What is meant by colonialism when discussing Israel/Palestine?

[elias7]

I’m having a difficult time stretching my
understanding of colonialism to explain the Jewish presence in the Middle East. I can’t help but think then this is a deliberate attempt to make Jews appear more powerful and more sinister than they really are.

Does not colonialism refer to Empire building, expansion by a vast power into already inhabited areas to lay claim to the land and its resources? Israel is not a British, a European, or colony of any other empire, tapping the vast resources of the oil-poor Negev desert to send back to its homeland.

Jews are indigenous to this land, none other. And over the millennia, history has shown that they are not welcome anywhere ultimately.

Israel was formed in exactly the opposite time of empire building and colonization. British and French empires were relinquishing their lands in the Middle East, creating Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, and almost Palestine. The turn of the century and the decades after was the first era of nationalism. All the states created in the Middle East were meant to be Arab states, all except Israel.

For tens of thousands and later hundreds of thousands of Jews to seek safe haven in the only ancestral homeland they had ever truly known, first walking then running, due to forces of persecution, ethnic cleansing, and finally genocide, this strains and really defies my definition of colonialism. They didn’t leave some behemoth empire known as Jewland to spread their tentacles into other peoples’ business. For the many that fled to England, and to America, are these colonizers as well?

Has colonialism been redefined since the age of the expansionistic British, French, Belgian, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Arab empires? Or did I miss that day at school when persecuted refugees returning to their homeland are also colonialists.

Perhaps someone can clear this up for me.

[brush]

1. IMO it's been more of an occupation by surrogacy...

as Israeli is not a colonial power, it's a surrogate for higher powers.

[The Magistrate]

2. It's A Sort Of Fundamentalist Attachment, Sir

To propaganda lines current in the Cold War sixties, when Israel was essentially a pre-positioned NATO force in the Near East, and as such in poor odor with domestic leftists. It was complicated by a falling out between Jews active in the Civil Rights movement and rising Black Power types.

The general modern meaning of colonialism is a circumstance where one country exercises control of another's political and economic life, in order to directly benefit the ruling country's economic and political power. This is a very poor fit with the situation of Israel, now or at any other point in its history.

There is an older meaning of the term colony, defining it as the seizure of land to settle a polity's excess population, on the backs or the graves of the original population. This is a bit closer, but it also describes the circumstances of most every country in the world, if one bothers going far enough back.

Basically, at this point it's just a term of abuse, stripped of any meaning save the conveyance of the speaker's distaste for the party the epithet is directed at.

[elias7]

11. Thank you for this background

[DBoon]

3. Could be settler colonialism, but that doesn't quite fit

per wikipedia:

Settler colonialism occurs when colonizers invade and occupy territory to permanently replace the existing society with the society of the colonizers.[1][2][3]

Settler colonialism is a form of exogenous domination typically organized or supported by an imperial authority.[4] Settler colonialism contrasts with exploitation colonialism, which entails an economic policy of conquering territory to exploit its population as cheap or free labor and its natural resources as raw material. In this way, settler colonialism lasts indefinitely, except in the rare event of complete evacuation or settler decolonization.[5]

Settler colonialism was especially prominent in the Colonial empires of the European powers between the 16th and 20th centuries. The settling of Boers[6] in South Africa, British,[7] French, Portuguese[8] and Spanish[9] expansion in the Americas as well as the settlement of the Canary islands by Castile are classical examples of settler colonialism

Jewish settlements were not initiated by an "imperial authority". There has always been a Jewish presence in the area dating back centuries.

Jewish immigration has had the effect of displacing existing residents, so this characteristic of settler colonialism is shared.

I agree that use of the term "colonialism" in this context is a relic of the cold war and has degenerated into a generic slur that does not help Israeli-Palestinian relations.

[ancianita]

4. This might help. I agree with you and the author.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/decolonization-narrative-dangerous-and-false/675799/

The Decolonization Narrative Is Dangerous and False

"... In a further racist twist, Jews are now accused of the very crimes they themselves have suffered. Hence the constant claim of a “genocide” when no genocide has taken place or been intended. Israel, with Egypt, has imposed a blockade on Gaza since Hamas took over, and has periodically bombarded the Strip in retaliation for regular rocket attacks. After more than 4,000 rockets were fired by Hamas and its allies into Israel, the 2014 Gaza War resulted in more than 2,000 Palestinian deaths. More than 7,000 Palestinians, including many children, have died so far in this war, according to Hamas. This is a tragedy—but this is not a genocide, a word that has now been so devalued by its metaphorical abuse that it has become meaningless...

If the ideology of decolonization, taught in our universities as a theory of history and shouted in our streets as self-evidently righteous, badly misconstrues the present reality, does it reflect the history of Israel as it claims to do? It does not. Indeed, it does not accurately describe either the foundation of Israel or the tragedy of the Palestinians.

According to the decolonizers, Israel is and always has been an illegitimate freak-state because it was fostered by the British empire and because some of its founders were European-born Jews.

