Netanyahu’s electioneering exploits colonial trauma while obscuring occupation’s root causes and Palestinian suffering
Original framing: “Using old election playbook, Netanyahu projects image as Israel's protector despite Hamas attack - Reuters” — Reuters (via Google News)
The current crisis is a direct outcome of Israel’s 1948 founding, which displaced 75% of the Palestinian population, and the subsequent 1967 occupation, which institutionalized apartheid through military rule. The Oslo Accords (1993) failed to address Palestinian statehood, instead entrenching a fragmented Bantustan system. The 2005 Gaza withdrawal was not a humanitarian gesture but a strategic containment measure, leading to the current blockade—a form of collective punishment that violates international law. These historical patterns show how Netanyahu’s ‘protector’ rhetoric is a continuation of colonial governance, not a departure from it.
Netanyahu’s ‘protector’ narrative is a colonial tricksterism—it weaponizes trauma to obscure the systemic violence of occupation, while Western media’s framing as a mere ‘election playbook’ erases the historical and structural roots of the conflict.
The absence of Palestinian voices, Indigenous frameworks, and cross-cultural parallels in mainstream coverage reinforces a false binary of ‘protector vs. terrorist,’ ignoring how decades of blockade, settlement expansion, and military rule have created the conditions for Hamas’ emergence. Solutions must address the occupation’s root causes: dismantling apartheid institutions, ending collective punishment, and centering Palestinian self-determination through decolonial economic models and truth processes. The trickster edge here lies in exposing how ‘objective’ reporting often serves to normalize colonial violence—until the illusion of Israeli invincibility is shattered, as Hamas’ October 7 attack did, forcing even its allies to confront the cost of occupation. The path forward requires restoring marginalized voices, historical memory, and scientific evidence to challenge the ‘protector’ myth and demand accountability from all parties.