International Courant
On October 9, two days after the beginning of the present warfare between Israel and Hamas – by which the Israeli military goals to half-destroy the Gaza Strip – the web site of the New York-based journal Girls’s Well being printed some pointers on “Tips on how to take care of the Trauma from violent photographs and movies of Hamas’ assault on Israel.”
It’s in fact not stunning that the potential for trauma has been found solely in response to Hamas’s shock assault on Israel and never, for instance, to the previous 75 years of Israeli violence and ethnic cleaning of Palestine – the cumulative wicked barbarity of which is primarily motivated Hamas’ actions.
In any case, Israel’s fastidiously constructed monopoly on victimhood and the attendant dehumanization of Palestinians implies that photographs of continued Israeli terror on Gaza have by no means compelled the American media to “prescribe steps to guard your psychological well being.”
And but the Girls’s Well being intervention represents a brand new type of spin on the victimhood theme, by which even the vicarious trauma supposedly intermittently skilled by the American public exceeds the outright trauma suffered by the folks in opposition to whom Israel frequently wages warfare.
The article quotes a New York medical psychologist on why it may be so disturbing to come across violent photographs in a single’s social media feed: “We’re empathetic folks. We will think about ourselves in another person’s footwear.”
However selective empathy is just not empathetic in any respect. That is particularly the case when “empathy” for Israel is so politically expedient when it comes to justifying obscene quantities of American army assist to that nation and the slaughter of individuals whose existence complicates the American-Israeli imaginative and prescient of the world.
In the US, my alienated homeland, the emotion of empathy is beneath fixed assault by a political-economic system that thrives on alienation and the eradication of group ties. Nonetheless, when empathy could be weaponized, leaders from throughout the political spectrum within the US are popping out in droves to “assist Israel.”
Actually, Israel’s monopoly on victimhood defies logic and actuality – and putting the State of Israel within the position of sufferer par excellence is a bit like assigning victimhood standing to an assault rifle.
Recall that the foundational episode of your complete “Israeli-Palestinian battle” was Israel’s violent self-invention on Palestinian land in 1948, which entailed the destruction of some 530 Palestinian villages, the homicide of 15,000 Palestinians and the expulsion of three-quarters. of one other million.
And the bloody sample has solely continued since then, with Palestinians persevering with to die in disproportionate numbers even whereas being portrayed as aggressors and perpetrators. Take Operation Protecting Edge in 2014, when the Israeli military within the Gaza Strip killed 2,251 folks in 50 days, together with 299 girls and 551 kids. Six Israeli civilians have been killed and 67 troopers.
Throughout Operation Pillar of Protection in November 2012, the Israeli military killed 167 Palestinians, with six fatalities. Greater than 1,400 Palestinians, largely civilians, have been killed in Operation Forged Lead, which Israel launched in Gaza on the finish of 2008. Amongst them have been 400 kids. Three Israeli civilians have been additionally killed, together with ten troopers.
After the Israeli assault on Gaza in 2012, Israeli journalist Gideon Levy took to the pages of the Haaretz newspaper to remind readers that “because the first Qassam rocket fell on Israel in April 2001, 59 Israelis have been killed – and 4,717 Palestinians ”. Levy famous that this share was “horrifying” and ventured that “it ought to alarm each Israeli.”
In fact, “ought to” continues to be the operative phrase. However to be “disturbed” by the horrific context by which Palestinians have now existed for greater than seventy and a half a long time would require empathy – which in flip would require a recognition of Palestinian humanity, relatively than the unfold of a pernicious US-backed narrative. affirming the infinitely superior worth of Israeli life over Palestinian life.
Additionally deeply disturbing is that whereas this narrative dehumanizes Palestinians to the purpose of primarily denying them the suitable to emotional and psychological struggling, Israel levels its emotional victims as a method of gaining further empathy.
Following Operation Forged Lead, for instance, the Israeli Ministry of International Affairs broadcast There have been a complete of 770 Israeli victims, of which no fewer than 584 have been victims of the ‘shock and anxiousness syndrome’.
Equally, after Israel’s 34-day warfare in opposition to Lebanon in 2006, which killed about 1,200 folks in that nation, the Israeli Ministry of Well being reported that of 4,262 Israeli residents who had been “handled in hospitals for accidents,” as many as 2,773 suffered from “shock and worry”.
Whereas the Israeli state’s obsession with air raid sirens and apocalyptic discourse is undoubtedly helpful in stoking common unrest, a rely of the Gaza Strip’s “shock-and-fear” victims would doubtless yield a quantity within the area of two .3 million, the present inhabitants of the Palestinian enclave.
As former Oxfam spokesperson Karl Schembri as soon as mused: “How will you speak about post-traumatic stress interventions in Gaza when persons are nonetheless in a relentless state of trauma?”
Continued worry is assured by a wide range of exterior stimuli, together with the suffocating Israeli siege of Gaza, common Israeli massacres, the pulverization of condo buildings and neighborhoods, and using drones and sonic booms to erase any potential for even a second of peace. .
Because the Israeli military bombs Gaza and a horrific quantity of blood continues to be shed, “empathy” stays firmly entrenched within the Israeli arsenal – and it’s certainly a lethal weapon.
The views expressed on this article are these of the creator and don’t essentially replicate the editorial place of Al Jazeera.
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