Living under an almost-dictatorship has profound consequences on the day-to-day life of Israeli citizens. When a government systematically ignores the needs of its people in favor of its own narcissistic desires for power, control, and self-preservation, the stress it creates ripples through society.
This chronic disregard for the well-being of the population leaves individuals feeling abandoned, unheard, and exploited. The pressure of living under such conditions infiltrates homes, classrooms, and workplaces, making it harder for authority figures—parents, teachers, and employers—to provide the care and empathy needed for those under their responsibility.
For those authority figures already stretched thin by their own duties, the added strain of war with political and social turmoil and government abuse of the financial and emotional needs of the citizens is a critical damaging factor. It creates an environment where it becomes much more difficult to distinguish between ingratitude and genuine unmet needs in their children, students, or employees. The stress-induced lens through which these authority figures operate often leads to misinterpretation of behaviors, fueling a dangerous cycle of blame, frustration, and misunderstanding.
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The Effect of Government Narcissism on Authority Figures
In Israel, where the government’s actions increasingly reflect a narcissistic disregard for its citizens, the impact on personal and professional relationships is significant. A government that consistently places its own interests above the needs of its people sets a precedent for how power is exercised. Authority figures like parents, teachers, and employers—who themselves are feeling overwhelmed by the mounting safety, social and economic pressures—are inadvertently influenced by this example.
When authority figures are constantly battling stress and abuse, whether from personal challenges or from living in this unstable environment, they often struggle to see past their own frustrations. This makes it easy to misinterpret behaviors like defiance, disengagement, demands or criticism as signs of disloyalty or ingratitude. For example, a parent might feel their child is ungrateful when they misbehave, a teacher might see a student’s lack of engagement as disrespect, or an employer might interpret an employee’s demands to better treatment and social benefits as a lack of dedication. The authority figures might take it personally, and interpret these behaviors as an attack on the extremely hard work they do for those under their responsibility.
However, these behaviors often signal unmet needs—needs for emotional support, validation, or practical assistance. The needs are often unmet not because of lack of will or effort from authority figures, but because of the larger scale situation in Israel. Authority figures themselves are enduring high stress with low available crucial resources, under this government, as well as its adverse effects on personal safety, the economy, and on the well-being and emotional stability.
But instead of blaming those responsible – which is the government, there is a common tendency to put blame on those immediately in front of us, expressing needs we feel too overwhelmed to attune to. Living in a society where the government models neglect and indifference amplifies this challenge. When the Israeli government routinely fails to meet the basic needs of its citizens, authority figures can, without intending to, overlook the needs of those they are responsible for, blinded by their own stress and frustration.
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Misunderstanding in Times of Crisis: A Parallel Process
The breakdown of empathy and communication within families, schools, and workplaces mirrors the larger failure of the government to meet its citizens’ needs. This is no coincidence. Just as the Israeli government operates with a narcissistic focus on its own survival, neglecting the welfare of the people it is supposed to serve, authority figures in Israel—under immense pressure—may begin to replicate this behavior in their own relationships.
For example, the continuous blatant refusal of the government to implement previous agreements and pay a rightful salary to teachers, adversely effects not just the teachers’ suffering and burnout, but also lessens their ability to give to their students, to function as a container to them, and empathize with their young proteges. The same may happen with management in schools or any other organizations, finding it even harder than usual to empathize and attune to their staff’s basic unmet needs.
When a government routinely dismisses the needs and voices of its people, it sends a clear message: power, control, self-interest and sometimes personal-survival-of-the-strong take precedence over empathy, solidarity and responsibility. This dynamic trickles down into everyday life, where parents, teachers, and employers—exhausted and overwhelmed by being treated un-fittingly — find their children, students or employees to be more ungrateful, disloyal, demanding and even judge them to be un-fitting. In reality, the behaviors that evoke anger, indignation or insult in authority figures are often cries for help, signals of emotional or practical needs that are being overlooked.
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Breaking the Cycle: Recognizing Unmet Needs
For both the government and authority figures at the individual level, the real issue is a failure to acknowledge and address human needs. The Israeli government, consumed with maintaining its own power, or possibly with ruining the current state and establishing a religious, fascist and racist one in its stead, routinely denies the legitimate needs of its citizens, causing widespread frustration and despair. As a result, parents, teachers, and employers, being denied their own needs and abused by those responsible to them, can lose sight of the very real needs of those they are responsible for, mistakenly interpreting their behaviors as ungratefulness or rebellion.
To break this cycle, it is essential to recognize that abuse distorts perceptions. The first step is for authority figures to pause and reflect: are the behaviors they are witnessing truly signs of disloyalty or malfunction in their subordinates, or are they the result of unmet emotional or practical needs? The same question must be asked at a societal level: is the discontent and rage among citizens a result of disloyalty to the state, as falsely claimed, or is it the direct consequence of a government that has failed to provide for its people?
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Conclusion: Empathy and Responsibility in a Broken System
Living under a government that systematically disregards its citizens’ needs not only makes daily life more difficult but also erodes the capacity for empathy in everyday relationships. When the state demonstrates patterns of neglect and abuse, it fosters a culture where empathy is devalued, and responsibility becomes a burden rather than a duty.
In Israel today, the parallel processes are clear: just as the government dismisses the needs of its people, authority figures—whether parents, teachers, or employers—under immense stress, may inadvertently be pushed to disregard the needs of those under their care. The result is a cycle of misunderstanding and blame, where unmet needs go unaddressed, and many people feel unappreciated or disrespected.
Ultimately, breaking free from this cycle requires systemic change. In the meantime, Authority figures should strive to recognize the signals of unmet needs, first in themselves, and then in those they are responsible for, even when overwhelmed by the current situation. Awareness is a crucial step to recovery. Self-care and empathy to one self’s needs, seeing them as legitimate and deserving, is also an important way to strengthen the empathy for others’ needs.
For example, an individual breaking free from narcissistic and abusive parenting, does so first in reality, by disconnecting ties, and then inside – raising awareness to destructive internalized patterns and striving to adjust them, stopping the inter-generational transmission of abuse or neglect, learning they are worthy of love and of their needs being met.
In the same way, Israelis will have to first break free from this government, that will surely never be able to confront its own narcissism, and replace it with a better one, that can begin to genuinely serve the needs of its people, fostering a culture of empathy, care, and mutual responsibility. And then, we as Israelis could start re-learning to attune to ourselves and to others, getting rid of destructive patterns in our relationships with each other, and recuperating.