Engineering Reality: Towards a Deeper Understanding of Gaza
By Bahaa Shahira Raouf, published on Al-Akhbar on 20 July 2024. Translation by Noha AbuShammala.
A multitude of collective social stances have emerged in the Gaza Strip. As someone who has lived their entire life within Gaza and never left it, I have observed how many local analyses attribute these stances and behaviours, regardless of whether they are positive or negative, as direct outcomes of the current war. I, however, hold a different perspective: the transformations unfolding in Gaza’s society after October 7 are not momentary or transient. Rather, they were fundamental in reshaping the entire social fabric and altering the social contract that once governed life in Gaza. These shifts are rooted in the broader transformations the Strip has undergone since the imposition of Israel’s suffocating blockade in 2007 and its subsequent entrenchment through broader colonial policies, all of which has contributed to Gaza’s isolation from the wider Palestinian body in all its geographic expressions.
These transformations, which I believe began long before the current war, will not come to an end once the war concludes. On the contrary, they have become more visible during wartime and are now beginning to function as an organising principle of social relations, especially in the absence of concepts like justice and responsibility, as previously defined by prewar norms and systems. These shifts have affected all segments of society and have empowered the strongest to impose their worldview and definitions, even if through illegitimate means.
On 17 November 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly called for a cultural and societal transformation in the Gaza Strip, akin to what was imposed on Japan and Germany following World War II. This aspiration is not new; it reflects long-standing Israeli policy towards Gaza, which has been implemented consistently since Israel’s withdrawal from the Strip and the subsequent imposition of the blockade.
Israel’s policies towards Gaza have been marked by a strategic patience interrupted by periods of intense violence. In reviewing colonial histories, this approach is consistent with broader patterns of colonial behaviour: violence does not always take a singular, physical form, through torture or bodily harm—it can also be social, psychological, and economic. The people of Gaza have experienced all of these dimensions of violence. After all, the ultimate goal [of the Zionist project] is the reengineering of the social order in Gaza and, by extension, Palestine as a whole.
Why is Israel doing this? Because it seeks a particular outcome: the creation of a disfigured being, one stripped of identity, dignity, and agency, who is incapable of resisting or confronting the occupation. For instance, when Israel imposed the blockade on Gaza, one of its goals was to calculate the caloric intake of the population, not to promote health or wellbeing, but to merely sustain life and, in doing so, prevent any physical exertion or resistance, such as carrying arms and fighting. This aligns with the aspirations for its colonial power. Food does not just represent the idea of sustenance; it embodies a way of life and has a psychological impact on individuals. All of this has repercussions on daily individual behaviour and collective conduct.
Another example of colonial violence lies in the psychological campaign to push Palestinians toward nihilism, to surrender to the occupation as an overwhelming force that cannot be resisted. Israel has attempted to achieve this by imposing a new, distorted cultural reality that suppresses the original values and culture of the Palestinian people, which have historically been underpinned by resistance to occupation. This violence also aims to create new terms in the conflict, such as “realism”, which is generally a positive concept, but in the Palestinian context, what is required from this notion is surrender—surrender to Israeli strength, to Palestinian weakness, and to the idea that “our resilience lies in our weakness” or that “our resistance is in accepting the status quo”. These dangerous notions began circulating among Palestinians through the voices of cultural and political figures who, though not directly affiliated with the occupation, nevertheless served its agenda—knowingly or unknowingly—by promoting self-blame, social despair, and depictions of Palestinian society as regressive and backward, stripping our community of the attributes of civilisation. This narrative arc began with the occupation, passed through various Palestinian actors, and returned again to the occupation, whose Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, described us as “human animals” at the start of the war.
The occupation’s sociocultural engineering project did not begin with the blockade or even with the 1948 Nakba. It has been underway for a long time and has achieved success in several areas. One visible manifestation today is the internal Palestinian strife on social media, which pits Gazans against West Bankers and Palestinians of the diaspora. This conflict did not emerge during the war; it is the result of years of deliberate colonial manipulation. The hyper-violence being unleashed on Gaza currently is part of a broader strategy to not merely eliminate a population geographically but to erase the collective Palestinian identity altogether. Social media platforms, fuelled and funded by shadowy Israeli institutions, serve as additional proof of the importance of this goal to the occupiers and of its significant threat to us as a people and existence. Until now, Israel’s 76-year campaign to exterminate our people has failed, generating as it has an ongoing resistance struggle. It now, therefore, seeks to annihilate this very struggle through excessive violence in Gaza and through “soft” violence elsewhere in Palestine and among global supporters of the Palestinian cause.
Gaza has come to symbolise a powerful archetype, particularly in the eyes of Palestinians outside the Strip. “Gaza has long been seen as Palestine’s strongest arm” is a perception that intensified after resistance factions developed new tools to confront the occupation, which were not available before the evacuation of settlements and the withdrawal of the occupation army from the area. As armed struggle in the West Bank waned for well-known reasons, Gaza became a source of symbolism, which at first glance appears to be merely populist but is in fact unmistakably political, as can be seen through slogans like: “For God’s sake, Gaza, rise up!” This famous chant reflects a broader Palestinian frustration with failed leadership and an eagerness to resist an oppressive system of normalisation and complicity with the occupier. In that sense, the slogan reveals a collective aspiration to rebel, an aspiration common to any people under occupation.
But this symbolic framing has come at a cost. It overlooks the right of Gazans to define their own image, to reject imposed roles and archetypes. It also constructs a conceptual framework in which weakness, exhaustion, and fatigue are not permitted. This is evident in the tone of external responses to Gaza’s suffering, like when someone says “people in Gaza are allowed to say whatever they want” as if their anger and pain are not a right but a privilege granted to them under conditions of annihilation.
When Gazans express exhaustion to the world, it does not mean they have betrayed the resistance, or abandoned Palestine, or sold out the revolution. But the reactions to such expressions suggest that parts of our society have already been infiltrated and that our collective consciousness is vulnerable to reengineering. This, I believe, is where we must direct our focus as Palestinians because such vulnerability paves the way for the “soft genocide” I referred to earlier.
All of this has contributed to the mythical image of Gaza, a heroic image that can become a tool of psychological and social punishment when it wavers, whether in the minds of outsiders or among some Gazans themselves. In reality, and I say this with full conviction, Gaza is like any other society under occupation. It has the right, an entirely normal, human right, to shape its own image and reject externally imposed narratives. Gaza loves life—this is not a cliché but a lived truth. Gaza loves resistance and practises it, as any occupied people would. It grieves when betrayed and rages when it senses that it has been left alone.