The soldiers enjoyed the intoxication of power no less than the kick they got from the violence
October 11, 2007 8:00 am Dehumanization of the Other, Israeli-Palestinian conflictKarpel, Parallel lives, Haaretz, October 7, 2007
One of the study’s most shocking findings is that the soldiers enjoyed the intoxication of power no less than the kick they got from the violence. “At one point or another of their service, the majority of the interviewees enjoyed [inflicting] violence,” Yishai-Karin observes in the thesis. “They enjoyed the violence because it broke the routine and they liked the destruction and the chaos. They also enjoyed the feeling of power in the violence and the sense of danger.”
Testimony: “The truth? When there is chaos and like that, I like it. That’s when I enjoy it. It’s like a drug. If I don’t go into Rafah and if there isn’t some kind of riot once in some week, I go nuts.”
Another soldier: “The most important thing is that it removes the burden of the law from you. You feel that you are the law. You are the law. You are the one who decides … As though from the moment you leave the place that is called Eretz Yisrael [the Land of Israel] and go through the Erez checkpoint into the Gaza Strip, you are the law. You are God.”