Few academics can connect and make accessible deep scientific research to the general public as naturally and thoroughly as he does. Even fewer among them can express clear-cut opinions without hedging, even when those opinions contradict prevailing academic trends and stand against intellectual dictatorship. Saad excels at all of this with exceptional elegance, never surrendering the unique personal charm he radiates in every direction.
He was born in Lebanon to a Jewish family that fled the country during the civil war when he was 11. "I had a fairly happy childhood there," Prof. Saad (61) recalled in a conversation with Israel Hayom. "My parents were well connected, and that allowed us to exist in Lebanon despite the antisemitism. How did Jew hatred manifest itself? In 1970, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt's leader, died, and the masses in Lebanon marked his memory with processions and rhythmic chants of 'Death to the Jews.'"
"As a 5-year-old child, I was confused. I asked my mother, 'Why are they singing Death to the Jews just because some person died in Egypt?' 'Shut up and lower your head,' she answered me. That was my first experience of antisemitism in supposedly tolerant Lebanon. Other family members saw what was coming and left in the 1940s and 1950s, but my parents refused to see the writing on the wall. Even when everything proceeded as usual – the monster of antisemitism was always beneath the surface, and the only question was when the monster would come to take us."
Saad won't forget another story. When he was 9, the teacher asked the children what they wanted to be when they grew up. One said he'd be a police officer, a second said he wanted to be a soccer star, and a third girl said she'd be a nurse. Then one student stood up and said, "When I grow up, I want to be a killer of Jews" – and all the others laughed and applauded him.
If the monstrous image of antisemitism isn't clear enough, Prof. Saad compares it to shingles, a dormant virus that dwells in a person's body covertly and waits for a trigger, the right moment to erupt. Generally, biological metaphors appeal to him, as befits a scientist who made his name researching how basic biological processes influence consumer and behavioral decisions. Throughout "The Parasitic Mind," he used the imagery of viruses and parasites to describe how harmful cultural ideas can hijack public discourse, academia, and social institutions, damaging freedom of expression, critical thinking, and basic logic of ostensibly rational human beings.
Saad has published dozens of scientific articles, won numerous academic awards, and presented his work at hundreds of conferences and universities worldwide. None of this protected him the moment he dared to show how harmful ideologies damage critical thinking and democratic culture. Saad became a sharp critic of what he calls "cultural radicalism" or "ideologies that restrict open discussion," and he has been attacked more than once for his courage. Nevertheless, "The Parasitic Mind" entered bestseller lists, and his podcast "The Saad Truth" attracts tens of millions of listens.
"Those who want to control us try to control both our cognitive system and our emotional system," Prof. Saad explained. "In my new book 'Suicidal Empathy,' due to be published in a few months, I focus on the way they try to manipulate our emotions. Empathy is a wonderful thing that every social creature needs.
"But like everything else in life, empathy must be applied in the right amount, in the right situation, and toward the right objects. When it's applied incorrectly, it harms the person possessing it to the point of threatening their existence. In my book, I examine a long series of domestic and foreign policy issues where the West adopts approaches that endanger its existence, and I show how they all stem from suicidal empathy."
Saad has no trouble providing examples that illustrate, in his view, the clear danger posed to all of our civilization by misplaced empathy. "Take the approach to crime, for example," he immediately suggested. "If you believe that all human beings are born with equal levels of good-heartedness, and only society shapes their path in life – then it's a short road to concluding that a criminal, especially a non-white criminal, was pushed into a life of crime by a racist or Islamophobic society. It seems almost impossible to hold him, a poor victim, responsible for what he did. You feel such empathy toward him that even after he's committed 75 offenses – you give him another chance to commit offense number 76. The Democrats' lenient policy in the US and in its justice system toward crime and criminals stems from suicidal empathy.
"The approach to the homeless issue is also characterized by the same affliction. They will never hold a homeless person responsible for their situation, and won't admit that the choices they made influenced the dismal outcome. They'll always claim that homeless people are a byproduct of a flawed system, and will justify them even when they consume drugs or defecate in front of young children in a park, along the lines of 'let them do what they feel like doing and take the children away from there.' At the head of all cities in the US suffering from a homeless plague stand Democratic mayors. Why? Because they possess suicidal empathy."
On international issues, the West's tendency to feel sympathy for those who endanger it rather than fight the danger is even greater. "Those with suicidal empathy are certain that it's really not fair that the whole world doesn't live in the comfort and welfare conditions characteristic of Western countries – so why not cancel and open the borders and bring in all those who want to come in, especially those coming from Islamic countries?" Saad diagnosed sarcastically. "If all immigrants are equal, then Muslim immigrants are even more equal than other immigrants, and therefore, if we allow millions of Muslim immigrants to enter our countries, nothing will happen to the West's core values. This will surely work wonderfully! Look – Germany, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Canada, Australia, the US, and other countries are discovering how wonderful it is..."
