Afrasianet - Hisham Jaafar - Since the beginning of the current millennium (2001-2024), the world has witnessed a large number of wars, conflicts and conflicts, which are difficult to accurately quantify, due to their diversity and overlap.

Some studies indicate that the number of armed conflicts around the world has increased significantly in the last quarter century, compared to the period after the Cold War.

These conflicts range from civil wars, regional conflicts, and internal conflicts, varying in intensity and number of victims.

Most of these conflicts are concentrated in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, but also extend to other regions of the world.

In these conflicts and conflicts, wars of narratives, words, concepts and terms are used, but the most dangerous of all of them is the dehumanization of enemies and adversaries.

Multiple factors, such as ethnic, religious, political and economic conflicts, intersect in these conflicts, making it easier to continue the conflict by turning enemies into monsters.

Dehumanization is a psychological situation, where individuals view others as subhuman, or superhuman. This is often manifested in insulting language and harsh actions.

Dehumanization involves a tension between recognizing others as human or subhuman, leading to their portrayal as monsters and justifying extreme cruelty. 

The term "dehumanization" refers to a variety of practices that diminish human status, respect and dignity. This phenomenon can manifest itself in various forms, such as violence, discrimination, verbal denigration and social marginalization.

Israeli politicians and leaders, as well as their Western counterparts, used a variety of vocabulary, words, and concepts to describe Palestinians and their resistance during the Al-Aqsa Flood War.

Distinguished academic and journalist Bassam Bonni investigated and collected them in his book titled: "Flood Phrases: War of Words and Narratives". This use represents an extension of the civilizational traditions used by Western colonialism against colonized peoples.

Word wars varied on several classifications, most notably:

1. Insult and insult such as:

•    "Human animals", which refers to their dehumanization and deprivation of their basic rights.

•    "Terrorists", and was used with the aim of stigmatizing all Palestinians as terrorists and not distinguishing between civilian and armed resistance.

•    "Neo-Nazis": It links Palestinians to a Nazi ideology, a serious accusation aimed at discrediting them and justifying violence against them.

•    "Terrorists": This term is used to portray Palestinians as destructive elements seeking to subvert the region.

2. The language of war and extermination:

•    "Crush": It refers to an Israeli intention to crush the Palestinians and suppress their resistance at any cost.

•    "Destruction": reflects the desire to destroy Palestinian infrastructure and displace the population.

•    "Erasure": It reflects the desire to erase the Palestinian existence and history.

•    "Genocide": If it is for the purpose of intimidation, it refers to Israel's war crimes against Palestinians.

3. Security concepts:

•    "Existential threat": It is usually used to portray Palestinians as an existential threat to Israel, justifying the use of excessive force against them.

•    "Israel's security": This concept is used to justify all Israeli actions against Palestinians, including blockades and collective punishments.

•    "Right of self-defense": It is used to justify Israeli attacks on Palestinians, even if they are disproportionate to the threat.

4. Religious concepts:

•    "Promised Land": This religious term is used to justify the Israeli seizure of Palestinian land.

•    "Chosen People": It is used to justify discrimination against Palestinians and the superiority of Jews.

5. Historical concepts:

•    "Victims": The use of this term aims to portray Jews as permanent victims, ignoring the suffering of Palestinians.

•    The Holocaust: Its purpose is to amplify the suffering of Jews during World War II and to demonize Palestinians as executioners.

6. Political concepts:

•    "Peace for peace": This concept is used to justify Israel's rejection of negotiations with the Palestinians.

•    "Jewish state": Its purpose is to establish the State of Israel at the expense of the Palestinians.

7. Other concepts:

•    "Incitement": usually with the aim of suppressing freedom of expression among Palestinians.

•    "Hatred": Its goal is to tarnish the image of Palestinians as a people who hate Jews.

•    "Anti-Semitism": This term is used to silence any criticism of Israel or its policies.

The use of these vocabulary, words and concepts has one essence behind it: the dehumanization and resistance of the Palestinians.

Dehumanized people are often seen as a formidable threat because they are evil and have more powers than ordinary humans.

In the persecution of a dehumanized group, those in power usually see themselves as acting in self-defense, rather than harassing a marginalized minority, or a specific human group.

Dehumanization is ideologically used to produce violence, perpetuate or increase repression, but how is dehumanization used ideologically?

