Opinion Piece Argues Gaza Conflict Risks Becoming a Model for Targeting Muslims Worldwide

Opinion Piece Argues Gaza Conflict Risks Becoming a Model for Targeting Muslims Worldwide
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An opinion piece published in the Middle East Eye by researcher Amina Shareef argues that the conflict in Gaza could set a dangerous precedent for the global targeting of Muslim communities. The author claims that the violence against Palestinians, which she refers to as a “systematic destruction of life,” is rooted in decades of “western dehumanization” and is part of a “settler-colonial project.”

The article asserts that the occupied Palestinian territories have long served as a “laboratory of counterinsurgency,” where techniques of population control and surveillance are developed and later exported. The author alleges that Israeli military and surveillance technologies have been used in various global conflicts and are even applied to policing and protest suppression in the United States.

The piece further claims that the “racial grammar” of the “war on terror” was shaped in part by the portrayal of Palestinian resistance, which helped to construct the image of the Muslim as an “irrational” and “barbaric” terrorist. Shareef concludes by warning that the “necropolitical logic” of the Gaza conflict—which she describes as the idea that Palestinian death is a “political necessity”—risks being exported as a template for targeting Muslim populations globally.