Dehumanize, demonize, propagandize. Any atrocity can be justified
This story is about what colonialism does to the colonizers. Conquering and suppressing others turns people into monsters, as we have seen in Gaza for four months now.
All colonizers do terrible things, so why am I singling out Israel and America as monsters? Because, as journalist Patrick Lawrence wrote on Consortium News, "We are now able to watch videos of Israeli soldiers celebrating as they murder Palestinian mothers and children, as they dance and sing while detonating entire neighborhoods, as they mock Palestinians in a carnival of racist depravity."
I could write 20 pages listing Israeli crimes and not be any closer to the end, because they keep committing new ones. Who could have imagined healthy young people blocking food deliveries to children their government is starving, and dancing while doing it? How does this happen?
History shows that such depraved behavior could happen to anybody put in the position of subjugating and oppressing others. People become monsters when they learn to dehumanize and demonize their targets, to create narratives that justify their aggression, and to believe the narratives they create.
The European colonizers who looted the world for centuries dehumanized everyone they conquered. The Africans, Americans, and Pacific Islanders were savages, non-people who could be starved and massacred at will. Read a bit about what the Belgians did in the Congo, and you will be reminded of what's happening in Gaza now.
European colonizers said they were bringing civilization and modernity to backward savages. They talked about the "white man's burden" to enlighten the darker peoples. More often than not, they enlightened by massacring them and stealing their stuff.
Since World War II, the US and Israel have taken over where Europe left off. Like Americans, Israelis absorb daily propaganda that teaches them they're the good guys. Palestinians, even children, are terrorists and deserve all the pain they get.
I've written eight articles on Gaza, published on Medium, Substack, and lately on Op-Ed News. I get a lot of comments from Israeli trolls and their supporters in the US and England. They explain why what Israel does is necessary and desirable. The more people they kill, the more justified they feel.
In response to an article called Jews Are Traumatized People, a young Israeli man wrote, "You propose I share my home with a hyena. When I scream because I am being eaten alive, you will write about my trauma and how it has warped me. When the hyena has consumed even my bones, you will declare peace."
He hits all the monster notes. His people are in danger. Their enemies are animals. The world doesn't understand. It's all Hamas' fault.
Israel-supporting monsters come back again and again to the murderous Hamas attack of October 7, which they have blown up to a full-scale attempted genocide of Jews. They repeat Israeli government tales of mass rapes, beheaded children, incinerated families, none of which are backed by independent evidence.
None of the trolls admit they have ever done anything to hurt Palestinians. Occupying people for 75 years, dispossessing them of their homes, destroying their farms and villages, making them live under a blockade, imprisoning and shooting their youth - these kind of things fall outside the narrative and can be ignored.
They also ignore the slaughter ---rivaling the extermination camp Auschwitz -- which they are perpetrating in Gaza. To them, they are just hated because they're Jews. One wrote me, "See, the world has already forgotten October 7." She couldn't imagine how Israel's killing 50.000 people and destroying whole cities might lose them popular support.
Americans share monster bloodlines
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