As David Livingstone Smith's book Monster Making:  The Supernatural Power of Dehumanization, 2021 – elaborates this:

Repression and power

Ideologies, including those involving dehumanization, stabilize or perpetuate power and domination. They cause the emergence or perpetuation of unfair social relationships.

Creating distance

Dehumanization is a powerful way to create psychological and mental distance towards adversaries. This can trigger violence rather than just thwart it.

Stimulating historical context

Dehumanization has an ideological character that can be explored through extensive examples, such as the racistization and dehumanization of European Jews.

Such stories illustrate the relationship between racism and dehumanization, how ideologies persist after they are founded, how they adapt to changing social environments, and how transformations in the social and political environment can ignite latent beliefs to dehumanize man, giving them new life and catastrophic power.

False consciousness

Ideologies often involve a distorted perception of the real world, because believers are deceived about themselves, their attitude, their society, or their interests.

Ideological beliefs are illusions that exist because societies and individuals need them. People are subject to it because social, economic, political and cultural relations require that for it to survive and run smoothly, the people subject to it must be unable to see it for what it is.

Legitimizing hegemony

It may legitimize itself by producing beliefs and values compatible with it; normalizing and generalizing such beliefs so that they make them self-evident and inevitable; distorting ideas that may challenge them; and excluding competing forms of thought — perhaps through some unspoken, but systemic logic; and obliterating social reality in ways appropriate to them.

Unfortunately, the phenomenon of dehumanization exists in the Arab region, but it is not uniformly prevalent in all countries and societies.

There are no comprehensive and reliable statistics or opinion polls that conclusively highlight the phenomenon of dehumanization among the Arab peoples. 

However, there are many studies and reports that indicate the existence of different manifestations of this phenomenon, which feed on the following factors:

Cultural and social diversity

The Arab region is home to a wide range of cultures, religions and ethnicities, making it vulnerable to conflicts and tensions that may lead to dehumanization.

Conflicts and wars

The wars and conflicts that the Arab region has witnessed in recent decades, such as the wars in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya and Sudan, have exacerbated the phenomenon of dehumanization due to the gross violations of human rights committed during these conflicts.

Socio-economic challenges

Poverty, unemployment and social marginalization can contribute to the exacerbation of the phenomenon of dehumanization, as individuals feel frustrated and hopeless, which may lead them to engage in violence or discrimination against others.

The rise of national security and counterterrorism discourses

They have often been used against political opponents without distinguishing between peaceful and violent. This use extended to deny the status of citizenship from dissidents who had become terrorists in the tradition of these regimes.

The phenomenon of dehumanization in our region takes several forms, most notably:

Discrimination against minorities

Many religious and ethnic minorities in the Arab region face discrimination and marginalization, reducing their chances of accessing their basic rights.

Violence against women

Women continue to face many forms of violence and discrimination in the region, such as domestic violence, sexual harassment and discrimination in employment opportunities.

 Gross violations of human rights

These abuses include torture, executions, and arbitrary detention.

Dehumanization, as Livingstone Smith's book observes, facilitates atrocities, is used as a tool to justify violence and oppression, and selectively disrupts barriers to acts of violence and repression by:

Disabling contraindications

Dehumanization selectively disrupts barriers to violence. By portraying certain groups as subhuman, it becomes easier to justify harmful actions against them. 

Inhuman beliefs are often entrenched ideological beliefs that have spread because they have been for the benefit of one group of people at the expense of another.

Moral detachment

Some psychologists suggest that dehumanization promotes moral dissociation, making violence permissible against those who are considered subhuman. This separation creates psychological distance, which stimulates violence rather than cancels it. For example, calling a group a group scum encourages its extermination.

Highlight dealing with "monsters"

Dehumanization may lead to dehumanized people being perceived as monsters, justifying extreme action against them.

A sensitive but noteworthy point that requires a separate article is left: we may practice dehumanization not only against political or ideological opponents, or against ethnic, religious, and cultural groups, but also to Jews in Palestine and beyond.

I fear that the Zionist savagery in Palestine and the rest of the region, which is supported by the West, has blinded us morally and lost its value consistency towards our enemies, so we missed the Qur'anic balance: "And do not criminalize you against a people who do not amend", and we forgot that what is required of us, regardless of the behavior of our enemies, is: "Justice is closer to piety".