[runarberg]

My university background is not in CS but it psychology and statistics, and even though I’m an expert in neither, I know at least one thing, that humans are horrible at statistics. We don’t think neither in absolute terms nor in proportional terms (although between the two we are more likely to think in [heavily biased; and nonsensically; inconsistently non-linear] proportional terms). What the human mind likes to do is to zoom in on the most extreme parts, and apply that to the whole population, that is we love to think in details, find patterns, and extrapolate. Like I said, humans are very bad at statistics.

In the Syrian civil war this manifested in use zooming in on cities like Aleppo or Raqqa, see the horrors there and apply those to the rest of Syria. So when we see the horrors in Gaza, we are not comparing 600k vs. 40k. nor 10% of the housing units in Aleppo vs. 85% of the housing units in Gaza. What we see is the absolute horrors that was Aleppo, and see it repeat in Gaza and think, this is unacceptable, and people don’t accept it.

Even though humans are very bad at statistics, humans are also smart. We are very good at spotting patterns and we can tell when we are being lied to, and we don’t like it. The Israeli government has been constantly lying to us throughout the genocide. They have been lying to us about about Hamas’ command centers, about their war goals, about their concerns for the hostages, etc.

We humans see that and can easily spot it, and it makes us mad. When the Israeli government tells us that all this destruction is because of Hamas’ presence there, we don’t believe it, that all those civilian deaths are just collateral damage we don’t believe that either. We know what collateral damage looks like, and see that Gaza does not fit it. Instead we see that civilians aren’t just accidentally killed, but they are actually targeted. I’ve seen interviews with experts on the news (mainly Democracy Now!) and they pretty much all agree that you don’t see this level of death and destruction among civilians unless they are actively targeted. This was also true of Aleppo btw.

We also spot the rhetoric among Israeli officials, and see similarities with history, we spot the racism and the hatred and it rings alarm bells. That is why we call this a genocide. Humans are good at spotting patterns, and the conduct of Israel is consistent with the patterns of genocide, so we call it a genocide. A case in point. As we were debating this, the Israeli Knesset voted overwhelmingly in favor of banning the main avenue for Palestinians to get aid. The only reason I personally see for this is genocidal intentions among 92 of the 120 members of the Israeli Knesset. That pretty much the whole Israeli legislator is on board with an ongoing genocide. The lies about UNWRA being connected with terrorism compounds mine (and most people’s) reaction, which further our anti-Israel bias. And you personally downplaying the history of the nation of Palestine also plays into this. Though not as extreme as what I initially feared (nor as extreme as the rhetoric of your government) it is still pretty damning and speaks of the complicity of the whole nation of Israel (not just the government) in the ongoing genocide.

It is not unusual for citizens of perpetrators of genocide to deny that genocide. I psychology this is called cognitive dissonance. Many Serbians today deny that the Bosnian genocide happened (or deny the very obvious Serbian involvement in it). Indonesians deny the genocide in East-Timor (despite the fact that there has been a political revolution in Indonesian since then). We even have quite a few Americans that deny the horrors of slavery, and probably most Europeans who deny (or downscale) the horrors of European colonialism.

Now, lets move away from peoples perception and the reason for why anti-Israel bias is increasing in the public consciousness, and onto the future and international law.

Like the the human brain, international law doesn’t compare atrocities with statistics. International law actually goes further and doesn’t compare them at all. International law takes into account which agreements a country has signed on to, and judges whether or not the country is in violation of those. This is the reason why the international community is giving Iran shit about their nuclear program but not Israel, despite the latter being a far worse offender. Iran has signed the nuclear non-proliferation treat, but Israel hasn’t so international law can’t do anything about the latter.

Israel is however a member of quite a few treaties of international humanitarian rights, and has been in violation of quite a few of them for a long time (the most obvious example being the apartheid wall on the West Bank). Very few countries (except superpowers like the USA or China) have disregarded international law for such a long time with impunity. And since the Gaza genocide, Israel has only doubled down in this behavior, the UNWRA ban is a prime example of this. I very much doubt the in 2026 Israel will remain a member of the UN if it keeps doing this (which [as a human] I think they will).

We are probably seeing Israel’s last moments as a non-pariah state. The anti-Israel bias is increasing among the public consciousness plus blatant disregard of international law is Israel’s own doing, and the time of impunity has come to an end. This prediction is consistent with the fate of other (non-superpower) oppressors and violators of international law.