r/sociology

The world has witnessed something historically unprecedented: the first "livestreamed genocide" unfolding in real-time across social media platforms¹. The ongoing destruction of Gaza (and now increasingly Lebanon) represents not merely another tragic chapter in the long history of mass atrocity, but rather a fundamental transformation in how societies engage with and celebrate genocidal violence. Through systematic analysis of the sadism centrality framework—measuring how integral pleasure-seeking cruelty is to genocide methodology—evidence suggests that Israeli society exhibits higher levels of celebrated sadistic violence than even Nazi Germany during the Holocaust.

This phenomenon demands explanation. How has an ostensibly democratic society in the digital age produced levels of publicly endorsed sadistic cruelty that exceed those of history's most notorious genocidal regime? The answer lies in a convergence of six mutually reinforcing factors that have created what can only be termed a "perfect storm" for normalized atrocity.

The Digital Amplification of Sadistic Participation

The Gaza genocide represents the first major atrocity of the social media age, fundamentally transforming how populations engage with mass violence². Israeli soldiers routinely filming and sharing videos of torture and abuse sessions, posing for photos or toasting as buildings in Gaza were demolished behind them, “entertainment” airstrikes with blue-smoke gender reveals, and other systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure³. Unlike the Holocaust, where camp atrocities—public floggings, "pole" hangings, Gestapo torture, medical experiments—were compartmentalized and suppressed from the wider public, only emerging through post-war testimony⁴, contemporary digital technology enables what researchers term "real-time sadistic participation" by both perpetrators and the broader civilian population.

International medical teams report children shot in the head, neck, or genitals "like a game," with soldiers sharing these videos for celebration⁵. Research on media psychology demonstrates that repeated exposure to violence through digital platforms creates both decreased anxious arousal and increased pleasant arousal when viewing violent content⁶. This desensitization effect, combined with the gamification elements inherent in social media platforms, transforms atrocity consumption into a form of entertainment. Israeli civilians can now participate vicariously in genocide through likes, shares, and celebratory comments, creating unprecedented levels of mass complicity.

The psychological impact extends beyond mere spectatorship. Social media platforms enable what scholars term "participatory sadism," where civilians feel psychologically invested in the violence being perpetrated in their name⁷. The immediate feedback loops provided by digital engagement—view counts, comments, shares—create dopamine-driven reinforcement cycles that incentivize increasingly extreme content production by perpetrators seeking social validation.

That’s not to say that sadism does not interact with other emotions such as indifference or denial, as we saw after the announcement that average life expectancy in Gaza had been cut in half (30–35 years) since 2022.

In mass atrocities, people can move along a spectrum from looking away, to accepting harm as normal, to, in some cases, taking active pleasure in it. Indifference erodes empathy and lowers social restraints, creating the conditions in which people can express and enact overt sadism with little resistance.

Settler Colonial Psychology: The Multigenerational Normalization of Violence

Unlike the Holocaust, which occurred over a compressed twelve-year period, Israeli society has undergone over seven decades of systematic indoctrination in Palestinian dehumanization⁸. This represents what scholars of settler colonial psychology term "structural violence by design"—the systematic normalization of violence against indigenous populations as necessary for maintaining demographic and territorial control⁹.

The psychological impact of maintaining the world's longest ongoing military occupation (58+ years) cannot be understated. Multiple generations of Israelis have been socialized to view Palestinian suffering as not merely acceptable, but necessary for their own survival¹⁰. Polls in early 2024 revealed a majority of Israelis felt Gaza had not been bombed harshly enough—a prelude to even greater cruelty¹¹. This creates what Lorenzo Veracini terms the "settler colonial situation"—a psychological state characterized by the simultaneous embrace and disavowal of foundational violence¹².

Research on settler colonial mentality reveals distinctive psychological patterns: the projection of existential threat onto indigenous populations, the celebration of violence as regenerative and moral, and the development of what scholars term "colonial paranoia"—a persistent fear that indigenous populations pose an existential threat that justifies unlimited violence¹³. These psychological formations, reinforced over generations, create fertile ground for sadistic violence that exceeds even Nazi antisemitism in its intensity and social penetration.

Democratic Legitimation of Atrocity

Perhaps most disturbing is how democratic institutions can amplify rather than constrain sadistic violence. Under totalitarian Nazi rule, detailed knowledge of camp cruelty was suppressed and dissent punished¹⁴. In contrast, Israel's open democracy has produced unprecedented transparency in genocidal intent. Polling data from March 2025 reveals that 82% of Jewish Israelis support expelling Gaza's population while 47% endorse killing all Gazans¹⁵. A July 2025 Israel Democracy Institute survey found 79% of Jewish Israelis were "not troubled" by reports of famine and suffering in Gaza¹⁶.

