Israel and "Settler Colonialism"

Exposing a false paradigm

Aside from the Hamas war upon Israel, there is also a global war against Israel’s legitimacy. This centers on a charge that Israel is a settler-colonial regime born in sin. This view of Israel is paramount in academic circles, and unfortunately is even widespread among Jewish academics in Israel-related studies, who are often some of the most insidious enemies of the Jewish People.

The notion of Israel being a “settler colonial” project is a shallow and disingenuous attempt to place Zionism in the same category as entities such as the United States and Canada, which were genuine settler colonial projects. Zionism shares certain aspects with such projects, but has even more significant differences.

First of all, Jews did not come to Palestine in order to exploit its resources for an empire elsewhere – they didn’t have one. In fact, they didn’t come to exploit it at all, but rather to invest in it. It was a relatively barren land, which Jews developed, getting rid of malaria and making it far more productive.

And the Jews came not to become wealthy, but because they needed to survive and had nowhere else to go. Those who made it out of Europe saved themselves from extermination by the Nazis, and they were later followed by hundreds of thousands of Jews who were expelled from Arab countries following centuries of unequal status punctuated by the occasional massacre.

Furthermore, the Land of Israel was not some kind of new country for them, like America was for the Europeans. Rather, it had been the Jewish sovereign national homeland in antiquity, and Jews all around the world had retained with a powerful connection to the land, mentioning it several times a day and keeping its animals and plants and places as part of their culture.

The Jewish People had also always retained a physical presence in the land. Even after most of the Jewish People were exiled or left, they maintained an uninterrupted presence on the land. Additionally, throughout history, Jews from around the world returned to their homeland in various waves and movements, though they were sometimes met with persecution and massacres.

Nor did the Jews, even those who came in the early 20^th century, have a plan to take the land by force, or to drive out or oppress the resident Levantine Arabs. In fact, the Jewish investment in the land attracted tens of thousands more Levantine Arabs. The Jews who came purchased land legally, and only obtained more land as a result of the 1948 war - which was started by the Arabs.

Finally, the greatest harm of settler-colonial states like the USA and Canada towards indigenous peoples was that the latter were left with no land to call their own. The colonial powers did not just settle part of the lands, they settled all of them. Levantine Arabs, on the other hand, had plenty of other Levantine Arab territory available - and with the UN’s partition plan, they even had most of Palestine and the vast majority of fertile land within it. It only diminished in size when they refused to accept that the Jewish People had a right to live in large numbers and with sovereignty in any part of their historic homeland, and responded with violence. Unfortunately for all parties, this rejectionist approach never ceased.

I plan to write more about this in the future. Meanwhile, here is a list of articles for further reading:

Johannes Becke, “Historicizing the Settler-Colonial Paradigm.” Medaon 12 (2018), 22. Available online at https://slub.qucosa.de/api/qucosa%3A34621/attachment/ATT-0/

Yoav Gelber, "The History of Zionist Historiography: From Apologetics to Denial," in Benny Morris Making Israel (Benny Morris ed., Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007), 47-80. Available at https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/mlwpphucd7l971l6lcwcy/9780472115419-ch3.pdf

Alex Joffe, “Palestinian Settler-Colonialism,” online at https://besacenter.org/palestinians-settlers-colonialism/

Derek Penslar, “Is Zionism a Colonial Movement?,” in Derek Penslar, ed., Israel in History: The Jewish State in Comparative Perspective (London: Routledge, 2007), 90–111

Ran Ukashi "Zionism, Imperialism, and Indigeneity in Israel/Palestine: A Critical Analysis," in Peace and Conflict Studies: Vol. 25 (2018) No. 1 , Article 7. Available at: https://nsuworks.nova.edu/pcs/vol25/iss1/7

Jarrod Tanney, “Israel Is Not a White Imperialist Project: A Toolkit,” available online at https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/israel-is-not-a-white-imperialist-project-a-toolkit/

S. Ilan Troen, “Countering the BDS Colonial Settler Narrative,” Academic Engagement Network Pamphlet Series No. 4, April 2018. Available online at https://academicengagement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Troen-Pamphlet-Final.pdf.