"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?
Right, but we cannot give Rashi's answer. See my comment here to Moshe M on what is the Bible's "pshat" answer to the charge "you stole the land of the seven nations".
We, religious Jews, need an answer to the charges "Israel has no right to exist", or "if you have a right to a state, then the Palestinians also do", that is not faith-based. Meaning, we cannot tell non-religious people, or non-Jews, "G-d said this land belongs to us".
Hence, the answer is "we founded the state of Israel in a legitimate and fair way. Now Israel has a right to exist because it exists. On the other hand, the Arabs did not build anything, but rather just kept fighting us and losing time after time. The reason they don't deserve a state is because a state is something you build."
Incidentally, the Bible's answer to the charge "you stole the land of the seven nations" is very similar. The answer is: The Caananites were our enemies (P. Mishpatim) (where "enemy" means "someone who seeks your harm" (P. Masei)). Thus, our fights against them were justified, because we first duly (P. Shoftim) called for peaceful surrender (Joshua 11), or even gave more generous offers (P. Dvarim). They rejected all our offers, but chose war instead. We won against all odds, despite them being more numerous and better armed and fortified. And, at a spiritual level, the reason they chose war is because G-d hardened their heart, as part of His plan to allow us to inherit the land of Caanan in a fair and legitimate way (P. Dvarim, Joshua 11). Finally, Judges 18 provides a small, isolated example of a conquest that was carried out immorally. This exception proves the general rule.
*That* is the Bible's answer to the accusation "you stole the land of the seven nations".
While I agree with you, using religious and theological arguments won't get us anywhere and are practically irrelevant - you either believe the Chumash or you don't.
Far more importantly (and this is R' Slifkin's approach here as well), is that BY THE NORMAL RULES OF HISTORY AND GEOPOLITICS, Israel has a right to exist - certainly more than the "Palestinians" do in "Palestine"!
Hi Weaver: That's exactly what I'm saying. The Bible's "real" answer to the accusation mentioned by Rashi in Genesis 1:1 ("you stole the land of the seven nations") was that the Israelites acquired the land of Canaan in a fair way, by the normal rules of war, etc. of those times.
Sure there are arguments on the social networks all the time, especially now since Oct 7. Rabbi Slifkin's work on clarifying what the right arguments are is very important.
Besides the hard-core "academics" and "palestinians" that won't be convinced by us no matter what, there are many other people swinging in the middle. Of course we need to make an effort in trying to reach them. And we, religious Jews, first have to clarify to ourselves what the right arguments are.
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.
"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."
I don't think that's true. There's a reason why pro-Palestinian groups lean so heavily into the colonialist narrative. It's an idea which has great purchase among certain segments of modern society. Debunking it won't change Rashida Tlaib or George Galloway's minds, but they're not the intended audience, nor are they going to be convinced by religious arguments either.
The various Sioux peoples of the north central US are an example of this, as are the Navajo and Apache of the southwest US. They of course deny this. The former even did their settler colonialist project in historical times.
Then there were the plain old fashioned expansionists. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy is probably the most famous one in the US, and was of great historical importance. (They are one reason why we speak English here in the US rather than French.) Another important one was the Powhatan Confederacy; some of my direct ancestors survived wars with them. To the South, the Aztecs and Incas had more oppressive totalitarian states than anything existing in Europe, Asia, or Africa at that time; it is no wonder that the peoples they had oppressed sided with the Spanish, expecting better treatment from the Europeans. (They were mistaken.)
Agreed. That's what I meant by "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.
By the way, the irony that the most "successful" colonialist movement in history was, well, Marxism has not gone unnoticed. Marx was an ex-Jewish German living in London, and yet his ideas were imported only into places completely unlike those, namely Russia, Asia, and much of the rest of the Third World. (The only way Marxism got back into Germany was when it was imposed by...Russia.) The only Marxist countries today are in East Asia and Latin America. Talk about colonialism.
And nothing says "colonial" like a Somali congresswoman representing Scandinavian Minnesota. Or, say, South Asians running Ireland, Scotland, London, *and* the UK as a whole.
Fascism was defined by Mussolini. Very little of the things that the Left calls Fascist have any resemblance to what Mussolini did. Ironically, Donald Trump DOES have a lot of resemblance and the way that the Left has made the term Fascist essentially meaningless leads people to not take the Trump threat seriously.
Well, yes, Mussolini was a socialist, and so is fascism- that's its essence, in fact. The word "Nazi" actually *includes* the word "socialism," although by that point even "socialist" had become meaningless, so who knows how much of it Hitler meant. Certainly a bit.
