On Dec. 12, 2023, Haaretz had exposed that the IDF’s “Influencing Department"—their psychological warfare division—had run a vulgar, dehumanizing operation against their new enemy, the Israeli population. At the time the IDF denied it. Yesterday that denial was reversed.
IDF admitted that they had created the Telegram channel “72 Virgins—Uncensored,” which ran bloodied corpses of dead Palestinians with click-bait headlines. An Oct. 11, 2023 video was labeled: “You won’t believe the video we got! You can hear their bones crunch.” And: “You have to watch it with sound, you’ll die laughing!” An Oct. 14 video displayed an Israeli vehicle driving back and forth over a dead body, labeled: “Exclusive video of a good night, don’t forget to share and repost.” Perhaps such an operation, as collateral damage, would also radicalize Islamic Palestinians, but the immediate target was to dehumanize the Israeli population, breaking down the last elements of decency, as with violent pornography.
In December, the IDF’s supposed denial read: “There is no reason for the IDF to conduct influence campaigns on Israeli citizens of Israel.” While there, indeed, may be no reason, in fact there was malice aforethought. And, evidently, despite being irrational in any normal, functioning society, it is clinical evidence that an insane few have never actually had the general welfare of Israel’s population as their concern.
