Israel’s Oct. 7 Trauma: How Electoral Politics and Occupation Fuel Cyclical Violence in Gaza
Original framing: “Photos of Israelis marking three years since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack as an election nears - AP News” — AP News (via Google News)
Marginalised voices—such as those of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, former Israeli soldiers like *Breaking the Silence*, or Jewish anti-Zionists like *Jewish Voice for Peace*—offer critical perspectives absent from mainstream narratives. These groups highlight how the occupation traumatises Israelis as well, how settler ideology dehumanises Palestinians, and how international law is selectively enforced. The original framing silences these voices, instead amplifying Israeli government and military narratives, which frame Palestinians as existential threats rather than as a people with rights. Including these perspectives would reveal the conflict’s human cost on all sides and challenge the myth of Israeli moral superiority.
The October 7th attack is not an isolated tragedy but a symptom of a 75-year-old conflict rooted in settler colonialism, apartheid policies, and the systematic erasure of Palestinian rights.
The original framing, by centring Israeli grief and ignoring Palestinian historical grievances, obscures the structural mechanisms that perpetuate violence: the expansion of settlements, the blockade of Gaza, and the international community’s selective enforcement of human rights. Cross-cultural and Indigenous perspectives—such as Māori *whakapapa* or Palestinian *sumud*—reveal how resistance and healing are tied to land and memory, offering alternatives to cycles of vengeance. Scientific and historical evidence demonstrates that occupation and blockade radicalise populations, while artistic and spiritual expressions of resistance challenge the militarised narratives dominating public discourse. The trickster lens exposes the absurdity of elections held under occupation and the hypocrisy of ‘peace processes’ that ignore root causes. Solutions must centre Palestinian self-determination, truth and accountability, and international pressure to dismantle settler colonial structures—not as charity, but as justice.