And that makes sense… but regardless of his mental state at the time, I’m not speaking about his motivations or disagreeing with them. In fact, I agree with his views and can empathize with feeling hopeless to help.

It’s possible I feel so negatively about his decision to end his own life is because I empathize so strongly with the guy. I’m a veteran (in fact, after seeing where he was stationed and his job, it’s pretty likely that I was stationed on the same base and worked in the same windowless building as him) and I also feel like I’ve been complicit in acts I find abhorrent by means of serving in the military of the nation that perpetrating or supporting those acts. I also have issues with depression, anxiety, and PTSD. I never met this guy, so I can’t say I’ve walked in his shoes… but I do know this. The people who can be outraged by anything the Israeli government does are already outraged.

I’d have rather had him donate time and money to a candidate he believes in, or protest, or whistleblow if he had access to information we don’t that makes things even worse - as unimaginable as that seems, or just try to leverage his personal relationships to try and convert someone who might listen to him. The world doesn’t need empathetic martyrs… it needs empathetic leaders and fighters.