Israel Colonial State (also see Zionism and Colonialism)
Updated 2024-08-26
Zionism as Settler Colonialism – Wikipedia Zionism has been described as a form of settler colonialism in relation to the region of Palestine and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Many of the fathers of Zionism themselves described it as colonialism, such as Vladimir Jabotinsky who said “Zionism is a colonization adventure”.
Patrick Wolfe, an influential theorist of settler colonial studies defines it as an ongoing “structure, not an event” aimed at replacing a native population rather than exploiting it. Other proponents of the paradigm include Edward Said, Rashid Khalidi, Noam Chomsky, Ilan Pappe, Fayez Sayegh, Maxime Rodinson, George Jabbour, Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, Baha Abu-Laban, Jamil Hilal, and Rosemary Sayigh.
while a settler colonial analysis “offers a far more accurate portrayal of the conflict than…has conventionally been painted”, Wolfe’s zero-sum approach is limited in practical application because almost all Israeli Jews naturally reject it, as a form of antisemitism that denies their long-standing history in the land of Israel and aspirations for self-determination.[9][10] This is further reflected in the Israeli state’s public diplomacy efforts, responding to what it considers attacks on its legitimate right to exist and calls for its destruction. Hussein Ibish argues that such zero-sum calls are “a gift that no occupying power and no colonizing settler movement deserves.”[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism_as_settler_colonialism
Zionist Settler Colonialism When in the late nineteenth century Zionism arose as a political force calling for the colonization of Palestine and the “gathering of all Jews,” little attention was paid to the fact that Palestine was already populated. Indeed, the Basel Program adopted at the First Zionist Congress, which launched political Zionism in 1897, made no mention of a Palestinian native population when it spelled out the movement’s objective: “the establishment of a publicly and legally secured home in Palestine for the Jewish people.”
Moreover, in the early years of their efforts to secure support for their enterprise, the Zionists propagated in the West the idea of “a land without a people for a people without a land,” a slogan coined by Israel Zangwill, a prominent Anglo-Jewish writer often quoted in the British press as a spokesman for Zionism and one of the earliest organizers of the Zionist movement in Britain. https://digitalprojects.palestine-studies.org/resources/special-focus/zionist-settler-colonialism
The Israel-Palestine Conflict Chapter 3: Zionism and the Colonization of Palestine This chapter traces the emergence of the Zionist movement and the colonization of Palestine from the late nineteenth century through the 1930s. It begins with two Zionist pioneers. The first, Theodor Herzl––the father of political Zionism––was important both for his approach to Jewish colonization (he sought the backing of a Great Power for the project) and for his organizational skills which created structures in Europe that nurtured the movement. The second, Leo Pinsker––the father of Practical Zionism––believed the Jews of Europe could not wait, and thus organized Jewish emigration to Palestine. While the first attempts at colonization failed, the chapter goes on to discuss three more waves of immigration. The second and third wave were inspired by socialism and Romanticism, and the structures they created––which lasted well into the statehood period––reflected this. The fourth wave, however, was mainly made up of economic refugees who were attracted to a rightwing, petit-bourgeois ideology. They and their descendents became influential in Israel beginning in the late 1970s. https://www.cambridge.org/highereducation/books/the-israel-palestine-conflict/5D389E3231527643CCE3F861003EC172/zionism-and-the-colonization-of-palestine/4C076CF1B5A8289FAECC6FA36262EC4A
2024-07-12 We Must Understand Israel as a Settler-Colonial State Just as the U.S. celebrates itself as “a nation of immigrants,” Zionists celebrated Palestine as a land without people for a people without land. Their support for Israel was emblematic, I came to understand later, of the seductive mythology that settler-colonial states cultivate and depend on. These young people were drawn to the story about a state created to protect Jewish refugees from the Holocaust.
Although there are stark differences and time frames for the establishment of settler colonialism, there is a common thread that defines the process. To understand this, it’s helpful to distinguish, as historian Lorenzo Veracini does, between “settlers” and “immigrants”: While migrants enter existing political orders, “settlers are founders of political orders” and carry their sovereignty with them.
Still, the United States celebrates itself as “a nation of immigrants,” just as Israeli Zionists celebrated Palestine as “a land without a people for a people without a land,” a homeland for Jews from all over the world, a nation of refugees — rhetoric that echoes U.S. “nation of immigrants” mythology. Rhetoric that ignores settler colonialism, writes Mamdani, “is essential to settler-colonial nation-state projects such as the United States and Israel,” which cloak themselves in the nonpolitical project of immigration to hide their true project of fortifying the colonial nation-state. https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/07/12/we-must-understand-israel-as-a-settler-colonial-state/
2024-05-02 Israel Wants to Drive All Palestinians Into Other Countries Isael is a colonial state created by a massive land theft from another people. This is not a war. Gaza is not a state, has no army, air force, embassies or a real government! It is an illegally occupied territory!
True history. If you look at the US as a settler state, it did not live in peace either. It’s intention was to wipe out the Native population, germ warfare was one strategy. It waged a genocidal war against the Native population that resisted the invading forces. Contrary to what people are taught, the longest and most bitter war the US settler regime has fought is the war against Native Americans. resistance. As brutal as the war was, the Native people are still here and their culture alive and well. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/GYDC5qwaY0M
2020-11-04 From Balfour to the Nakba: The settler-colonial experience of Palestine Britain granted international legitimacy to Zionist colonisation, sowing the seeds for the future dispossession of Palestine’s native population.
The late prominent scholar of settler-colonialism, Patrick Wolfe, reminded us repeatedly that it is not an event, it is a structure. While settler-colonialism in many cases has a historical starting point, its original motivation guides its maintenance in the present.
By and large, settler-colonial projects are motivated by what Wolfe defined as “the logic of the elimination of the native”. Settlers’ wish to create a new homeland almost inevitably clashes with the aspirations of the local native population. In some cases, this clash leads to the physical elimination of native populations, as seen in the Americas and Australia; in others, such as South Africa, settlers enclave the indigenous population in closed areas and impose an apartheid system.
Zionism in Palestine is a settler-colonial project, and Israel remains to this day a settler-colonial state. This depiction is now widely accepted in the scholarly world, but rejected by mainstream Israeli scholars. https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/balfour-nakba-settler-colonial-experience-palestine
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