People want to just explain this all away so that they don't have to face it. In recent days I have, to my great surprise and disappointment, found among people close to me examples of a kind of inverted "Holocaust denialism", where people stubbornly refuse to accept what Israel does to Palestinians and claim that even normal images in media would be faked, that claims of Israeli brutality are exaggerated, that victims must be guilty of something too and that truth is at least gray if not in the colours of the Israeli flag.

Somehow people who consider Holocaust denialism terrible - and justly so - quickly fall to exactly the same mindset and similar conspiracy theories when facing something that they don't want to accept. So that the fact of torture of children will be explained away because people put their cherished beliefs (or attitudes that "justify" inaction) before the actual lives of human beings .

The same kind of mental defenses are probably the oil that lubricates the wheels of oppression and violence everywhere. Instead of having to the face the oppressor (and the reality of their actions) people sub-consciously seek reasons not to do so and end up attacking the victim.