With the Israeli and Palestine conflict, dehumanisation has reached a critical boiling point: images and videos of the Palestinian women and children victims became “inconsequential” : “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,” declared Israel in an attempt to justify the unjustifiable: cutting off water, electricity, fuel and food to the population of the Gaza Strip after the massacre of Israeli civilians at the hands of the group Hamas.

The phrase exemplifies what several columnists around the world have defined as the “dehumanization” of those who are ethnically or racially different, leading to the genocides that have occurred throughout history. By treating the other as an “animal,” extermination seems justified. Under this view, it is enough to promote dehumanization to authorize killing. but did it all started here ? For some, this seems a new strategy to dehumanise the other, however, it has been used against Arabs more than a century ago, through orientalist representations, movies and mixed media.