The idea that Fascism and Nazism are left-wing revolutionary movements is of course something leftists can never quite wrap their minds around. The idea that they have something in common with the right is what Tom Wolfe called "the lie of the twentieth century."
Mussolini did indeed start out his political life as a Socialist, but Fascism is not Socialist. A few other Fascist leaders started out as Socialists -- Pierre Laval and Oswald Mosley come to mind, but Laval and Leon Blum were opposites in every respect, and ditto Mosley and Clement Attlee. Hitler's use of the term is very different from the use by the actual Socialists whom he massacred.
The idea that Facism and Nazism are left-wing revolutionary moverments is something the actual left wing people who died as the result of those movements wouldn't agree with. Calling them left wing is a recent invention of the far right in an attempt to slander moderate leftists. In fact, when the Reichstag voted to make Hitler a dictator in 1933, every actual Socialist voted no, and every member of every centrist and right wing party voted yes. And you find similar parallels in Italy, Spain, France, Croatia, and Hungary. Tom Wolfe wrote a lot of good stuff, but he got that one wrong. Almost the entirety of the previously normal poltical Right in all those countries enthusiastically embraced the Fascists, and we are now seeing this in the US with Trump's version of Fascism.
Just because some socialists were fascists doesn't mean fascists weren't socialists. Not all socialists were communists (although most of them were uncomfortably OK with them), but communists were of course socialists, absent some "no true Scotsman" fallacy, which I see you attempted here as well.
Just because the Nazis killed left-wingers doesn't mean they weren't left-wing themselves. The Soviets killed *lots* of left-wingers, in Russia and in Spain and in Mexico City.
Hitler despised the German right. And many of them despised him. A lot of them just despised the Communists more. And of course the European Old Right is not the same thing as the American Right, and of course Donald Trump is no sort of fascist.
"Mussolini did indeed start out his political life as a Socialist"
See Denis Mack Smith's biography:
"Other more radical fascists, on the contrary, were delighted to see that the leftist programme of 1919 had not been forgotten, and issued statements claiming that their movement had always been socialist at heart. His favourite whipping-boy... was, as usual, the bourgeoisie... Landowners and industrialists could now be identified as enemies of the fascist state. He began to talk of socialisation of the land and nationalisation of electricity, until other fascist leaders... were afraid that he was relapsing into the bolshevism of his youth. Other more radical fascists, on the contrary, were delighted to see that the leftist programme of 1919 had not been forgotten, and issued statements claiming that their movement had always been socialist at heart."
"The Mussolini of 1944 reasserted the socialist beliefs of his youth because he now felt that he had been cheated by the world of finance and industry.... To maintain some intellectual coherence he tried to pretend that, notwithstanding appearances, he had never deserted the socialist programme he had put forward for fascism in 1919; he had allowed certain tactical deviations in the interim but, for the most part, his basic views had never changed. In anonymous articles he now confirmed that he had been right when, in 1910, he called on the proletariat to capture power from the capitalists by a bloody revolution"
We don't even have to enter Ukraine. The only reason Russia reaches the Pacific is because of colonialism. Ditto the only reason China is so big. And why Islam covers so much of the world. I also find it interesting that the single largest colony in the world, Greenland, isn't on the list. Ditto any Dutch colonies. It's almost like only *Anglo-Saxon" countries can do any wrong, with a little nod to France and a bizarre one to Spain.
And then there was the famous rant where Hugo Chavez said that Spanish investment in and aid to Venezuela was fascist colonialism. You can't win.
"The only reason Russia reaches the Pacific is because of colonialism."
The Russian conquest of North Asia was remarkably fast and had a lot of similarities to the US conquest of the area between the Appalachian Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Each took a little more than a century and resulted in massive declines in the indigenous population.
And the Right's calling everything they disagree with Marxist is similar to the Left's calling everything Fascist. I can't identify any actual Marxists in public office in the US today. And they are hypocrites for wanting to send the people fleeing actual Marxists like Ortega and Maduro back to be persecuted.
Why so defensive? (Hey, *you're* the guy who called Donald Trump a "fascist" up there, so don't throw stones.) I am speaking of literal Marxist theory here, not about anyone in public office.
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!"
"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."
But development and improvement of the land is irrelevant when it comes to Palestinian Nationalism, which is neither Palestinian nor nationalism:
"One theme repeatedly emphasized in the Arab case, which was to be presented in greater detail in our hearings overseas, was that the Arab people were on the land: that the land belonged to the people who were on it—to rule for themselves, to develop or neglect, to industrialize or not to industrialize, as they preferred." (Crum, Behind The Silken Curtain: a personal account of Anglo-American diplomacy in Palestine and the Middle East. 1947)
(See also Moshe Avigdor Amiel's lament that the Arabs were unappreciative of Zionist improvement to their lives- that they preferred the dust and dirt.)
