When Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called Palestinians "human animals," he was not a fringe politician making an offhand remark. He was the sitting Defense Minister, announcing a complete siege cutting off food, water, and electricity to two million people. This is a documented record of dehumanizing language in mainstream Israeli political and media discourse — prime ministers, defense ministers, army chiefs, Knesset deputies, IDF spokesmen, and prime-time television anchors.
The standard Western defense is that dehumanizing statements about Palestinians come from the extreme edges of Israeli politics — settlers, ultranationalist parties, social media provocateurs. The documented record does not support this. The statements below were made by a sitting Prime Minister, a sitting Defense Minister, a Finance Minister, a Heritage Minister, a Deputy Knesset Speaker, an IDF spokesman, and a former Army Chief of Staff. They were broadcast on prime-time television to millions of Israelis. Some were cited by the International Court of Justice as evidence of genocidal intent.
South Africa's lawyer, Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, said it plainly before the ICJ in January 2024: "The language of systemic dehumanization is evident here. Genocidal utterances are therefore not out in the fringes. They are embodied in state policy."
Official rhetoric does not exist in a vacuum. It both reflects and shapes public opinion. The polling data from Israeli society reveals a public that has absorbed the dehumanizing framework its leaders and media have promoted — and it diverges dramatically from the views of Jewish communities abroad, who consume a broader media landscape.
Israeli Jewish public opinion
The joint Israeli-Palestinian poll asked each side to rate the humanity of the other on a scale of 0–100. Palestinian respondents gave Israeli Jews an average score of 6 out of 100. Israeli Jews gave Palestinians an average score of 14 out of 100.
But the breakdown underneath is more striking: 51% of Jewish Israelis gave Palestinians a score of zero. More than half of Israeli Jews rated the humanity of 5 million Palestinians at zero — the lowest possible score. This is not political opinion. It is the documented result of decades of official dehumanizing rhetoric absorbed by a population.
When Israeli Jews were asked to describe Palestinian intentions on October 7 and in the current war, 93% chose either "to commit genocide against us" (66%) or "to conquer land and expel the Jews" (27%). Just 3% believed Palestinians were defending themselves to regain security. Only 10% of Israeli Jews believe it is possible to trust the Palestinian side — the lowest level since the question was first asked in 2017.
American Jewish opinion — a striking contrast
The divergence between Israeli Jewish and American Jewish opinion is not explained by different levels of attachment to Israel. American Jews also express strong support for Israel as a state. The gap is explained by what each community has been told about Palestinians. Israeli Jews consume a media ecosystem — led by Channel 14 — where Palestinian civilians are described as collectively guilty terrorists, where "Amalek" is a prime ministerial metaphor, and where 150+ calls for war crimes have aired on prime time without consequence. American Jews, exposed to a broader media landscape including international reporting, hold dramatically different views of Palestinian humanity and political rights.
The dehumanizing rhetoric documented above is not a product of the trauma of October 7. It has characterized Israeli political and military discourse for decades, across governments, across leaders, across conflicts. The language that appeared on prime-time Israeli television in 2023 had been appearing in military briefings, parliamentary hearings, and political speeches for generations.
Channel 14 is not a fringe internet outlet. It is a mainstream Israeli commercial television network, watched by soldiers and officers, that enjoys regulatory benefits from the Netanyahu government. Since October 7, 2023, three Israeli human rights organizations — Zulat for Equality and Human Rights, Hatzlacha, and the Democratic Bloc — have compiled a documented list of its broadcasts.
50+ statements calling for or supporting genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. 150+ statements calling for war crimes — indiscriminate killing, mass expulsion, starvation of the civilian population. Documented by three Israeli civil rights groups in a formal criminal complaint to Israel's Attorney General. The ICJ cited Channel 14 statements as evidence of "clear direct and public incitement to genocide, which has gone unchecked and unpunished by the Israeli authorities."
Oren Persico of The Seventh Eye, an independent Israeli press freedom outlet, described the shift in Israeli broadcast journalism: "Inciting statements that were once heard only in religious Zionist synagogues' weekly pamphlets can now be heard by prominent editors and journalists" on mainstream channels. Even on Channel 12 — not Channel 14 — correspondents and guests advocate for reestablishing settlements in Gaza. The language has migrated from the margins to the mainstream.
