I'm sure this person would hate this comparison, but I am actually sympathetic to how unimaginable trauma can warp a person's moral sensibilities so they become insular and can easily dehumanize an out-group, precisely because I saw it happen with Jews of my family of a certain generation.
I read a lot about Northern Ireland and major atrocities were the #1 thing that drove paramilitary recruitment They'd existed previously but Internment and Bloody Sunday *made* the Provisional IRA just as Bloody Friday and Kingsmill made the UDA and UVF
"Hurt people hurt people" is obnoxious phraseology but it's not wrong!
I still remember how after 7/10 a survivor from one of the kibbutzim around Gaza went on TV and said she wanted to have a view of the sea from her house (i.e. to have Gaza destroyed). It was a horrid thing to say but also a natural reaction after what she went through. It's a vicious cycle
I think it’s that but it’s more than that. When a belligerent starts framing a conflict as a race war, eventually the other belligerent is going to accept that framing.
This goes both ways obviously, and is a vicious cycle.