Description
This paper employs a critical realist framework to contextualize the 2023 Gaza War as a continuation of the colonial violence confronting the Palestinians since the beginning of the Zionist migration to Palestine. Such continuities are highlighted by employing Frantz Fanon's critique of decolonial processes and of the expectation of non-violence from the indigenous population. The ongoing policies of reducing, eliminating or displacing the Palestinian identities, bodies and narratives since 1948 inform the concept of an ongoing Nakba, an enduring form of ethnic cleansing which renders the 7th October Hamas attack unsurprising. The settler-colonial framework serves as the theoretical anchor, guiding this exploration of power dynamics, historical narratives, and the perpetuation of structural inequalities.
Drawing from digital ethnography of the 2023 war on Gaza and eight years of fieldwork in Israel/Palestine, the paper examines the intersections of historical narratives, power structures, and the reproduction of violence. By integrating Fanon's perspectives on the psychological impact of colonialism, the analysis seeks to uncover the underlying mechanisms that sustain and reproduce violence in the region. By scrutinizing the histories foundational to our discipline and non-dominant discourses in our scholarship, this paper aims to contribute to the ongoing debate on whose inter-national conflicts and historiografies we are cultivating and how we can illuminate marginal discourses to understand global crises.