In other words, Arab nationalism was never about developing a nation. They don't care about draining the swamp, reclaiming the desert or building institutions. That's why they destroyed the greenhouses. That's why the only infrastructure they build is terror tunnels. Unlike Nazism, which was about building a civilization on the ideology of Jew hatred and racial purity, they have destroyed civilization on the ideology of Jew hatred.
So you're wrong Nachum. It's no use to " just say, "You bet we are! We came to an undeveloped country ...." Palestinian Arabs don't care.
This is true. Quite the opposite of the Organian Peace Treaty between the Klingons and the Federation, which gave a planet to whoever could develop it most efficiently. As Captain Kirk later ruefully remarked, "And while the Klingons are bloody tyrants, they are most efficient."
"Every part of planet Earth apart from a small bit in east Africa was "colonized.""
Thailand. Much of China. Japan. Ethiopia's brief rule by Italy probably doesn't count.
But as a horrible example, one of the first things Mussolini did when he conquered Ethiopia was to abolish slavery. In 1935. When the Brits put Haile Selassie back on the throne, Haile Selassie brought back slavery. The Brits were horrified and informed Haile Selassie that they would see to it that another emperor would be ruling if he didn't backtrack. They had already replaced a non-compliant Emperor of Iran. Haile Selassie caved and abolished slavery for good in 1943. When he finally fell from power in 1974, Ethiopia was one of the poorest and most backward countries in the world.
"the colonial powers did pretty well too"
Many of the problems the Democratic Republic of the Congo faces are the direct result of the horrible colonial regime it had for 75 years. And it has been 64 years since independence.
"he "original" Africans are now confined to a small part of Namibia."
No thanks to the attempted genocide by Germany in what was then German South West Africa. Oh and did you know that its first Governor was Heinrich Ernst Göring? The name should be familiar; his son was the famous Nazi. Apples don't necessarily fall far from the trees.
I'm afraid you really misunderstood my reference to East Africa: I was thinking Olduvai Gorge, not Ethiopia. We colonized the whole world from there. You've never met a Neanderthal or Homo erectus.
Fun fact: Madagascar is only about 2,000 km away, but it was the very last place on Earth settled by humans, about 1,500 years ago, who first came from the east, not the west- it took hundreds of thousands of years for humans to make their way back.
Africans- the ones who weren't actually sold, of course- were of course perfectly OK with slavery. The white slave traders never ventured beyond their coastal forts; the locals brought their prisoners to them. Obviously things might have been different without the traders on the coast, but maybe not much.
Haile Selassie was very offended to be called "black." Ethiopians of course are Semites, not Bantus, but most of them look pretty black.
Another fun fact: I was walking to shul one week with the young man and he mentioned that Ethiopia, unlike almost all of Africa, was never colonized. "Well, it was briefly colonized by Italy," I said. "And do you know where the Emperor lived when Italy took over?" Without pausing, I pointed to the building we were walking by at that instant and said, "Right here. He lived right here." (Villa Leah, on the top of Sderot Ben Maimon in Jerusalem, down the block from us.)
Yeah, the Belgian Congo. It has been noted that the parts of the world colonized by the French (and Belgians) did much worse than those colonized by the British. Obviously there are many variants.
But at a certain point the excuses have to end. My spouse is reading a book about Biafra right now. All the fault of colonialism, blah blah.
At some point in the 1960's West Germany decided to pay pensions to local African soldiers who had fought for Germany in World War II. They put out word in Tanzania that all veterans should show up. Old men arrived, some with the original papers, some with their uniforms, some with their rank tags or the like. Everything was accepted. The ones who had no ID were handed a rifle and told to execute the Imperial Germany manual of arms. Every one did it automatically, and perfectly.
Hermann Goering's brother actually saved Jews during the Holocaust. He's never been named a Chasid Umot HaOlam because one requirement (which is not always so strictly applied) is that the person had to be risking their lives, and there's no way Hermann would have let his brother be punished. Of course, *he* may not have known that, and who knows what could have happened. Some people think it's just that giving a Goering the award wouldn't look good.
You call them out on their intellectual dishonesty. I do this on a regular basis with the people who call Joe Biden a Marxist. Or Benjamin Netanyahu a Fascist.
Bully for you. Biden is of course not a Marxist; I doubt the man has ever had an original thought in his life. If anything applies to him, it's Begin's delicious description of the socialists he knew (not, again, that Biden is even a socialist): "They hate capitalism but love capital."
