How Israel excuses evil – by Carl Duffy

In World War Two, only l in 5 American soldiers fired at the enemy. In addition to this, only a small percentage of soldiers are typically responsible for the majority of deaths in any conflict. With the exception of psychopaths – who represent a tiny minority of the population – harming other people doesn’t appear to come naturally to our species. Yet, recent polls by TIME indicate only 1.8% of the Israeli population feel the IDF are using too much force in Gaza.

The death toll in Gaza has now exceeded 25,000 and approximately 2 million people have been displaced in a population where half are children. For anyone with an ounce of humanity, extensive moral gymnastics are required to justify such horrors. These gymnastics typically take the form of dehumanising the ‘other’ and narrative control which paints Israel in a favourable light. October 7th is frequently the starting point in mainstream discussion.

From an Israeli standpoint this is incredibly convenient as it allows them to be portrayed as blameless victims who are merely ‘defending’ themselves against an unprovoked attack. If however the narrative begins with the Nakba i.e. the ethnic cleansing of Palestine then it’s a lot more challenging to portray Israel as a blameless victim acting in ‘defence.’ In a more subtle way, softer language is used to describe the actions of IDF whereas sterner words are used when speaking about Hamas.

Danny Morrison touches on these linguistical games in his excellent book, ‘Free Statism and the Good Old IRA’. The IRA are ‘terrorists’ who use ‘violence’ whereas the state-sponsored terrorists are ‘soldiers’ using ‘force.’ When it comes to describing actions where innocent life is unfortunately taken, why can’t the same language be used for both parties? The Dutch primatologist Frans de Waal posits that identification with the ‘other’ opens the door for empathy. On a more fundamental level Palestinians and Israelis have near identical DNA, yet cultural differences exacerbated by religion and Zionist propaganda promote division. 

The most egregious examples of ‘othering’ involve dehumanising the opponent. Some Hutus referred to Tutsis as cockroaches, whilst Nazis sometimes spoke of Jews as disease-ridden rats. Analogous to the pigs starting to resemble their human oppressors in Animal Farm, Israel Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, is using the same dehumanising tactics by calling Palestinians ,’human animals.’

The simple function of dehumanisation is to excuse atrocity. All of these techniques combined with advanced weaponry – which creates greater distance between the Israeli terrorist and their Palestinian victim- makes these horrors more palatable for the perpetrators. These evil strategies are not the exclusive domain of Israel; however they’re currently the most pertinent example.  While I’ve little optimism that this conflict will improve any time soon, one would hope that more obstacles are put in place for excusing atrocity, and fewer obstacles are in place for identifying with the casualties of war. In 2004, another Israeli minister, Yosef Lapid, empathised with an old Palestinian woman who had her home destroyed and was looking for medicine. He imagined what he’d say if it was his own grandmother. This rare moment of empathy offers a modicum of hope that current Israeli attitudes towards Palestinians can change.