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"Both Sides" and "Innocent Civilians": The Psychological Effect of Language in the Gaza War

(Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) Irwin J. Mansdorf, PhD - The "both sides" mantra fails to assign responsibility and has permeated public discourse to create an ugly reversal of reality, where Israel is accused of genocide and Israelis and Jews are harassed and attacked openly on the road to what the Palestinian world has long sought and openly demands in Arabic: The elimination of Israel. The appeal of "both sides" is a psychological mechanism people use to assume an air of fairness. It is a delicately articulate "cop-out" cloaked in false righteousness and misplaced assumptions regarding "innocent civilians." Palestinian culture educates children to hate Jews, to glorify violence, to aspire to displace their neighbors and "return" to places they claim rightfully belong exclusively to them. Like most Palestinians, residents of Gazan overwhelmingly supported and even joined the massacre of Oct. 7. International political leaders decry the violence of Oct. 7 but then express sympathy for the people who still support the atrocities perpetrated by the Palestinians' heroes. Are there two sides? Israel is the side supplying humanitarian aid to an enemy population while the other is illegally holding hostages incommunicado. Barely a day passes in Israel that does not have another Palestinian civilian terror attempt, sometimes successfully, to shoot, stab, or run over Israelis. The hatred that fuels these actions has been part of the Gazan/Palestinian culture for years. The evidence to date shows that for most Palestinians, Hamas is something to be admired. Organized civilian opposition to Hamas and its ideological twin, the Palestinian Authority, does not exist. The amount of weaponry, hateful antisemitic literature, and escape tunnels found by IDF soldiers in the homes of "ordinary civilians" in Gaza belies the notion of benign innocence on the part of many Gazans. They are by no means without responsibility for their plight. The writer is a clinical psychologist and a fellow at the Jerusalem Center specializing in political psychology.
2024-05-09 00:00:00
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