"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."
Here's another link you might find useful. (I listened to the podcast and recommend that others do so as well. The transcript is somewhat choppy, and missing a lot of the flavor of the conversation.) The quote is from near the very end of the podcast.
"But there's this book by an Israeli academic, anti-Zionist academic from Ben-Gurion University in the South, Oren Yiftachel, and he has a book in which he considers Zionism to be colonialism. And, at one point in the book, he has a little footnote. And, it's this adorable footnote. It's maybe my favorite footnote in all the history of all academic readings I've ever read. Because, in this footnote, he says--I'm paraphrasing, I apologize, but I can look it up. In this footnote, he says, 'Zionism is absolutely, unquestionably colonialism. There's no doubt about it. There are,' he says, 'a few discrepancies between Zionism and what would be considered maybe classical colonialism. But, nevertheless, it still holds. It is still colonialism.'
And, do you know what those discrepancies were? 'Discrepancy One, for example: It's not primarily an economic project. Most colonialism was. Discrepancy Two: Just about everyone who came to Israel can be classified for one reason or another as a refugee. Again, not typical of colonialism. Discrepancy Three: There's a longstanding Jewish tradition of deep belonging to this land. Again, not usually present in colonialism. Discrepancy Four,'--and he goes on and on.
And, eventually, you just ask yourself, 'What's the diagnostic power of the word anymore? Other than the fact that I have a deep, longstanding tradition of connection to this land, other than the fact--oh, one of them is I come from dozens of mother countries, not a single mother country. Other than that, other than my being a refugee, other than--what is--
....
And, I think that the point is what you've said about me is your own loyalty to the Palestinian narrative. Which is fine. I am a big believer in everybody finding their own intellectual path. But you've just not described me in any way that I recognize by using the term, because you have to make so many footnotes to cut out so much of what colonialism actually is."
Thanks for this article. My brain turns off when anyone argues "settler colonialism." They clearly just read twitter threads and have nothing to add to this conversation as far as I'm concerned.
It seems to me that almost all readers of this blog do not beleive that Israel is a settler-colonial regime. Why post your arguments here where the target audience (academics) will not see it?
This is all very nice but you're preaching to the choir. Nobody who isn't already a supporter will be convinced that Jews had the right to take the land because they were there 2000 yrs ago, or that they were more productive than those primitive Arabs, or that the Zionists just wanted peace unlike those evil Canadians. These are not serious arguments.
The only good arguments are either from a Torah perspective, that G-d gave the land to the Jewish people. Or from a secular perspective-lehavidl- whatever happened in 1948 is history, the Jews are there now, no worse than many other countries that were formed through conquest at some point in history.
I'm afraid you're missing a point here, as good as this piece is: "Colonialism" is a term of art to the Left. Karl Marx himself focused on the idea of colonialism as a unique sort of evil. By this he meant actual colonialism, which of course in his time was a big thing, but even he himself, k'darko (the man was a hypocritical nut, of course), expanded it to take in many more concepts, such that in Marxism, "colonialism" came to mean "anything bad." (Similarly to how Orwell noted that even by his time, the Left had started to use the word "fascism" as meaning "something I don't like.") This *especially* became the case by the 1960's, when actual colonialism had almost completely disappeared. And that continues today. When the term "colonialism" is thrown at Israel, you should understand that those throwing it are not using it in any meaningful sense; it's just cant. And so logically disproving them won't really help, if it ever does.
Incidentally, the Left almost *needs* colonialism as a target. And of course it basically exists as a "let's get white people" (which of course includes Jews, at least to them) thing. For example, the UN still maintains its special body devoted to fighting colonialism. Problem is, there are no real colonies left. Every colony in the world- Puerto Rico, for example, or Gibraltar- voluntarily remains so. That doesn't keep the UN from maintaining a list of colonies, with definitions very carefully designed so that only Western powers are condemned. China and Russia even *sit* on the committee. The funniest entry is Western Sahara, which is colonized by Morocco but is on the list as a colony of Spain. You can't make this stuff up.
All true and valid arguments, and it goes without saying that calling Israel a ‘settler colonial’ state is a farcical and anti-Semitic position. The only point that merits some fine-tuning is that while there was a continuous Jewish presence in the holy land since the exile, the numbers during part of the Middle Ages were (surprisingly) as low as a few hundred Jews living in several towns in the Galilee, possibly even fewer than a hundred. That used to be touted as part of the miracle of Israel’s rebirth, but these days it’s downplayed for obvious reasons.
