Inside Israel’s Machinery of Violence
The Psychology of Genocide
Freddie Ponton | 21Wire
A landmark report from the Journal on Rehabilitation of Torture Victims and Prevention of Torture (also known as the Torture Journal) brings unprecedented focus to Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories, exposing how the Israeli occupation of Palestine, collective trauma, and social conditioning intertwine to make torture and genocide possible. The latest double issue of the Torture Journal, Vol. 35 Nos. 2–3 (2025) marks a watershed moment in the study of torture, violence, and state oppression. For the first time in its three-decade history, the journal dedicates an entire volume to a single conflict: the ongoing Israeli occupation and its catastrophic impact on Palestinian life.
Founded by the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT), the Torture Journal publishes peer-reviewed research on torture, rehabilitation, and prevention. Its mission is primarily to document abuses, strengthen survivor care, and build international accountability mechanisms. The 2025 double issue (Vol. 35 Nos. 2–3) focuses entirely on Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
REPORT: One occupation, two realities: Psychosocial mechanisms that make genocidal acts possible, by the Torture Journal Editor-in-Chief, Pau Pérez-Sales. CLICK HERE FOR REPORT>>> Source:The Royal Library of Denmark
The Social Psychology of Genocide
In his haunting editorial, Dr Pau Pérez-Sales asks a question rarely posed in legal or diplomatic debates: How does a society learn to accept the unacceptable?
His essay, “One Occupation, Two Realities,” examines the Israeli occupation of Palestine as not just a geopolitical or military project but a psychosocial ecosystem, one that normalises violence through fear, rage, and dehumanisation.
Citing public-opinion surveys in which 79 percent of Israelis said they were “not troubled” by famine in Gaza and 64 percent agreed “there are no innocents” there, Pérez-Sales concludes that “the occupation has created a collective psychology where cruelty is coded as security.”
“Human rights law cannot, on its own, interrupt a genocidal process driven by social consensus.” Pau Pérez-Sales, Torture Journal (2025)
He identifies twenty psychosocial mechanisms, collective trauma, religious exceptionalism, militarised identity, bureaucratic impunity, that together “render genocidal acts not only possible but socially acceptable.”
Life Under Siege
The journal’s special section on Israel and the Occupied Palestine gives voice to those living inside the catastrophe.
In “Living Through the War in Gaza,” Hatem Yousef Abu Zaydah delivers a raw, first-person chronicle of survival amid bombardment, famine, and loss. “Every sound is a question,” he writes. “Will it reach my family this time?”
Mahmud Sehwail and colleagues document “The Psychological Effects of Torture of Palestinians Detained in Israeli Prisons After 7 October 2023.” Their findings reveal systematic use of sensory deprivation, forced stress positions, and prolonged solitary confinement, leaving survivors with extreme post-traumatic stress and “a shattering of personal identity.”
Another collective work, Maha Aon et al.’s “What Is There Left After Losing Oneself?”, compiles 100 testimonies from Gaza describing electric shocks, starvation, and forced witnessing of killings. Together, they reveal “a logic of extermination, not excess.”
Torture as System, Not Exception
Across multiple studies, torture emerges not as random cruelty but as a structure of governance.
- Layan Kateb and Rania Al-Faqih’s “Colonial Carcerality and Systematic Torture” shows how emergency laws and military orders create a legal machinery of arbitrary detention, what they call “a colonial carceral state.”
- Grant Shubin, in “Gender Power as a Tool of Torture,” details how sexual violence and gender humiliation are deployed to dominate and degrade.
- Samah Jabr and Maria Helbich argue that torture functions to “dismantle Palestinian consciousness,” echoing María José Lera’s analysis of prisoner-writer Walid Daqqa, whose incarceration sought to “erase identity itself.”
“Torture is not an aberration, it is the grammar through which occupation speaks.”
Excerpt from ‘Torture as a Tool of Domination’
Necropolitics: When Survival Is the Battlefield
In “The Necropolitics of Gaza,” John Hawkins describes the siege as an “architecture of death,” where control over electricity, food, and mobility transforms life itself into an instrument of coercion.
Kathryn Ravey, in “Starvation as Torture,” traces deliberate deprivation of food, especially targeting children, as a calculated strategy of domination and a breach of the Geneva Conventions.
Joel B.’s “Children as Human Shields” documents cases where minors are coerced into military operations, calling it “torture through enforced vulnerability.”
Beyond Gaza: Medicine and Speech Under Attack
Violence, the issue shows, extends beyond Gaza’s borders.
- Nasrallah et al. catalogue attacks on medical workers and hospitals in Lebanon, classifying them as grave breaches of humanitarian law.
- Mika Foux records the trauma of torture survivors within Israel, where fear and censorship silence dissent.
- And Dana Abuqamar, in “Punitive Measures Against the Pro-Palestinian Movement,” warns that Western governments’ crackdowns on activists amount to “psychological and political torture” aimed at suppressing solidarity.
From Documentation to Prevention
While the volume catalogues suffering in painstaking detail, its deeper goal is to understand how to stop it.
Pérez-Sales and his contributors urge a holistic approach to rehabilitation, one that restores dignity and community alongside mental health. They call for institutional accountability that addresses the systems enabling torture, and for social interventions that challenge the narratives making it permissible.
“Genocide,” the editorial concludes, “is not an event but a process. It is prepared, step by step, thought by thought, until empathy collapses and atrocity feels inevitable.”
“The occupation is not only a military reality, it is a social project, a way of thinking that reshapes both oppressor and oppressed.” Pau Pérez-Sales, Torture Journal (2025)
Bearing Witness
Published on 15 October 2025, Torture Journal, Vol. 35 Nos. 2–3 stands as both record and warning. It reframes torture not merely as what happens to bodies, but as what societies allow to happen through them.
At its heart lies a simple plea: that understanding must precede prevention, and that silence, too, can be a form of violence.
___________
(TLB) PUBLISHED THIS REPORT FROM 21WIRE
VISIT 21WIRE’S TELEGRAM CHANNEL SUPPORT NDEPENDENT MEDIA – BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV
Header featured image (edited) credit: Org. post content. Emphasis and additional editing by (TLB)
••••
••••
Stay tuned…
••••
The Liberty Beacon Project is now expanding at a near exponential rate, and for this we are grateful and excited! But we must also be practical. For 7 years we have not asked for any donations, and have built this project with our own funds as we grew. We are now experiencing ever increasing growing pains due to the large number of websites and projects we represent. So we have just installed donation buttons on our websites and ask that you consider this when you visit them. Nothing is too small. We thank you for all your support and your considerations … (TLB)
••••
Comment Policy: As a privately owned web site, we reserve the right to remove comments that contain spam, advertising, vulgarity, threats of violence, racism, or personal/abusive attacks on other users. This also applies to trolling, the use of more than one alias, or just intentional mischief. Enforcement of this policy is at the discretion of this websites administrators. Repeat offenders may be blocked or permanently banned without prior warning.
••••
Disclaimer: TLB websites contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of “fair use” in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, health, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “fair use” you must request permission from the copyright owner.
••••
Disclaimer: The information and opinions shared are for informational purposes only including, but not limited to, text, graphics, images and other material are not intended as medical advice or instruction. Nothing mentioned is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.
Leave a Reply