Restraint on the Internet
Ariel Ronis, a civil servant at the Population Immigration and Border Authority, committed suicide after a citizen accused him in a scathing Facebook post of racist treatment at his workplace. (Incidentally, someone I have known for many years was at the office that day and overheard the conversation, and she said she did not witness even a hint of racism.)
However, Ronis could not handle the flood of 6,000 online commenters who shared the citizen's post, painting him as a despicable racist, and he put an end to his life. Presumably, the painful incident was the straw that broke the camel's back for someone who served in the Shin Bet security agency and held many social welfare positions. Something in Ronis' solitary personality pushed him to this terrible act.
But how do you distinguish the important factors from the trivial ones-
A low sensitivity threshold
Such enigmas occur from time to time. Fifty-eight years ago, when Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, was still in hospital after an assassination attempt, his military aide, Nehemia Argov, committed suicide. He had driven into and seriously injured a cyclist and could not overcome his feelings of guilt. He left this world and willed all his possessions to the family of the man he had injured. This incident was also hard to understand, though many have tried to provide explanations.
We have learned from the study of psychology that some people may commit suicide when they have a major downfall, while others may find themselves willing to end their lives when they experience a moderate amount of emotional pressure. From this we can assume that Ronis was quite sensitive, and the 6,000 online responses sent with the click of a mouse hit him at a low moment, leading him to shoot himself. Could this tragedy have been prevented if a neighbor had invited him to a holiday meal? We will never know.
In some ways, this death was not preventable. You cannot know in advance just how much someone is suffering and how much they have thought about taking that terrible step. One can assume that if Ronis had had someone to open up to, he would not have pulled the trigger. But that wasn't the case. Hindsight is 20/20.
There is no set cure for this malady. Certainly not in an age when every citizen is essentially a newspaper editor, able to publish on the Internet whatever is on his or her mind, without a second thought. At most, you can ask that people exercise some restraint. This is not a problem that is easily solved.
