Dehumanization Breeding Dehumanization?

The events of October 7, 2023, understandably produced extreme rage and trauma within Israel. The mass killing of 1200 people and the kidnap and holding hostage in Gaza of 250 people (including elderly and children) amply illustrated the horrific terroristic methodology embodied in Hamas’ dedication to the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel.

Israel has long experienced terrorism in the form of attacks on innocent civilians. Three separate intifadas featured that tactic, including brutal suicide bombings in buses, hotels, and cafeterias. Yet the trauma and distress of the October 7 incursions were differentiated and exacerbated by the savagery and inhumanity with which the assaults were perpetrated. The massacre of 260 young people attending a music festival was just a start. In near-Gaza communities like kibbutz Beeri invaded by Hamas, not only were whole families liquidated, but children were murdered in front of parents and parents in front of children. Bloody nurseries and bullet-ridden infants’ corpses testified to the savagery. Maiming, dismemberment, and mutilation were widespread. Violent sexual assault and debasement of the victims occurred both in the invaded communities and in ensuing Gazan captivity. In short, inhumane debasement of the victims was an integral part of the Hamas atrocities.

The primary impact on Israel of the October 7 debacle was a strong determination to retaliate against Hamas in a fashion that would incapacitate and deter Hamas (and associated Jihadist factions) from carrying out any similar destructive incursions. Hence Israel’s invasion of Gaza and the IDF’s ongoing efforts to destroy Hamas’ massive underground tunnel complex that enabled both October 7 and the periodic prior hounding of the 800,000 Israelis living within missile range of Gaza.

Yet the extreme savagery and inhumanity that distinguished October 7 from prior terrorism produced a depth of rage and trauma that likely entails further grave consequences. For one thing, the deep shock and suspicion engendered obviously erode hope for any long-term peaceful resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Israelis wonder how they can possibly trust their fates to coexistence with any prospective Palestinian state, given the depth of hatred and hostility recently demonstrated. Widespread endorsement of Hamas’ tactics within the liquidationist Iranian/Hezbollah axis of evil further arouses Israeli anxiety and suspicion.

Another hazard now crystallizing is that enraged and traumatized Israelis will react to the Hamas atrocities by adopting an inhumane posture themselves. Extreme anger and rage tend to trigger impulses for revenge that dehumanize the image of a ruthless enemy and may provoke retaliations that go beyond the norms and rules of wartime conduct. While Israel has long taken pride in IDF adherence to strict moral protocols of warfare, signs of possible deviation from prevailing norms have sporadically appeared during the Israel/Hamas conflict. One example was IDF killing of 3 bare-chested men advancing toward an Israeli emplacement with a white flag and hands in the air. (The 3 victims turned out to be Israelis who had escaped from Hamas captivity and were seeking refuge.) Another example was an Israeli drone attack on a suspicious Gazan vehicle that mistakenly killed 7 workers distributing humanitarian food aid. IDF investigation showed that the attack was careless and unwarranted and the responsible IDF parties were sanctioned. Whether these military derelictions were influenced by an inhumane thirst for vengeance at any cost is impossible to determine.

A new arena of concern has surfaced concerning the dehumanizing impact of Israeli rage over Hamas’ atrocities. In the wake of the October 7 debacle, Israel established a number of prison camps — improvised detention facilities for Palestinians suspected of being operatives for Hamas or other terror groups. Among the inmates at these facilities are several thousand Palestinians being held in administrative detention, meaning without any meaningful opportunity to hear and contest the charges against them. The conditions in these detention facilities are harsh – crowded, stifling, unsanitary, without exercise, and with limited medical care.

That conditions are harsh in wartime detention facilities is not surprising. More disturbing are recent accusations of severe abuse of some inmates by Israeli guards. The latest accusation involves Sde Teiman, an Israeli military base with a section being used as a detention center for terror suspects. The allegation is that Israeli soldiers serving as guards surrounded a prisoner and performed an egregious act of sexual violence — sodomizing the prisoner with a large baton causing grievous injury. Nine soldiers were arrested by Israeli military police and five are still in custody.

The guilt or innocence of the arrested soldiers is unresolved. The allegedly raped prisoner had been previously discovered to have hidden a cell phone in his rectum – i.e., the anal injury might have been self-inflicted. On the other hand, there is video footage of the soldiers surrounding and isolating the prone prisoner with large riot shields just before the prisoner was taken away suffering from severe anal injuries.

While the alleged misconduct of the soldiers is still in dispute, the deplorable reaction of a segment of the public to the soldiers’ arrest is indisputable and disturbing. Crowds of protesting far-right activists, including some Knesset members from ultra-nationalist parties within the current governing coalition, rioted and sought to break into two Israeli military bases – Sde Teiman where the soldiers had been arrested and held and later at Bet Leed where a military court was processing the charges against the military arrestees. The protesters were outraged at the military justice system’s attempt to prosecute the alleged abuse of a Palestinian prisoner. From the protesters’ perspective, even if the violent sodomy had been perpetrated, it should not be punished. The alleged victim detainee was, in their eyes, a Palestinian terrorist who deserved such abuse. It should be standard Israeli policy to deprive detainees of any sort of comfort and even to physically abuse them as a form of justified revenge against Hamas terrorism.

It is impossible to know the extent of public support for these far-right rioters. But it is shocking to see such derogation of the rule of law on the part of elected public representatives. Such disdain for the established rules of war demanding fair process and decent conditions for detained combatants seriously undermines Israel’s status in several critical forums – within the Biden administration, within the European Union, and within the International Court of Justice. This moral myopia might stem in part from understandable rage and trauma flowing from Hamas’ October 7 atrocities, but it is clearly counter-productive to Israel’s interests for public officials to endorse inhumane behavior. Dehumanization of the enemy is historically characteristic of Israel’s ruthless enemies, not of Israel.