Settler violence in the occupied West Bank is unacceptable, the EU and the UK stated yesterday. “Impunity for such acts risks provoking further violence,” an EU spokesperson stated, while referencing the killings of six Palestinians since 28th February by “extremist Israeli settlers.”
Germany’s spokesman for Berlin’s Foreign Office called the killings “incidents”, adding, “The fact that five Palestinians were killed in just one week is indeed a sad climax.” It is a continuation, not a single escalation, of state and settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
In just over two years since 7th October 2023, Israeli settlers killed 1,121 Palestinians. Another 11,700 were injured by settlers and Israeli forces; the latter also arresting almost 22,000 Palestinians. The Israeli non-governmental organisation B’Tselem noted that settler militias are expanding their attacks against Palestinian communities in Area B of the occupied West Bank.
The diplomatic statements speak of increasing impunity while creating impunity through the statements themselves. There is no risk for further violence, at least not in the novel way the EU-UK statement implies. Israeli state and settler violence are rooted in colonialism – the violence is entrenched, widespread and ongoing. While extremist Israeli settlers, along with the Israeli military, are perpetrating attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, the entire structure of Israel’s colonial enterprise constitutes a web of violence against the colonised Palestinian population.
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Colonial presence is violent. Colonial presence, even if not labelled extremist, participated in Palestinian dispossession.
The focus on Israeli extremist settlers killing Palestinians ignores the basic fact that dispossession renders Palestinians more vulnerable to attacks and murders by Israeli settlers and the military. Western leaders will not speak about Zionist colonisation and the trail of killings since prior to Israel’s establishment, which were the precursors to the 1948 Nakba and the ongoing colonial violence to date. Addressing colonial presence in Palestine would mean addressing an entire oppressive system in which each element contributes to the visible killing of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. It is easier to issue a statement targeting the more visible, but also well-protected segment of Israel’s settler-colonial society, to portray the perpetrators as acting of their own accord, rather than performing an integral action required by Israel to maintain its colonial structure on colonised Palestine.
By not addressing Israeli colonialism and the violence it engages on a daily basis against Palestinians, impunity is guaranteed. It is not just the acts that are rewarded with impunity; the cycle of impunity goes back to Israel, which in turn was established with the international community’s complicity. What sustained Israel to the present day? Ongoing acts of violence against the Palestinian people. What did the international community do to manage Israel’s impunity? Break down the entire cycle of colonial violence into manageable, distinct violations. Israeli settlers uproot olive trees. Israeli extremist settlers kill Palestinians. But the foundations of all of Israel’s variants of violence is never addressed. Was Israel not created by extremists who espoused a colonial ideology based upon forced transfer? What are the current settler “extremists” in Israel doing today, if not following in their predecessors’ footsteps?
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