In the context of the current humanitarian crisis in Gaza, it is worth exploring how unresolved, intergenerational trauma among Israelis—especially those with direct or inherited memories of genocide—might be shaping collective behaviour and policy. 

This is not to exonerate or reduce geopolitical complexities to psychological determinism.  Instead, it is to understand one layer of a profoundly tragic and multifaceted situation.

Trauma does not disappear with the passage of time.  While events fade into history, the psychological and physiological imprints of violence and catastrophe remain embedded in individuals, families, and communities.  Increasingly, research shows that trauma, particularly when left unhealed, is passed on through generations.

Seminal work in trauma studies has demonstrated that trauma can become biologically embedded. Rachel Yehuda’s research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has documented epigenetic changes in the children of Holocaust survivors, particularly affecting the regulation of cortisol, a hormone involved in stress response.  These children, though not directly exposed to the Holocaust, show altered physiological reactions to stress and a heightened sensitivity to threat.  They exhibited stress responses, anxieties, and identity constructs that reflect the lived terror of their ancestors. (Yehuda et al., 2014, Biological Psychiatry).  

Collective Trauma

The implications of such findings extend beyond individual diagnosis.  When a critical mass of people within a society carry the same embodied trauma, collective perception is affected.  This psychological and biological inheritance of trauma, manifests in a hyper-vigilance that shapes the identity and national ethos.  There is a deep fear of annihilation and enduring narratives of existential threat, at least from Israeli leaders, that can amplify a hyper-vigilant orientation toward others.

This psychological dynamic is vividly illustrated in recent statements by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has repeatedly framed the current military actions as existential imperatives.  In a speech to the Knesset in late 2023, Netanyahu said, “This is a war for our existence… We will impose a new reality on Gaza and the entire region.”  Such rhetoric either exploits traumatised Jews for his own political gain, or it underscores a worldview where domination and harsh control are not merely strategic choices but perceived necessities rooted in survival instincts.  Or both.

Netanyahu’s stance magnifies threat and legitimises disproportionate responses.  The response to the Hamas attacks of October 7th 2023, which killed 1,200 Israelis that day (and a further 500 in subsequent hostilities) and kidnapped another 250, have seen the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) kill over 60,000 civilians, including around 1,500 medical staff and in recent weeks, over a 1,000 civilians at aid distribution sites.  These figures do not include unverified deaths of persons under the rubble, believed to be between 10,000 and 14,000, but the true figures are impossible to know.

The scale of recent Israeli operations in Gaza and the West Bank, where UN and human rights organisations have documented widespread destruction of infrastructure, and blockade conditions contributing to severe hunger and health crises, is enormous.  For example, the United Nations and World Food Programme warn that Gaza is experiencing widespread famine, with over 90% of the population in acute food insecurity.  More than 80% of civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, and residential areas, has been damaged or destroyed.  Health care systems have collapsed under siege, with over 1,000 medical workers killed and hundreds of attacks on medical facilities documented by groups such as the World Health Organisation and Médecins Sans Frontières.  Doctors have reported being put into Israeli prisons arbitrarily and tortured.  

And yet, this terror response is not new.  The Israeli government policy to “mow the lawn”, a euphemism that means systemically murdering waves of Palestinians every generation or so, has resulted in the deaths of between 6,400 and 9,500 Palestinians, depending upon the statistics source, since the early 2000’s.  Over the same period, around 300 to 1,250 Israelis were killed by Palestinian militants.  This brings about a disproportionate death ratio ranging from roughly 8:1 to 20:1.  

In part, the stark disparity is because of the overwhelming firepower and the scale of state-led operations of airstrikes, incursions and sieges, compared to the comparatively limited lethality of guerrilla warfare.  But does it also reveal a ruthlessness on the part of the Israeli government?  Has the Israeli government dehumanised the Palestinian people and made them all targets?  Has the Israeli government chosen to mete out collective responsibility for the actions of Hamas?  Have embedded trauma and active attacks on Israel left some political and military leaders without empathy?  To kill without remorse?  With impunity?

Lack of Empathy

It could be argued that, given the Israeli government policies that have caused starvation and devastation, their capacity for empathy has gone.

