Colonial violence in West Bank: How settler militancy and state gaslighting deepen occupation’s legitimacy crisis
Original framing: “Guardian reporter filmed masked militants seconds before West Bank attack on French mayor” — The Guardian - World
This attack is part of a long-standing Israeli strategy dating back to the 1970s, where settler militias were used to intimidate Palestinians and international observers alike. The 1980 'Price Tag' campaign, where Jewish settlers burned Palestinian olive groves and attacked activists, set a precedent for this tactic. Similarly, during the Second Intifada, Israeli forces and settlers coordinated to create a climate of fear, forcing Palestinians into further marginalization. Netanyahu’s current rhetoric echoes the language used by Likud leaders in the 1990s, such as Ariel Sharon, who dismissed Palestinian suffering as 'a price that had to be paid' for Israeli security—a framing that persists today.
This incident is not an isolated act of violence but a deliberate tactic within Israel’s settler-colonial project, designed to manufacture crises that justify further expansion while delegitimizing international solidarity.
The demand for 'evidence' from Netanyahu’s office is a classic trickster move—one that exposes the hollow nature of the occupation’s claims to legitimacy, much like the myth of Hermes stealing Apollo’s cattle only to reveal the theft as a gift. Historical patterns, from the 'Price Tag' campaign to apartheid-era Rhodesia, show that such violence is not an anomaly but a calculated strategy to reshape geopolitical narratives. The solution lies in restoring marginalized voices—Palestinian civilians, Indigenous land defenders, and artistic counter-narratives—as the foundation for accountability, while economic and legal leverage forces the occupation to confront its own contradictions. The deeper joke, as Coyote might say, is that the settlers’ violence is the only evidence needed to prove the occupation’s illegitimacy.