Israel’s horrors in Palestine seem unfathomable, the scale of the West’s complicity inexplicable.

But Israel’s genocide is not an aberration. The scenes of starvation that haunt our screens today are embedded in the foundations of Israel as a racist and settler colonial state.

The Nakba, the catastrophe that founded Israel in 1948, saw Zionist forces ethnically cleanse at least 750,000 Palestinians.

The scale and calculated nature of the Nakba was carried out through Plan Dalet. It served as a blueprint, through systematic destruction, for the erasure of Palestine. The legacy of Plan Dalet can be seen today.

Since 7 October, Israel has destroyed or severely damaged 92 percent of residential buildings, and 69 percent of all buildings, in Gaza. The levels of destruction since 7 October are shocking, but it’s a strategy embedded in Zionism.

Within the logic of Zionism is constant expansion—not just in Gaza. In the West Bank, Israel has destroyed 1,572 structures since 7 October. This is to make way for illegal settlements—in May, Israel approved 22 new settlements in the West Bank, the biggest expansion in decades.

This constant expansion premised on dispossession was also present from Israel’s foundation. Just months before the Nakba, the United Nations (UN) had approved a plan to steal 56 percent of Palestine and give it to Israeli colonisers.

Before the plan, Israel’s founder David Ben-Gurion wrote that Israel’s borders “will be determined by force and not by the partition resolution”. Ben-Gurion was not satisfied with 56 percent. Through brutal force, Israel had occupied around 80 percent of Palestine by 1949.

Underlying all of this was a deeply racist attitude towards Palestinians. An apartheid regime was enshrined into law. That continues today, but racism against Palestinians serves as ongoing justification for Israel’s genocide.

And as Palestinian activist Abed Abou Shhadeh points out, the lethargy of the West in criticising Israel stems from this racism. “Their delayed condemnation reveals a deeply entrenched presumption—Israel is ‘right until proven wrong’, while Palestinians are ‘wrong until proven otherwise’,” he writes.

But the imperialist role of Israel is also why the West refuses to act. Israel’s security was guaranteed through arms and money initially from Britain. Today, the US primarily serves that function, and in return Israel protects Western interests in the Middle East.

It has also created a whole web of political support for Israel. Lord Dannatt, former British army head, has been a paid adviser to Israeli arms supplier Teledyne since 2022. Coincidentally, he wrote to the Home Office in 2022 warning of the now banned Palestine Action’s threat after it disrupted a Teledyne factory.

The memory of the Nakba fuels the astounding levels of Palestinian resilience—they know what happens if they leave.

But it shows the violent and genocidal nature of Zionism that is embedded in Israel’s foundation. No UN declaration, no Western government can break the historical and imperialist ties to Israel.

Breaking those ties requires a mass movement that targets arms factories, strikes for Palestine and pressures for a complete break with Israel.