Bridges of Liberation: We Want You Back
Introductory Context
(This is Article 1 of the seven-part series, “Bridges of Liberation: Jewish & African Paths to Freedom,” published at https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/bridges-of-liberation-jewish-african-paths-to-freedom/
Please note that the full disclaimer regarding my independent views is located at the conclusion of this article.
Precursor Thesis: This series builds on the argument that Zionism Is Pan-Africanism, previously advanced in articles such as BALM: Black African Lives Matter, BLM Really?, and Do Christian Black Lives Matter in Africa?
Announcing the Series: Response to Mamdani’s Racist Call
In the wake of the antizionist protest outside New York City’s Park East Synagogue, this article launches the series dedicated to countering Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s racist denial of the indigenous right of return.
In the spirit of restitution and renewal, nations across the globe are extending open arms to their dispersed peoples, proclaiming, “We want you back.” This call echoes through history, affirming the indigenous bonds that tie communities to their ancestral lands. Blacks are indigenous to Africa; Jews are indigenous to Israel. These truths underpin modern “Laws of Return“—programs that facilitate the ingathering of exiles, fostering economic vitality, cultural affinity, and unbreakable legacy ties.
Israel’s pioneering Law of Return and Africa’s repatriation initiatives are fundamentally the same: anti-colonial liberation efforts that validate identities, channel diaspora expertise, and build prosperous futures. As both an American Zionist Jew and the Honorary Consul for the Republic of Togo, I assert that Israel’s Law of Return is the oldest and most successful blueprint for post-colonial, indigenous liberation worldwide.
Yet, opposition to these principles, as voiced by figures like New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, reveals a double standard that is as racist and antisemitic toward Jews as it is dismissive and anti-Black toward Africans. Mamdani targeted only Israel, but his ideology—condemning return as “illegal”—would invalidate African programs like Ghana’s and Benin’s, which restore heritage rights for enslaved descendants. This is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, enabling hate through selective outrage that disguises itself in justice’s shroud.
Indigenous Roots and the Foundation of Return
The concept of return is inseparable from indigeneity. For Black Africans, their diaspora fuels a profound yearning for reconnection to the cradle of humanity. For Jews, Israel is the indigenous homeland, evidenced by 3,000 years of continuous historical presence despite forced dispersions. For example, the Jewish Village of Peki’in in the Galilee has maintained a continuous Jewish presence for over 1,400 years, enduring even after the destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE) and subsequent Roman dispersal.
This historical continuity is powerfully affirmed by non-Jewish, pre-modern scholarship. The definitive 18th-century work of historical geography, Hadriani Relandi Palaestina ex Monumentis Veteribus Illustrata (1714), meticulously documented the Holy Land using Roman, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic sources. Reland found that throughout antiquity, the land was known almost exclusively by its Hebrew names: Terra Canaan and Terra Israelitica (Land of Israel). This established, objective historical reality refutes the claim that Jews are modern European colonial settlers.
Zionism is a liberation movement seeking to restore sovereignty, countering centuries of colonial domination that treated Jews as perpetual outsiders. The entire ethical and historical basis of Western Civilization is predicated upon the Bible (Old and New Testament), which is fundamentally a Zionist manual. To repudiate Zionism—the return of the Jewish people to their biblical land—would require the repudiation of all Christian tradition and the moral foundations of Western Civilization itself.
To those antisemites claiming Jews should “go back to Europe,” this ignores that Jews are indigenous to Israel—Europe was merely a site of temporary residence during exile. Laws of Return honor this by inviting exiles home, not as strangers, but as rightful inheritors.
Israel’s Law of Return: A Model of Resilience
Enacted in 1950, Israel’s Law of Return grants any Jew the right to immigrate and gain citizenship, embodying the ingathering of exiles after millennia of persecution. This law has drawn millions, infusing Israel with diverse talents and propelling it into a global economic powerhouse. It validates Jewish identity, creates hereditary connections, and focuses charitable efforts and investment on the homeland. To critics claiming Zionism failed because Israel must fight to survive: right before Israel was established, six million Jews were murdered in five years. The drastically reduced number of Jews murdered in the years since Israel’s establishment is the clearest evidence of Zionism’s success, transforming Jewish vulnerability into national resilience.
