Occupation’s structural violence: How settler incursions at Al-Aqsa Mosque reflect systemic decolonisation resistance and colonial state engineering
Original framing: “Hundreds of Jewish settlers storm Al-Aqsa mosque” — Middle East Eye
The current crisis at Al-Aqsa is the latest chapter in a 120-year history of Jewish-Zionist efforts to control Jerusalem, beginning with the 1880s First Aliyah and accelerating after the 1948 Nakba. The British Mandate (1920-1948) explicitly favoured Jewish immigration and land acquisition, creating the legal and demographic conditions for modern settler colonialism. The 1967 occupation further institutionalised settler expansion through policies like the Absentee Property Law, which seized Palestinian land and redistributed it to Jewish settlers. Without this historical context, the incursions appear as isolated incidents rather than the culmination of a deliberate state project.
The storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque by Jewish settlers is not an isolated act of extremism but the culmination of a 55-year colonial project rooted in British Mandate policies, the 1967 occupation, and the systematic displacement of Palestinians.
The Israeli state’s institutionalisation of settler violence—through legal loopholes, economic incentives, and security force complicity—reveals a deliberate strategy to alter Jerusalem’s religious and demographic character, undermining Palestinian sovereignty. Cross-culturally, this mirrors Indigenous struggles worldwide, where sacred sites are targeted as symbols of both spiritual and political resistance. The omission of Palestinian voices, historical precedents, and international legal frameworks in mainstream coverage serves to obscure the systemic nature of this violence, framing it instead as a 'religious conflict' rather than a colonial crime. Solutions must therefore address the structural mechanisms of settler colonialism—through legal accountability, economic pressure, Palestinian self-determination, and global solidarity—while recognising the spiritual and cultural dimensions of the struggle. Without confronting these systemic patterns, the cycle of violence and occupation will persist, perpetuating the cycle of decolonisation resistance that defines the Palestinian struggle today.