Colonial—And Counter-colonial: The Israel/Gaza War through Multiple Critical Perspectives

Abstract The current Israel–Hamas war is one horrific outcome of a century-long Zionist settler colonial project, which continues to violently shape the political geography of Israel/Palestine. Yet a valid account of the war must identify several other structural forces—most conspicuously national, religious, and geopolitical. Such forces interact, intersect, and at times clash with colonial logic. Further, to complete the colonial perspective, scholars must incorporate and illuminate the Palestinian and Islamic “counter-colonial” visions, rarely discussed in critical accounts. Such visions, and their political and terrorist mobilization, radically differ from the horizon commonly taken for granted by most indigenous and progressive narrrations. Hence a distinction should be made between “counter-colonial” and “decolonial” mobilizations. The current war is an expression of the clash between (deeply asymmetric) Israeli and Palestinian colonial and counter-colonial forces.