In this narrative, Israel is tainted by imperial Britain’s broken promise to deliver Arab independence, and its kept promise to support a “national home for the Jewish people,” in the language of the 1917 Balfour Declaration. But the supposed promise to Arabs was in fact an ambiguous 1915 agreement with Sharif Hussein of Mecca, who wanted his Hashemite family to rule the entire region. In part, he did not receive this new empire because his family had much less regional support than he claimed. Nonetheless, ultimately Britain delivered three kingdoms—Iraq, Jordan, and Hejaz—to the family.

The imperial powers—Britain and France—made all sorts of promises to different peoples, and then put their own interests first. Those promises to the Jews and the Arabs during World War I were typical. Afterward, similar promises were made to the Kurds, the Armenians, and others, none of which came to fruition. But the central narrative that Britain betrayed the Arab promise and backed the Jewish one is incomplete. In the 1930s, Britain turned against Zionism, and from 1937 to 1939 moved toward an Arab state with no Jewish one at all. It was an armed Jewish revolt, from 1945 to 1948 against imperial Britain, that delivered the state.

Israel exists thanks to this revolt, and to international law and cooperation, something leftists once believed in. The idea of a Jewish “homeland” was proposed in three declarations by Britain (signed by Balfour), France, and the United States, then promulgated in a July 1922 resolution by the League of Nations that created the British “mandates” over Palestine and Iraq that matched French “mandates” over Syria and Lebanon. In 1947, the United Nations devised the partition of the British mandate of Palestine into two states, Arab and Jewish.

The carving of such states out of these mandates was not exceptional, either. At the end of World War II, France granted independence to Syria and Lebanon, newly conceived nation-states. Britain created Iraq and Jordan in a similar way. Imperial powers designed most of the countries in the region, except Egypt.

Nor was the imperial promise of separate homelands for different ethnicities or sects unique. The French had promised independent states for the Druze, Alawites, Sunnis, and Maronites but in the end combined them into Syria and Lebanon. All of these states had been “vilayets” and “sanjaks” (provinces) of the Turkish Ottoman empire, ruled from Constantinople, from 1517 until 1918.

The concept of “partition” is, in the decolonization narrative, regarded as a wicked imperial trick. But it was entirely normal in the creation of 20th-century nation-states, which were typically fashioned out of fallen empires. And sadly, the creation of nation-states was frequently marked by population swaps, huge refugee migrations, ethnic violence, and full-scale wars. Think of the Greco-Turkish war of 1921–22 or the partition of India in 1947. In this sense, Israel-Palestine was typical.

At the heart of decolonization ideology is the categorization of all Israelis, historic and present, as “colonists.” This is simply wrong. Most Israelis are descended from people who migrated to the Holy Land from 1881 to 1949. They were not completely new to the region. The Jewish people ruled Judean kingdoms and prayed in the Jerusalem Temple for a thousand years, then were ever present there in smaller numbers for the next 2,000 years. In other words, Jews are indigenous in the Holy Land, and if one believes in the return of exiled people to their homeland, then the return of the Jews is exactly that. Even those who deny this history or regard it as irrelevant to modern times must acknowledge that Israel is now the home and only home of 9 million Israelis who have lived there for four, five, six generations...."

[The Magistrate]

5. Thank You, Ma'am

[ancianita]

6. Thank you, Sir, as well.

[Lithos]

7. Thank you

Keeping the thread open because of this post.

[Lithos]

8. Ok, a comment

I held off for a bit to reply to this.

First, I definitely agree Israel is not a Colonist endeavor as expressed by the types of Franz Fanon whose focus was more towards the European experience in Africa or the Caribbean.

But, there still remains the idea of a settle-colonial situation. This is where settlers come into permanently replace the pre-existing settlements and totally establish and replace the indigenous people with their own. The best examples here being Australia, New Zealand and the United States. Even smaller examples being places like Haiti, the Canary Islands, etc. There are certainly failed examples such as South Africa (and possibly Algeria).

However, Israel always comes up as an example of this. However, this almost always gets complicated immediately because the debate keeps focusing on different facts. Whenever, this happens I personally like to start breaking down things into smaller units to help provide some consistency - in this case - let's break this along a timeline. I think 1947/8 and the Independence of Israel is the crucial division point.

Prior to 1947 - Jews migrated to Palestine not with the expressed permission of either the Ottoman or the the British empire which were the imperial powers. In fact both powers tried to actually discourage and prevent this migration. So, these people came without support to an area they felt was their ancient homeland. I think this safely categorizes this not as colonialism. To loosely borrow a Tolkien metaphor - the settles felt attacked by a "five nation army" that wanted to exterminate them. As such, the war for Israeli Independence can also easily be framed as a war for survival in the face of genocide.

For the record - I am a person of science and I have seen the DNA reviews and the Palestinians and most Jews are genetically extremely close - almost like what you would expect between Canaanites and the various Jewish tribes which shared a common set of forefathers.

Post 1967 with the rise of Israeli power in the area past the 1948 boundaries, there was a growing pressure by people to settle and replace the Palestinian inhabitants in those areas with a purely Israeli one. Now, is that settler colonialism? I think this is worth an examination. It was distinctly not a case of preservation like 1947 - but of replacement. 1967 also corresponds to the date when Israel was first called a Colonial Settler State by Maxime Robinson in his article - _Israel: A Colonial Settler-State?_. While I have issues with Mr. Robinson's extreme Marxist take - the idea still has merit.

