In just under three months, more than 21,000 people have died in Gaza, and many more are at risk of illness and death due to Israel’s continued indiscriminate shelling, ground invasion and siege. There has also been a significant increase in settler violence and the number of killings committed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.
In media coverage and in reports by human rights organizations, international institutions and NGOs, especially in the West, attention has focused primarily on Israel’s attacks on Palestinian women and children. Examples include the frequently cited figure of more than 8,000 children who have been murdered and reports that many children have been amputated without anesthesia.
Even Israel’s allied governments have expressed concern about the increasing number of dead Palestinian women and children. French President Emmanuel Macron, for example, said: “These babies, these women, these old people are bombed and killed. So there is no reason for that and no legitimacy.” While these statements rightly condemn the killing of women and children in Palestine, they ignore the killing of men.
Through this refusal to explicitly recount and mourn their deaths, Palestinian men are denied civilian status. Their humanity is erased and they are collectively portrayed as “dangerous brown men” and “potential terrorists.”
This, in turn, allows Israel to kill Palestinian men.
Their killing is permitted precisely because they are Palestinian men. Their gender and racial status, specifically their blanket designation as “Hamas terrorists,” overshadows their status as civilians, considering them susceptible to assassination and not mournable. His murder is excused and justified in the context of “counterterrorism.”
For example, Tzipi Hotovely, Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, claimed in a televised interview in November that “more than 50 percent” of the people Israel killed in Gaza in this latest round of violence were “terrorists.” For that percentage to be even remotely accurate, all dead men (and even older boys) in Gaza must be presumed to be “terrorists” or at least “budding terrorists.”
The widespread demonization of men – supported by narratives that brown men, especially Arabs, are inherently untrustworthy, dangerous and radical – is not new. These narratives, currently used by Israel and its allies to excuse genocidal violence in Palestine, have been systematically used to justify the mass killing of men and boys of color over the years, including in the context of the so-called “War on Global Terrorism. ”and the illegal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
This is not a coincidence. Colonialism and genocide require erasing the humanity and history of peoples. Israel’s settler colonialism maintains dominance through violence and legitimizes this violence by denying the existence of a Palestinian nation and designating Palestinians as less than human.
In the past three months, Israel has killed, maimed and starved tens of thousands of Palestinians. In Gaza, Palestinian men and women are pulling their loved ones out from under bombed buildings and burying their children with their bare hands.
However, none of this has been recognized for what it is: serious crimes against civilians. And the experiences of Palestinian men are completely ignored. They are stripped of any complexity that underlines their humanity.. They are not seen as the bakers, paramedics, journalists, poets, merchants, fathers, sons and brothers that they are, but are instead branded en masse as “terrorists”. In life, they are reduced to objectives that must be eliminated. In the event of death, at best, they are considered “collateral damage.” At worst, his violent murder is celebrated as a victory against “terrorism.”
Of course, like all human beings, Palestinian men have feelings. And yet, their fears, anguish, anxiety, frustration or shame are constantly erased from any narrative about them. The only emotion recognized in Palestinian men is anger. However, this anger is not recognized as a legitimate response to settler colonial violence and oppression. Rather, it is seen as barbaric, irrational and dangerous anger. An anger that requires extreme measures to control, such as total sieges or massive bombings.
Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestine and its apartheid regime mean that none of this is new. This latest chapter has done nothing but accelerate a process of dehumanization, demonization and destruction that has been underway for a long time.
The tropes about Palestinian men, their inherent violence and barbaric rage have two important consequences. First, they pose an existential threat to Palestinian men and boys in the occupied Palestinian territories and beyond because they enable their mutilation and murder. Second, because they help designate half of the Palestinian population as dangerous and untrustworthy, they make it impossible to end the violence.
Looking ahead, the following measures are necessary to correct course:
The “radicalization” narratives that Israel and its allies are using to justify violence, such as collective punishment, must be challenged. Any agreement for the release of captives must include Palestinian men, like hundreds of them who are being held in so-called administrative detention. When a new “humanitarian pause” or, hopefully, a permanent ceasefire is agreed, aid must be delivered to meet the needs of boys and men along with those of the rest of the population. Illegal settlers must be held accountable for the violence they inflicted on the Palestinian people, including Palestinian men and boys who are killed disproportionately. In the longer term, there is a need to recognize the right of Palestinians to self-determination, the effects of militarization on Israeli society, and the transgenerational effects of settler colonialism on Palestinian society.
Today, Palestinians in Gaza and the rest of the occupied territories are experiencing unacceptable horrors. Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza, as well as its decades-long occupation of Palestine and its apartheid regime, must come to an end. Palestinians – men, women and children – must be given the space to mourn what they have lost, heal their wounds and build a future for themselves. For this to be possible, the humanity of Palestinians – all Palestinians – must first be accepted. Palestinian men and boys, in life and death, must be recognized in meaningful ways.
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
