The war in the Gaza Strip has caused more than 9,000 deaths and has left cities razed to the ground. Following Hamas’s terrorist attack on 7 October, the Israeli response has reached genocidal proportions. Behind it all is a history of more than a hundred years of war, oppression and hatred
Palestine
UN Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the atrocious Hamas attacks, but said they “did not come out of the blue”, earning him harsh criticism in Israel. However, it is essential to put the tragedy in context. And here the word apartheid, which gave a name to the discrimination of the population in South Africa, comes to mind
What gives rise to thousands of hands engaging in the systematic slaughter of a particular group of human beings? The answer is complex, but it begins with a process of dehumanisation of the victims, which, as history has shown time and again, is the prelude to ever greater atrocities and horrors.