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Horror struck twice rather than once in October 2023: first with the barbaric attacks by Hamas, then with Israel’s bloody response. Since then, the grim toll of victims, the vast majority of whom were civilians, has only grown heavier—it reached a scale in 2024 that we thought was unthinkable. A year later, faced with the concentration of atrocities—perhaps watered down by distance and our emotional fatigue—our revolt seems to have largely given way to apathy.
“It’s becoming a news story like any other,” summarizes Ghayda Hassan, a psychology professor at UQAM, in the Devoir The normalization of violence [in our society] certainly diminishes our sensitivity and our revolt against this violence.”
A normalization that is fueled both by regular exposure to violent images, particularly on social networks, and by the circulation of ideas that “there, it’s always war,” “humans have always killed each other,” or even “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will never be resolved.”
Emotional and cognitive fatigue also develops in the face of these events of extreme violence “which makes us return to our everyday lives and focus on that,” explains Ms. Hassan, who herself experienced the civil war in Lebanon until she was 18. A reflex that is not generalized, but which reflects the individualistic inclination of our modern society.
A year later, the death toll from the war between Israel and Hamas is beyond belief. In one day, October 7, 2023, Hamas reportedly killed 1,205 people in Israel, in addition to taking 251 hostages to Gaza, 97 of whom are still being held captive. In its response that has dragged on for a year, Israel has reportedly killed more than 41,802 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
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According to Ghayda Hassan, our growing apathy also draws its source from the feeling of helplessness linked to this seemingly eternal conflict and by the deepening gap between “them” and “us.”
“There is a construction—especially since September 11, 2001—of the Arab, the Muslim, and the Palestinian [that makes them perceived as] potential terrorists,” she notes, referring to “a dehumanization of the Palestinian people.”
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000 Our identification with the Ukrainians (who are also facing significant civilian losses in the war against Russia)—a European, white people of Christian heritage—is, a contrario, much easier. Politically and ideologically, too, the situation is clearer since Russia is represented as Canada’s enemy, analyzes Ms. Hassan. “It’s clear, it’s binary: there are the bad guys and the good guys and we have to be on the side of the good guys to protect them. For the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is much more complex.”
Saturés
After being attacked so violently, some Israelis are also struggling to empathize with Palestinians in Gaza, Nimrod Goren, a senior fellow for Israel affairs at the Middle East Institute, told Devoir.
“In times of conflict, all societies turn inward. And I think that's what's happening [right now] to Palestinian society and Israeli society. Each is focused on its own suffering.”
The bloody attack on October 7, 2023, brought back memories of the Holocaust, he said. For many Israelis, the war their country is waging against Hamas is therefore of existential importance.
“Many [Jews] cannot live safely within Israel’s internationally recognized borders, which is the fundamental reason Israel was created as a state,” the Jerusalem-based researcher says, recalling that the country faces threats from Iran, Yemen, Iraqi militias, Hezbollah and Hamas. “It’s coming from all directions.”
Already overwhelmed by what they are experiencing, many Israelis have little emotional availability to empathize with the pain of Gazans, adds the co-founder of the Israel Institute for Regional Foreign Policy (MITVIM). “The [Israeli] media doesn’t talk much about the suffering of the Palestinians. It’s mostly the suffering of the families of hostages that gets covered and the suffering of Israelis killed or wounded in the fighting.” »
Still, there is a segment of the Israeli population that is alarmed by the high number of civilian deaths in Gaza and wants a two-state solution, says Nimrod Goren. “But [events are] not going in that direction.”
Loss of humanity
With our sensitivity to these tens of thousands of deaths diminishing, isn’t it our humanity that is in peril?? Absolutely, says Ghayda Hassan. “Our ability to build a humanity, a collective we, is certainly at stake right now.”
The polarization of political opinions has been juxtaposed with “a polarization of emotional reactions” that has distanced us from “a collective reaction of defense of human rights,” she believes. Undermined by the ideologies of the extremes, our collective “we” is dissolving in favor of an identitarian “we,” defined in the face of an often dehumanized “them.”
“It is not possible, from my point of view, humanly, not to be deeply revolted by the massacre of children and civilians, whatever it may be, wherever it may be,” affirms Professor Hassan. “There are founding principles of humanity that must not be flouted.”
Danger of a schism
Alongside those who watch the war in the Middle East with a certain distance, others remain strongly emotionally involved and experience a significant revolt in the face of the human drama unfolding in Gaza. According to Professor Ghayda Hassan, there is a danger that a schism will be created between this part of the population and the government power, which is generally more favorable to Israel. “If people with demands related to a need for social justice for civilian populations are silenced, at some point, violence will become a means of making themselves heard,” fears the founder of the Canadian Practitioners Network for the Prevention of Radicalization and Violent Extremism (RPC-PREV). “This is the vicious circle that we must not enter.”