In Catch-22, the classic novel about the deranging absurdity of war, author Joseph Heller offers this darkly comic reflection on our ability to normalize horrific acts: “Mankind is resilient: the atrocities that horrified us a week ago become acceptable tomorrow.”
All conflicts have their double binds, their catch-22s. The details and terminology change, but the mental tightrope act of maintaining two contradictory “truths” simultaneously has always been a popular delusion, and it’s an indispensable tool for any government engaged in creating propaganda.
This sleight-of-mind, which today we usually call cognitive dissonance, has become not just a defining characteristic of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, but an engine of it.
Such contradictions exist in every dominant narrative advanced by Israel for the past nine months. On one hand, the Israel Defense Forces — or more accurately, the Israeli Occupation Forces — claim self-defense. On the other, the screaming pleas of helpless children are broadcast for the world to hear before IOF machine-gunfire silences them. While western leaders profess their deep concern over the civilian death toll, they conveniently bypass international law to feed Israel’s endless appetite for lethal weapons.
On one hand, Israel claims self-defense. On the other, the screaming pleas of helpless children are broadcast for the world to hear before Israeli machine-gunfire silences them.
It’s worth clarifying who is experiencing the dissonance versus who is causing it. Take the case of one Australian Labor senator, Fatima Payman. Payman recently made headlines when she defied her own party and forfeited her job to support Palestinian statehood. What’s baffling is that her party — which currently holds power in Australia — has already committed to recognising Palestinian statehood, although it hasn’t officially done so yet. Is the Australian government, then, afflicted by cognitive dissonance?
U.S. leadership seems even more untethered from reality. Consider President Joe Biden’s jaw-dropping claim that he has done “more for the Palestinian community than anybody.” Does his left hand know that his right hand just signed off on another shipment of bombs to be dropped on refugee camps in Gaza?
Narratives like these are performed to keep the public in a state of confusion and paralysis. Their effect is cognitive dissonance — that’s what we, the audience, experience. But there are simpler words for what western leaders are intentionally engaged in to neutralize dissent. Hypocrisy is one. Lying is another.
The mainstream media is equally complicit. Pick any article from the New York Times or the BBC over the last few months that has reported on this “war” and count how often the State of Israel is mentioned as the active perpetrator. In virtually all of these stories, Palestinians simply “die,” as opposed to being killed by Israeli soldiers. This neat semantic trick of omitting the existence of an aggressor creates further dissonance, essentially erasing the relationship between cause and effect.
According to research conducted earlier this year by our organization, Bystanders No More, a key reason people don’t speak out against Israel’s relentless onslaught is that they feel they don’t fully understand what is happening. That’s not surprising, given the deeply conflicted narrative being spun by politicians and mainstream media. But this much insisted-upon “complexity” is a smokescreen; its purpose is to convince us to suspend belief in our moral compass, to deny our basic critical faculties, to doubt our perception of reality.
Ask yourself: Is it possible to support the human rights of Palestinians while offering diplomatic cover and military support for Israel to bomb, torture and starve them en masse? This is not a trick question. It is not complex. The answer is no.
Is it possible to support the human rights of Palestinians while offering diplomatic cover and military support for Israel to bomb, torture and starve them en masse? This is not a trick question. It is not complex. The answer is no.
We are subjected to constant, bewildering reversals of logic courtesy of the pro-Israel lobby. To resist the systematic dehumanization of Palestinians is, implicitly, to attack the humanity of Jewish Israelis. Any criticism of the State of Israel is antisemitic. So is any shred of concern for a generation of orphans and amputees in Gaza. This false charge of antisemitism is one of the most common and corrosive tactics used to silence Israel’s critics. Among its many flaws, it ignores the fact that Jews have always formed a core part of the Palestinian liberation movement.
Seeing through the smokescreen can also be a paralyzing experience. What does one then do as a bystander? For some of us, it came as a revelation that engagement and self-care were not mutually exclusive. Our engagement can co-exist with our need to draw boundaries, to prioritize our health. What is happening to Palestinians is inherently distressing, and experiencing it as such is a sign that our humanity is intact. But whether that distress spurs us to act or breaks us down depends on how we engage.
Passive observation encourages the onlooker to consume death and destruction without taking action to stop it. It perpetuates the belief that we must always be tuned in, and that logging out of our social media accounts is somehow abandoning the movement.
Active engagement, on the other hand, calls for realistic methods of participation, for online community organizing and increasing visibility. Oftentimes, there is an undue pressure to “know it all.” Caring for ourselves also means allowing ourselves grace and time to learn.
Much of the world is only now waking up to what is happening in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and it’s OK not to have all the answers. Every action counts toward collective liberation, and we all start somewhere. But with the likely death toll reaching into the hundreds of thousands and conditions worsening daily, what is no longer acceptable or defensible is to stand by and watch.