I pass houses with historical plaques a lot- Jerusalem has been put up huge numbers of them. I especially love the ones adorning very nice houses that tell us that the builder was a "Zionist-socialist leader." Yup, real socialist. Yitzhak ben-Zvi lived in a wooden shack he had built himself. Others, not so much.
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.
I have sympathy for the Palestinians today the same way I would have had sympathy for the Georgia and South Carolina Confederates as Sherman's army came marching through in 1864-1865. They wanted war and they got the war they wanted. And some of the worst damage was caused by their own scorched earth policies, such as the burning of Columbia -- but of course they blamed the Yankees. No responsibility for bad behavior.
FWIW some of my direct ancestors were South Carolina Confederates who were in Sherman's path.
The reason for the secession and then the war that they started was that they wanted to continue to enslave Black people and their descendants for eternity. Nobody with any morality would call this "good".
First, the entire Confederacy was about slavery and its presentation. Second, they started a war despite having almost no industry and being effectively outnumbered in population by about 4 to 1 and needing to maintain a totalitarian internal security apparatus to keep the 3/8 of their population that was enslaved from revolting. Third, the North was experiencing huge immigration, not so much the South. Fourth, the Confederacy had some really incompetent leadership -- miltary and political. Fifth, the Confederates underestimated the will of the North to put up with suffering to win the war. Sixth, the Confederates were delusional regarding the support they would get from Europe. I could go on and on.
The point is that they had a constitutional right to succede. But it didn't matter then just like it doesn't matter now or ever. Nations act out of self interest and the winners write history. Defending Israel cause on the international arena, as opposed to wining, beging and self-humiliation is necessary, but only the evolutionary fit will survive and might makes right as always. Israel isn't conducting its struggle in an adequate manner. Israel is in big trouble.
But it is conceivable that a peaceful separation could have happened by agreement. There wasn't much support in the North for going to war to keep the South in the Union. Besides, eight of the fifteen slave states didn't secede.
Until the seven that did started a war. Public opinion in the North turned on a dime. Do not ever attack the United States of America.
Georgia and South Carolina got what they asked for. Destruction and devastation.
Yes, and it made perfect sense for the North to go to war regardless of what constitution said. Just like it would have made sense to conquer Canada. Because constitions, international law, human rights, fairness and justice do not and should not stand in the way of the national interests.
"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)."
Close to 100% of the Palestinians living within the *de jure* borders of Medinat Yisrael became citizens in 1952, and their descendants remain so.
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.
The discussion was of settler colonialism. Congo and India are not discussed in the article, nor commonly cited as examples of settler colonialism, as opposed to imperialism.
"So you think that most independence movements were against "individualist enlightened self interest?"
Yes absolutely. Just as the average Arab is better off from the economic point of view being ruled by European Jews than other Arabs, so was the average imperial subject. But people are tribal or, if you prefer, stupid.
See previous point about your struggles with elementary reading comprehension not being my fault. The good bits are European colonies. Pick any part of Israel that is well-maintained, tidy, has nice restaurants and cafes, and is just generally pleasant to be. It's a European colony.
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?
Rashi''s comment to the very first verse of the Torah explains why we need to hear this.
היגיד *לעמו*. We don't notice those two words enough. A lot of times it's the Jews who need the most convincing.
I have found that a lot of young American Jews are the most adamant at pushing the Hamas narratives. :(
Right, but we cannot give Rashi's answer. See my comment here to Moshe M on what is the Bible's "pshat" answer to the charge "you stole the land of the seven nations".
We, religious Jews, need an answer to the charges "Israel has no right to exist", or "if you have a right to a state, then the Palestinians also do", that is not faith-based. Meaning, we cannot tell non-religious people, or non-Jews, "G-d said this land belongs to us".
Hence, the answer is "we founded the state of Israel in a legitimate and fair way. Now Israel has a right to exist because it exists. On the other hand, the Arabs did not build anything, but rather just kept fighting us and losing time after time. The reason they don't deserve a state is because a state is something you build."
Incidentally, the Bible's answer to the charge "you stole the land of the seven nations" is very similar. The answer is: The Caananites were our enemies (P. Mishpatim) (where "enemy" means "someone who seeks your harm" (P. Masei)). Thus, our fights against them were justified, because we first duly (P. Shoftim) called for peaceful surrender (Joshua 11), or even gave more generous offers (P. Dvarim). They rejected all our offers, but chose war instead. We won against all odds, despite them being more numerous and better armed and fortified. And, at a spiritual level, the reason they chose war is because G-d hardened their heart, as part of His plan to allow us to inherit the land of Caanan in a fair and legitimate way (P. Dvarim, Joshua 11). Finally, Judges 18 provides a small, isolated example of a conquest that was carried out immorally. This exception proves the general rule.
