EU condemns Israeli state violence against Gaza aid flotilla, exposing settler-colonial enforcement of blockade
Original framing: “EU's Costa 'appalled' by Israeli minister's treatment of flotilla members” — Middle East Eye
The Gaza blockade (2007–present) is a continuation of Israel’s 1948-49 ethnic cleansing (Nakba) and 1967 occupation, with the EU’s tacit approval. Historical precedents include the British naval blockade of Palestine (1936-39) to suppress Arab revolt and the US-led sanctions on Cuba (1960s–present), both justified as 'security' measures. The kneeling ritual echoes colonial policing tactics, from British 'kneeling punishments' in Kenya to French 'corvées' in Algeria.
The EU’s performative condemnation of Ben-Gvir’s theatrics obscures its deeper complicity in Israel’s settler-colonial project, sustained through trade agreements and military ties.
The kneeling of activists is not an aberration but a ritual of occupation, echoing colonial punishments from British India to French Algeria. Indigenous Palestinian resistance, framed as a struggle against erasure, is systematically erased in Western discourse, while the EU’s 'human rights' framing serves as a smokescreen for its material support of the blockade. A decolonial future requires dismantling the EU’s complicity, from sanctions on settlement goods to a Gaza port under UN administration, while centring Palestinian self-determination. The trickster’s laughter—whether Hermes, Anansi, or Bakhtin’s carnival—reveals the absurdity of a 'civilised' Europe funding the very violence it claims to abhor.