As a classic settler-colonial state, Israel is doing the only thing it knows how to do, writes Jonathan Cook. So long as the West keeps cheerleading, that includes genocide.
Palestinians inspect the ruins of Aklouk Tower destroyed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City on Oct. 8. (Naaman Omar, Palestinian News & Information Agency, or Wafa, for APAimages, CC BY-SA 3.0)
By Jonathan Cook
Jonathan-Cook.net
It shocks me that in my threads I keep coming across variations of the following tweet:
“The Palestinians have it within them to rise up against Hamas to free themselves. Or Hamas can willingly surrender. Two real choices there.”
This view isn’t just being promoted in bad faith by Israeli apologists. It seems to resonate with ordinary people who presumably know very little about the histories either of Palestine or of settler colonial movements such as the Zionist movement that founded Israel.
So let’s delve briefly into both.
First, settler colonial movements are distinguished from standard colonialism — like British rule in India — by the fact that the settler population wishes not just to steal the native population’s resources but to replace the native population itself.
There are lots of examples of this: European settlers dispossessed native peoples in what we today call the United States,