The Mass Killing in Gaza Will Poison Israeli Souls Forever - Israel News - Haaretz.com
In his book "Fallen Soldiers," Jewish-American historian George Mosse described the brutalization that European states underwent due to World War I. He was referring to the extreme indifference to human life that forms in the face of mass violence and acts of cruelty. The most tangible example is the change in the attitude toward pogroms. In 1903, 49 Jews were murdered in Kishinev. An immediate international outcry ensued. The world didn't stay silent; the governments of France, the U.K. and even Germany directed vigorous protests at Russia, and the international press dealt with the pogrom extensively.
By 1919, much larger pogroms took place: Some 50,000 Jews were murdered in Ukraine. Thousands were tortured and raped. But this time the matter didn't draw special attention outside Jewish communities. The difference? A total war took place between the two occurrences. When millions of soldiers are killed, and entire countries are destroyed, human life no longer counts.
We are now in the midst of an expedited wave of brutalization. Blood has become cheap, cheaper than it has been at any point over the past several generations. The October 7 massacre broke down the barriers of brutalization, and since then we have been in a spiral of killing. Our Israeli consciousness and that of the Palestinians and of the world, is flooded with blood and horror, and as a result the value of life has come crashing down.
The process of brutalization, Mosse wrote, may have generated a new vitality in man, but it condemned people into paralysis in the face of human cruelty and loss of life.
The conquest of the Gaza Strip, the bombings, the crisis, the hunger – all generate extreme suffering every day, as well as destructive imagery that is absorbed within the conscious and unconscious plains. Like the massacre perpetrated by Hamas, Israeli violence is documented and distributed immediately on a mass scale. The world faces horrifying new forms of slaughter. The masses that are trampled as they charge for the food distribution trucks are one example of such an image. But the futuristic drones informing the residents of Khan Younis that their homes are about to be bombed are horrifying as well, as are the mass graves, and cases like that of the 5-month-old twins who were killed.
Most Israelis see these horrors as an unavoidable byproduct of the war on Hamas. But without addressing the question of justice, the images of mass violence poisons the consciousness for generations – just like the images of violence perpetrated by Hamas in Re'im and in Sderot. They are slated to cheapen the value of Israeli life, too.
Many Israelis believe that the destruction in Gaza will be a deterrent for anyone who wants to hurt us in the future. But this concept of deterrence hasn't been unequivocally proven. And in any case, mass destruction and killing have another byproduct: They create an inflation of blood. Like irresponsible use of antibiotics, they hurt the entire human race in the long run. The conflict, which has been restrained so far, has entered new realms of horror – with burnt towns, rape, mass abduction, starvation and the deaths of tens of thousands. For those watching from afar, the situation here seems irreparable – and the response is corresponding.
Few of us will feel shocked if we hear about dozens killed in fighting in Congo – we have become insensitive to deaths in Africa. Soon the same attitude will form with regard to the conflict here. The heart closes off, apathy rises, and next time terrible things happen, few will care. War, as Mosse wrote, is the father of brutalization.
A Palestinian boy views the site of an Israeli strike on a residential buildin at Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza Strip on Wednesday.Credit: Ramadan Abed/ REUTERS
Beasts of prey
On the surface, anyone walking down the streets of Tel Aviv will not recognize a death drive, but a yearning for life. It's true, to an extent. A German friend who visited Israel a few weeks ago was surprised to see the long line outside Eyal Shani's popular new ice cream place, while war is raging just few dozen kilometers from here. You can argue that the hedonism and the return to the consumerist routine are methods of repression, or a healthy insistence on living life. But other facets may be at play here.
With all due respect to ice cream, the most popular food in Tel Aviv right now is the smashburger. Many of the city's refined, sophisticated restaurants have collapsed, and in their place hamburger places have sprung up. This trend has a simple explanation: A hamburger allows one to enjoy a meal for under 100 shekels ($28), which is unheard of at a restaurant these days. Nevertheless, you can't help but wonder: How can a city that just a few years ago was considered a haven for vegans, has now become addicted to piles of meat in a bun? A suspicion rises that the brutalization bleeds into our culinary habits as well.
Civilized life is a constant process of refinement. Urban folk gradually shed the habits of the past. In the Middle Ages, it was normal to serve entire dead animals and slice them at the dinner table. Over the course of hundreds of years habits have changed, and many of us have shunned eating meat altogether. This has moral reasons, but many think it's simply barbaric.
But in the face of mass killing, it's difficult to hold on to compassion for calves and chickens. When blood floods our consciousness, we grow metaphoric claws and fangs. The veil of civilization is torn away, and we become beasts of prey. We can only hope that the disintegration stops before we start devouring each other.