Israel is a Settler-Colonial State
Bringing ‘civilisation’ to lands that were supposedly desolate and barbarous
“With compulsory transfer we would have a vast area for settlement ..
I support compulsory transfer. I don’t see anything immoral in it.”
- David Ben-Gurion, Founder of Israel, and first Prime Minister of Israel (1938)
The Zionist Movement is Colonialist.
Theodor Herzl was the father of the Zionist movement and the World Zionist Organization’s first elected president. In his 1896 pamphlet, ‘The Jewish State’, he outlined his vision for colonizing Palestine. Following in the footsteps of numerous chartered companies, which played a significant role in the outward expansion of various European powers since the 16th century, he declared: “The Jewish Company is partly modeled on the lines of a great land-acquisition company. It might be called a Jewish Chartered Company, though it cannot exercise sovereign power and has other purely colonial tasks.”
He proposed that ‘The Jewish Company’ would be founded as a joint stock company subject to English jurisdiction, shaped by England’s laws, and would be under England’s wing. The Zionist movement grew, and organizations named “The Jewish Colonial Trust” and “Colonization Commission” were created, highlighting the intention of the Zionist movement.
Herzl pursued meetings with British colonial officials such as Joseph Chamberlain. He spoke in an interview with Chamberlain and Henry Charles Keith Petty-Fitzmaurice, the 5th Marquess of Lansdowne. During this interview, Herzl remarked that the British Empire would “be bigger by a rich colony.” He continued to say that millions of Jewish people “will all wear England in their hearts if through such a deed it becomes the protective power of the Jewish people. At one stroke England will get ten million secret but loyal subjects active in all walks of life all over the world. At a signal, all of them will place themselves at the service of the magnanimous nation that brings long-desired help… England will get ten million agents for her greatness and her influence. And the effect of this sort of thing usually spreads from the political to the economic.”
Herzl was setting the stage for the settlers to be loyal to England and act in their interests, by appealing to the interests of the English elites. By developing a colony that Britain would back, Herzl makes it clear that he was driven by his admiration for England’s colonial practices. He sought to replicate previous British colonization projects due to his racist views towards non-white populations.
Herzl also wrote to Cecil Rhodes, an imperialist who colonized Zimbabwe and other African countries and founded the British South Africa Company. He is also known for killing millions of Southern Africans for diamonds and land. Herzl wrote to Cecil Rhodes asking for his blessing for the Zionist colonization of Palestine, “You are the only man who can help me now…it is a big- some say, too big –thing. To me, it does not seem too big for Cecil Rhodes… You are being invited to make history…It is not in your accustomed line; it doesn’t involve Africa but a piece of Asia Minor, not Englishmen but Jews…How do I happen to turn to you seeing this matter so remote to you? How? Because it is colonial.”
Thus it would be reasonable to conclude that Herzl held reverence towards the colonial projects Britain was carrying out and was motivated to create a colonial project comparable to the ones Britain had enacted. Herzl put great effort in gaining the approval of colonial figures, understanding that was essential to fulfill his own goals in gaining land for Israel.
Ze’ev Jabotinsky, a Zionist paramilitary leader and founder of Irgun, said the following in The Iron Wall, “it is utterly impossible to obtain the voluntary consent of the Palestine Arabs for converting “Palestine” from an Arab country into a country with a Jewish majority. My readers have a general idea of the history of colonization in other countries. I suggest that they consider all the precedents with which they are acquainted, and see whether there is one solitary instance of any colonization being carried on with the consent of the native population. There is no such precedent. The native populations, civilized or uncivilized, have always stubbornly resisted the colonists, irrespective of whether they were civilized or savage.” Jabotinsky demonstrated that Arabs/Palestinians were no different to Native populations who resisted colonists meaning that Zionists did view the Palestinian population as Indigenous (despite what contemporary Zionists will say). Colonialism thrives off of categorizing native populations as generally uncivilized and white populations carrying out colonial violence as civilized. White colonizers get to be the civilized ones who are supposedly restoring freedom to “uncivilized” populations. I know that was the rhetoric I was taught as an American through the education system.
