Violence, trauma and rising crime rates: How Israel's wars of aggression are hitting home

Violence, trauma and rising crime rates: How Israel's wars of aggression are hitting home Submitted by Abed Abou Shhadeh on Wed, 05/13/2026 - 16:24 Netanyahu exports the logic of occupation and dispossession across the region - at the expense of his own society An Israeli soldier is pictured behind a mounted machine gun in Gaza City on 3 October 2025 (Jack Guez/AFP) On Something dangerous is happening within Israeli society, and it could have consequences for the entire region. Since the beginning of the genocidal war in Gaza , Israeli society has consciously created a broad consensus around a violent discourse centred on revenge - one that encourages war not only against Palestinians , but across the region as a whole.  Almost every public opinion poll finds overwhelming support for the war, and very little criticism of the continuous chain of crimes committed over the past two-and-a-half years. But this culture of revenge and violence has also turned inwards, affecting Israeli society itself.  Research increasingly reveals the psychological and social costs of the war , amid the spread of violence into every sphere of Israeli society. As early as 1968, a year after the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, Jewish philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz published a foundational essay in which he coined the notion that “occupation corrupts”. He argued that the practices of occupation carried out by the Israeli state in the West Bank and Gaza would inevitably corrupt the human spirit, and over time would also corrupt Israeli society within the Green Line itself.  Leibowitz, of course, ignored the occupation and dispossession of 1948 and the logic of buildin...

Original source: Middle East Eye