*That* is the Bible's answer to the accusation "you stole the land of the seven nations".
While I agree with you, using religious and theological arguments won't get us anywhere and are practically irrelevant - you either believe the Chumash or you don't.
Far more importantly (and this is R' Slifkin's approach here as well), is that BY THE NORMAL RULES OF HISTORY AND GEOPOLITICS, Israel has a right to exist - certainly more than the "Palestinians" do in "Palestine"!
Hi Weaver: That's exactly what I'm saying. The Bible's "real" answer to the accusation mentioned by Rashi in Genesis 1:1 ("you stole the land of the seven nations") was that the Israelites acquired the land of Canaan in a fair way, by the normal rules of war, etc. of those times.
None of us are confronting the academics or palestinians. Sure they are good arguments, but I doubt they will have any impact here.
Sure there are arguments on the social networks all the time, especially now since Oct 7. Rabbi Slifkin's work on clarifying what the right arguments are is very important.
Besides the hard-core "academics" and "palestinians" that won't be convinced by us no matter what, there are many other people swinging in the middle. Of course we need to make an effort in trying to reach them. And we, religious Jews, first have to clarify to ourselves what the right arguments are.
Better this than bashing the Charedim!
@ Jerry,
It’s not better than bashing chareidim, because they don’t deserve bashing. Although they do deserve to be excoriated, rebuked and defenestrated.
Hahaha
Um, because it's his substack page? What an odd question.
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.
And yet, the scholars I cite are not religious, and are of the view that the settler-colonialism charge is wrong.
If your point is that the settler colonialism perspective is wrong because some selected non-religious scholars say it's wrong, ok.
"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."
I don't think that's true. There's a reason why pro-Palestinian groups lean so heavily into the colonialist narrative. It's an idea which has great purchase among certain segments of modern society. Debunking it won't change Rashida Tlaib or George Galloway's minds, but they're not the intended audience, nor are they going to be convinced by religious arguments either.
"especially the Indians"
The various Sioux peoples of the north central US are an example of this, as are the Navajo and Apache of the southwest US. They of course deny this. The former even did their settler colonialist project in historical times.
Then there were the plain old fashioned expansionists. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy is probably the most famous one in the US, and was of great historical importance. (They are one reason why we speak English here in the US rather than French.) Another important one was the Powhatan Confederacy; some of my direct ancestors survived wars with them. To the South, the Aztecs and Incas had more oppressive totalitarian states than anything existing in Europe, Asia, or Africa at that time; it is no wonder that the peoples they had oppressed sided with the Spanish, expecting better treatment from the Europeans. (They were mistaken.)
Yes. Exactly this.
Agreed. That's what I meant by "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.
By the way, the irony that the most "successful" colonialist movement in history was, well, Marxism has not gone unnoticed. Marx was an ex-Jewish German living in London, and yet his ideas were imported only into places completely unlike those, namely Russia, Asia, and much of the rest of the Third World. (The only way Marxism got back into Germany was when it was imposed by...Russia.) The only Marxist countries today are in East Asia and Latin America. Talk about colonialism.
And nothing says "colonial" like a Somali congresswoman representing Scandinavian Minnesota. Or, say, South Asians running Ireland, Scotland, London, *and* the UK as a whole.
Yes. Settler colonialism is such a scam. We were all colonialist settlers at some point in history!
Fascism was defined by Mussolini. Very little of the things that the Left calls Fascist have any resemblance to what Mussolini did. Ironically, Donald Trump DOES have a lot of resemblance and the way that the Left has made the term Fascist essentially meaningless leads people to not take the Trump threat seriously.
Well, yes, Mussolini was a socialist, and so is fascism- that's its essence, in fact. The word "Nazi" actually *includes* the word "socialism," although by that point even "socialist" had become meaningless, so who knows how much of it Hitler meant. Certainly a bit.
The idea that Fascism and Nazism are left-wing revolutionary movements is of course something leftists can never quite wrap their minds around. The idea that they have something in common with the right is what Tom Wolfe called "the lie of the twentieth century."
Mussolini did indeed start out his political life as a Socialist, but Fascism is not Socialist. A few other Fascist leaders started out as Socialists -- Pierre Laval and Oswald Mosley come to mind, but Laval and Leon Blum were opposites in every respect, and ditto Mosley and Clement Attlee. Hitler's use of the term is very different from the use by the actual Socialists whom he massacred.
