The excess of power twists peoples’ perspective, it brutalises us and affects our humanity as evidenced by US forces’ activities in Haditha.
That is true of the British Army’s long list of atrocities in Northern Ireland.
We can see that in the Libyan and Syrian armies murder of civilians and elsewhere.
Nevertheless, that brutalising and detachment from humanity does not occur overnight.
Israel’s occupation in and around the West Bank has desensitise many Israelis, leading to unacceptable behaviour, the demolishment of ordinary people’s homes:
“UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations has called on Israel to immediately halt the destruction of Palestinian homes in the West Bank after reporting a dramatic rise in demolitions in the past year.
Israeli forces destroyed 622 Palestinian homes in the West Bank in 2011, “forcibly displacing” almost 1,100 people, over half of them children, according to a UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs report.
“The current policy and practice of demolitions cause extensive human suffering and should end,” UN humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territories, Maxwell Gaylard, said late Friday.
…
Gaylard said the demolition figures represent a “dramatic” increase on previous years and that tens of thousands of people remain under threat of dispossession, demolition and displacement.Israel says it only demolishes structures that have been built without required permission. Palestinians say they are rarely granted permits.
Gaylard said he went on Thursday to the village of Anata near Jerusalem where seven Palestinian homes were demolished this week.”
Soupy One 