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Western colonial powers have often failed miserably in their endeavors by following a harsh, inhumane policy that is derived from what their orientalist “experts” tell them.

During the British mandate of Palestine, the British colonialists applied pressure tactics such as hanging those who dared to challenge their rule through armed resistance, destroying entire family homes of individuals suspected of attacking British soldiers and a widespread detention campaign of a whole generation of young people under the draconian “administrative detention” orders.

Most of these acts of collective punishment were codified into law during the mandate’s final years. In 1945, the Defense (Emergency) Regulations were legislated by decree in a failed attempt to control the Palestinian fedayeen, as well as the Jewish underground. At the time, Jewish leaders criticized the administrative detention law, with future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin calling it “tyrannical,” “unethical” and a “Nazi law.”

Yet, following the end of the British mandate period, the very same laws were used against the Palestinian population that remained in what would become Israel. A military rule that restricted movement and allowed the arrest of political opponents was based on the British emergency regulations. The laws were never repealed, even though military rule was abolished in 1966 for the Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Since Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967, it has continued to use British laws to demolish the homes of Palestinians and hold tens of thousands of Palestinians in administrative detention. At present, nearly 10,000 Palestinians are being held without charge or trial. The only judicial process is an Israeli army judge deciding whether to renew detainees’ six-month detention orders. The military judge’s decisions are based on secret evidence provided by Israeli intelligence, which neither the accused nor their lawyer have a chance to see or contest.

A central ideological tenet of the Israeli legal punishment scheme against Palestinians is derived from an orientalist notion

Daoud Kuttab

A central ideological tenet of the Israeli legal punishment and penalty scheme against Palestinians is derived from an orientalist notion. Israeli occupation decision-makers are told that Palestinians are conservative and family-oriented and, therefore, to ensure control of them, the direct family, the larger “hamula” (tribe) and the entire community must be punished so that those collective entities put enough social pressure on their youth to guarantee their quiet.

Unhappy with the failure of this collective punishment (which is a clear violation of international law, as well as biblical and ethical ethos) because of the power of Palestinian nationalism, Israel started searching for another way to ensure compliance with its occupation.

An Israeli professor at Hebrew University, Menahem Milson, in 1981 used his new position as the head of the Civil Administration of the Occupied Territories to design an orientalist plan. He attempted to avert the city-based leaders opposed to Israeli occupation by tribal leaders by widening the power of the village heads in the hopes that the occupiers can more easily control them. Milson called his plan the “Village Leagues.” This failed miserably when, in 1988, the First Intifada erupted in total opposition to Israeli rule.

Israel, unhappy with the position of the secular Palestine Liberation Organization nationalists, began working on building up an alternative leadership, this time not tribal but religious. To counter the PLO, Israel allowed Islamic clergy to set up social networks, using mosques as a meeting place and providing help to families by setting up kindergartens and other charities. However, this effort, which morphed into the Islamic Resistance Movement, aka Hamas, also refused to be silent regarding the Israeli occupation. It joined Palestinian nationalists in resisting Israel, although it went further than the popular protests of the PLO and introduced armed resistance.

The Israeli attempts to crush the Islamic resistance, which cost them dearly on Oct. 7, 2023, follow a similar wrongheaded pattern. Unable to force a religiously motivated movement to surrender, Israel decided to follow the orientalist playbook by trying to cause enough pain to the entire community so as to force the leaders of the resistance to give in. In Lebanon, the secular PLO was eventually forced to leave alive rather than fight to the death, but in Gaza, Palestinians are in their own country. The Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters who believe in martyrdom, as Yahya Sinwar showed, are not deterred and are willing to fight to the death. The death, destruction and starvation that Israel has caused to the people of Gaza cannot be explained by pure security terms or even by applying the ideas of deterrence.

Israel is trying to cause enough pain to the entire community so as to force the leaders of the resistance to give in

Daoud Kuttab

Israelis and their supporters refuse to believe that the live pictures shown daily on social media and often sanitized on establishment media are real. They question the number of Palestinian victims and accept the concept that all Palestinian civilian deaths are because they are used as human shields by Palestinian combatants. They refuse to believe that Israel blows up schools, hospitals, mosques and churches because an enlightened country like Israel does not do that.

Israel, for its part, has controlled the narrative since Oct. 7 by refusing to allow a single foreign journalist to enter Gaza, while also systematically killing local Palestinian journalists and bombing media facilities. The Israeli narrative — focused on the human suffering of the hostages and false claims of huge Hamas headquarters under hospitals — is transmitted without the ability or willingness of the international media to question it. Violating international law, committing war crimes and being charged with genocide have done little to deter Israel because of its ability to mislead the world’s media and ensure that the major Western powers are on its side as it fights the so-called wicked and inhumane barbarians.

Attempts to annihilate an entire people and justify these acts against innocent civilians continue to be based on this misguided colonial, orientalist hope that previously failed the British and will certainly fail the Israeli occupiers. People yearn for freedom and independence from their occupiers, and they refuse to turn against the family members who are fighting and dying to allow them to be free.

• Daoud Kuttab is an award-winning Palestinian journalist and former Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University. X: @daoudkuttab