cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/17727956
This is an opinionated article by Prof. (Emeritus) Yoel Elizur, The Seymour Fox School of Education, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Chairperson of the Council of Psychologists (2010-13). As a mental health officer in reserve, he was the chief supervisor of the IDF's RRC, the Israeli Defense Force's Rear Rehabilitation Centers .
The article was published in Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper commonly known as criticial of Netanyahu's government.
[...]
Moral injury occurs when soldiers act against their moral values and beliefs or participate as bystanders. Those injured in this way experience guilt and shame, and are prone to depression, anxiety and suicidal impulses. The IDF provides month-long intensive treatment to traumatized soldiers, some of whom have been morally injured, in Rear Rehabilitation Centers (RRCs). Subsequently, half of these soldiers are discharged as unfit for military duty.
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The discussion of atrocities evokes emotional resistance even though it is intellectually understood that crimes exist in every civilized society and that war crimes have been committed by soldiers in every army. Developmental psychologists have identified callous traits in young children while social psychologists have demonstrated that authoritative directives and social pressure lead ordinary people to harmful behavior.
Still, it is difficult to face the violence of callous soldiers and the brutalization of ordinary soldiers. Therefore, I am not reassured when my grandson says: "Don't worry, Grandpa, I will refuse an illegal order."
I want to protect him and all others who are risking their body and mind when they serve in the IDF. I want them to know how difficult it is to stand up to a callous commander and to resist peer pressure encouraging brutality. I want them to know about the slippery slope of brutalization and get educated about the moral dilemmas they will face during wartime. This motivated me to write this essay both as a grandfather and as a psychologist who has researched soldiers' experience with brutalization.
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We [fellow researcher Nuphar Ishay-Krien and the author] identified five groups of soldiers based on personality traits.
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1. A small Callous group was composed of ruthless soldiers, some of whom confessed to violence before the draft. These soldiers committed most of the severe atrocities. The power they received in the army was intoxicating:
"It's like a drug ... you feel like you are the law, you make the rules. As if from the moment you leave the place called Israel and enter the Gaza Strip, you are God."
They viewed brutality as an expression of strength and masculinity.
"I have no problem with women. One threw a slipper at me, so I gave her a kick here (pointing to the groin), broke all this here. She can't have children today."
"X shot an Arab four times in the back and got away with a self-defense claim. Four bullets in the back from a distance of ten meters ... cold-blooded murder. We did things like that every day."
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2. A small, ideologically violent group supported the brutality without taking part. They believed in Jewish supremacy and were derogatory toward Arabs. Moral injuries were not reported in this group.
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3. A small incorruptible group opposed the influence of the callous and ideological groups on the company's culture. Initially intimidated by brutal commanders, they later* took a moral stand and went on to report the atrocities* to the division commander. Following discharge, most of them viewed their service as meaningful and strengthening. However, one whistle blower [...] was traumatized, depressed and left the country following discharge.
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4. A large group of followers consisted of soldiers with no prior inclination to violence. Their behavior was most influenced by junior officers' modeling and the company's norms. Some followers who committed atrocities reported moral injuries:
"I felt like, like, like a Nazi ... it looked exactly like we were actually the Nazis and they were the Jews."
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5. The restrained was a large group of inner-directed soldiers who maintained military standards and did not commit atrocities. They responded to Palestinian violence and life-threatening situations in balanced and legally justified ways.
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In each of the companies, an internal culture developed that was largely shaped by junior commanders and charismatic soldiers. Initially, the norms instigated atrocities.
"A new commander came to us. We went out with him on the first patrol at six in the morning. He stops. There's not a soul in the streets, just a little 4-year-old boy playing in the sand in his yard. The commander suddenly starts running, grabs the boy, and breaks his arm at the elbow and his leg here. Stepped on his stomach three times and left. We all stood there with our mouths open. Looking at him in shock ... I asked the commander: "What's your story?" He told me: These kids need to be killed from the day they are born. When a commander does that, it becomes legit."
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There is much evidence of alleged war crimes in the current war and it is easily accessible. Lee Mordechai, an Israeli historian, has been collecting, categorizing, and regularly updating the data. The data include reports by reputable institutions such as the United Nations, reporting by mainstream media outlets, and images, and videos uploaded to social media.
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As the corrupting influence of the Callous and Ideologically Violent soldiers increases, the Incorruptible are marginalized. Max Kresh, a reserve fighter, declared his opposition to participating in crimes against humanity like "flattening Gaza." The result was severe social ostracism: "They kicked me out of my team. They made it clear they didn't want me." He returned from reserve duty feeling "mentally crushed."
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Sde Teiman, a detention facility [where Palestinians are detained], is like a microcosm of brutalization in the current war. It became notorious when an Incorruptible veteran physician reported signs of severe sexual abuse in a detainee. Nine IDF reserve soldiers were subsequently detained on suspicion of aggravated sodomy and other forms of abuse.
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A Restrained student in the reserves described brutalization [in Sde Teiman] and its effect on the Followers.
"I saw sadistic people there. People who enjoy causing suffering to others. … What was most disturbing was to see how easily and quickly ordinary people can detach themselves and not see the reality right in front of their eyes when they are in a difficult and shocking human situation."
Similarly, a reservist doctor stated:
"There is total dehumanization here. You don't really treat them as if they are human beings ... in retrospect, the hardest thing for me is what I felt, or actually what I didn't feel when I was there. It bothers me that it didn't bother me. There is normalization of the process, and at some point, it just stops bothering."
A Restrained female reservist kept her standards by escaping the facility:
"The dehumanization scared me. The encounter with such dangerous attitudes, which has become more normal in our society, was traumatic for me ... I discharged myself from reserve duty with a psychiatrist's help."