Suicidal empathy works overtime when it comes to Israel. Prof. Saad knows the brainwashing narrative well. "If you go to study in Middle Eastern studies programs at any institution of higher learning in the West – they teach you that Israelis are white colonialists, devoid of any ancestral rights to the land they conquered, that they're evil exploiters oppressing the noble and peaceful Palestinians, who opened the door to white Jews from Austria and Russia, and the Jews exploited the opportunity to steal the land from its owners. Most of these young students are complete idiots. They swallow the poisonous lie dripped into them, and go out to demonstrate at Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, and the other universities with evil calls demanding to eliminate Israel and liberate Palestine."
How can we counter the tendency toward suicidal empathy that has spread in the West?
"Do everything to distribute my new book as widely as possible and hand it out among all acquaintances," he laughed. "This is a consciousness war. It's amazing how militarily strong Israel is, and how capable it is of conducting war on the battlefield against all odds and against a numerically superior enemy, and in contrast – how helpless it is in another war – the consciousness war, the cognitive war, or in other words – the war over empathy and emotion. I believe most Israelis would agree with that."
Recently, Prof. Saad received another sad reminder of Israel's lack of preparedness for the consciousness war and the depth of the swamp of suicidal empathy. During his recent visit to the country, while participating in the international conference on combating antisemitism organized by the Minister of Diaspora Affairs, Amichai Chikli, two lecturers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem asked him whether he would be willing to lecture to students.
The guest from Canada agreed happily – but then, according to him, a surprising condition was imposed. "I was told that if I'm willing to give a 'technical' lecture in my field of academic expertise (consumer behavior, evolutionary psychology, marketing, etc.), I'm more than welcome. But if I want to talk about truly weighty issues, like antisemitism – his colleagues feared that senior officials at the university wouldn't approve it. I thought to myself – Gad Saad wants to talk about Jew hatred at the Hebrew University in the Jewish state, and it's possible that figures at the Israeli institution won't want to host him?"
In response to these claims, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem noted that no such invitation is known, and that the university's administration "in any case doesn't impose conditions of this type on guest lecturers."
Regarding how to get out of this situation, Saad admits it's a long battle, but one that can be won. "If you want to protect the body from a health danger, you give it vaccinations that work immediately," he said, sounding serious. "Ideological vaccinations require time. You can't inject a vaccine that will immediately turn an idiot into someone who understands reality.
"All the parasitic ideas I describe in my previous book took 50 to 80 years to first be heard on campuses, and then to be accepted in society. It took thought viruses decades to sprout and flourish in academia. Healing from them will also require time, but recognizing the problem is the first step on the road to healing. Imagine if professors in academia suddenly gained the courage to express what they really think about the tyranny of intellectual oppression. After all, I receive many typical messages from academics that start with compliments and end with one request: 'Please, Prof. Saad, don't mention my name.' That last line is the essence of the problem."
Will Donald Trump's current term as US president heal the illness you described?
"His term will undoubtedly slow the continued spread of foolishness and suicidal empathy, but he only has three years left. Who knows, maybe whoever comes after him will be an even worse version of Joe Biden or Kamala Harris? We must educate children as early as possible. The other side, those ideologues of parasitism, understand this. That's why they strive to influence children even in kindergartens. That's why they start teaching them gender ideologies not when they're 18, but when they're still 5. Five-year-old children can't deal with the preaching – they believe everything they're told."
Why don't Western elites grasp that the West's enemies identify its weaknesses and are happy to exploit them?
"That's a wonderful question. Islamist groups don't hide that they intend to conquer the West through three methods – the womb, immigration, and exploiting the West's freedoms against it. Why does the West refuse to see this clearly? Allow me to present the explanation through the 'cultural theory of mind' (understanding others' perspectives). Most people can 'get into' another person's mind on a personal level and understand their way of thinking – unlike people with autism, for example, who can't do this. The West tries to be understanding, compassionate, considerate, and generous toward other cultures, assuming they'll reciprocate in kind, while other cultures interpret the West's behavior as a sign of weakness.
"Like an autistic person, the West lacks the ability to get into another culture's mind. It's culturally blind. Since I speak Arabic, I've often heard Arabs use the image of the West as 'a woman to be bedded.' Blind Westerners mistakenly think that the values embedded in their culture are also dear to other cultures' hearts – and nothing could be further from the truth. The other side identifies the West's weaknesses well, while Western leaders are completely blind to this fact."
Are parts of the West already lost?
"Absolutely. People like Angela Merkel, who felt guilt about what their ancestors did to Jews, decided to bring into their country people of whom 97%-98% hate Jews. The result is that now it's difficult to live in Germany as a Jew. Merkel developed suicidal empathy because of existential guilt over her people's actions toward Jews – and took all the perfect measures so those actions would happen again!"
Under what circumstances could the West's awakening occur?
"In 2010, one woman, Jewish actually, approached me and asked to explain to me that Islam treats Jews wonderfully. I didn't argue with her, just sent a collection of dozens of quotes about Jews from the words of various imams from around the world. I didn't add my own interpretation or edit them – I simply allowed her to draw her own conclusions. In response, she wrote me that I'm as extreme as they are. Do you understand that? I showed her their words, and that made me extreme. But recently she wrote me again and apologized. She woke up, and I'll continue to tell the truth so that many more will wake up."
