Despite the terrifying massacre at the hospital in Gaza which shockedthe whole world, nothing has changed on the part of the Israeligovernment. The blockade of food, water, electricity and medicinecontinues, as do the very heavy bombings by the army. ---- One wonders:but are the Israelis who make this murderous policy possible, byundauntedly obeying inhuman orders, people like us? How is it possiblethat even in the face of a huge tragedy like yesterday's, which wouldmake even Genghis Khan feel pity, there are people who still continue toblock vital goods and even bring further death and destruction to apopulation already largely exhausted? Do they have human feelings, orare they just killing machines?I believe that they are definitely human people, with emotions andfeelings like all of us. However, I fear they are so inhumanly ruthlessfor a specific reason, namely that they believe that their targets arenot human.The dehumanization of the Palestinians and in particular of Hamas(portrayed as an organization of fundamentalists willing to killinnocent people regardless, for no other reason than a crazy religiousfaith and the desire to accumulate power) is in fact one of the mainaims of the propaganda of Israeli government; not only for foreignpolicy purposes, but also for internal purposes.Since Israelis are people like us, surely many would have great qualmsabout tolerating the Palestinians being robbed of their land, locked uplike beasts for 16 years in the largest open-air prison in the world,their lives transformed into a daily hell made of blocks, walls,impossibility of movement and work; not to mention the fact that todaythey are actively massacred by starving, thirsting and bombing them. If,however, they are dehumanized, then everything becomes simpler becausethe feeling of empathy that binds men is denied by the fact that theother party "is not like us".To dehumanize them, the key point of Israeli propaganda is to deny inevery way possible the cause-and-effect link between the harassmentinflicted on Palestinians and their actions in response to thatharassment. This serves at least two reasons. The first is that bydenying the connection, one can safely continue to rob Palestinians oftheir lands, control them and make their lives impossible: since theseactions are not the reason for the Palestinian attacks, there is noreason to stop them. second is that if I deny the causal relationshipbetween the harassment and the responses, then the only other cause thatcan explain terrible massacres like those of 7 October is the pure andsimple wickedness of those who commit them: an inhuman wickedness,precisely, which it absolves the avengers of the Israeli army from guiltand keeps them obedient even in the face of orders that violate everyrule of respect for human life.Therefore, for the government of Israel, it is absolutely essential todehumanize Hamas in every way and paint it as a simple criminalorganization born out of nothing, which has taken over Gaza by militaryforce and which uses Gaza and its inhabitants for its own purposes(acquisition of power and murder of Jews) regardless of anything Israelhas done. According to this narrative, no peace will be possible withouteliminating these bad individuals: therefore they must be eliminatedeven if the price to pay is to massacre large quantities of innocents,because these innocents are still victims of Hamas and therefore theytoo (or rather, the survivors slaughter) will benefit from its elimination.This therefore explains why the Israeli government lashes out with greatviolence against those who try to understand (even without justifying)the reasons behind the October 7 massacre. We understand people, notbeasts: those who try to understand are insinuating that whoevercommitted those things could be a person like us, and from there torecognize that the context in which that person was born and lived (dueto Israeli responsibility) is not it is completely irrelevant, the stepis short.Those who are far from the conflict and know how much individualexistence is shaped by the context in which it develops obviously finddehumanization unacceptable. Of course, perhaps it is possible that somepeople are born with the gene of suicidal fundamentalism, but Hamascounts on spontaneous contributions of thousands and thousands ofmilitants perfectly aware that in exchange for their commitment theywill have no reward other than a painful death. History teaches us thatsuch a mass self-destructive impulse cannot arise from nothing, itcannot be due to free individual choices of people living in a healthyand safe context, but must have structural causes.The high number of volunteer militants (typically committed to suicide)is in this case directly linked to the fact that the life of theinhabitants of Gaza is desperate and unworthy of being lived: therefore,to stamp out Hamas it is necessary to drain the immense pool ofdesperate people from which the recruiters draw, restoring dignity andfreedom to the population of Gaza.At the basis of the disagreement between those who ask to persist withthe massacres and those who instead ask to stop them immediately, thereis therefore a different conception of human nature: there are thosewho, in the tradition of the right, believe that "homo homini lupus",that we are born evil and bullies (or we become so by free choice), andtherefore the only possible action against the bad guys is to use forceagainst them, and there are those, from the left, who believe that humannature is fundamentally peaceful and that any ferocity derives mainlyfrom the context in which one was born and raised.Israelis, like all of us, are a little right-wing and a littleleft-wing; yet even despite the fact that the right-wing "explanation"is fundamentally incompatible with what we know about human nature,polls reveal that they overwhelmingly lean towards that approach (evenbefore the October 7 massacres). Why?I believe that at the (largely unconscious) basis of this orientationthere is also a strong conflict of interest. As we have said,dehumanization is also aimed at legitimizing the illegal occupation ofthe territories, the continuous theft of Palestinian land and thecontrol measures. If the Israelis admitted that the Palestinians arehuman people like us, and therefore their reactions they are terribleresponses to a terrible structural violence suffered over the years,then not only should they stop bombing them, but they should also betreated as human beings with regards to the theft of lands, returningtheir stolen goods and indeed compensating them for the damage inflictedon them... which it would cost many Israelis a great deal, both in termsof wealth and power.As we know, we live in a world where people are not interested inknowing objective reality, but rather try to support the beliefs thatare most convenient for them by looking around for facts (whether trueor false) that prove them right. If we translate this observation toIsraeli society, we see that the right-wing vision can be as absurd andfar-fetched as one wants, but it has the undoubted advantage ofjustifying Israel's past actions and indeed of paving the way forfurther appropriations which, as is logical , they will make those whoare already richer even richer...so the big media, which typicallyserves the goals of the rich, have no interest in throwing water on thefire or seeking rational explanations for events.The "left-wing" explanation remains valid only for an intellectuallyhonest minority, which is also portrayed by the other side as crazy andself-harming (the famous self-hating jews).This being the case, it is useless to hope for a sudden enlightenmentfrom the Israeli government. The situation pushes it to maintain itsposition: no admission of responsibility in any form, neither direct norindirect, and all the blame goes to Hamas seen as a bad entityregardless of everything, a pure product of fundamentalist religiousmadness and the thirst for power whose existence has not the slightestconnection with the continuous Israeli violations of fundamental humanrights.In such a context, salvation for those who are now under the bombs canonly come from the outside, and this is why it is important that anyonewith a conscience makes their voice heard, as they can and when theycan. Let us remember that in the face of a conflict between a strong anda weak person, whoever is disinterested or otherwise silent is notneutral, but is in fact giving the strongest person the green light tocrush his victim.Construction site no. 21 November 2023 ilcantiere@autistici.orghttp://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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