The citizenry of past nations engaged in genocide woke up each morning focused on their challenges of everyday life, not those of the people their rulers were butchering. The victims may have been across continents or within the same population, and so awareness of the slaughter varied, but propaganda and dehumanization were the ever-present balm for uneasy consciences and political cover. Those who rose above the brainwashing were limited in their ability to challenge their rulers, and faced consequences — often brutal — if they did.
Yet to varying degrees, posterity has held the country as a whole morally responsible. Whatever any mitigating considerations, posterity has judged “we didn’t know” skeptically.
Imagine yourself, then, as a doctoral history student in 2124, researching the archives from that dark stain on the old Western Empire known simply as the Palestinian Genocide. What would you see? ….more
