Violence in Israel has become an end in itself
It’s easy to blame Ben-Gvir for the increasing police brutality, but the phenomenon is bigger than him. Violence is no longer a means of imposing order or obedience to the law, it is a means of producing pleasure, joy and satisfaction
By Noa Epstein • Translated by Sol Salbe
Opportunity for violence
It is possible that the demonstrators did try to break into the community centre. The police may also have “tried to contain” the demonstration in Beit Shemesh, as a resident of the neighbourhood pointed out. But when you watch the 11-second clip, you can’t see anything other than violence in its purely sadistic form.
At first glance, the Haredim appear to be sitting on the floor, passively. The next moment they are brutally attacked by cops. The demonstrators try to crawl away, but the police officers continue to beat them with all their might, mercilessly, kicking and hitting them with their truncheons. The demonstrators are slowly moving in the direction to which they are being removed, but the violence continues unabated. They are passed from one officer to another, the cop’s leg is raised far back and kicks again, the arm is raised high up and lands powerfully on the legs, back, and ribs. Even when one of the victims manages to get up and walk away, the police chase him and continue to beat him. This is not maintaining order, but a violent outburst that brings pleasure to the attackers. Each blow is accompanied by a bout of pleasure and encourages the next. The violence continues even when the victims are bleeding, with no sign of stopping.
The police officers might pay the price for it. Perhaps with a reprimand, perhaps with a harsher penalty — after all, these were not Arabs, Leftists or supporters of a deal to get the abductees back, God forbid. Still, the cops will probably continue to serve in the force, as police officers are a scarce resource these days.
The obvious solution is to point to Itamar Ben-Gvir — the person who sowed havoc in the police force, turned its senior commanders into a band of opportunists devoid of integrity and loosened up any restrictions on violence. But that’s just too simple. Ben-Gvir is a symptom of something bigger than himself. The question is: Even if the police know that nothing bad will happen to them if they are caught in such violence, why do they enjoy it so much?
We live in a situation in which the use of force has become a supreme value. True, Israel was founded and remains a state that arose out of the use of force, but the process has intensified and accelerated since October 7, when we experienced what sadistic violence feels like from the victim’s side. The violence has spreads to all areas of life: from the treatment of Arab demonstrations in Haifa to that of the families of abductees, from settler violence in the West Bank to demonstrations against the prime minister. Even in the war in the north, the joy of harming innocent civilians emphasises the violence we treasure.
Violence comes in varying shapes and forms. It isn’t only the bombings in Gaza and the use of water canon in demonstrations, but also in a verbal way, which seems less dangerous but sets up an infrastructure. Like this sentence by Itamar Fleischmann of The Patriots program on Channel 14, one of the dozens of quotes collected: “Victory will be here on one condition. On condition that the Jews exterminate the antisemitic rats who carried out these things… This time it ought to be a total annihilation. Don’t be afraid of words like ‘humanitarian disaster’… Just exterminate them.” These are statements that any description of them that does not include the word “Nazi” treats them too, yet they go under the radar.
Violence in Israel has become an end in itself. It is no longer a means of imposing order or obedience to the law, it is a means of producing pleasure, joy and satisfaction. Therefore, it is expected to expand and deepen. And yes, it will probably reach you too: you too may be the ultra-Orthodox who sits on the floor and cops the sadistic blows. It’s going to hurt.