The Washington Post separately verified more than 120 photos and videos of IDF soldiers — posted publicly on their personal social media accounts — showing forces demolishing and burning civilian buildings, occupying destroyed homes, posing next to dead bodies, and calling for the extermination and expulsion of Palestinians. Some soldiers said they were following direct orders. A military ethicist described it as "a breakdown of not just military discipline, but a break in understanding what it takes to represent the IDF and Israel."
Human Rights Watch documented Israeli forces publishing degrading photographs and videos of detained Palestinians — including children — stripped of clothing, filmed, and published on social media. HRW called it "a form of sexual violence and also a war crime." The IDF's response was to instruct soldiers not to upload footage — not to stop the conduct.
Dehumanization is not merely offensive language. It is a documented precursor to mass violence. By stripping a group of their humanity — through animal metaphors, exterminatory rhetoric, collective guilt — dehumanization creates the psychological and social conditions under which violence against that group becomes thinkable, tolerable, and eventually ordinary.
The comparison is not made here lightly. It was made by Israeli human rights lawyers in a formal legal complaint to Israel's own Attorney General.
South Africa filed its case against Israel at the ICJ on December 29, 2023, alleging that Israel's conduct in Gaza amounts to genocide under the Genocide Convention. In January 2024, the ICJ issued a preliminary ruling finding that the claims were "plausible" — and ordered Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent acts of genocide, prevent incitement to genocide, and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.
The ICJ explicitly cited the dehumanizing statements of Israeli officials — including Gallant's "human animals" and Eyal Golan's Channel 14 broadcast — as part of the evidence before the court. South Africa's lawyer: "Genocidal utterances are therefore not out in the fringes. They are embodied in state policy."
This piece documents a mainstream. It is not a portrait of every Israeli. A minority of Israeli citizens — on the left, in Jewish-Arab coalitions, among conscientious objectors — has consistently opposed the war in Gaza, the dehumanizing rhetoric of their leaders, and the Iran war. They are small in number. They face real consequences. And the story of what has happened to them when they try to be heard is itself part of this picture.
Organizations including Standing Together (a Jewish-Arab grassroots movement), Peace Now, and Women Wage Peace have organized protests against the war in Gaza and against the Iran war since it began. Hadash lawmakers Ofer Cassif and Ayman Odeh have spoken at protests. Former Meretz Knesset members Mossi Raz, Gaby Lasky, and Zehava Galon — who co-chairs Zulat for Equality and Human Rights, which filed the criminal complaint against Channel 14 — have all been present. The first anti-Iran-war protest at Habima Square in Tel Aviv on March 3, 2026 drew barely 20 people. By March 28, there were over 1,000, with parallel rallies in Haifa, Jerusalem, Beersheba, and dozens of other cities.
Organizers accused National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir of using wartime restrictions on gatherings as a pretext to silence political dissent. The argument is documented: beaches and malls across the country were packed with people; Haredi communities were holding massive funerals, weddings, and holiday celebrations — all without police intervention. The same "emergency regulations" limiting outdoor gatherings to 50 people were applied to political protests but not to religious or commercial gatherings. Standing Together stated plainly: "The government fears the expansion of the protest movement."
A 972 Magazine correspondent who attended the March 28 protest described Border Police officers dragging them across the pavement, forcing them onto their stomach, yanking them aside. "I could see the hatred and anger in their eyes," they wrote. "Their violence felt less like an attempt to disperse a protest than an effort to create chaos and punish those of us who refused to leave."
On April 4, Israel's High Court again ordered police to allow anti-war protests. On April 6, police forcibly dispersed a protest at Habima Square, arresting 17 people — again citing Iranian missile threats — even though the court had permitted a rally of more than 600 people. The police defied the High Court twice within a week.
Among the early protesters, some carried signs in Hebrew that read: "Refuse to kill and die in service of corruption, fascism and Jewish supremacy." Others in English: "End Israel's aggression throughout the Mideast." These were not signs about the Iran war's strategy. They were signs about the underlying politics of the Gaza war. These Israelis exist. They are small in number, they face arrest, and they are largely invisible in the same Western media coverage that amplifies the mainstream.
All sources publicly available. Research collated by T. Denoyo with the assistance of Claude (Anthropic). Published April 30, 2026. This site does not represent the views of any employer or institution.