Ilana Dayan’s war monologue ostensibly focused on the absolute prioritization of personal pain over every other value. That is true—but those who are perceptive and attentive will notice that this is merely a tactic.
A. We probably won’t hear such a monologue about people killed in car accidents. We won’t hear something like:
“While the State of Israel is building new, wide roads, massive interchanges, and boasting about a new era of transportation, the Cohen couple was killed in a serious accident. They will never get to see it. The Minister of Transportation scolded the dead themselves and warned people to wear their seatbelts. Seatbelts must be worn, but the responsibility lies with those in charge—responsibility toward those who could not afford a safer vehicle.”
We don’t hear a monologue like this for a simple reason. Dayan didn’t target road travel. So she doesn’t turn the personal pain of an accident into a monologue against the development of road infrastructure.
She uses the personal grief over the dead to subject us to a form of perfect gaslighting: a mental illusion, so that we believe reality is exactly the opposite of what it is.
B. The vast majority of the public supports the war because they understand it is essential for removing an existential threat and saving hundreds of thousands of lives. Dayan, on the other hand, tries to make us think that war is a reckless adventure driven by militant thinking, costing lives and causing unnecessary killing on both sides.
She uses the personal grief over the dead to subject us to a form of perfect gaslighting: a mental illusion, so that we believe reality is exactly the opposite of what it is. Instead of seeing the war as a massive rescue operation for the people of Israel, we will think of it as exactly the opposite—an adventure indifferent to human life.
This monologue is sophisticated pacifism that uses personal grief as a gaslighting tactic. And she desperately needs this illusion, because the war’s results are so successful. There is nothing a pacifist hates more than a decisive military victory.
And to cover up the failure of pacifism, they latch onto every instance of personal pain to try to mislead the public’s perception of reality.
When victory cannot be achieved through opinions and ideas, the arena shifts to a struggle over the presentation and definition of reality; and when even that fails, we are subjected to emotional gaslighting to force a new reality upon us nonetheless.
C. Dayan’s gaslighting is not achieved solely through words and messages. It is emphasized by the anguished gaze, the intonation, the dramatic voice; all of these are employed not to express an opinion, but to present reality in a deceptive manner.
D. This distortion of thinking, which denies the immense value of the use of military force, leads to something else: the portrayal of undercover IDF units as though they kill arbitrarily. The tactic is once again gaslighting: the dramatic highlighting of those killed by our forces’ fire to create the impression of unnecessary killing. Our dead, murdered by Iranian missiles, and Arab casualties from our forces’ fire—all are essentially shared victims of the idea of war. This is the emotional message conveyed to us.
E. Summary: When victory cannot be achieved through opinions and ideas, the arena shifts to a struggle over the presentation and definition of reality; and when even that fails, we are subjected to emotional gaslighting to force a new reality upon us nonetheless.
The more these methods become clear and transparent, the more they are ridiculed and the less effective they become. And this, too, is an important cleansing of the “leaven” within our consciousness, in preparation for another stage of the journey toward freedom.
‘Path Pavers’