Additional polling reveals the depth of dehumanization: a Hebrew University survey from May 2025 found 64% of Israelis overall—with larger majorities among Jewish Israelis—agreed that "there are no innocents in Gaza"¹⁷. The demographic breakdown shows 87% of ruling-coalition supporters, 73% of right-wing non-coalition voters, 67% of centrist voters, and even 30% of left-wing voters endorsed this dehumanizing view. This represents what political scientists term "democratic legitimation of atrocity"—where majoritarian support provides moral cover for extreme violence.

Recent research on "elite rhetoric and democratic norms" demonstrates how political leaders can systematically undermine democratic restraints on violence through repeated norm violations¹⁸. When political elites consistently frame atrocity as necessary and moral, public opinion can shift dramatically toward accepting previously unthinkable policies. Unlike authoritarian regimes where extreme policies are imposed through coercion, democratic legitimation creates enthusiastic popular participation in atrocity.

The Israeli case represents what scholars term a "chronic legitimacy crisis" in embedded democracies—where democratic procedures are maintained while fundamental democratic values are systematically violated¹⁹. This creates a particularly dangerous situation where the formal legitimacy of democratic decision-making processes provides cover for the substantive embrace of genocidal policies.

The Psychology of Sacred Violence

Israeli sadistic violence incorporates a unique fusion of religious justification and secular nationalism that creates what researchers term "sacred violence"—violence that is simultaneously patriotic duty and divine command²⁰. While Nazi sadism in places like Jasenovac—where Ustase guards held throat-slitting contests and forced amputations—remained localized and supplementary to gas-chamber extermination²¹, Israeli rhetoric systematically fuses biblical dehumanization language (Palestinians as "Amalek" deserving annihilation) with secular military obligations²².

This religious-nationalist fusion creates psychological dynamics that exceed purely secular or purely religious justifications for violence. When cruelty becomes both a patriotic duty and a divine commandment, it transcends normal moral constraints and becomes psychologically rewarding in ways that purely instrumental violence cannot match²³. The result is what anthropologists term "ritualized sadism"—where inflicting suffering becomes a form of sacred practice that bonds the perpetrator community together.

Everyday Sadism in the Digital Age

Psychological research on "everyday sadism" identifies individuals who derive intrinsic pleasure from others' suffering as a measurable personality trait present in approximately 6% of the general population²⁴. However, social and technological conditions can dramatically amplify the expression of these tendencies. The Gaza genocide exhibits markers of what researchers term "institutionalized everyday sadism"—where systems reward rather than constrain sadistic impulses.

While Nazi Germany's sadistic acts by camp guards and doctors—Mengele's twin experiments, Gestapo torture—served instrumental goals and remained confined to specialized units²⁵, Israeli soldiers openly derive "bombing-glee," celebrate child shootings as sport, and livestream torture for social validation²⁶. Soldiers derive visible pleasure from "game-like" shootings of Palestinian children, with systematic targeting of genitals, heads, and necks reported by international medical teams as occurring "for fun"²⁷. This represents a qualitative escalation beyond Nazi sadism, which was largely instrumental (serving broader extermination goals) rather than intrinsically pleasurable. Contemporary digital culture, with its emphasis on viral content and shock value, creates unprecedented incentives for sadistic performance.

Desensitization Through Normalized Occupation

Seven decades of military occupation have created what psychologists term "graduated exposure" to violence—a systematic desensitization process that transforms initially shocking brutality into routine behavior²⁸. Unlike German civilians who were largely unaware of camp horrors until liberation²⁹, multiple generations of Israelis have been raised viewing Palestinian suffering as background noise to normal life, creating psychological habituation that enables extreme escalation during periods of intensified violence.

Repeated images of destroyed neighborhoods, bombed aid convoys, and checkpoint atrocities have habituated the public, reducing empathy and fostering acceptance of extreme violence as routine policy. Research on violence desensitization demonstrates that repeated exposure to atrocity imagery creates measurable changes in neural response patterns, reducing empathy while increasing tolerance for extreme violence³⁰. When combined with in-group celebration of violence, this desensitization can transform into active sadistic pleasure-seeking.

