����ֱ��

When a guest tried to bring up events in Gaza on Israel’s Channel 13 in July, the host — former English Premier League footballer Eyal Berkovic — responded: “Why should we care?” According to Haartez’s Roy Schwartz, writing in The Guardian, the exchange, where guest panelist Emmanuelle Elbaz-Phelps attempted to discuss Gaza only to be cut off and dismissed, is a typical feature of Israeli television’s approach during the nearly two-year-long conflict.

“References to the suffering of unarmed Palestinians are still relatively rare,” Schwartz laments, with even the recent declaration by the UN that Gaza City is experiencing famine being met with “disbelief, seasoned with sarcasm.” The concern, voiced by several Israeli authors and activists, as well as prominent outsiders like UN rights chief Volker Turk, is that this continues a trend of dehumanizing the Palestinians in Gaza.

As seen by the frequent protests against the war in Tel Aviv, many Israelis reject the dehumanizing discourse. A diverse section of society wants the war to end and many protesters hold “stop Gaza genocide” signs, emphasizing their empathy with suffering Palestinians.

Moreover, of course, Hamas propaganda has its own dehumanizing discourse of Israeli society, contributing to the extent of the slaughter wreaked on Oct. 7, 2023. Many Israeli officials, though, espouse dehumanizing rhetoric. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s statement in August 2024 — that “nobody will let us cause 2 million civilians to die of hunger, even though it might be justified and moral, until our hostages are returned” — is one such prominent example. More recently, Tally Gotliv, an MP from Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, stated: “There are no noncombatants in Gaza. Everyone is responsible.”

The discourse of leading politicians may have contributed to the extent of the killing and the seeming lack of concern

Christopher Phillips

Such claims — that there are no innocent civilians or that starvation is a justifiable tactic against certain people — helps to build a negative picture of an “enemy” or “outsider,” increasingly stripping them of their shared humanity, impacting their treatment. As Nick Haslam, a professor of psychology at the University of Melbourne in Australia, told the BBC: “People who dehumanize others are certainly more likely to treat them badly.”

And this seems to be being realized in Gaza. As Prof. Yuli Tamir, a former Israeli education minister,  in Haaretz. “Every war entails a certain level of dehumanization of the enemy. But it seems that in the current war in Gaza, the dehumanization of Palestinians is close to absolute.” The discourse of leading politicians may therefore have contributed to the extent of the killing and the seeming lack of concern by TV anchors like Berkovic.

Yet, while the Israel-Gaza example is perhaps the most extreme, dehumanization is seemingly on the rise across the world. 

As is well known, the Trump administration has embarked on what he calls “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” deporting more than 70,000 illegal migrants by July, with the number rising. Importantly, deportees have reportedly been treated poorly, both in the US and after deportation, such as those sent to mega-prisons in El Salvador, which Amnesty International describe as home to “widespread ill-treatment amounting to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”

And while a majority (54 percent) of Americans, according to a recent PBS poll, think that Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has gone “too far,” a sizable number (18 percent) thought it had “not gone far enough.” Another 26 percent thought its actions were “about right” — perhaps indicating the effectiveness of the discourse.

In the UK, politicians have long referred to migrants using animalistic words such as ‘swarm’ or ‘swamping’

Christopher Phillips

Dehumanization is also widespread in Europe. Like in the US, immigration has increasingly attracted dehumanizing language. In the UK, politicians have long referred to migrants using animalistic words such as “swarm” or “swamping.” As the number of small boats illegally ferrying migrants across the English Channel grew in 2022, then-UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman described “an invasion on our southern coast.”

Last week, populist right-wing politician Nigel Farage, whose Reform UK party currently leads British opinion polls, announced a plan to deport up to 600,000 illegal migrants in five years if elected, describing them as an “invasion” and a “scourge” in a speech. Likewise, in Poland recently there has been a rise in protests against migrants, with far-right leaders describing new arrivals as “a flood.”

Nor is this unique to the West. Indeed, it is a process with a long, depressing history, going back centuries in some cases. In the most extreme examples, dehumanization can help lead to mass killing and slaughter, such as the Holocaust or the Rwandan genocide.

Some, such as the International Association of Genocide Scholars, have argued that is already happening in Gaza, with the organization recently voting that events in the Strip meet the legal definition of the crime. As Haslam argues, dehumanizing language may have played a role in the continued violence. But dehumanizing is not limited to the Gaza war and is now a common feature of many societies, encouraged by politicians, the media and other groups that wish to vilify perceived enemies or outsiders.

A distinct lack of empathy and failure to see others’ perspective is a concern and examples elsewhere show that this can contribute to dangerous violent outcomes.

• Christopher Phillips is professor of international relations at Queen Mary University of London and author of “Battleground: Ten Conflicts that Explain the New Middle East.” X: @cjophillips