A Hell Made for the Innocent

Of monsters, media, and the gentle language of genocide.

From Illustrations for Dante's Inferno. Gustave Doré, 1857

The genocide in Gaza is being conducted by killers without conscience. That much is obvious. But only a few of them fire the guns, drop the bombs, or aim the missiles. Most are government officials in the US, Germany, the European Community, and elsewhere. They’re the politicians and apparatchiks who provide weapons and diplomatic support, without which the killings would be impossible.

Although these “leaders” and “diplomats” look civilized, their inward selves conjure the torturing demons in Dante’s Inferno:

Monsters more fierce offended Heav’n ne’er sent
From hell’s abyss, for human punishment

But these monsters preside over a hell for the innocent.

They’re only able to keep going because the people in their countries allow it. How is that possible, especially after so long? It’s one thing to whip people into a mass-killing frenzy at the start of a war, amid the smoke and swirl of hoaxes and lies. But lurid and sick fantasies—about beheaded and cooked babies, for example—can only fool people for so long. This is the age of social media, after all.

The Israeli and US governments have been caught in one lie after another. The world has seen body after body pulled from the rubble. That’s why public support for Israel has plummeted in the United States (although it should be much lower). It’s also why US media can no longer conceal or obfuscate the endless parade of broken mortality. People have seen too many desperate parents gunned down while chasing a food truck.

And still the American people haven’t stopped this desecration of humanity. Our dreams are haunted by the skull-like faces of starving children, but the killing goes on. How do they keep us so passive, so morally inert?

Here's one way: by presenting the horror in gentle, deflecting language.

Consider these words, from a Washington Post headline: “Gazans are dying of hunger.” That’s like saying a gunshot victim “died from the sudden presence of foreign objects in their body.”

Or this, also from a Post headline: “Israel to let more aid trucks into Gaza, under pressure over hunger crisis.”

Hunger crisis? This isn’t a “hunger crisis.” It’s the extermination of an entire population through deliberate and planned starvation. The leaders of Israel’s government have told us so, over and over. (Here’s the latest Israeli admission.)

Nevertheless, the New York Times uses the same passive locution as the Post. “Gazans Are Dying of Starvation,” one headline reads. (To which the subconscious mind responds: Gee, they should stop doing that.)

The Times article’s subheader declares that “Gaza’s most vulnerable civilians — the young, the old and the sick — are facing what aid groups say is impending famine.”

“What aid groups say ...” Why the qualifier? The reporters and editors work at the nation’s most elite newspaper. They’re professional journalists. They are (or should be) trained to review the facts, analyze them, and report their findings.

The facts in this case are readily available. The conclusion is easily reached. Its truth is etched on human skin. What’s wrong with these people, these moral phantoms? Their journalism is nothing more than evanescent points of light, flickering like photons that are neither here nor there. Have they no professional ethics? No humanity?

(These are rhetorical questions.)

Their hedging language only serves to cast doubt on something they must know to be true. That’s an unforgivable journalistic sin. The slippery language also suggests that international institutions and nonpartisan aid groups are parties in some sort of ongoing debate, rather than impartial servants of human need whose veracity has never been successfully challenged. That’s paved the way for false accusations and the defunding of much-needed humanitarian work.

It has also made it easier for Israel to target and kill aid workers.

The officials orchestrating this genocide—in Washington, Tel Aviv, Berlin, Brussels, and around the world—have distinguished titles. They live in lovely homes and receive the best medical care. They know which fork to use for every course of an expensive meal. They’re psychopaths with diplomatic passports.

But any society that tolerates them is psychopathic, too. We’ve all seen the eyes of death staring out from a young child’s face. There’s no turning away from her face, not anymore. If we recoil in horror but don’t do everything we can to save her, we’ve let the gentle language of genocide lull us into the sleep of reason.

There are no exceptions to this moral law—not for you, or for me, or for anyone. Which raises one final question, especially for those who remain passive:

Who’s the monster now?

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Support:

Students for Justice in Palestine
Palestinian Red Crescent Organization
UNRWA
Jewish Voice for Peace

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Support the Block the Bombs Act
Stop Funding Israel's Genocide: Demand a Leahy Review Now