Do you identify phenomena of suicidal empathy in Israel as well?
"I'm not knowledgeable enough about political processes in Israel to offer an opinion. However, I can say that Israeli academia is full of Jews who hate their people. Despite this, Israeli society is less infected with the foolishness of surrendering to the enemy. The dangers in Israel's environment cause sobering up. To fall into the trap of suicidal empathy, a society needs to have the luxury to err. Anorexia, for example, has been documented for thousands of years, since Hippocrates' time, but it was never observed in societies where there was food scarcity, only in places where food was abundant.
"There's no better way to vaccinate against foolishness than a slap in the face that reality delivers to you. While there's a risk of foolishness in every scientific field, the more your field is connected to reality – the smaller the risk. You can't build a bridge based on postmodern lesbian physics theories, just as you can't build an economic model predicting inflation based on postmodern mathematics. Certain fields are prone to foolishness because they're disconnected from reality. Israelis get hit by their surroundings, and those blows don't let them slide into foolishness."
When the plane carrying Saad and his family members left Lebanon's airspace in 1975, his mother gave him a Star of David pendant and said that now he could wear it with pride, without fear and without hiding his identity. Since then, Saad has never returned to visit his birthplace. His parents actually returned to Lebanon after a few years, and were taken hostage by a gang connected to Fatah. They were released after about a week, but learned their lesson. Since the kidnapping, they and all their family members have avoided stepping foot again in the land of cedars, due to the risk to their safety. After he became famous, Prof. Saad received several invitations to visit Lebanon, including from the highest-ranking officials, but he stood firm in his refusal.
"It's not that I didn't trust their promise to protect me," he noted, "I simply understood that no one can protect against a car bombing, for example. Nevertheless, I've always felt a pull toward that place. During the visit to Israel, we were in Safed, and from there you can literally jump to Lebanon. My son said he'd like to see the place where I grew up, but it's not at all certain we'll ever be able to do that."
Continuing the image of antisemitism as a latent virus, Saad testified that in recent years it has erupted with force, and not only in the Middle East. Forty-five years after Saad heard that he could wear a Star of David without fear, his son returned from a soccer game in Montreal, their city of residence. "If you had come to watch me play with a Star of David around your neck – you would have died," he told his father.
"Several of my ancestors fled Syria because of Jew hatred," Saad enumerated. "My brother-in-law's family left Alexandria in the 1950s because of Jew hatred. My family fled Beirut because of Jew hatred. Finally, we reached Canada, and it was a good place to live. For several decades, there were only a few antisemitic incidents. But since the late 1990s, that changed – in perfect correlation with the growing number of Muslim headscarves on Montreal's streets. 'What's the problem with a headscarf?', they could ask me. 'Isn't it just an exotic head covering?' No and no. You don't need to be a professor to understand that demography determines the future, and that future won't be good for Jews the moment other ideologies take over."
About two years ago, Prof. Saad was pushed out of Concordia University, which had been his academic home for many years. His presence on campus became too dangerous, literally. The same Jew hatred he knew in Lebanon caught up with him even in distant Canada. Now he researches and teaches at the Center for the Study of Free Enterprise at the University of Mississippi, and fearlessly holds up a mirror to academia that has abandoned its values and sacrificed people like him on the altar of false political correctness and suicidal empathy.
"For antisemites, Jews are the ultimate culprits for all personal and collective failures," Saad explained the perpetual mechanism driving Jew hatred then and now. "Why didn't I succeed as an actor? Because Jews control Hollywood. Why didn't I get a mortgage? Because Jews control the banks. In 2010, when sharks attacked swimmers in Sharm el-Sheikh – the Egyptians blamed 'Zionist sharks.' The brilliant economist Thomas Sowell once said they'll stop hating Jews only in one case – if Jews fail. That means antisemitism will never stop, because we Jews will always continue to succeed."
What's your assessment of Lebanon's future, your birthplace? Will it also succeed someday?
"I maintain contact with several Lebanese friends, some Christian and some Muslim. Although some of them have great influence, I don't know if that political influence will be enough to tilt Lebanon's future trajectory in a positive direction. Let's not forget that unfortunately, even apart from Hezbollah and its evil role in taking Lebanon hostage, we're talking about a failed state. Corruption in Lebanon is enormous. We saw this in the collapse of the banks, which burned all people's savings."
"It's interesting that during my stay in Jerusalem, I spoke more in Arabic than in English. I spoke Arabic with hotel workers, with drivers, and with others. I realized once again that the Arab world has a real and beautiful culture of respect, of hospitality toward guests. If a way is found to get rid of Islam's religious and tribal extremism (and whoever finds it will deserve the Nobel Prize and every other possible prize), the human capital of the Middle East – not to mention the historical and cultural capital – and the human wealth of its cultures, if only unleashed freely, could make the region wonderful in every respect."
