We’re witnessing decades of incitement, dehumanisation, & systemic violence
Listen to video first, this is Max Blumenthal speaking about Gaza in 2014, but of course they tell us, it all started on October 7, 2023. The war against Palestinians did not begin on October 7, 2023. That date marks a single point in time, a consequence, not a beginning. The truth is harder to face: what we’re witnessing now is the result of years, even decades, of incitement, dehumanisation, and systemic violence. And the people driving that violence haven’t been hiding. They’ve said the quiet part out loud.
Max Blumenthal documents this clearly. He names Israeli officials and religious leaders calling for open extermination. Ayelet Shaked, a rising star in the Jewish Home Party, called for killing Palestinian mothers so they don’t produce what she called “little snakes.” That’s not a fringe voice. That’s a figure of political influence. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself described Hamas fighters not as soldiers, but as “human animals.” This kind of language strips people of humanity. It gives permission for what comes next.
The chief rabbi of Kiryat Arba, Dov Lior, has openly called for the extermination of Gaza’s population. Mordecai Kedar, an Israeli academic, claimed that the only way to stop Palestinian resistance was to threaten their sisters with rape. These are not just offhand comments. This is ideology being expressed without shame, inside a society that continues to occupy, besiege, and control the daily lives of millions of Palestinians.
This culture of dehumanisation spills into the streets. Israeli mobs chant “death to Arabs” while attacking their own leftists. There’s vigilante violence. One of the most horrific cases was 17-year-old Mohammed Abu Khudair from East Jerusalem, who was forced to drink gasoline and then burned alive. That was called revenge. But it wasn’t individual. It was part of a broader campaign encouraged from the top.
Even military leaders are explicit about their motives. Ofer Winter, a commander in the Givati Brigade, said outright that their assault on Gaza was not just about tunnels or rockets. It was a religious war, his words, meant to punish blasphemy by Gaza’s Muslim population. In other words, not military strategy, but punishment rooted in racism and religious supremacy.
These aren’t just isolated acts. They’re part of a pattern, backed by state power and fed by an ideology that sees an entire population as subhuman. This is not about October 7. That date is used as a starting point in much of the Western press because it erases the long buildup, the brutality that existed long before. It erases the siege, the checkpoints, the bombings, the arrests, the walls, the land theft, and the daily humiliation.
Blumenthal is right to say that this ideology is what explains the atrocities in places like Khan Yunis. It’s not simply harsh tactics or a flawed military operation. It’s the outcome of treating a group of people as a problem to be erased, not as human beings with equal rights.
The fact that mainstream U.S. media has ignored this language is not accidental. These aren’t just offensive quotes. If widely known, they would shatter the carefully maintained image of Israel as a Western democracy simply defending itself. People would have to reckon with the fact that some of its leaders have called openly for genocide. And many Americans wouldn’t know how to square that with what they’ve been told for years.
This is why we must be honest. The war on Palestinians didn’t start in 2023. It is not a sudden eruption. It is the continuation of a system built on control and destruction, shaped by an ideology that openly justifies the most violent outcomes. Quoting these officials is not sensationalism. It is necessary. Because only by recognising the roots of the violence can we begin to talk about justice. Ignoring those roots guarantees more death, more destruction, and more lies.
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