No, Zionism is not colonialism
During the last decades the anti-colonial narrative, popular among the academic and political left, has been appropriated into the Palestinian anti-Zionist polemic. Following October 7th, pro-Palestinian activists and post-colonial academics erupted in a jubilation born out of misidentifying Hamas’ horrific atrocities as acts of liberation and anti-colonialism. The alliance of post-colonial academics and pro-Palestinians activists that brought about this bizarre and troubling occurrence has been decades in the making. It stands on the misinformed claim that Zionism is a settler-colonial enterprise. The post-colonial phenomenon is bizarre, marginal and peripherical to Israelis. However, it is increasingly influential in world public opinion and requires engagement and investigation as to its origination, enablement and implications.
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The myth that Israel is a settler-colonialist and apartheid state is a product of a decades-long trajectory that stands on the embrace of variants of Post-Colonialism, Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality by many in the cultural and political left. These academic constructs have led many to the worldview that humanity as divided into two clearly delineated groups of people: oppressors (white people) and victims (people of color) – a simplistic juxtaposition that is blind to the facts and complexities that characterize reality. Settler colonialism, a specific variant of this narrative, has gained prominence and it has been deployed to characterize Israel as the quintessential illegitimate state, born out of the dispossession of the native population by a foreign colonizing group.
Settler-colonialism theory stipulates that countries that originated in colonial settlement are permanently illegitimate. Most colonies were founded by colonial powers with the intent of settling their populations and/or extracting local resources. Anti-settler-colonial activism goes back to the decolonization era of the 1950s and 60s when it was applied to countries like Algeria, Rhodesia and South Africa. In these countries a small European population of foreign settlers ruled over and exploited, a much larger native population. This definition fits more than one hundred countries worldwide. Australia, the USA and Canada were the first countries to be targeted by post-colonial activists – reflecting the guilt of the academic class over the sins of their countries of birth.
The simplistic and disingenuous juxtaposition of Israel “oppressor-white-wrong” vs the Palestinian “oppressed-non-white-right” veils a complex reality where two sides have been fighting one hundred years for self-determination on the same land. To the post-colonial gurus, Jews and the state of Israel are “white.” Thus, they are oppressors and always in the wrong. This narrative persists despite the fact that Jews originate in Canaan, not Europe, and 65% of the Jewish population of Israel is “non-white” by demographic standards.
The unique case of Zionism (i.e. the return of the original, Jewish and indigenous people to their homeland) does not fit the settler-colonial mold. Nonetheless, Palestinian activists have been successful in forming an alliance with post-colonial academics by promoting the falsehood of Zionism as a colonial enterprise. This disingenuous delegitimization, and signaling-out of Israel, has been successful among much of the political left due to ignorance about the Zionist movement. Confusion among its adherents, who do not differentiate between Zionism and the current Israeli settlements in the West bank, is rampant. This label has been internalized by much of left-leaning academia and the cultural left. It has lead to the belief that Israel is a colonial settler enterprise and to the belief that the atrocities committed by Hamas on October the 7th, are either defensible or a justifiable act of resistance to oppression.
The Jews are native and indigenous to the land between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea. Contrary to the settler-colonialist concept, Zionism is the fulfillment and implementation of the right of return of the Jewish people to its homeland – not a settler-colonial enterprise. During the long exile, Jews yearned and prayed for the return to their homeland. The current state of Israel is the last stage of a 3000 years-old quest by the Hebrew nation for national self determination in its ancestral land. This quest is among the oldest and most persistent struggles known to mankind for nationhood and sovereignty.
Furthermore, The Bible, revered by more than half of the world’s population, records the first millennium of this quest and underwrites and legitimates the yearning for the return of the Jews to their native homeland. A vast religious and cultural tradition and a vast literary, archeological and documentary testimony of continuous attachment and presence in the land further substantiate and corroborate the Jewish yearning and claim to a homeland in the land of Canaan-Palestine.
Moreover, it is noteworthy that most of the non-European members of the United Nations are the result of settler-colonialist migrations, and many are former colonies. During the colonialist era (15-20th centuries) most of the European countries established colonies throughout the world: United Kingdom: 130, France: 90, Portugal: 52, Spain: 44, Netherlands: 29, Germany: 20, Russia: 17, Denmark: 9, Sweden: 8, Italy: 7, Norway: 6, Belgium: 3. Thus, given the large number of unequivocal settler-colonial societies that populate the planet – the current focus of the post-colonial movement on anti-Zionism is peculiar and invites scrutiny. Having this vast array of better fitting targets, the current obsession of post-colonial academics with Zionism is intriguing and worthy of investigation.
Furthermore, the recent history of the establishment of the third Jewish state (1948 to present) further debunks the claims of settler-colonialist academics:
The British Mandate in Palestine (a mandate, not a colony) was established by The League of Nations (1920) after World War I, following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire by the Allied forces. The mandate aimed to implement the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.
Britain’s actual policies diverged from the League of Nations’ unequivocal mandate. At first, Britain facilitated the return of the Jews to their homeland (1920-1936). However, during the following period (1939-1947) Britain opposed it to gain favor with the Arabs who were inclined to support the Germans.
The settler-colonial mislabeling of Zionism is a marriage of convenience between pro-Palestinian activists and post-colonial misdirected anger about the excesses and crimes of colonial powers throughout history. Post-colonialists should embrace and showcase Zionism as a successful de-colonizing enterprise where the victims of empire and colonialism gained nationhood despite 2000 years of exile, persecution, discrimination, yearning and despair.
To the detailed research paper that anchors this article.