Israel is not a Colonizing Power
Along with other screams, those protesting Israel call it a colonial power; Palestine has been colonized. Yes, there have been lots of colonial powers. And the behavior of these countries leads to the definition of a colonizer.
A colonizing country (CD) does these things to the defeated country to be colonized. Without prior ownership the CD sends a military force and takes control of the colonized, almost by definition a country unable to defend itself. Having taken control the CD sends a small occupying community which is defended by armed forces of the CD. This community sets up various institutions that exploit the assets of the defeated. It uses an indigenous workforce and pays it subsistence wages to dig mines, or work farms. The profits from these activities are not kept in the colonized country but are sent home to the colonizer. In short, the colonizer exploits the assets of the defeated but keeps the profits of the exploitation for itself. Britain in India: Belgium in the Congo: Italy in Ethiopia: these are examples of the colonizer and the colonized.
In the case of Israel, individuals, not a country, came to a region with historical importance to them, a region not then called Palestine and those individuals, with their own labor, developed the region. Profits, if there were any, were kept in the region. As time passed, Israel was split off from the rest of the region and this split occurred as Israeli Jews fought huge armies of soldiers invading from 5 surrounding countries. The purpose of this invasion was to destroy the new country of Israel and to kill its Jews (see Abdul Rahman Assam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League, Oct 11, 1947). There was no Jewish army from a distant country. What was achieved for Israel was achieved by Jewish residents fighting for their lives against invading Arab armies. Israel does not meet the definition of a colonizer.
Yes, as a result of the war there was displacement of indigenous Arabs. These Arabs were organized by tribes and were reorganizing as a country, a new Palestine; the original Palestine was 2000 years ago and was Jewish. But balancing this displacement of Arabs there was also displacement by Arabs of Jews: where are the Jews today who used to live in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, etc.
Tiny Israel from 1948 to 1950, the size of New Jersey, absorbed 750,000 Jewish refugees: the Arab world, encompassing all of North Africa, all the Middle East, and the Muslim world including much of SouthEast Asia refused to resettle 750,000 thousand Arabs.
To call Israel a colonizing power is a canard but a canard that is repeated by slick speakers and University departments (usually with a “studies” in the department name) and media and diplomatic agencies whose animus to a Jewish Israel precedes the 1948 war.
There is a chance for a beginning to a resolution of this conflict now. Let’s give it a chance, and let’s not smother it by repeating lies of colonization.
