The Dehumanization of Palestinians by European Commission President von der Leyen: A Decolonial Feminist Analysis

 

Abstract

The unconditional support of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to Israel following the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 2023, and Israel’s ensuing genocidal aggression on Palestine, contrasts with the support she gave to Ukraine following the 2022 Russian intervention. Drawing on a decolonial feminist perspective, guided by the work of Palestinian feminists, the article develops a discourse analysis of von der Leyen’s speeches on Russia’s intervention in Ukraine and Israel’s genocidal aggression against Palestine. The findings highlight the humanization of Ukrainians and the dehumanization of Palestinians, an extreme form of ‘Othering’ that negates both their political agency and status as a political community. The article argues that this process is linked to the EU’s enduring colonial legacies and historical relations with Israel/Palestine, and is therefore heavily shaped by gendered, racialized, and colonial logics, creating a geopolitical division of threats and values through the assignment of the roles of threat, victim, and protector. This discursive articulation determines which subjects and spaces are constructed as legitimate recipients of protection or targets of violence, thereby reproducing key mechanisms of Israel’s settler-colonialism.