Bad actors are counting on us to tear each other apart—to fall for the narcissism of small differences, to turn on our allies instead of our oppressors.
For decades, generals, coup-plotters, and torturers walked free under the shield of amnesty laws passed after the country’s 21-year dictatorship.
—
Julia Vargas Jones,
CNN Money,
12 Sep. 2025
Each regime, from the Pahlavi dynasty to the Islamic Republic, claimed to uphold human rights and castigated its predecessors as torturers, only to ratchet up the incarceration of political opponents.
That is a nasty process which involves digging up Ambar’s still-fresh corpse, then subjecting it to various grisly indignities night after night as retribution gets visited upon our heroine’s persecutors.
—
Dennis Harvey,
Variety,
6 Aug. 2025
Using it to describe this week’s attack on Huwara – or other similar attacks in Israel or Palestine – effectively puts Israel in the place of the Jews’ historic persecutors.
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