Israeli journalist Gideon Levy explains the three principles that enable Israelis to live easily:
1. Most, if not all, Israelis strongly believe that we are God’s chosen people, and if we are God’s chosen people, we have the right to do whatever we want.
2. There have been more brutal and longer occupations throughout history, although the Israeli occupation has achieved good results. Never throughout history has there been an occupation in which the occupier portrays itself as the victim, and the only victim. This allows any Israeli to live in peace because we are victims.
3. The system of systematic dehumanization of Palestinians enables Israelis to live in peace with everything, because if they were not human beings like us, then there would truly be no question of human rights.
Levi adds: “If you scratch the skin of almost every Israeli, you will find these principles underneath. There is almost no one who treats Palestinians as equal human beings like us.”