The idea that Facism and Nazism are left-wing revolutionary moverments is something the actual left wing people who died as the result of those movements wouldn't agree with. Calling them left wing is a recent invention of the far right in an attempt to slander moderate leftists. In fact, when the Reichstag voted to make Hitler a dictator in 1933, every actual Socialist voted no, and every member of every centrist and right wing party voted yes. And you find similar parallels in Italy, Spain, France, Croatia, and Hungary. Tom Wolfe wrote a lot of good stuff, but he got that one wrong. Almost the entirety of the previously normal poltical Right in all those countries enthusiastically embraced the Fascists, and we are now seeing this in the US with Trump's version of Fascism.
Just because some socialists were fascists doesn't mean fascists weren't socialists. Not all socialists were communists (although most of them were uncomfortably OK with them), but communists were of course socialists, absent some "no true Scotsman" fallacy, which I see you attempted here as well.
Just because the Nazis killed left-wingers doesn't mean they weren't left-wing themselves. The Soviets killed *lots* of left-wingers, in Russia and in Spain and in Mexico City.
Hitler despised the German right. And many of them despised him. A lot of them just despised the Communists more. And of course the European Old Right is not the same thing as the American Right, and of course Donald Trump is no sort of fascist.
"Mussolini did indeed start out his political life as a Socialist"
See Denis Mack Smith's biography:
"Other more radical fascists, on the contrary, were delighted to see that the leftist programme of 1919 had not been forgotten, and issued statements claiming that their movement had always been socialist at heart. His favourite whipping-boy... was, as usual, the bourgeoisie... Landowners and industrialists could now be identified as enemies of the fascist state. He began to talk of socialisation of the land and nationalisation of electricity, until other fascist leaders... were afraid that he was relapsing into the bolshevism of his youth. Other more radical fascists, on the contrary, were delighted to see that the leftist programme of 1919 had not been forgotten, and issued statements claiming that their movement had always been socialist at heart."
"The Mussolini of 1944 reasserted the socialist beliefs of his youth because he now felt that he had been cheated by the world of finance and industry.... To maintain some intellectual coherence he tried to pretend that, notwithstanding appearances, he had never deserted the socialist programme he had put forward for fascism in 1919; he had allowed certain tactical deviations in the interim but, for the most part, his basic views had never changed. In anonymous articles he now confirmed that he had been right when, in 1910, he called on the proletariat to capture power from the capitalists by a bloody revolution"
I mean, of course Eastern Ukraine isn't listed as NON-SELF-GOVERNING. That would be suggesting a non-western country could do something bad.
We don't even have to enter Ukraine. The only reason Russia reaches the Pacific is because of colonialism. Ditto the only reason China is so big. And why Islam covers so much of the world. I also find it interesting that the single largest colony in the world, Greenland, isn't on the list. Ditto any Dutch colonies. It's almost like only *Anglo-Saxon" countries can do any wrong, with a little nod to France and a bizarre one to Spain.
And then there was the famous rant where Hugo Chavez said that Spanish investment in and aid to Venezuela was fascist colonialism. You can't win.
"The only reason Russia reaches the Pacific is because of colonialism."
The Russian conquest of North Asia was remarkably fast and had a lot of similarities to the US conquest of the area between the Appalachian Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Each took a little more than a century and resulted in massive declines in the indigenous population.
And the Right's calling everything they disagree with Marxist is similar to the Left's calling everything Fascist. I can't identify any actual Marxists in public office in the US today. And they are hypocrites for wanting to send the people fleeing actual Marxists like Ortega and Maduro back to be persecuted.
Why so defensive? (Hey, *you're* the guy who called Donald Trump a "fascist" up there, so don't throw stones.) I am speaking of literal Marxist theory here, not about anyone in public office.
You know any Venezuelans?
Not everyone fleeing the Nazis was a persecuted Jew, either.
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.
We don't like to admit the nearly complete genocide of Jews in Eretz Yisrael at the hands of the Crusaders. :(
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!"
"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."
But development and improvement of the land is irrelevant when it comes to Palestinian Nationalism, which is neither Palestinian nor nationalism:
"One theme repeatedly emphasized in the Arab case, which was to be presented in greater detail in our hearings overseas, was that the Arab people were on the land: that the land belonged to the people who were on it—to rule for themselves, to develop or neglect, to industrialize or not to industrialize, as they preferred." (Crum, Behind The Silken Curtain: a personal account of Anglo-American diplomacy in Palestine and the Middle East. 1947)
(See also Moshe Avigdor Amiel's lament that the Arabs were unappreciative of Zionist improvement to their lives- that they preferred the dust and dirt.)
In other words, Arab nationalism was never about developing a nation. They don't care about draining the swamp, reclaiming the desert or building institutions. That's why they destroyed the greenhouses. That's why the only infrastructure they build is terror tunnels. Unlike Nazism, which was about building a civilization on the ideology of Jew hatred and racial purity, they have destroyed civilization on the ideology of Jew hatred.
