The events of October 7 were alarming. Innocent infants were horrifyingly burned, mothers and grandmothers suffered dismemberment, and men were ruthlessly shot.
The Hamas massacre cannot be characterized as a legitimate act of war; it was unequivocally a war crime. And it raises a perplexing question: How could individuals, even when invoking the causes of freedom or faith, commit such heinous and savage acts?
According to counterterrorism and intelligence experts, these terrorists dehumanize Jews, enabling them to rationalize their actions.
“They did not see us as human, so it was okay for them to kill us,” said counterterrorism expert Lt.-Col. (res.) Dr. Anat Berko.
Berko dedicated years to researching the moral judgment of suicide bombers, serial killers, and petty criminals. She said she observed a stark duality in the case of terrorists. On one hand, they led seemingly ordinary lives, fulfilling roles as loving fathers and grandfathers with aspirations akin to those of regular individuals. On the other hand, they pursued death.
Berko drew parallels between Hamas terrorists and groups like the Ku Klux Klan or the Nazis. She described how members of these organizations could return to their families and embrace their wives and children. Yet, when it came to Jewish children, they tragically failed to recognize them as fellow human beings.
“It is easier to [murder] someone who is not a human being,” said Itai Yonat, owner and CEO of Intercept 9500, which provides high-end intelligence services to corporations and state organizations worldwide.
“When you perceive an eight-year-old not as an innocent child but as a potential soldier in an occupying force destined to harm your loved ones, the unthinkable becomes permissible. Not only can you take their life, but you believe that by doing so, you will be celebrated as a hero.”
Hamas children, specifically, are taught from a young age that Jews and Israelis are bad and should be killed, he said.
Hamas brainwashing children from a young age
THERE ARE numerous accounts of three-year-old Palestinians in Gaza brandishing toy rifles aimed at imaginary Jews. Even in kindergarten, these children engage in a game called Kill the Israeli. At home, they are exposed to narratives of the Nakba, which they believe the Jews are responsible for, and they learn about the 1967 Six Day War, considered another calamity attributed to the Jewish people. Their upbringing is steeped in the aspirations of their grandparents, who have longed to return to their homes since 1948, possibly even holding the keys to the homes.
“These terrorists tell themselves, ‘They took what belongs to us. There was an injustice, and it needs to be fixed,’” Yonat said. “If you are a young adult, hormones raging, you can be armed, trained, and programmed to kill the enemy.”
Berko also observed that the terrorists she interviewed harbored a deep sense of envy for the Western way of life, as they believed it was beyond their reach. They would speak of desires for physical intimacy, personal freedom, and the consumption of alcohol in the context of paradise, as these were all things strictly prohibited in their world. This envy often led these terrorists to target places such as music festivals, nightclubs, or venues where people gathered to celebrate life, love, and happiness.
In Israel, that was the Dolphinarium discotheque massacre in 2001, for example, or the 270 Israelis murdered at the Supernova music festival last month.
“They cannot bear it that someone enjoys life and has these freedoms,” Berko said.
She added that they also regard those who adhere to a Western lifestyle as deserving of punishment.
“I interviewed [the late] Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who told me that women who are unveiled in the West and expose their bodies are loose women,” she said. “He said they live a lifestyle of whoredom in the West. That is what he called it.”
Berko said that the world should not be shocked by the Hamas massacre. These terrorists have done the same thing many times before; it is just that previously, there were three, four, or 10 victims and not more than 1,400.
“They have killed children, slaughtered families, lynched our men, blown themselves up, or sent others to blow themselves up,” Berko said. “We have seen everything before. The difference is that this time, they massacred so many people together.”
“I checked them on the scales of moral judgment,” she said. “They are ordinary people. They do not have a mental illness. We cannot say that they are crazy.
“I think that we are crazy,” she continued, “because we do not want to understand that this [terrorism] is not about human rights, poverty, or occupied territories. It is about human life.” ■