu, Israel cannot adopt Sinwar’s framing. I actually got angry watching Lucy Aharish the other day, falling exactly into that trap on live TV. One can only pray for a miracle now.
I can only hope that your article will touch as many people as possible - it’s a gem!