The gratuitous trade in images of Palestinian pain

It is getting to the point where I am dreading going online. For I know the minute I open my laptop I will be exposed to the grimmest images of human suffering. The internet is awash with dead Palestinians. Their broken bodies clog up social media. Their ashen remains get thousands of shares. ‘Look at this’, cry the death-sharers, as they post another photo of something that was once a human being.

The grisly trade in images of Palestinian pain is starting to feel more exploitative than insightful. It is less about raising awareness than about stoking a gut feeling. Its impact is visceral, not political. It is a pornography of death, where the role of the wretched Palestinian is to validate and flatter the heightened emotions of the laptop classes. It needs to stop. I know what people will say: it’s important to raise awareness about the hellishness of war.