Psychologist Gabor Maté, himself a Holocaust survivor, argues that trauma leaves internal scars, causing some individuals to deepen their empathy, while others shut down emotionally, becoming unavailable.  He says that when people with unresolved trauma assume positions of power, they run the risk of repeating inflicting harm on others through domination or detachment.

Carl Jung complements this framework with his concept of the shadow—those parts of the self or the collective that are denied and projected outward.  When fear, vulnerability, or aggression cannot be acknowledged within, they are often externalised, producing scapegoating, moral exclusion and, often, violence.

So, has the Israeli government a demonstrable lack of empathy towards the Palestinians?  Shortly after the attacks, Israeli political and military leaders had this to say:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “They will pay an immense price,” and referenced turning Gaza “into rubble.”

The Head of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), a unit within the Israeli Ministry of Defence, Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian, said, “Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity and no water, there will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell.”

Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, said, “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel. Everything is closed.”

Ariel Kallner, an Israeli politician from Netanyahu’s Likud party (Likud MK), said, “Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 1948.”  The Nakba of 1948 resulted in an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 deaths of Palestinian and the displacement of 700,000 of them from their homes.

Yitzhak Kroizer, an Israeli politician from the Otzma Yehudit (MK) party, said, “The Gaza Strip should be flattened, and for all of them there is but one sentence, and that is death. We have to wipe the Gaza Strip off the map. There are no innocents there.”  In August 2025, he was appointed chair of the Knesset's Interior and Environmental Protection Committee.

Before the attacks of October 7, in 2013, while discussing the resumption of peace talks in a radio interview, Deputy Defence Minister Eli Ben-Dahan said, “To me, they [Palestinians] are like animals, they are not human”, adding, “the Palestinians aren't educated towards peace, nor do they want it.”

And while I do not, for a moment, believe that this ‘shut down’ emotional response to the crisis going on in the Middle East applies to every Israeli, or every Jewish person in the world, far from it, it does apply to Netanyahu and many Israeli politicians and soldiers in the IDF who are responsible for the atrocities and to anyone who blindly supports Israeli actions without reflection.

Fallout From the War?

Independent investigations, including those conducted by Forensic Architecture and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, have argued that the use of starvation, displacement and indiscriminate bombardment constitutes a clear violation of international law, and potentially meets the legal threshold for genocide as defined by the UN Genocide Convention.

The legal threshold for genocide is defined by the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted in 1948, which states that genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, by

1. Killing members of the group;

2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Being found guilty of genocide in the international courts leads to criminal accountability for key political, military, and civilian leaders, state responsibility for reparations and sanctions, potential international intervention, and lasting damage to the country’s global standing.

However, for a powerful state, such as Israel, to face full enforcement of a genocide ruling, should one occur, there would first need to be a collapse of protective alliances, overwhelming global unity, indisputable evidence and, ideally, internal political change.  Without those, consequences would stay in the realm of partial sanctions and reputational damage rather than full legal and economic accountability.  Key among the changes that would mean Israel would face full enforcement of a genocide ruling, should one come to pass, would be that US dominance on the global stage would first need to fall.   However, the balance of power on the world stage has been shifting for a while.  The Trump administration’s approach to statecraft and global and domestic economics is erratic, at best.  And I believe that there are more damaging revelations to come, that could end Trump’s political career.

And Now?

The Palestinian trauma, fuelled by decades of displacement, siege, and violence, is immense.  It manifests in high rates of PTSD, anxiety, and chronic stress among children and adults alike, shaping social and political behaviours.  Like their Israeli neighbours, Palestinians are caught in a cycle where trauma generates fear, mistrust, and often violent resistance, perpetuating a tragic dynamic of repetition wounding.

While security concerns are legitimate in any sovereign context, the scale and character of current operations in Gaza raise critical ethical questions about proportionality, intent, and the psychological undercurrents driving state behaviour.  Critically, this is not a claim of equivalence between the Holocaust and present-day Gaza, nor is it an attempt to pathologise a population.  Rather, it is an argument that trauma must be recognised as a generative force in political life.  Unresolved historical trauma tends to be repeated but it can also distort moral vision, harden defensive postures, and narrow the capacity for empathy. 

The discourse around genocide, apartheid, and occupation must be grounded in international law and factual reporting.  But it should also be informed by psychological insight.  If we are to imagine a future not governed by trauma, we must first understand how deeply trauma governs the present.