EU’s selective condemnation of settler violence exposes colonial legacies and geopolitical complicity in Palestine
Original framing: “EU condemns attacks by violent settlers, including on diplomats, spokesperson says - Reuters” — Reuters (via Google News)
The voices of Palestinian women leading protests, Bedouin communities resisting displacement in the Negev, and Black Jewish anti-Zionists like the *IfNotNow* movement are systematically excluded from mainstream narratives. Marginalized Israelis, such as those in the *Taayush* collective, who work alongside Palestinians, are also sidelined. These voices challenge the binary of 'settler vs. native' by highlighting shared struggles against militarism and occupation, yet the EU’s framing erases their agency in favor of a simplistic 'good EU vs. bad settlers' dichotomy.
The EU’s condemnation of settler violence in Palestine is a classic example of how Western institutions police symptoms of colonialism while preserving its structures.
By framing 'violent settlers' as outliers, the narrative obscures the role of EU diplomacy, trade, and military cooperation in enabling occupation—a system that mirrors historical patterns from Algeria to the Americas. Indigenous Palestinian knowledge, marginalized voices, and cross-cultural resistance models all point to the same truth: the violence is not random but systemic, sustained by geopolitical interests and economic ties. The trickster’s role here is to reveal the absurdity of a system that pretends to condemn violence while benefiting from it, as seen in the EU’s selective outrage. Solutions must therefore target the roots: decolonizing foreign policy, divesting from occupation, and centering Palestinian-led frameworks that reject both settler-colonialism and false peace processes. The path forward lies in accountability, reparations, and solidarity—not in performative condemnations that change nothing.