So you're wrong Nachum. It's no use to " just say, "You bet we are! We came to an undeveloped country ...." Palestinian Arabs don't care.
This is true. Quite the opposite of the Organian Peace Treaty between the Klingons and the Federation, which gave a planet to whoever could develop it most efficiently. As Captain Kirk later ruefully remarked, "And while the Klingons are bloody tyrants, they are most efficient."
"Every part of planet Earth apart from a small bit in east Africa was "colonized.""
Thailand. Much of China. Japan. Ethiopia's brief rule by Italy probably doesn't count.
But as a horrible example, one of the first things Mussolini did when he conquered Ethiopia was to abolish slavery. In 1935. When the Brits put Haile Selassie back on the throne, Haile Selassie brought back slavery. The Brits were horrified and informed Haile Selassie that they would see to it that another emperor would be ruling if he didn't backtrack. They had already replaced a non-compliant Emperor of Iran. Haile Selassie caved and abolished slavery for good in 1943. When he finally fell from power in 1974, Ethiopia was one of the poorest and most backward countries in the world.
"the colonial powers did pretty well too"
Many of the problems the Democratic Republic of the Congo faces are the direct result of the horrible colonial regime it had for 75 years. And it has been 64 years since independence.
"he "original" Africans are now confined to a small part of Namibia."
No thanks to the attempted genocide by Germany in what was then German South West Africa. Oh and did you know that its first Governor was Heinrich Ernst Göring? The name should be familiar; his son was the famous Nazi. Apples don't necessarily fall far from the trees.
I'm afraid you really misunderstood my reference to East Africa: I was thinking Olduvai Gorge, not Ethiopia. We colonized the whole world from there. You've never met a Neanderthal or Homo erectus.
Fun fact: Madagascar is only about 2,000 km away, but it was the very last place on Earth settled by humans, about 1,500 years ago, who first came from the east, not the west- it took hundreds of thousands of years for humans to make their way back.
Africans- the ones who weren't actually sold, of course- were of course perfectly OK with slavery. The white slave traders never ventured beyond their coastal forts; the locals brought their prisoners to them. Obviously things might have been different without the traders on the coast, but maybe not much.
Haile Selassie was very offended to be called "black." Ethiopians of course are Semites, not Bantus, but most of them look pretty black.
Another fun fact: I was walking to shul one week with the young man and he mentioned that Ethiopia, unlike almost all of Africa, was never colonized. "Well, it was briefly colonized by Italy," I said. "And do you know where the Emperor lived when Italy took over?" Without pausing, I pointed to the building we were walking by at that instant and said, "Right here. He lived right here." (Villa Leah, on the top of Sderot Ben Maimon in Jerusalem, down the block from us.)
Yeah, the Belgian Congo. It has been noted that the parts of the world colonized by the French (and Belgians) did much worse than those colonized by the British. Obviously there are many variants.
But at a certain point the excuses have to end. My spouse is reading a book about Biafra right now. All the fault of colonialism, blah blah.
At some point in the 1960's West Germany decided to pay pensions to local African soldiers who had fought for Germany in World War II. They put out word in Tanzania that all veterans should show up. Old men arrived, some with the original papers, some with their uniforms, some with their rank tags or the like. Everything was accepted. The ones who had no ID were handed a rifle and told to execute the Imperial Germany manual of arms. Every one did it automatically, and perfectly.
Hermann Goering's brother actually saved Jews during the Holocaust. He's never been named a Chasid Umot HaOlam because one requirement (which is not always so strictly applied) is that the person had to be risking their lives, and there's no way Hermann would have let his brother be punished. Of course, *he* may not have known that, and who knows what could have happened. Some people think it's just that giving a Goering the award wouldn't look good.
"Fun fact: Madagascar is only about 2,000 km away, but it was the very last place on Earth settled by humans, about 1,500 years ago"
Not Iceland?
About the same time, but not as remarkable as this coincidence.
"we get to define it"
You call them out on their intellectual dishonesty. I do this on a regular basis with the people who call Joe Biden a Marxist. Or Benjamin Netanyahu a Fascist.
Bully for you. Biden is of course not a Marxist; I doubt the man has ever had an original thought in his life. If anything applies to him, it's Begin's delicious description of the socialists he knew (not, again, that Biden is even a socialist): "They hate capitalism but love capital."
I pass houses with historical plaques a lot- Jerusalem has been put up huge numbers of them. I especially love the ones adorning very nice houses that tell us that the builder was a "Zionist-socialist leader." Yup, real socialist. Yitzhak ben-Zvi lived in a wooden shack he had built himself. Others, not so much.