Great piece as usual. Another good recent source giving an overview of the Israel-Palestine conflict is an interview with Benny Morris, by Coleman Hughes:
Let me echo "True Settler" below: I'm afraid that ultimately this is a losing proposition for the simple reason that you're playing by their rules, using their terminology, and accepting their assumptions- and these are people completely comfortable with changing all of those to suit their arguments. Best not to accept it in the first place. They use the word "colonialism" and thus feel entitled to define it- and even to change its definition- as they wish. You can't answer, "No, we're not colonialists!" and convince them; they simply think, "No, we get to define it and you are no matter what."
And of course one assumption that needs to be challenged is that colonialism is bad. Every part of planet Earth apart from a small bit in east Africa was "colonized." Even the "original" Africans are now confined to a small part of Namibia. The Native Americans came in waves that displaced the previous ones, and then fought and displaced each other for tens of thousands of years before white people arrived. And on, and on.
And we can even take that to much more recent times. Let's be honest: India is where it is because it got some healthy colonialism. Even Israel did very well from the decades it was run by the British- a lot of our institutions come from that period. And- horror to think of it!- the colonial powers did pretty well too. Nothing wrong with that.
So why not just say, "You bet we are! We came to an undeveloped country in a part of the world that seems unable to govern itself absent lots of oil money (and even then), and turned it into a strong, modern country for our benefit. (And yeah, for the locals too, incidentally.) And proud of it!"
From a Jewish perspective, it's clear that the re-settlement of Palestine, before 1948, was _not_ "settler colonialism".
From a Palestinian perspective, there is not much difference _after_ 1948, between what actually happened, and what would have happened if Jewish settlement _were_ "settler colonialism". A large number of Jews came from Away, bought some land, captured some land, and set up a government in which Palestinians (the previous dwellers in the land) because second-class citizens (if they were lucky enough to be citizens at all).
The Jews settling, and fighting for their land and their lives, understood that they had no other country to return to.
The Palestinians, on the other hand, just wished that they would all return to Away.
I have some sympathy for the Palestinian position, but not enough sympathy to want to dissolve Israel.
It might well be the case that the Jewish settlers of Palestine in the 19th and 20th centuries had a completely different mindset than the traditional European colonialist. At issue, however, is not the intent of the newcomers, but the practical effect. If the experience of the indigenous population was similar to that of the Malagasy, the Algerians, the Haitians and every other country colonized by the various world powers, then there's an issue to be dealt with. Screaming "we didn't mean it THAT way," doesn't absolve us from responsibility for what happened.
There are, of course, arguments and considerations that are supportive of our POV. What we need to do is to stop trying to maintain the fiction that one side was completely righteous and justified and the other side is completely evil. Perhaps when we all, on both ends, dismiss our nationalistic mythologies and rediscover Truth and Reality, we'll be able to figure out a modus vivendi.
"Nor did the Jews, even those who came in the early 20th 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."
This is basically true of all settler colonialism. Settlers almost never started with a desire to wipe out the inhabitants because there was loads of empty space, and their technological and cultural superiority meant they could easily outcompete the natives and buy up what they needed. The economic development they brought helped spur native population growth. But hte natives, or enough of them, didn't appreciate individualist enlightened self interest and they wanted the colonialists gone. So attitudes hardened and eventually the weaker side feels the boot. This is what happened in 1948. Either this is wrong, or it is isn't but it can't be wrong everywhere except Israel.
You are preaching to the choir. Here is a narrative that may convince open-minded wokes. Israel began as a European colonial enterprise, specifically, a non-genocidal solution to Europe's Jewish Problem. Nevertheless, by 1960 at the latest, Israel had ceased to be a colony, because the Gentile Arabs took out their frustration on the Jewish Arabs, most of whom moved to Israel, thereby making the Jewish population of Israel majority indigenous.
"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."
