Quoting Amos Goldberg & Bashir Bashir in The Holocaust and the Nakba: A New Grammar of Trauma and History, page 15:
The Zionist settlement in Palestine, along with the establishment of the [neocolony] and the violent practices [that] it employs, cannot be understood outside the contextual framework of European settler colonialism.59
Indeed, Zionism was intimately linked to and considerably influenced by British and, to some extent, French imperialism in the Middle East and, in fact, adopted much of the orientalist and colonialist lexicon—for example, the establishment of European colonies, supposed to bring progress (whether socialist or capitalist) to a region perceived as backward.
The methods of control, repression, expulsion, and destruction later employed by the [neocolony], as well as its propensity for dispossession and land theft, may largely be explained in the context of European settler colonialism.60 European imperialism in general and settler colonialism in particular thus provide a necessary and important frame of reference for understanding Zionism and its struggle against the native Arab population of Palestine.
(Emphasis added.)
Citations.
- See Zreik, “When Does a Settler Become a Native?”; and Derek Penslar, “Is Zionism a Colonial Movement?” in Israel in History: The Jewish State in Comparative Perspective (London: Routledge, 2006), 90–111. Penslar argues that Zionism is rooted in European colonialism as well as in Afro-Asian anticolonialism. See also Rouhana and Sabbagh-Khoury, “Settler Colonial Citizenship.”
- See Maxime Rodinson, Israel: A Colonial-Settler State? trans. David Thorstad (London: Pathfinder, 1973); Patrick Wolfe, “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native,” Journal of Genocide Research 8, no. 4 (2006): 387–409; Patrick Wolfe, “New Jews for Old: Settler State Formation and the Impossibility of Zionism: In Memory of Edward W. Said,” Arena Journal 37/38 (2012): 285–321; Lorenzo Veracini, “The Other Shift: Settler Colonialism, Israel, and the Occupation,” Journal of Palestine Studies 42, no. 2 (2013): 26–42; and Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Constance Farrington London: Penguin, [1963] 2001).
As I correctly concluded nearly three weeks ago:
Zionism is not a ‘Jewish’ ideology. It is a European one. It always has been and it always shall be. We therefore cannot possibly hope to understand Zionism by looking into Jewish behavior, but rather into European colonialism, because many of the atrocities that I have shown here can be found not only in Zionism and Fascism but also in British imperialism, Dutch imperialism, French imperialism, Iberian imperialism, and more. Together with Fascism, Zionism is simply another episode in the long continuity of European colonialism across the world.
Zionism has almost nothing at all to do with Judaism. The only link between the two phenomena is the Biblical inspiration to return to what was formerly known as the Kingdom of Israel. That’s it.
The reason that it arose in the late 19th century and not earlier is that the irreligious Jew Theodor Herzl disregarded Judaism’s belief that Jews are not supposed to all return there until their messiah has arrived. I honestly have no idea how Zionists can harmonize that inconsistency with Judaism, unless they seriously think that Theodor Herzl is their messiah (ha!). It makes absolutely no sense.
Think about it: why would Zionism arise in Europe, the kingpin of colonialism, and not in or simultaneously within Afrasia? Why would Iraqi, Palestinian, and other Southern Jews protest Zionism in the 1920s, rather than jump at the chance to support it? Well, there are various reasons for that, but what you need to know most is that you can only understand Zionism by examining other variants of European colonialism, not Judaism or Jewish behavior.
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Also, just wanna mention that Theodore Herzl literally died thinking the Zionist homeland would be in Uganda as a part of British East Africa.
Excellent post. Zionism should be seen as a European colonialist project, not a religous one, and not one supported by the indigenous Jews already living in the ME.
Argentina, muses Herzl, has some material benefits to recommend it. But Palestine “is our ever‐memorable historic home.”50 Here “our” clearly refers to “us” as Jews. In the same breath, he says, “We should there form a portion of the rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism.”51 Here “we” means “us” as Europeans.
In a similar vein (but more explicit and more pronounced), Max Nordau, speaking at an early Zionist Congress, said this: “We will endeavor to do in the Near East what the English did in India. It is our intention to come to Palestine as the representatives of culture and to take the moral borders of Europe to the Euphrates River.”52
(Source.)
Colonialist ghouls. You should def make an inforgraphic out of those.