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The author Prof. (Emeritus) Yoel Elizur concludes:
In this context, our government's rhetoric of hatred and revenge, which has been reinforced by its determined undermining of the justice system, led to excessive retaliation and mass killing of civilians in Gaza. It provided a tailwind for atrocities by Callous and Ideologically Violent soldiers, increased their influence over the Followers, and sidelined the Incorruptible.
[...] the senior command is responsible for upholding the values listed in the IDF's code of ethics, including purity of arms and discipline, which dictate: "IDF soldiers will not use their weapon or power to harm uninvolved civilians and prisoners" and "The soldier will ensure they are only giving out legal orders, and do not follow illegal orders." By upholding these values, they can prevent brutalization against the innocent and protect the soul of our soldiers.
We, the citizens who send our children, spouses and grandchildren to military service, must find ways of resistance. We are obligated to speak clearly in order to keep limits on the cruelty of war, to uphold our moral code, and to protect soldiers from moral injury and its long-term consequences.
Israelis think they are gods anyway. It doesnt matter if they are in Gaza. They teach their children that the goyim lack the same sort of human soul as they have. Non-jews (goy) have just animal souls. We are considered equal to cattle or dogs, and are souls are inherently evil, regardless of our actions.
"R. Yehuda Ha-Levi explains that just as plants are qualitatively greater that inanimate objects because they are living, and animals are qualitatively greater that plants because they have an animate soul, and humans are qualitatively greater than animals because they have an intellect, so are Jews qualitatively greater than gentiles because they have the quality of Godliness (inyan Elohi). Adam was created with this Godly quality, and he passed it on to the greatest of his descendants, and so on through Noach until Avraham. Avraham passed down that quality only to Yitzchak, and Yitzchak only to Yaakov, but Yaakov passed the inyan Elohi to all his descendants. Since then, the entire Jewish People has been characterized by this "spiritual DNA," which makes them essentially and fundamentally different from other human beings.
R. Yehuda Ha-Levi therefore concludes that just as a rock cannot become a plant, and a plant cannot become an animal, and an animal cannot become a human, so too a gentile is a fundamentally different type of creature than a Jew and can therefore never become a full-fledged Jew. A convert, according to R. Yehuda Ha-Levi, can become wise and pious and share in some part of the spiritual goodness bestowed upon the Jewish People, but he can never be fully equal to a Jew and can never achieve prophecy. He will always be lacking the inyan Elohi, because his essential nature can never be changed."
"The soul of a gentile, however, according to the Tanya, is purely animalistic and not Godly. It descends from the evil forces that have no potential for goodness in them whatsoever. "
"a gentile is not merely a lower form of life, but is essentially and irredeemably evil; his substance derives from the sitra achra, the evil forces that threaten all goodness and purity in the world."
"a Jew and a gentile are different from birth and that this difference lies in the essential substance of their being."
"Of course, the Rambam admits that the character traits of the Jews are significantly more refined than those of the gentiles. "
" the Torah learned by a gentile is considered worthless, because a gentile is incapable of achieving true spirituality."
"based on the opinion that the soul of a convert is of fundamentally lower status than a born Jew, rules that while one is obligated to love a convert, it is certainly improper to marry one or to advise any other Jew to do so. He goes so far as to warn that if one does marry a convert, his children will not succeed religiously because they will inherit an essential spiritual impurity that impedes Torah learning and religious growth.[19]"
https://www.etzion.org.il/en/philosophy/issues-jewish-thought/issues-mussar-and-faith/jews-and-gentiles
So, just like it's OK to kill a pig or a wild dog, it's OK to kill the goy or treat them as you would any other animal. We aren't talking Palestinians here, Goy are 99.8% of the population of the world. I'm told that we are all just animals to be managed.
By pointing this out, I am sure I will be accused of being racist. But I'm not the one calling anyone an animal or being a supremecist. I think we are all just humans like everyone else. Palestinians are the same as Jews, who are the same as the rest of the goy. No one is supreme or better. Anyone saying otherwise is a racist.
As a jew, this is why religion is a scourge on our species.
It should be noted that while the views you quote are real and will be used to justify atrocities and genocide, the rabbinic tradition is broad and also contains a quite different, contrasting view. The same overview article you linked discusses the view of the Rambam (Maimonides):
In this view there is no essential difference between a Jew and a non-Jew. Godliness is a question of how you live.
yes well in that case I supposed its just too bad that these people who have a more civilized view of these ancient passages arent more forward in the conversation of whether human life that is Palestinian matters at all. As I understand it, the reform movement insists that a comma is missing in Tanya that would counter the idea that Gentiles are simply animals with no good whatsoever in their soul. At the same time we discuss if commas are missing, the head of the WHO was almost killed at an airport yesterday by Israeli fire. Clearly no one on the zionists side cares about collateral damage of innocents, be it Palestinian or other goy. You have to wonder why that is? Where is the respect for all human life? Where is the respect for fraternal humanity? Its certainly appears that zionists dont care at all about such things.
And we look at polls in America like this one: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/04/02/how-us-jews-are-experiencing-the-israel-hamas-war/
62 percent of American jewish people though in April that the way Israel was conducting itself in Gaza was "acceptable". 35 percent said "unacceptable".
Thats not OK. Genocide is not OK. Bombing aid workers, journalists, hospitals, attacking people because of their ethnicity, innocents, women and childrem, people who have nothing to do with Hamas besides their ethnicity-- all not OK. Especially when Israel created Hamas to counter the secular politics of the PLO. Shooting at UN and WHO workers is NOT OK.
So you'll forgive me if I now ask questions about whether thse victims are seen as cattle or humans. All the facts on the ground point in one direction, and its not in the direction you claim exists.