Joseph Dana: As events outside of Palestine divert attention from the colonial complexion of Israel’s position in the region and its leadership’s fear mongering over regional threats continues on a daily basis, Israel will entrench its footprint on the West Bank. Settler towns like Israeli Susiya will be reinforced, while the natural resources of the area will be used by Israel for its sole benefit and enrichment. The only constant feature of this decades-long conflict is the ever-growing Israeli appetite for Palestinian land and resources. Regardless of negative publicity or the high cost of maintaining the occupation, Israel will continue on this path until it is forced to end its colonial escapades. After all, as Fanon noted: “Colonialism is not a thinking machine nor a body endowed with reasoning faculties.” The plight of Susiya is the embodiment of Fanon’s description of colonialism in action. The village’s saga demonstrates the unavoidable truth at the heart of Israel and Palestine: that the conflict is a colonial one that only borrows the rhetoric of a religious conflict to obscure its true dimensions. It will be the deployment of colonial theory and anti-colonial tactics, as laid out in the work of Fanon and others, that will ultimately resolve the conflict. More here.