L-

[ancianita]

9. I disagree on your premises and your logic, not to mention your inclination to hyperrationalize.

But, there still remains the idea of a settle-colonial situation. This is where settlers come into permanently replace the pre-existing settlements and totally establish and replace the indigenous people with their own.

There still remains an idea that is just an idea. That so-called idea, upon closer examination, is more like a long held prejudice by the Christian world, with all the pogroms and genocide (in the name of the Jew, Jesus) that have gone with that.

You must not have read the article, or my highlighting of Jewish history. You must not know, or choose not to know, the actual history of the Jewish people as indigenous to their current homeland.

I think 1947/8 and the Independence of Israel is the crucial division point.

1947/8 is actually the crucial recognition point of who the Jewish people are in history.

...is that settler colonialism? I think this is worth an examination.

You proceed with others' labels, which is simply legitimizing the basic anti-semitism of other thinkers, who you go along with in presupposing that Israeli Jews, (Jews in general?) are not equally as entitled to a homeland as those who do not want to co-exist with them.

Your "examination" is a re-hash of what so-called intellectuals have done before -- cloak their anti-semitic prejudice.


My bottom line: The onus is on the Muslim world to co-exist with the Jews. They refuse. When the Saudis even think of allowing coexistence, the rest smash that effort.

Believer wars are the bane of the planet. If humans refuse to live and let live, if they choose fear and power over love, the world will have no peace. This is not a future strategy for humanity. The few should never terrorize the many to live lifetimes of fear.

I can't agree with anything you've said about the Jews. Let's try backing Biden's approach.

[Lithos]

10. Ok...

You must not have read the article, or my highlighting of Jewish history. You must not know, or choose not to know, the actual history of the Jewish people as indigenous to their current homeland.

Yes, I read it - I have read many articles like that - it repeats many tropes and at the same time omits facts and avoids a serious examination.

Let me fall down the rabbit hole of your article and show why it's missing a few things.

I know the Israelites to be one of the many groups which descended from the ancient Canaanites. I also know Palestinians are another group descended from the Canaanites. This is hard archeological and biological (DNA) fact. Both groups share a very similar history and claims of being indigenous to the lands which form Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. For most of recorded history the lands were never homogeneous - but with villages belonging to one group adjacent to villages of other groups. The Roman expulsion did not leave the land of Judea vacant - but rather removed people from specific neighborhoods and from specific villages. Adjacent neighborhoods and villages were untouched.

And yes, many colonial powers flirted with the idea of a Jewish homeland in Israel/Palestine. They also at various times worked against such a concept. The logical fallacy here though is that if you are going to claim Jews have had a long standing claim to the lands, then it was never the colonial power's right to give as the Jews already had that right. Similarly, it was not within their right to take away any other group with similarly long standing claims.

As your article points out during the war for Israeli independence (1947/8) the neighboring countries attempted to dispose and evict the Jewish settlers who, as you pointed out, had indigenous claims to the area. After much fighting, the State of Israel was born and foreign domination of most of the lands was over. Jewish settlers in the West Bank were evicted and sent to Israel. Many Palestinians also were evicted as well, some ending up in Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon and Syria. Maybe not the cleanest outcome, but at least the groups with historical claims were at least sharing the territory.

Post 1967, Israel took over the West Bank and the Gaza. Increasingly Israeli policy has been to promote the settlement by Jews of these territories along with the corresponding eviction of Palestinians. I think it is extremely crass to try and play the indigenous card to claim one group of people descended from the Canaanites has more right to the land than another group descended from the very same Canaanites. Even so, there has to be a description when a government enacts a policy where a preferred group of people are given eminent domain and allowed to evict another group of people in order to achieve a permanent settlement.

Now this is where your article loses focus.

At this point, I think it is rather obvious other factors are in play - much more modern beliefs involving Nationalism and identity politics. So, using "history" is just an emotional excuse to justify and deflect from extremely nasty business. Evidence strongly suggests the current leadership within both Israel and Palestine view themselves in modern Nationalist eyes in an "us" vs "them" mentality where "us" is 1st class and "them" is 2nd class. In the case of the West Bank settlers, because the "2nd" class people currently live in an area of desired settlement, the attempts to evict them really follow the settler-colonist metaphor in the same manner that the US settlers (1st class belief) evicted the Indigenous natives (viewed as 2nd class). And if you have not picked up on this - being 1st class means being not only more powerful, but also "superior" thru some sort of manifest destiny (which your article tries to support by citing "history&quot . Real history of course says the truth is a bit different.

And as witnessed in the current situation in Gaza - when given a chance, the Palestinians chose to treat Israelis as 2nd class in their treatment and the current Israeli response similarly so in how they treat the Palestinians. Only the stare by the rest of the world has caused either side to act with any niceties.

And yes, finally to our single point of agreement - I support Biden's approach here. It is pragmatic.

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler - Einstein