This article examines the ongoing genocide in Gaza as a culmination of long-standing Zionist settler-colonial practices, arguing that the apparent internal divisions within Israeli society obscure a deeper structural unity. It contends that these dynamics are better understood as generative tensions within a unified colonial project. Drawing on genocide studies, settler-colonial theory and political developments since October 2023, the article shows that liberal and illiberal Zionists have acted in concert to execute and justify mass violence against Palestinians. The liberal camp’s discourse of ‘permanent security’, rooted in assumptions of Palestinian collective guilt, pre-emptive violence and existential paranoia, has played a crucial role in legitimising genocide both domestically and internationally. Far from opposing the genocide in Gaza, liberal Zionists have supported it and participated in its execution – both ideologically and practically, many taking an active role in its execution as reservists. This collaboration between the different wings of the Zionist movement is not new, and historically, liberal Zionists led campaigns of dispossession and mass killing, notably in 1948 and 1967. The article argues that the internal conflict within Israeli society is not over the ethics of domination, but over its methods and the need to legitimise it internationally. Accordingly, conflicts between liberal and illiberal Zionism are generative and act as a mechanism for settler-colonial endurance and expansion. By foregrounding the co-constitutive nature of liberal and illiberal genocidal practices, this piece offers a critical framework for understanding the present moment and the longue durée of Zionist violence.
Weizman et al. (Tue,) studied this question.