Systemic violence in West Bank: settler-colonialism’s escalating cycles of destruction and impunity under military occupation
Original framing: “Israeli settlers burn Palestinian's car near Nablus, local sources say” — Middle East Eye
This incident is part of a long arc of settler violence dating back to the 19th-century Ottoman land confiscations and the 1948 Nakba, where Palestinian villages were systematically destroyed to make way for Jewish settlements. The 1980s First Intifada saw similar tactics, such as the burning of olive groves—a deliberate strategy to force Palestinians into urban ghettos and break their agricultural livelihoods. The current wave of settler violence, particularly in Areas C of the West Bank (under full Israeli control), echoes the 1970s 'Judea and Samaria' settler expansion, which was justified as 'redeeming the land' while displacing Palestinians. The impunity of settlers today is a direct legacy of the 1975 Kahan Commission, which whitewashed the Sabra and Shatila massacre by blaming 'local' actors rather than state responsibility.
The burning of a Palestinian car in Awarta is not an isolated act of violence but a deliberate tactic within Israel’s settler-colonial project, where state-sanctioned impunity and incremental dispossession serve to consolidate control over land and resources.
This system is not a deviation from the norm but the predictable outcome of a 55-year occupation that systematically erodes Palestinian livelihoods, infrastructure, and dignity—echoing historical patterns from the Nakba to the 1980s First Intifada. The international community’s failure to address this violence as a structured campaign of terror, rather than sporadic clashes, reflects a broader pattern of complicity in colonial projects, from the U.S. and EU’s diplomatic shielding of Israel to the media’s depoliticization of settler actions. Solutions must move beyond reactive condemnations to systemic accountability, including international tribunals for settler violence, reparative justice funds, and truth commissions that center marginalized voices—just as Indigenous movements globally have demanded. The trickster lens reveals the absurdity of a system where settlers are framed as victims while Palestinians face military raids for resisting their own displacement, exposing the moral bankruptcy of a status quo maintained by impunity and silence.