Marwan Bishara: This projection of male domination into collective violence and hatred through terrible physical abuse is widespread in the United States and Israel. In the latter, 61 percent believe that forced sex on an acquaintance is permissible. Indeed, Chris Hedges, in his two recent contributions: War is a Force That Gives us Meaning and Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle, attempts to understand why support for war is so pervasive and how for men, war and pornography are intertwined. “Porn has always primarily involved the eroticisation of unlimited male power, but today it also involves the expression of male power through the physical abuse, even torture, of women. Porn reflects the endemic cruelty of our society. This is a society that does not blink when the industrial slaughter unleashed by the United States and its allies kills hundreds of civilians in Gaza or hundreds of thousands of innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan.” As the Canadian writer, Naomi Klein noted two decades ago: “So long as Israel continues to usurp Palestine, it will be a country with racism and misogyny at the core of its being. Until this brutality ends, Israel is a country with blood on its hands and on its profile. […] Women’s concerns about rape and brutality are considered trivial when men are busy worrying about death and war. But, in Israel, the feminist and the peace movements are closely connected.” More here.