Shared Essence: Zionism and Pan-Africanism as One
Israel’s Law of Return and Africa’s programs are identical in essence—anti-colonial tools for indigenous liberation. Both recognize diaspora populations as extensions of the homeland, granting rights based on ancestry to counter historical scattering and validate fragmented identities. Economically, they channel resources: Israel’s influx of qualified immigrants mirrors Africa’s attraction of wealthy diaspora members. Zionism, as Jewish self-determination against imperial oppression, is Pan-Africanism: both reject foreign domination, reclaim indigenous lands, and empower scattered peoples.
Mamdani’s Opposition: Selective Condemnation and Global Hypocrisy
This shared vision was starkly challenged when anti-Zionist protesters disrupted a Nefesh B’Nefesh event promoting Jewish immigration to Israel. Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani condemned the event itself, implying that aliyah facilitation is a “violation of international law.” Mamdani’s statements are profoundly racist and antisemitic, denying Jews’ indigenous right to return while framing their liberation as criminal. Equally, his stance is dismissive and anti-Black, undermining the model enabling African repatriation. His refusal to recognize the Law of Return—whether Jewish or African—is the ideology of an indigenous-denying hate campaign cloaked in progressive rhetoric.
At its deepest level, Zionism is the creation of national self-defense against the historical certainty of genocide. To demand that Jews forgo this mechanism is not mere political critique, but a moral concession: it licenses, retroactively and prospectively, the world’s indifference to Jewish elimination.
Mamdani’s core political attack is the fraudulent accusation that Zionists are “colonizers.” This term is the antithesis of the Jewish indigenous reality, yet Mamdani, an utter hypocrite and liar, applies the label while embodying the settler identity by the very definitions he employs. Born into the non-Black, Asian diaspora of Uganda—a community that flourished under colonial privilege and was later violently expelled as “settlers” by Idi Amin—Mamdani’s family background is inextricably linked to the settler-colonial complexity he weaponizes. Furthermore, his connection to South Africa places him within a non-Black demographic that segments of that country deemed the colonial class. By his own logic, he is the colonizer; Jews are the antithesis of colonizers. His utter hypocrisy is compounded by his alleged attempt to appropriate the designation of “African American”—a title rooted in the generational suffering of the Black diaspora and denied to non-Black immigrants—onto his own non-Black, immigrant history. This act of identity theft is the height of cultural appropriation and racism. Mamdani’s position is not merely anti-Zionist; it is a fraudulent, hypocritical assault on the shared struggles for indigenous dignity and liberation—a campaign of selective, hypocritical hate.
He is the colonizer; Jews are the antithesis of colonizers. By attacking the Jewish Right of Return as illegal, he simultaneously dismisses the African Right of Return and validates the violence aimed at his own family’s community. His position is not merely antizionist; it is a profoundly racist assault on the shared struggles for indigenous dignity and liberation—a campaign of selective, hypocritical hate.
The concept of ancestral citizenship is, in fact, universally accepted. European nations, including Poland and Italy, grant citizenship based on jus sanguinis. Portugal and Spain have dedicated pathways for the descendants of Sephardic Jews exiled in 1492. Ireland actively seeks the ingathering of its exiles through citizenship by descent, granting passports to those with Irish grandparents. The Czech Republic grants rights to pre-WWII citizens’ descendants. Even South Africa, while hypocritically attacking Israel, grants citizenship by descent to children of citizens abroad.
Condemning only Israel, and no other nation upholding similar heritage restoration laws, is thus anti-Black, anti-European, and anti-African.
—
Disclaimer: Views Expressed are Personal and Independent
This series of articles is a personal statement written in my individual capacity as a private citizen and Zionist Jew holding citizenships of the United States of America, Lithuania, and South Africa.
My comments regarding the policies, politics, and future of each country where I hold citizenship are asserted as my right and civic obligation as a citizen to enhance and contribute to the discourse of that nation, and they in no way relate to any official diplomatic position. My perspectives are deeply informed by my decades of study in international relations, genocide, and diaspora politics.
This content does not represent, nor is it endorsed by, the Republic of Togo, its government, its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, its official policy, or any related entity.
The titles and roles I hold—including Honorary Consul for the Republic of Togo, Former Special Envoy for Diaspora Affairs to the African Union, former Dean of the Los Angeles Consular Corps, and current member of its Executive Committee—are cited strictly for the purpose of establishing personal expertise and contextual authority on matters of diplomacy, Pan-Africanism, and diaspora engagement. I speak solely in my own independent voice and am not acting as an official spokesperson or representative of the Republic of Togo in these publications.