Here's another link you might find useful. (I listened to the podcast and recommend that others do so as well. The transcript is somewhat choppy, and missing a lot of the flavor of the conversation.) The quote is from near the very end of the podcast.
https://www.econtalk.org/an-extraordinary-introduction-to-the-birth-of-israel-and-the-arab-israeli-conflict-with-haviv-rettig-gur/
"But there's this book by an Israeli academic, anti-Zionist academic from Ben-Gurion University in the South, Oren Yiftachel, and he has a book in which he considers Zionism to be colonialism. And, at one point in the book, he has a little footnote. And, it's this adorable footnote. It's maybe my favorite footnote in all the history of all academic readings I've ever read. Because, in this footnote, he says--I'm paraphrasing, I apologize, but I can look it up. In this footnote, he says, 'Zionism is absolutely, unquestionably colonialism. There's no doubt about it. There are,' he says, 'a few discrepancies between Zionism and what would be considered maybe classical colonialism. But, nevertheless, it still holds. It is still colonialism.'
And, do you know what those discrepancies were? 'Discrepancy One, for example: It's not primarily an economic project. Most colonialism was. Discrepancy Two: Just about everyone who came to Israel can be classified for one reason or another as a refugee. Again, not typical of colonialism. Discrepancy Three: There's a longstanding Jewish tradition of deep belonging to this land. Again, not usually present in colonialism. Discrepancy Four,'--and he goes on and on.
And, eventually, you just ask yourself, 'What's the diagnostic power of the word anymore? Other than the fact that I have a deep, longstanding tradition of connection to this land, other than the fact--oh, one of them is I come from dozens of mother countries, not a single mother country. Other than that, other than my being a refugee, other than--what is--
....
And, I think that the point is what you've said about me is your own loyalty to the Palestinian narrative. Which is fine. I am a big believer in everybody finding their own intellectual path. But you've just not described me in any way that I recognize by using the term, because you have to make so many footnotes to cut out so much of what colonialism actually is."
Thanks for this article. My brain turns off when anyone argues "settler colonialism." They clearly just read twitter threads and have nothing to add to this conversation as far as I'm concerned.
It seems to me that almost all readers of this blog do not beleive that Israel is a settler-colonial regime. Why post your arguments here where the target audience (academics) will not see it?
This is all very nice but you're preaching to the choir. Nobody who isn't already a supporter will be convinced that Jews had the right to take the land because they were there 2000 yrs ago, or that they were more productive than those primitive Arabs, or that the Zionists just wanted peace unlike those evil Canadians. These are not serious arguments.
The only good arguments are either from a Torah perspective, that G-d gave the land to the Jewish people. Or from a secular perspective-lehavidl- whatever happened in 1948 is history, the Jews are there now, no worse than many other countries that were formed through conquest at some point in history.
I'm afraid you're missing a point here, as good as this piece is: "Colonialism" is a term of art to the Left. Karl Marx himself focused on the idea of colonialism as a unique sort of evil. By this he meant actual colonialism, which of course in his time was a big thing, but even he himself, k'darko (the man was a hypocritical nut, of course), expanded it to take in many more concepts, such that in Marxism, "colonialism" came to mean "anything bad." (Similarly to how Orwell noted that even by his time, the Left had started to use the word "fascism" as meaning "something I don't like.") This *especially* became the case by the 1960's, when actual colonialism had almost completely disappeared. And that continues today. When the term "colonialism" is thrown at Israel, you should understand that those throwing it are not using it in any meaningful sense; it's just cant. And so logically disproving them won't really help, if it ever does.
Incidentally, the Left almost *needs* colonialism as a target. And of course it basically exists as a "let's get white people" (which of course includes Jews, at least to them) thing. For example, the UN still maintains its special body devoted to fighting colonialism. Problem is, there are no real colonies left. Every colony in the world- Puerto Rico, for example, or Gibraltar- voluntarily remains so. That doesn't keep the UN from maintaining a list of colonies, with definitions very carefully designed so that only Western powers are condemned. China and Russia even *sit* on the committee. The funniest entry is Western Sahara, which is colonized by Morocco but is on the list as a colony of Spain. You can't make this stuff up.
All true and valid arguments, and it goes without saying that calling Israel a ‘settler colonial’ state is a farcical and anti-Semitic position. The only point that merits some fine-tuning is that while there was a continuous Jewish presence in the holy land since the exile, the numbers during part of the Middle Ages were (surprisingly) as low as a few hundred Jews living in several towns in the Galilee, possibly even fewer than a hundred. That used to be touted as part of the miracle of Israel’s rebirth, but these days it’s downplayed for obvious reasons.
