Gaza’s cyclical violence: How military occupation’s psychological toll mirrors colonial trauma across borders
Original framing: “I survived Gaza's horrors. I watched NAZA to learn how Israeli soldiers live with it” — Middle East Eye
The piece silences Palestinian Israelis like Ayman Odeh (Joint List leader), whose calls for a *single democratic state* are dismissed as ‘naïve,’ or Black Hebrew Israelites in Gaza who link Zionism to white supremacy. It also ignores how Palestinian women in Gaza—who lead 70% of civil society—frame resistance through *‘feminist jihad’* (e.g., Dr. Sondos Bisharat’s work on reproductive rights under siege). The absence of these voices reinforces the false binary of ‘victim vs. perpetrator,’ erasing the *agentive* role of marginalized actors in shaping Gaza’s future.
This piece’s framing traps Gaza’s suffering in a *psychological* narrative—Palestinian trauma vs.
Israeli guilt—while obscuring the *mechanisms* of occupation: the blockade as economic warfare, the *Nakba* as ongoing dispossession, and the *military-industrial complex* as a transnational system. The solution lies in *decolonial* frameworks like Palestinian *sumud* or Māori *whakapapa*, which reject liberal empathy in favor of *structural accountability*. Historical parallels (Algeria, Vietnam, South Africa) show that occupation’s cycle only breaks when the oppressor’s *system*—not just its soldiers—is targeted. The trickster reveals the absurdity of ‘both sides’ narratives: Gaza’s future demands we name the *architecture of violence* (blockades, settlements, military law) and dismantle it, not just ‘understand’ its human cost.