Localized Holocaust Sadism: Significant but Secondary

In terms of sadism centrality, the Holocaust registers as Significant—driven by hatred and bureaucratic aversion, its genocidal machinery relied chiefly on industrial killing via gas chambers, rail deportations, and Einsatzgruppen shootings, with localized sadistic adjuncts (e.g., Ustase throat-slitting contests, Auschwitz floggings, medical experiments) that amplified terror but were not essential to extermination.

In Gaza, by contrast, sadism is Major: psychological gratification and public pleasure-seeking cruelty operate as a co-primary instrument alongside mass bombardment and blockade. State-ordered torture centers deliver electric shocks, sexual violence, and stress positions to satisfy a thirst for cruelty; soldiers livestream “game-like” shootings of children—targeting heads, necks, and genitals—for communal spectacle; starvation is weaponized for public consumption etc. These pleasure-driven atrocities are codified in doctrine, widely celebrated, and uniformly applied, making sadism integral to genocide’s execution rather than a more peripheral adjunct.

Evidence of Public Aversion vs. Pleasure-Seeking Cruelty

Historians agree that while German society during the Holocaust was steeped in antisemitic aversion—fueled by propaganda, discriminatory laws, and pervasive social prejudice—it lacked the widespread public celebration of cruelty characteristic of sadism. Scholars such as Christopher R. Browning have shown that many ordinary Germans harbored hostility toward Jews yet experienced guilt, fear, or indifference rather than deriving pleasure from their suffering. In Ordinary Men, Browning demonstrates that Police Battalion 101 members initially resisted participating in massacres, requiring social and command pressure to overcome reluctance¹. Richard Evans emphasizes that detailed knowledge of camp atrocities remained compartmentalized and that public attitudes ranged from uneasy compliance to silent dissent³². Even Daniel Goldhagen, in making the case for eliminationist ideology, relied on limited sources and acknowledged that feelings of animus did not uniformly translate into competent enjoyment of violence³³.

By contrast, Israeli public opinion in 2024–25 reveals a fusion of hatred and overt pleasure-seeking cruelty: soldiers livestream child shootings as sport, crowds celebrate “gender-reveal” airstrikes, and polls show supermajorities endorsing both expulsion and killing¹⁵¹⁶. This conflation of aversion with public sadistic gratification distinguishes Gaza’s Major sadism centrality from the Holocaust’s Significant level, where cruelty remained bureaucratic and far less celebrated.

Conclusion: The Perfect Storm of Digital Age Atrocity

The Gaza genocide's unprecedented sadism centrality results from the convergence of six mutually reinforcing factors: digital amplification enabling mass sadistic participation, settler colonial psychology providing multigenerational dehumanization, democratic legitimation creating majoritarian support for atrocity, religious-nationalist fusion sanctifying violence as sacred duty, everyday sadism traits being institutionally rewarded, and occupational desensitization creating graduated habituation to extreme violence.

This convergent amplification creates what can only be termed a "perfect storm" for sadistic violence that exceeds even the Holocaust in its systematic celebration and public endorsement of cruelty. While Nazi Germany industrialized killing through bureaucratic efficiency, Israeli society has democratized and celebrated sadistic violence in ways that were technologically and culturally impossible during the 1940s. Gaza's genocide surpasses the Holocaust in sadism centrality because pleasure-seeking cruelty functions as a co-primary instrument alongside mass bombing and starvation, systematically codified, publicly endorsed, and digitally amplified across all operational theaters.

The implications extend far beyond the immediate tragedy unfolding in Gaza. The Israeli case represents a disturbing preview of how democratic societies in the digital age might embrace genocidal policies when the right conditions align. Understanding these dynamics is essential for recognizing and potentially preventing similar transformations in other contexts where settler colonial psychology, digital amplification, and democratic legitimation might converge to create new forms of celebrated atrocity.

The twenty-first century may well be remembered as the era when humanity learned to livestream its own moral collapse—and cheer while doing so.

1. “Genocide in the Digital Age: What Role Do Social Media Companies Play,” Association for Progressive Communications, March 19, 2024, <https://www.apc.org/en/blog/genocide-digital-age-what-role-do-social-media-companies-play>.

2. David Patrikarakos, *War in 140 Characters: How Social Media is Shaping Conflict in the Twenty-First Century* (New York: Basic Books, 2017).

3. The New York Times, “What Israeli Soldiers’ Social Media Videos in Gaza Reveal,” February 6, 2024, <https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/06/world/middleeast/israel-idf-soldiers-war-social-media-video.html>.

4. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Overview of the Holocaust,” <https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/overview-of-the-holocaust>.

