Israel portrays Palestinians as ‘animals’ to legitimize war crimes: Israeli scholar

ISTANBUL (AA):

Israel is using a “dehumanization” strategy to justify its attacks on civilian areas in Gaza following the surprise attack by Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, according to an Israeli professor of international law and human rights.

Neve Gordon, a member of the Faculty of Law at Queen Mary University in London, who is of Israeli descent, told Anadolu that Israel is working hard to legitimize the war crimes it commits.

According to Gordon, attacks on civilian areas, hospitals, the wounded, medical personnel, and protected areas are generally considered war crimes, and Israel is also committing war crimes by blocking access to electricity and water in Gaza.

Gordon said he believes state armies try to see themselves as moral but must adhere to the laws of war to be considered a moral army.

Israel “interprets its actions in such a way as to show that they were carried out according to the laws of war, and therefore, it claims that it is moral … At the same time, it dehumanizes the Palestinians in claims that they are immoral,” he explained.

“Palestinians are presented as barbarian and as primitive and as people who do not understand the laws of war, people that do not make distinctions between civilians and combatants, and so forth, and therefore they are immoral, while Israel claims that it tries to protect civilians.”

‘Legitimizing’ war crimes

Statements like Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant saying, “We are fighting against animals” are clear examples of the strategy to try to legitimize war crimes, said Gordon.

Comparisons of Palestinians to “rats or snakes” on Israeli social media accounts are an effort to “dehumanize” them and “legitimize civilian deaths.”

Gordon stressed the need to reduce violence in conflicts, highlighting that it begins with recognizing that each person who dies is a human being with a name, a family, children, sisters, brothers, and friends.