Ramona Wadi
Middle East Monitor / October 28, 2024
When Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza in which it has killed at least 43,000 Palestinians, and displaced the entire population, CNN’s way of showing some humanity in the face of such violence was to focus on the trauma of those responsible for the killing and maiming. The colonisers’ narrative of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after engaging in war crimes in Gaza was the subject of a feature article under the headline “He got out of Gaza, but Gaza did not get out of him: Israeli soldiers returning from war struggle with trauma and suicide”.
The title referred specifically to an Israeli reservist, Eliran Mizrahi, who committed suicide after enlisting to commit genocide in Gaza. “After witnessing the massacres committed by Hamas, he felt the need to fight,” his mother told CNN. The report failed to mention that many atrocities attributed to Hamas on 7 October were the result of the Israel Defence Forces’ military tactics against its settler population — the so-called Hannibal Directive — but this sweeping claim has become part of Israel’s security narrative does not distinguish or elaborate on what the reservist witnessed and who was truly responsible.
More importantly, CNN’s report was replete with instances of IDF violence against Palestinians which soldiers committed willingly and premeditatedly.
For example, Guy Zaken, who drove armoured bulldozers in Gaza with Mizrahi, gave testimony to the Knesset in which he said that soldiers “had to run over terrorists, dead and alive, in their hundreds.” Had to? Was there a command to crush Palestinians in Gaza with bulldozers? Did soldiers willingly indulge in a colonial bloodbath reminiscent of the 1948 Nakba and worse? What we know of Israel’s state and settler violence is that the IDF — which has its roots in Zionist paramilitary terror groups — now has advanced equipment which facilitates and normalises violence. And Zaken’s testimony proves it.
“When you see a lot of meat outside, and blood,” Zaken continued, “both ours and theirs [Hamas], then it really affects you when you eat.” The dehumanisation of Palestinians is thus summarised succinctly. There is no concept of Palestinians as human beings, or that the bodies that the IDF soldiers crushed were dead human beings. Only the vulgarity of classifying Palestinians as “meat”. And just to prove how warped the settler-colonial narrative is, the soldier added that he can no longer eat meat. A soldier becomes vegetarian after crushing Palestinians, alive and dead, with bulldozers. That is now classified as part of PTSD.
What matters the most? A vegetarian soldier or the tens of thousands of Palestinians killed in Israel’s genocide? CNN’s report attempted to put the case for the former, as it described the vegetarian’s lament under the subheading “The mental health toll”.
Both Mizrahi and Zaken committed war crimes, some of which CNN pointed out were posted online.
Yet Mizrahi’s sister said that it is offensive that comments on social media accused her brother of murder because, according to her, “he had a good heart”. Which person with a good heart willingly crushes human beings with bulldozers? What is Israel’s definition of being kind and of having a good heart?
IDF psychologist Uzi Bechor told CNN that the military helps soldiers with PTSD to normalise their experiences. “We try to normalise it and to help them remember their values and why they went there [to Gaza],” said Bechor.
Which means that the IDF’s tactic is to permit any violation imaginable; allow its soldiers free reign to experiment on Palestinians with utmost cruelty under the auspices of morally dubious “values” in clear violation of international laws and conventions; and then help soldiers to cope with their PTSD by enabling their normalisation of the kind of violence that is beyond the stretch of any reasonable person’s imagination.
The bottom line of the CNN article was that the entire world is expected to sympathise with the IDF soldiers’ PTSD, and to do so on the grounds that Palestinians are allegedly to blame for their trauma. Only Israel and the US can come up with a narrative so twisted that, despite the IDF carrying out genocide, Palestinians are providing the context for the soldiers’ trauma, and not the soldiers themselves. This, even though some of them admitted that they were killing out of boredom in the past few months.
Let’s get it straight: Palestinians are the victims here, not Israeli soldiers.
The Palestinians are not the context upon which the IDF can build a case for PTSD. Let us not forget that conscientious objectors do exist in Israel and soldiers always have the option to step aside. Mizrahi chose to sign up and commit genocide.
What emerged over this past year of genocide is incitement at government level that was carried out eagerly by soldiers filming themselves cheering at the demolition of buildings and bombs hitting targets, flaunting a fetish for humiliating and sexualising Palestinian women, cooking and looting in the homes of displaced Palestinians, torturing Palestinians and killing them, including crushing them with bulldozers and becoming vegetarian as a result of PTSD. Israel does not just normalise the abnormal; it normalises the abominable.
Meanwhile, on the opposite end of the spectrum of humanity, Palestinians face an ongoing genocide but refuse to normalise the massacres, the starvation, the torture, the mass killings, the mass graves, the sexual abuse, the burning to death, the bombings, the demolitions, the displacement and all the horrors that they have experiences at the hands of Israeli soldiers. They refuse to accept any of this, and have done not just over the past year, but also since the start of the Zionist colonial project.
What is next on CNN’s agenda to get people to sympathise with the IDF personnel and their war crimes? Blaming Palestinians for remaining on their land? For resisting despite not having adequate military technology? Blaming Palestinians simply for existing? What is CNN hinting at, for the sake of promoting Israel’s genocidal, colonial narrative? Are we supposed to humanise the people committing genocide while dehumanising the victims? Are we supposed to start seeing Palestinians as “meat”? These are important questions, because no matter how much Israel and CNN may try to manipulate public opinion, the fact remains that a settler-colonial, genocidal entity may influence politics as a result of trade, economic and military ties, but it can never aspire to alter humanity, which is not rooted in the corruption of politicians with ties to the same entity, Israel.
It is not the world’s responsibility to sympathise with the IDF soldiers’ PTSD. It is misplaced and insulting to suggest otherwise. No one will sympathise with a soldier who is now vegetarian because he crushed too many Palestinians with his bulldozer, rather than with a Palestinian who was burned to death. No one who is not a Zionist, that is. CNN preached to the converted and did a good job of disseminating the Zionist narrative to its supporters, confirming the inhuman and inhumane excesses of those who follow this pernicious ideology. Anyone with a shred of humanity, on the other hand, can see that CNN has just made a blatant attempt to garner even more impunity for Israel and its genocide.
Ramona Wadi is an independent researcher, freelance journalist, book reviewer and blogger; her writing covers a range of themes in relation to Palestine, Chile and Latin America
