Opinion: Why Israel's savagery is a sign of its impending defeat
The final years of all settler-colonies are marked by more protracted colonial savagery, including genocide. The realisation that the loss of settler-colonial power is at hand drives colonial forces to use the most barbaric methods to defeat the revolt of the indigenous people.
In Kenya, the British are estimated to have killed as many as 100,000 Kenyansduring the war of national liberation that ended white supremacist colonial rule in 1963. The wars of liberation in Angola and Mozambique against their Portuguese colonists and white supremacist rule cost tens of thousands of lives between 1956 and 1976.
Fearing that the two independent countries would accelerate the demise of apartheid South Africa, the US and South Africa alongside mercenary African forces waged racist wars against the peoples of both countries between 1975 and 1992, killing 1.5 million people in Angola and Mozambique out of a combined population of 23 million. Twelve million more were made refugees.
In South Africa, once the settler-colonial regime had no choice but to negotiate with the African National Congress (ANC) in 1989, it attempted to break the unity of Black South Africans by continuing to support the politician and Zulu prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, whose followers began to clash with ANC supporters.
It was revealed that the government provided financial and military training to Buthelezi's right-wing and separatist Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). Supported by the police, IFP members attacked people in the townships. Close to 15,000 Black Africans were killed by the South African police and security apparatus between 1989 and 1994 during this so-called peace process.
Israel has similarly killed thousands of Palestinians since signing a preliminary "peace" treaty in September 1993. In the 30-year period of the "peace process" through September 2023 - just before the current genocide in Gaza - Israel killed upwards of 12,000 Palestinians.
But of all these precedents, Algeria is perhaps the most apposite example of what has been unfolding in Gaza.
Read more: Why Israel's savagery is a sign of its impending defeat - Opinion by Joseph Massad