5. Doctors Without Borders, “Gaza Death Trap: MSF Report Exposes Israel's Campaign of Total Destruction,” December 18, 2024, <https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/gaza-death-trap-msf-report-exposes-israels-campaign-total-destruction>.

6. Anderson, C. A., et al., “Desensitization to Media Violence: Links With Habitual Media Violence Exposure, Aggressive Cognitions, and Aggressive Behavior,” *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology* 81, no. 6 (2001): 1090–1106, <https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.81.6.1090>.

7. Buckels, E. E., Jones, D. N., & Paulhus, D. L., “Behavioral Confirmation of Everyday Sadism,” *Psychological Science* 24, no. 11 (2013): 2201–2209, <https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797613481735>.

8. B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights—Israel, “Our Genocide,” July 2025, <https://972mag.com/btselem-phri-gaza-genocide/>.

9. *Structural Violence: The Makings of Settler Colonial Impunity* (Oxford University Press, 2024).

10. Lorenzo Veracini, “Settler Collective, Founding Violence and Disavowal: The Settler Colonial Situation,” *Journal of Intercultural Studies* 29, no. 4 (2008): 363–379, <https://doi.org/10.1080/07256860802231472>.

11. “64% of Israelis believe there are ‘no innocents’ in Gaza: Poll,” Anadolu Agency, June 11, 2025, <https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/64-of-israelis-believe-there-are-no-innocents-in-gaza-poll/3594355>.

12. Veracini, “Settler Collective, Founding Violence and Disavowal.”

13. Fanon Institute, “A Fanonian Intervention into the Social Psychology of Violence,” October 29, 2024, <https://pomeps.org/a-fanonian-intervention-into-the-social-psychology-of-violence>.

14. Wikipedia, “Knowledge of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe,” <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge\_of\_the\_Holocaust\_in\_Nazi\_Germany\_and\_German-occupied\_Europe>.

15. Tamir Sorek and Shay Hazkani, “Eliminatory Attitudes Among Jewish Israelis,” Geocartography Knowledge Group, March 2025; *Haaretz*, March 2025.

16. Israel Democracy Institute, “Israeli Public Opinion on Gaza Humanitarian Crisis,” July 2025; The New Arab, August 6, 2025, <https://www.newarab.com/news/poll-nearly-80-israeli-jews-unmoved-starvation-gaza>.

17. Hebrew University of Jerusalem, aChord Center for Economic Social Research, “Survey on Media Coverage and Public Attitudes During the Gaza War,” May 2025.

18. Carey, J. M., et al., “Elite Rhetoric Can Undermine Democratic Norms,” *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences* 118, no. 23 (2021): e2026577118, <https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2026577118>.

19. Severs, E., & Mattelaer, A., “A Crisis of Democratic Legitimacy? It's About Legitimation, Stupid!,” *Egmont Institute Policy Brief* No. 21, March 2014, <https://www.egmontinstitute.be/app/uploads/2014/03/EPB21-def.pdf>.

20. Mark Juergensmeyer, *Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence* (University of California Press, 2017).

21. Yad Vashem, “The Jasenovac Memorial,” <https://www.yadvashem.org/>.

22. Documentation from Israeli media and social media analysis, 2023–2025.

23. Randall Collins, *Violence: A Micro-sociological Theory* (Princeton University Press, 2008).

24. Buckels, Jones, & Paulhus, “Behavioral Confirmation of Everyday Sadism.”

25. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Medical Experiments at Auschwitz,” <https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/medical-experiments>.

26. Carnagey, N. L., Anderson, C. A., & Bushman, B. J., “The Effect of Video Game Violence on Physiological Desensitization to Real-life Violence,” *Journal of Experimental Social Psychology* 43, no. 3 (2007): 489–496, <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2006.05.003>.

27. Funk, J. B., et al., “Emotional Desensitization to Violence Contributes to Adolescents’ Violent Behavior,” *Journal of Adolescence* 27, no. 1 (2004): 23–39, <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2004.03.003>.

28. Cornell Roper Center, “Public Understanding of the Holocaust, From WWII to Today,” 2015.

29. Britannica, “Aktion Reinhard,” <https://www.britannica.com/event/Aktion-Reinhard>.

30. Christopher R. Browning, *Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland* (New York: HarperCollins, 1992).

31. Richard J. Evans, *The Third Reich in Power* (New York: Penguin Press, 2005).

32. Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, *Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust* (New York: Knopf, 1996).