Hannah Arendt on nationalism

Politically speaking, tribal nationalism [patriotism] always insists that its own people are surrounded by 'a world of enemies' - 'one against all' - and that a fundamental difference exists between this people and all others.  It claims its people to be unique, individual, incompatible with all others, and denies theoretically the very possibility of a common mankind long before it is used to destroy the humanity of man.

~ Hannah Arendt

Gideon Levy on the dehumanization of Palestinians by Israelis

By the end of the day, how many Israelis did ever try, for a moment, to put themselves in the place of the Palestinians, for a moment, for one day?  And I want to give you two examples which will demonstrate it.

Many years ago, I interviewed then candidate for Prime Minister, Ehud Barak.  And I asked him a question which I try to ask in any occasion: "Mr. Barak, what would have happened if you would have been born Palestinian?"  And Barak gave me the only honest answer he could give me.  He said "I would have joined the terror organization."  What else would he have done?  Would he become a poet?  He doesn't know to write poems.  Would he become a pianist?  He's quite a bad pianist and I doubt he would have become a collaborator because he is a fighter.  And it became a scandal because how can you dare to put Ehud Barak to think what would have happened if he would have become a Palestinian.

And the second incident briefly: second intifada, the city of Jenin, the most closed city in the West Bank, real, total seige.  I go out from Jenin, I come to the checkpoint, Palestinian ambulances parking there with the red lights.  I stand after him.  No cars can get out of Jenin in those days, no cars can get out, and I wait.  The soldiers are playing backgammon in the tent.  Usually, I know, I know myself, it's better that I don't get into confrontation with the soldiers because it always ends up very badly.  So I stayed in the car.

But after 40 minutes, I couldn't take it.  And I went out from the car, I went first to the Palestinian ambulance driver and I asked him, "What's going on?"  He told me, "That's the routine.  They let me wait one hour until they come and check the ambulance."  And I couldn't take it anymore and I went to the soldiers.  It became a confrontation.  But the question that I asked them which really brought them to direct their weapons toward me was one: "What would have happened if your father would have been lying in this ambulance?"  This freaked them out.  They lost control.  How can I dare to compare between their father and the Palestinian in the ambulance?  And this set of beliefs, that they are not human beings like us, enable us - Israelis - to live in so much peace with those crimes, ongoing crimes, for so many years, with losing any kind of humanity, values.

I heard today, people talk about Jewish values.  I must be frank with you, I don't know what are Jewish values.  I know what are universal values.

~ Gideon Levy, "How Israelis Live So Easily With Occupation," Saad Tasleem, 3:35 mark, November 7, 2023

Former IDF solider on collective guilt applied to Palestinians in Gaza

I think as we dominate Palestinians more, especially in this way in which we do it in Gaza, I think as a people, as society, we become much more tolerant to death of civilians.  And it's coming to a point where people actually claim that there's no such thing as an innocent person in Gaza.  This is a gradual process that's reaching a peak, I hope, because if this isn't the peak, I don't want to know what the peak is.

[...]

If you only believe that "It's either us or them," then war is the only option.  It's very fertile land for war and dehumanization.

~ Ariel Bernstein, former IDF combat soldier, "This Israeli Soldier Fought in Gaza," Owen Jones, 21:00, 28:25 mark, December 15, 2023

Gideon Levy on how Israelis live with the occupation

The Israel society has surrounded itself with shields, with walls, not only physical walls, but also mental walls...  I'll just give these three principles which enable us Israelis to live so easily with this brutal reality.  A: Most of the Israelis, if not all of them, deeply believe that we are the chosen people.  And if we are the chosen people, we have the right to do whatever we want.  B: There were more brutal occupations in history.  There were even longer occupations in history, even though the Israeli occupation gets to quite a nice record.  But there was never in history an occupation in which an occupier presented himself as the victim.  Not only the victim, the only victim around.  This also enable any Israeli to live in peace because we are the victims...  

But the third set of values is the most dangerous one.  And this is the systematic dehumanization of the Palestinians which enables us Israelis to live in peace with everything.  Because if they are not human beings like us, then there is not really a question of human rights.  And if you scratch under the skin of almost every Israeli, you will find it there.  Almost no one will treat the Palestinians as equal human beings like us.

~ Gideon Levy, "How Israelis Live So Easily With Occupation," Saad Tasleem, November 7, 2023

Aldous Huxley on propaganda

The purpose of propaganda is to make one set of people forget that other sets of people are human.

~ Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley on dehumanization

The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human. 

~ Aldous Huxley

Tom DiLorenzo on the historical record of the American government dehumanizing the enemy

William Graham Sumner warned that “a matter of mind” that views other peoples as “less human” than you would lead to “cruelty and tyranny” by the American government, as was the case with all other governments in history that ruled over empires. This of course was always the way of empires. Southerners were demonized to “justify” the mass murder of tens of thousands of civilian women, children, and old men, and the bombing and burning of entire cities like Atlanta and Richmond during the “Civil War.” The Plains Indians were dehumanized as “savages” while the brave men of the U.S. Army murdered tens of thousands of Indian women and children from 1865 to 1890. Now it was the Filipinos’ turn. At least 200,000 Filipinos were eventually murdered by the U.S. government for resisting becoming a part of the American empire. According to historian Joseph Stromberg, only about 15,000 of them were actual combatants.

~ Tom DiLorenzo, "The Man Who Predicted (in 1899) What America Would Become," LewRockwell.com, October 10, 2013

Cassie Jaye on listening to the enemy

When you humanize the enemy you will be dehumanized by your own community.

~ Cassie Jaye, "MEETING THE ENEMY: A feminist comes to terms with the Men's Rights movement," October 18, 2017