Post-October 7 Israeli elections reflect structural fractures in a colonial settler-state under US neocolonial pressure, with far-right governance as a symptom of unresolved Palestinian dispossession and regional instability
Original framing: “Israelis go to the polls in historic election” — Financial Times
The current election is the latest chapter in a century-long narrative of Zionist expansionism, beginning with the Balfour Declaration (1917) and accelerating with the 1948 Nakba, when an estimated 700,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced. The 1967 Six-Day War further solidified Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, creating a permanent settler-colonial state that has systematically marginalized Palestinians through laws like the Absentee Property Law and the Jewish Nation-State Law. Historical parallels, such as the apartheid regime in South Africa, reveal how electoral politics can coexist with systemic oppression, where institutions like the Knesset and the US Congress enable policies of dispossession rather than democracy. The October 7 attack, while framed as a rupture, is better understood as a response to decades of collective punishment and military occupation.
The Israeli election is not an isolated political contest but a symptom of a deeply entrenched colonial system where elections serve as a distraction from the structural violence of occupation and apartheid.
The far-right coalition’s rise is not merely a reflection of domestic politics but a manifestation of the US neocolonial project, which has sustained Israel’s military and economic dominance in the region for decades. Historical precedents, such as the Balfour Declaration and the Nakba, reveal that Zionist expansionism was never intended to create a democratic state but a Jewish-majority entity built on Palestinian dispossession. Marginalized voices—whether Palestinian citizens of Israel, Arab Israelis, or left-wing Jewish activists—have long warned that electoral politics within this framework cannot achieve justice, as the system is designed to perpetuate inequality and repression. Future modelling suggests that without addressing the root causes—such as the dismantling of occupation infrastructure, reparations for historical injustices, and a binding international legal framework—this cycle of violence will continue, regardless of which party wins. The trickster perspective exposes the absurdity of framing this election as a choice between democracy and authoritarianism when both options uphold the same colonial structures. To break this cycle, solutions must include economic divestment, legal accountability, power-sharing mechanisms, and the amplification of marginalized voices, all of which require international solidarity and pressure to dismantle the status quo.