Great piece as usual. Another good recent source giving an overview of the Israel-Palestine conflict is an interview with Benny Morris, by Coleman Hughes:
https://youtu.be/wv8F4NLr4E0
Let me echo "True Settler" below: I'm afraid that ultimately this is a losing proposition for the simple reason that you're playing by their rules, using their terminology, and accepting their assumptions- and these are people completely comfortable with changing all of those to suit their arguments. Best not to accept it in the first place. They use the word "colonialism" and thus feel entitled to define it- and even to change its definition- as they wish. You can't answer, "No, we're not colonialists!" and convince them; they simply think, "No, we get to define it and you are no matter what."
And of course one assumption that needs to be challenged is that colonialism is bad. Every part of planet Earth apart from a small bit in east Africa was "colonized." Even the "original" Africans are now confined to a small part of Namibia. The Native Americans came in waves that displaced the previous ones, and then fought and displaced each other for tens of thousands of years before white people arrived. And on, and on.
And we can even take that to much more recent times. Let's be honest: India is where it is because it got some healthy colonialism. Even Israel did very well from the decades it was run by the British- a lot of our institutions come from that period. And- horror to think of it!- the colonial powers did pretty well too. Nothing wrong with that.
So why not just say, "You bet we are! We came to an undeveloped country in a part of the world that seems unable to govern itself absent lots of oil money (and even then), and turned it into a strong, modern country for our benefit. (And yeah, for the locals too, incidentally.) And proud of it!"
FWIW --
From a Jewish perspective, it's clear that the re-settlement of Palestine, before 1948, was _not_ "settler colonialism".
From a Palestinian perspective, there is not much difference _after_ 1948, between what actually happened, and what would have happened if Jewish settlement _were_ "settler colonialism". A large number of Jews came from Away, bought some land, captured some land, and set up a government in which Palestinians (the previous dwellers in the land) because second-class citizens (if they were lucky enough to be citizens at all).
The Jews settling, and fighting for their land and their lives, understood that they had no other country to return to.
The Palestinians, on the other hand, just wished that they would all return to Away.
I have some sympathy for the Palestinian position, but not enough sympathy to want to dissolve Israel.
a.k.a.
דע מה להשיב
It might well be the case that the Jewish settlers of Palestine in the 19th and 20th centuries had a completely different mindset than the traditional European colonialist. At issue, however, is not the intent of the newcomers, but the practical effect. If the experience of the indigenous population was similar to that of the Malagasy, the Algerians, the Haitians and every other country colonized by the various world powers, then there's an issue to be dealt with. Screaming "we didn't mean it THAT way," doesn't absolve us from responsibility for what happened.
There are, of course, arguments and considerations that are supportive of our POV. What we need to do is to stop trying to maintain the fiction that one side was completely righteous and justified and the other side is completely evil. Perhaps when we all, on both ends, dismiss our nationalistic mythologies and rediscover Truth and Reality, we'll be able to figure out a modus vivendi.
In this context, "indigenous" means, generally, not of European colonizing ancestry, and in this specific context, from Middle East - North Africa.
"Nor did the Jews, even those who came in the early 20th 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."
This is basically true of all settler colonialism. Settlers almost never started with a desire to wipe out the inhabitants because there was loads of empty space, and their technological and cultural superiority meant they could easily outcompete the natives and buy up what they needed. The economic development they brought helped spur native population growth. But hte natives, or enough of them, didn't appreciate individualist enlightened self interest and they wanted the colonialists gone. So attitudes hardened and eventually the weaker side feels the boot. This is what happened in 1948. Either this is wrong, or it is isn't but it can't be wrong everywhere except Israel.
Gay. The only good thing about Israel is that it's a European colony. Everything else about it sucks.
You are preaching to the choir. Here is a narrative that may convince open-minded wokes. Israel began as a European colonial enterprise, specifically, a non-genocidal solution to Europe's Jewish Problem. Nevertheless, by 1960 at the latest, Israel had ceased to be a colony, because the Gentile Arabs took out their frustration on the Jewish Arabs, most of whom moved to Israel, thereby making the Jewish population of Israel majority indigenous.