Why Israel’s strategy of fear, humiliation is destined to fail

In an interview in late October, Israeli politician Moshe Feiglin told Arutz Sheva-Israel National News that “Muslims are not afraid of us anymore.” 

It might sound odd that the former Knesset member saw fear as critical to Israel’s well-being, if not its very survival. But, in reality, the element of fear is directly linked to Israel’s behavior, and is fundamental to its political discourse. 

Historically, Israel has carried out massacres with a specific political strategy in mind: to instil the necessary fear to drive Palestinians off their land. Deir Yassin, Tantara, and the more than 70 documented massacres during the Palestinian Nakba, or Catastrophe, are cases in point. 

Israel has also utilized torture, rape, and other forms of sexual assault to achieve similar ends, to exact information, or to break down the will of prisoners. 

These practices are intended to punish Palestinians.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud

UN-affiliated experts said in a report published on Aug. 5 that “these practices are intended to punish Palestinians for resisting occupation, and seek to destroy them individually and collectively.”

Israel’s war in Gaza has manifested all these horrific strategies in ways unprecedented in the past, both in terms of widespread application and frequency. 

In a report entitled “Welcome to Hell,” published on Aug. 5, the Israeli rights group B’Tselem said that Israel’s detention “facilities, in which every inmate is deliberately subjected to harsh, relentless pain and suffering, operate as de-facto torture camps.”

A few days later, the Palestinian rights group Addameer published its own report, documenting “cases of torture, sexual violence, and degrading treatment,” along with “systematic abuses and human rights violations committed against detainees from Gaza.”

If incidents of rape, sexual assault, and other forms of torture are marked on a map, they would cover a large geographical area in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel itself — mostly notably in the notorious Sde Teiman detention camp.

Considering the size and locations of the Israeli army, well-documented evidence shows that the use of rape and torture is not restricted to a specific branch of the military. That means the Israeli army uses such tactics as part of a centralized strategy.  

A similar policy has been associated with Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister. His aggressive statement that Palestinian prisoners should be “shot in the head instead of being given more food,” for example, is perfectly aligned with his equally violent actions: the starvation of prisoners, normalization of torture, and defense of rape. 

But Ben-Gvir did not institute these policies. They predated him by decades, and have been used against generations of Palestinian prisoners granted few of the rights enshrined in international law, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Why does Israel torture Palestinians on such a large scale? 

Israeli wars against Palestinians are predicated on two elements: material and psychological. The former has manifested itself in the killing and wounding of tens of thousands of people in Gaza, and the near destruction of the enclave. 

The psychological factor, however, is intended to break the will of the Palestinian people. 

Law for Palestine, a legal advocacy group, published a database of more than 500 instances of Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, inciting genocide in Gaza. 

Most of these references seem to be centered on dehumanizing Palestinians. For example, the Oct. 11 statement by Israeli President Yitzhak Herzog that “there are no innocent civilians in Gaza” was part of the collective death sentence that made the extermination of Palestinians morally justifiable in the eyes of Israelis. 

Netanyahu’s own ominous biblical reference, urging Israeli soldiers to seek revenge on Palestinians with the statement: “Remember what Amalek has done to you,” was also a blank check for mass murder.

While choosing not to see Palestinians as human, innocent, and worthy of life and security, Israel has given its army carte blanche to do as it sees fit to those who, in the words of Israeli Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, are “human animals.” 

Israel has given its army carte blanche to do as it sees fit.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud

The mass killing, starvation, and widespread rape and torture of Palestinians are a natural outcome of these shocking dialectics. But the overall purpose of Israel is not simply to exact revenge, though this has been important to its desire for national recovery. By trying to break the will of the Palestinians through torture, humiliation, and rape, Israel wants to restore a different kind of deterrence, which it lost on Oct. 7.  

Having failed to restore military or strategic deterrence, Tel Aviv is invested in psychological deterrence, as in restoring the element of fear that was breached that same day.

Raping prisoners, leaking videos of such gruesome acts, and repeatedly carrying out the same horrific deed are all part of the Israeli strategy — that of restoring fear. 

But Israel will fail, simply because Palestinians have already succeeded in demolishing Israel’s 76-year matrix of physical domination and mental torture. 

The assault on Gaza has proven to be the most destructive and bloody of all Israeli wars. Yet, Palestinian resilience continues to grow stronger, because Palestinians are not passive, but active, participants in shaping their own future. 

If popular resistance is, indeed, the process of the restoration of the self, Palestinians in Gaza are proving that despite their unspeakable pain and agony, they are emerging as a whole, ready to clinch their freedom, no matter the cost. 

• Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and author. He is editor of ‘The Palestine Chronicle,’ and a nonresident senior research fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan Pappe, is ‘Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak Out.’ X: @RamzyBaroud