Finally, what gives this escalation its sustained genocidal character is the “dysmentalization” that Israel is experiencing: the gradual erosion and acute extinction of empathy with the victimized community, the “ever sharper separation between the regime’s people and the target people.”

The genocidal dynamic hinges on this mental, social, cultural, and political separation. It is maintained by militaristic self-aggrandizement and racist denigration, and leads to a persistent moral distancing between “civilized” Israeli society and “barbaric” Gaza squalor. Even after the last rounds are fired and final shells are launched, that genocidal dynamic will still be present.