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Michael Shurkin is a member of the prestigious think-tank RUSI. It provides military and conflict analysis to major governments and is a leading producer of conflict analysis. He is justifying epistemicide in this post- it is a form of cultural genocide recognised by UNESCO.
Michael Shurkin - RUSI associate fellow and Director of Global Programs at 14N Strategies. He has served in the CIA as a political analyst for 18 years. He has been featured on the BBC, New York Times and numerous other publications.
SOCIAL MEDIA/INFLUENCER
Michael is responding to a post depicting the burning of books by an IDF soldier. The photo is of the destruction of the Al Asqa library. Book burning and library burning is considered a form of cultural genocide by UNESCO and a grave crime. It can never be justified. Michael believes it is simply a consequence of war and therefore deserved. Epistemicide is unjustifiable.
Dehumanization of Palestinians:
The systematic erasure of Palestinian history and culture is a well-documented effort that has been ongoing since the early 1900s. This erasure has taken many forms, including the destruction of physical records and infrastructure, the suppression of Palestinian voices and narratives, the appropriation of Palestinian cultural heritage and most visibly, the dehumanization of the Palestinian populace.
From the late 19th century to the mid-20th century, Palestinian records, literature, and cultural heritage faced deliberate and concerted efforts to obliterate their existence and narrative. This deliberate "archival silencing" has made reconstructing this period in Palestinian history incredibly challenging, yet the truths that remain paint a horrifying picture of the deliberate erasure and destruction of an entire population and its culture.
The dehumanization of Palestinians has been a deliberate policy, perpetuated through military operations, discriminatory laws, Israeli education and a pervasive culture that fosters prejudice. Dehumanising rhetoric, portraying Palestinians as "roaches" and "rats," lays the foundation for atrocities by stripping away their humanity in the eyes of the oppressor.
Widespread media narratives also project institutional biases ranging from depicting Palestinians solely as militants or desperate victims and erasing their normal daily life to embedding language biases around land, protests and resistance tactics. These patterns collectively indicate how public discourse within segments of Israeli society systematically dehumanize Palestinians while entrenching prejudices against them.
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