Hurt People Hurt People
Candidate for senator of Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, responding to Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre of Israeli civilians, invoked the familiar phrase, “Hurt people hurt people.” Common in psychology and self-help discussions, the expression suggests that people who have experienced emotional pain, trauma, or mistreatment sometimes inflict that pain on others.
But applying that phrase to Hamas’s atrocities raises a fundamental moral question: Does suffering explain violence, or does it excuse it? There is an enormous difference between understanding the circumstances that may contribute to violent behavior and using those circumstances to soften responsibility for deliberate cruelty.
On October 7, Hamas terrorists murdered approximately 1,200 people in Israel, abducted 251 hostages, and committed widespread sexual violence. The attacks included the murder of families in their homes, the burning of victims, and other acts of extreme brutality. These were not simply expressions of emotional distress. They were planned and deliberate acts of violence directed against innocent human beings.
The phrase “Hurt people hurt people” may help explain certain interpersonal conflicts, but it is woefully inadequate as a moral framework for evaluating terrorism and mass murder. Millions of people endure suffering, discrimination, displacement, and personal tragedy without becoming murderers, rapists, or terrorists. Trauma may help explain an individual’s behavior, but it does not erase the distinction between victim and perpetrator.
To invoke the suffering of perpetrators without giving equal consideration to the suffering of their victims, risks turning an explanation into an excuse. The victims of October 7 were not responsible for the personal histories, grievances, or psychological wounds of the people who attacked them. They had the same fundamental right to live in safety and dignity as anyone else.
There is also a serious problem with treating violence as though it were an inevitable consequence of pain. It is not. Describing deliberate brutality as the product of hurt can obscure the agency of those who commit it. Psychological explanations can inform our understanding of crime, but they cannot transform atrocities into acceptable responses to adversity.
Suffering, whether genuine, perceived, or historically rooted, does not confer a license to murder, rape, kidnap, or torture. Grievances must be addressed through lawful and peaceful means. When crimes are committed, civilized societies investigate the evidence, prosecute offenders, and let the rule of law prevail.
If “Hurt people hurt people” is intended as a call for compassion and an effort to understand the origins of violence, it has a place in the discussion. But if it is used to diminish the gravity of massacring innocent people, it becomes a dangerous evasion of moral judgment.
We can acknowledge suffering without excusing barbaric savagery. We can seek to understand violence without legitimizing it. And we can recognize the grievances of others without abandoning the fundamental principle that no grievance justifies the deliberate murder of innocent civilians.
That is a lesson that Abdul El-Sayed has yet to learn. And for that reason alone, he is morally ill-equipped to be a U.S. Senator representing the State of Michigan.