The events of 2023 have once again forced the world to confront the depth of Palestinian suffering and the ongoing structures of settler colonialism in Israel-Palestine. For more than a century, Palestinians have endured dispossession, violence, and the denial of their right to exist as a people on their own land. The recent intensification of military assaults in Gaza and the West Bank exposes not only the scale of state violence but also the broader global order that sustains it.
The Israeli state’s actions—sieges, bombardments, forced displacement, and the destruction of civilian infrastructure—are not anomalies but continuations of a colonial project rooted in the Nakba of 1948. At that time, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from their homes through a combination of military force, psychological warfare, and systemic dispossession. The current calls from Israeli officials for a “second Nakba” illustrate how history is not merely remembered but actively repeated.
Dehumanization and the Politics of Death
What makes the present moment particularly stark is the explicitness of the language used by Israeli officials. References to Palestinians as “human animals” or the denial of the existence of “innocent civilians” in Gaza serve to strip away the possibility of moral outrage at mass killings. Such rhetoric exemplifies what scholars of genocide have long noted: before violence on this scale becomes normalized, it is preceded by systematic dehumanization.
The logic underpinning this violence reflects a politics of death, where the occupier maintains control not by offering life but by threatening destruction. The Palestinian body becomes the site of sovereignty, controlled through curfews, checkpoints, administrative detention, and indiscriminate bombing. The intention is not simply to manage a population but to remind it, constantly, that its survival is precarious and contingent on colonial domination.
Europe, the United States, and the Global Order
This violence cannot be understood in isolation. The role of the United States and European powers is central, both in material support and ideological justification. Billions of dollars in military aid, diplomatic shielding at the United Nations, and the systematic reproduction of Israeli propaganda in mainstream media create an environment in which Palestinian lives are consistently devalued.
European leaders, in particular, face a deep contradiction: while professing commitment to human rights and international law, they continue to support an apartheid system. In some countries, even the act of protesting in solidarity with Palestine is criminalized or violently suppressed. The banning of pro-Palestinian demonstrations in France, the policing of rallies in Germany, and the attempts in the UK to delegitimize the Palestinian flag all illustrate how solidarity itself is surveilled and punished.
These repressive measures reveal the entanglement of European states in a colonial order. Supporting Israel becomes not only a matter of geopolitics but also a reaffirmation of Europe’s own colonial legacies. Zionism, after all, drew heavily from European imperial ideologies, and today’s solidarity between Western powers and Israel can be read as an extension of euro-colonial dominance in the global South.
Resistance as Existence
For Palestinians, resistance cannot be reduced to a matter of legal codes or the sanction of international law. It is not simply a right but an existential necessity. As Palestinian scholars and activists have long argued, the struggle for liberation is inseparable from the struggle to maintain dignity, identity, and the possibility of a future.
To frame resistance solely as reactionary violence misses its broader dimensions: cultural survival, community solidarity, and the refusal to disappear. From youth movements to academic unions, Palestinians have articulated their struggle not only as a demand for sovereignty but also as a vision of life beyond colonial violence.
Global Movements and the Burden of Solidarity
Across the world, hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets in recent months to protest against the bombardments in Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank. These demonstrations represent more than symbolic acts; they are part of a transnational movement that connects struggles against racism, imperialism, and colonialism.
It is particularly significant that Jewish anti-Zionist groups, both in Israel and abroad, have also spoken out against the conflation of Palestinian liberation with antisemitism. This challenges the political instrumentalization of Jewish suffering, particularly the Holocaust, to justify the ongoing dispossession of Palestinians. Such solidarities underscore that the demand for Palestinian liberation is not opposed to Jewish safety but integral to a broader struggle for justice.
The Role of Academia
Universities play a critical role in either sustaining or challenging these dynamics. Institutions across Europe, including Finland, maintain ties with Israeli universities and corporations that profit from occupation and militarization. By doing so, they risk complicity in systems of apartheid and displacement. Calls from student and faculty groups to boycott, divest, and cut ties reflect an urgent recognition that neutrality in the face of colonial violence is itself a form of endorsement.
Finnish academia, like others in Europe, must ask whether its international partnerships uphold principles of justice or perpetuate structural violence. Silence in this context is not apolitical—it is an active positioning on the side of domination.
Toward a Future of Liberation
The unfolding events in Gaza are a reminder that colonial violence persists not only through military force but also through global indifference and selective mourning. To grieve Israeli deaths while ignoring the destruction of entire Palestinian communities is to accept a racial hierarchy of human worth. Breaking from this requires more than sympathy; it demands political commitment.
The future of Palestine, like the future of all societies entangled in histories of colonialism, depends on the recognition that liberation struggles are interconnected. To stand with Palestinians is not simply to take a position on one conflict but to align oneself with a broader movement against systems of dispossession, racial supremacy, and empire.
The pressing question now is whether international communities—political leaders, institutions, and individuals—are willing to translate solidarity into concrete action. Will universities sever ties that entrench occupation? Will governments confront their complicity in war crimes? Or will the global order continue to reproduce colonial hierarchies while declaring its fidelity to human rights?
The answer to these questions will determine whether the 21st century is remembered as a time when the world allowed another Nakba to unfold, or as the moment when global solidarity turned rhetoric into resistance and resistance into liberation.
