The Settler Colonial Mindset is an Affliction of the Western Psyche
The unwavering support for Israel's brutal atrocities in Gaza exposes how deep-rooted the settler colonial mentality remains anchored in Western cultures.
By Karim Bettache
As the West proffers its unyielding support for Israel, it becomes ever more apparent that the colonial mindset, which once justified the subjugation of non-white peoples, remains alive and well. This is not the benign oversight of a benevolent guardian, but the strategic enforcement of a global apartheid. The justifications given—self-defense, the fight against terrorism—ring hollow when measured against the scale of the slaughter and the asymmetry of power.
The West's complicity in the violence inflicted upon the Palestinian people exposes the enduring legacy of colonial racism that underpins its foreign policy. The same racism that once rationalized the plunder of Africa, the opium wars in China, and the decimation of indigenous populations across the globe now finds its expression in the defense of actions that, were they perpetrated by any non-Western state, would be roundly condemned as barbaric and inhuman.
This hypocrisy is a symptom of a world order that has never truly decolonized. The predominately white nations of the West continue to operate under the paradigm that their civilization, their way of life, is inherently superior and must be preserved at any cost—even if that cost is the lives of Palestinians. The West's position on Israel and Palestine is not a political stance; it is the litmus test of a racist ideology that deems some lives more valuable than others.
The unyielding support for Israel's campaign of destruction is not the product of a shared democratic ethos, as some would claim, but the shared interest of maintaining a world divided between the haves and the have-nots, between the white and the non-white, between the Western and the other. The Western bloc does not stand with Israel in spite of the devastation wrought upon Gaza, but because of it. The message is clear: the West will tolerate, even support, the eradication of those it deems unworthy of the same rights and dignities afforded to its own.
In this context, the term "genocide" is not used lightly. It is a term that encapsulates the deliberate and systematic destruction of a people, a culture, a history. It is a term that echoes through the halls of the United Nations, through the conventions and treaties that the West claims to uphold. And yet, when the genocide of the Palestinian people unfolds before the world's eyes, the West not only turns a blind eye but actively participates.
The bloodshed in Gaza is not an anomaly; it is the logical conclusion of a world still steeped in the colonial racism of the West. It is a world in which the powerful can dictate who is worthy of life and who is not, who is deserving of rights and who can be left to die under a rain of bombs. The West's moral authority is bankrupt, its claims to champion human rights a farce.
As writers and as citizens of the world, we must reject the narrative that seeks to justify or obscure the reality of what is happening in Palestine. We must acknowledge the racism that underlies the West's foreign policies and work to dismantle the structures that perpetuate it. Until we do, the separation between "us" and "them," between the West and the rest, will remain as stark and as deadly as the bombed-out streets of Gaza. And until we can look upon the suffering of all peoples with the same empathy and outrage, we will be complicit in the very crimes we claim to abhor.