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.
I have sympathy for the Palestinians today the same way I would have had sympathy for the Georgia and South Carolina Confederates as Sherman's army came marching through in 1864-1865. They wanted war and they got the war they wanted. And some of the worst damage was caused by their own scorched earth policies, such as the burning of Columbia -- but of course they blamed the Yankees. No responsibility for bad behavior.
FWIW some of my direct ancestors were South Carolina Confederates who were in Sherman's path.
Confederacy had a right to seccede and the Confederates were the good guys.
The reason for the secession and then the war that they started was that they wanted to continue to enslave Black people and their descendants for eternity. Nobody with any morality would call this "good".
Well this is a new one! I thought you were an evolutionist? The Confederates lost the evolutionary lottery, too bad, so sad.
First, the entire Confederacy was about slavery and its presentation. Second, they started a war despite having almost no industry and being effectively outnumbered in population by about 4 to 1 and needing to maintain a totalitarian internal security apparatus to keep the 3/8 of their population that was enslaved from revolting. Third, the North was experiencing huge immigration, not so much the South. Fourth, the Confederacy had some really incompetent leadership -- miltary and political. Fifth, the Confederates underestimated the will of the North to put up with suffering to win the war. Sixth, the Confederates were delusional regarding the support they would get from Europe. I could go on and on.
The point is that they had a constitutional right to succede. But it didn't matter then just like it doesn't matter now or ever. Nations act out of self interest and the winners write history. Defending Israel cause on the international arena, as opposed to wining, beging and self-humiliation is necessary, but only the evolutionary fit will survive and might makes right as always. Israel isn't conducting its struggle in an adequate manner. Israel is in big trouble.
Wrong on secession. Texas vs. White 1869.
But it is conceivable that a peaceful separation could have happened by agreement. There wasn't much support in the North for going to war to keep the South in the Union. Besides, eight of the fifteen slave states didn't secede.
Until the seven that did started a war. Public opinion in the North turned on a dime. Do not ever attack the United States of America.
Georgia and South Carolina got what they asked for. Destruction and devastation.
yup. a bunch of losers, the lot of 'em
Yes, and it made perfect sense for the North to go to war regardless of what constitution said. Just like it would have made sense to conquer Canada. Because constitions, international law, human rights, fairness and justice do not and should not stand in the way of the national interests.
"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)."
Close to 100% of the Palestinians living within the *de jure* borders of Medinat Yisrael became citizens in 1952, and their descendants remain so.
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.
"This is basically true of all settler colonialism."
No it isn't.
" there was loads of empty space"
Not in Hong Kong.
" spur native population growth."
Not in India. Or the Congo.
". But hte natives, or enough of them, didn't appreciate individualist enlightened self interest and they wanted the colonialists gone."
So you think that most independence movements were against "individualist enlightened self interest "?
The discussion was of settler colonialism. Congo and India are not discussed in the article, nor commonly cited as examples of settler colonialism, as opposed to imperialism.
"So you think that most independence movements were against "individualist enlightened self interest?"
Yes absolutely. Just as the average Arab is better off from the economic point of view being ruled by European Jews than other Arabs, so was the average imperial subject. But people are tribal or, if you prefer, stupid.
Gay. The only good thing about Israel is that it's a European colony. Everything else about it sucks.
1) There are many good things about Israel
2) It's not European
3) It's not a colony.
The good bits are. Obviously Teverya or Afula are not European colonies. But then, on the other hand, they are dumps.
"The good bits are."
Please complete you sentence. "Are" what?
You've lost the plot. You mentioned "colonies". Now you mention "dumps".
See previous point about your struggles with elementary reading comprehension not being my fault. The good bits are European colonies. Pick any part of Israel that is well-maintained, tidy, has nice restaurants and cafes, and is just generally pleasant to be. It's a European colony.
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.
Why are Jews from Iraq or Yemen more indigenous to Israel than Jews from Greece or Poland? Do you think the term indigenous just means 'brown'?
You've lost the plot. AR is talking about the population increase created by Arab hatred of Jews. He's only talking about numbers.
He clearly isn't. Ask him. It's not my fault your verbal reasoning abilities are too low even to understand familiar hasbara arguments.
"many Jews insist that Judea and Samaria aren't part of Israel"
It definitely is NOT within the *de jure* borders of Medinat Yisrael.
"they should be proud of the conquest"
Nobody should be proud of genocide. The US committed genocide, at times deliberately. Israel has not.
"third world trash like Mugabe"
Mugabe was a corrupt incompetent bigot and his country is a failed state.