Israeli and international dehumanisation of Palestinians

After almost a year of genocidal intent and action, the Israeli military said it would be investigating “a serious incident that is not in line with IDF values and what is expected of Israeli soldiers.” The statement was regarding footage of soldiers throwing the bodies of three Palestinian resistance fighters off the roof of a building in Qabatiya in the occupied West Bank, during a raid in which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killed seven Palestinians.

One cannot say what pales in comparison when watching the footage of Palestinians shredded by Israel’s bombing and the casual mood of kicking dead Palestinians off a roof. Genocide, of course, is more vivid. But the Qabatiya footage is no less an example of what Israel really is at its core – kicking Palestinians out.

Of course, the IDF’s statement about its values cannot be taken seriously. One would not expect anyone to commit genocide or kick dead bodies off a roof – anyone who is not part of the IDF, that is. Because as far as the Israeli military goes, what is caught in the footage clearly reflects not only the IDF’s paramilitary beginnings, but also Israel’s existence.

And since genocide has failed to move world leaders to act in almost a year, besides debate and negotiating futile humanitarian pauses, what the Israeli soldiers did in Qabatiya is a reflection of how much the international community has allowed the dehumanisation of Palestinians to coexist in harmony with human rights.

The United Nations (UN) only wants the Nakba to be commemorated like any other passing anniversary – a day of reflection at best. But it will not allow the Nakba to be remembered for what it was – the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians as a result of the 1947 Partition Plan. In failing to allow an authentic remembrance of the 1948 Nakba, in which the Zionist paramilitaries committed horrific crimes, documented even in Israel’s archives, the UN paved the way for the dehumanisation of Palestinians to become an international passive stance. So much so that decades and countless international law violations later, every instance of Israeli colonial violence against Palestinians was collected only for statistical purposes.

If a population can be dehumanised, anything can be done to it. However, the international dehumanisation of Palestinians must be called out along with Israel’s dehumanisation of the colonised population. Since 1948, the UN has dehumanised Palestinians through non-binding resolutions. During the genocide, the UN dehumanised Palestinians further by creating humanitarian pauses – a deliberate delay of their impending massacre. And in the occupied West Bank – the international community’s image of what Palestinian state building should look like, at least on the surface – Palestinians are murdered and forgotten in the name of the biggest illusion of governance, which the international community still needs to save its diplomacy.

And now, the IDF can pretend to moralise about the behaviour of three of its soldiers throwing dead Palestinians off a roof, as though it has never seen or known about any atrocity committed by Zionists before the creation of Israel and after. Dehumanisation has given a platform for the IDF to masquerade as a moral champion when it is the leading military force behind the genocide in Gaza. How wrong can this world get?

Israeli and international dehumanisation of Palestinians