About Denial
- Ayala Shalev
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
Piaget, one of the most important researchers in developmental psychology, who studied the development of thinking and understanding in children, defined the sensorimotor stage, in which children believe that if they don’t see something in front of their eyes, then it simply doesn’t exist. This stage usually passes around the age of two. In our case, we’re kind of stuck there.
This week, at one of the demonstrations in Jerusalem, I once again saw a group of police officers hysterically charging at a handful of protesters holding Palestinian flags. They beat and chased them, not stopping for a moment until all the flags were snatched from the protesters’ hands and disappeared from sight.
This scene isn’t new. We’ve all seen things like this, I suppose. I can even say that in the past, it just seemed ridiculous to me, almost amusing. But today, with Israel in the background aiming to eliminate the Palestinians in general and the Gazans in particular, it’s no longer funny. It’s terrifying.
And more than that, it’s the most blatant display of the current Israeli approach—denial. As if they want to say, if we don’t see it, then it doesn’t exist.
The Israeli public, as a whole, lives in denial
This denial is completely orchestrated by the regime, and the average citizen—the one who gets up in the morning, goes to work, comes home to the kids, and collapses on the couch in front of the TV at night—this citizen accepts this carefully selected presentation of reality as “reality,” as the truth. The ordinary citizen doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t seek information from outside sources, isn’t interested in other points of view. We don’t question what we perceive as the truth. For her, what she sees on the news and current affairs shows is all there is, that’s the truth, that is what’s happening now.
But…
‣ On Israeli mainstream channels, the occupation isn’t shown. And for anyone uncomfortable with that word, I’ll put it this way: they don’t show the army operating throughout the West Bank, including in Area A, which is supposedly under Palestinian civil and security control; they don’t show the boys and fathers taken in the dead of night without telling the shocked family where to; they don’t show the ransacked homes left behind by the soldiers; they don’t show settlers entering villages and spreading terror, throwing stones, breaking windows, beating elders and women, cursing, setting fires, stealing sheep, singing “Death to Arabs,” scrawling graffiti, and sometimes even shooting to kill. They don’t report on land theft, on the state’s support of those who commit these acts, or on the fact that none of them are ever arrested. And all of this is a daily part of reality in Israel, ok? But it’s denied.
‣ On Israeli mainstream channels, they don’t mention Israel’s punishment policy towards Palestinians. By definition, Israeli offenders are judged by Israeli law, while Palestinian offenders, who are under military rule—even for civilian offenses—are judged by military orders issued by the Central Command, or by old Jordanian, Ottoman, and Mandate laws. The bottom line: if a settler steals an apple and a Palestinian neighbor steals an apple, the Palestinian will get a much harsher punishment. They also don’t mention that Jewish attackers are protected and not punished. And, they don’t mention the administrative detention process, where the system plucks a person from their life and simply puts them in jail for an unlimited time, without trial, without charges, and obviously without any way to defend themselves against a charge that doesn’t exist. As of November 2024, Israel had imprisoned 3,500 Palestinians—not including Nuhbas from Gaza —in administrative detention, meaning, for nothing. And of course, they don’t mention the prison conditions, which made headlines once in connection with Sde Teiman, but continue to exist, and not just there—starvation, beatings, disease, rape, torture. Shhhh... don’t say anything. If we don’t say it, that means it doesn’t exist.
‣ And of course, on these channels, they don’t mention what’s happening in Gaza. The official numbers today speak of more than 53,000 dead, including about 20,000 children and babies, and over 12,000 women. There are 121,034 reported wounded, 40,000 orphans, and 2,200 families completely wiped out.
Beyond that—the starvation data shows that right now, more than half of the Gaza Strip is affected, and supplies are running out. The hospitals that haven’t been bombed are empty of medicine. There’s no water, no electricity, and no heavy machinery. That means the death toll is actually an undercount, because all those still under the rubble who can’t be rescued aren’t counted, as well as everyone who will die of hunger—mainly children for now. Also, wounded people who can’t be helped will die from their injuries. And more will die from impossible sanitary conditions and drinking contaminated water.
All this destruction is happening right here, just beyond the fence, and Israelis still don’t know, because the mainstream channels keep denying and refusing to report these parts of reality.
This denial of reality distorts our perception of reality.
The fact that something is denied doesn’t actually mean it doesn’t exist
It exists because it exists. Even that baby who’s shown a toy in front of their eyes, and then it’s hidden behind someone’s back—even if the baby believes the toy no longer exists, that doesn’t mean it really doesn’t, right? Reality keeps on existing, even if we insist on denying it.
And what does happen when reality is denied? It gets distorted. Just like a building constructed on shaky foundations can’t last and eventually collapses—so too, any process of thinking about reality, opinions, beliefs, drawing conclusions, understandings, and insights—and eventually actions—that are built on only partial reality, on incomplete data, on a false basis, can’t hold up.
And that’s how we end up with “There’s no Palestinian people”—but of course there is, otherwise who are we fighting? “There’s no Palestinian people and we won’t rest until we finish them off completely”?
That’s how we end up hearing “No one in Gaza is innocent”—but of course there are: entire families, little kids, people just like us who want to live, but are trapped in a hell we’ve created.
And that’s how we accept, almost casually, countless stories in the mainstream media, from a “terrorist” who was shot—when it’s actually a 12-year-old girl who approached a checkpoint on foot with scissors—to the impossible story from just this week: “The IDF killed a terrorist. Now they’re checking if it’s the terrorist who killed Tzela Gez.” Meaning, first they killed someone, then call him a terrorist, then check if he’s the specific terrorist. And there you have the foundation for the distorted perceived reality, where every Palestinian is a terrorist.
Choosing to be healthy
We’ve been living in this distorted reality for a long time. Parts of it keep falling apart, but we keep patching it up with more denial, just to keep it from collapsing on us. That takes a lot of energy.
But to build a stable, safe, and growing reality, we have to face what’s really happening. Denial might work for a while, but not forever. Recognizing the full reality might hurt at first, but it will enable us to build a stronger, more honest foundation—one that aims for living together, not dying together. Isn’t that better?
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