There is a word that describes what is unfolding across screens in the Middle East at night: Schadenfreude. The feeling of immense, indescribable pleasure to see your enemy suffer pain, destruction, and death.

When Iranian missiles arc across the skies over Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Eilat—trails of fire cutting through the dark, Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, a great swath of people across the globe, do not watch in fear or terror, but in thrilling exultation. Phones glow in living rooms from Beirut to Baghdad, from Amman to distant corners of the Muslim world. Bloggers, popcorn in hand, narrate the spectacle in real time and colorful language, their voices rising, urging viewers to celebrate, to chant, to scream with joy as every missile strikes Tel Aviv, turning destruction into a kind of communal ritual.

They are not watching the war. They are watching retribution. This is what decades of brutality and misery do. This is what Gaza has done.

They are not watching the war. They are watching retribution. This is what decades of brutality and misery do. This is what Gaza has done.

For years, images of flattened neighbourhoods, of broken children pulled from rubble, of entire families erased in seconds, have circulated with shocking regularity. The destruction became routine. The outrage dulled our senses. The language of “precision” and “self-defence” drained the incomparable horror of its meaning. What remained was a ledger of suffering—one-sided, unrelenting, unanswered.

For a brief moment, it seems........

© Middle East Monitor