Zionists believed, like other colonists, that they had the right to steal land and their subjects deserved their fate. The Zionist movement portrayed their quest as one of bringing civilization to lands that were supposedly “desolate” and “barbarous.” A common tactic used by other colonizing forces such as the United States, who would commonly depict Indigenous people as “uncivilized” and that the white settlers were restoring “freedom” and bringing “democracy” to “backward” populations. Official American documents would use terms such as “uncivilized” to describe Indigenous people, this framing served to justify the colonization of Indigenous land. Zionists were no exception, in The Jewish State; Herzl wrote that this proposed colony would function as an outpost of Europe to enforce “civilization” onto populations that he saw as “barbarous” and in need of Europe. He wrote the following in The Jewish State, “We should there form a portion of a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism. We should as a neutral State remain in contact with all Europe, which would have to guarantee our existence.”
According to Zionism and Imperialism: The Historical Origins researcher Abdul-Wahab Kayyali concludes that Zionist attitudes towards Palestinian Arabs are not separate from the mindset of imperialist nations and Zionists towards the Arab future on a whole. Abdul-Wahab Kayyali writes that on several occasions Herzl presented Zionism as the meeting point between Christianity and Judaism for both their stances against Islam. According to Abdul-Wahab Kayyali, Herzl and other imperialists would commonly use the term Islam when specifically referencing Arab people, not other Islamic people not a part of the Arab world. This would prove itself true when Zionists allied themselves with the Ottoman Revolution in 1908 “In their common battle against the incipient Arab national movement and Arab independence.”
Herzl intended for Zionism to serve the needs of imperialist nations and sought to create a colonial project inspired by the values of Western imperialism, including their values of white supremacy and Islamophobia. Herzl’s address to the First Zionist Congress in 1897 drives this point further, “It is more and more to the interest of the civilized nations and of civilization in general that a cultural station be established on the shortest road to Asia. Palestine is this station and we Jews are the bearers of culture who are ready to give our property and our lives to bring about its creation.” Herzl envisioned European Jewish people as the bearers of culture and civilization as previous European colonizers viewed themselves. White supremacy serves the purpose of enabling capitalism’s constant need for expansion and reliance on resources and allowing colonizers to continue their colonial violence by aiding them with a justification that they were bringing “freedom” and “civilization” (or whatever nonsense most Westerners hear in grade school). The justification of colonial powers bringing freedom to the “backward” populations was a tool to get colonizers okay with increasing the power of imperialist/colonialist empires by subjecting the native populations to dehumanization, displacement, and colonial violence.
Herzl was aware that the establishment of this proposed state would further result in the native population being displaced/becoming refugees. In his diary, he wrote the following about the fate of the natives; “When we occupy the land, we shall bring immediate benefits to the state that receives us. We must expropriate gently the private property on the estates assigned to us. We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our country. The property owners will come over to our side. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly. Let the owners of immovable property believe that they are cheating us, selling us things for more than they are worth. But we are not going to sell them anything back.” Herzl makes it abundantly clear that he intended for what we know now as “Israel” to be an occupying force. Demonstrating that early Zionists were very vocal about their intentions as they intended for “Israel” to occupy and completely eradicate Palestine. Now, we will hear rhetoric that “Israel” was designed to offer a home to Jewish people. But was it really? Or was Herzl attempting to create a settler-colonial project that would function as an outpost of the West and destabilize Palestine (as we know that Herzl saw Islam as a threat and called Palestinians “barbarous” and void of “civilization”)?
Herzl wanted the native Palestinian population to be entirely removed and this process was initially, begun by buying the properties of Palestinians. Those who refused to sell, were then terrorised into leaving — leading to the Nakba.
This attitude of entitlement over the Palestinian land and the ability to treat them as disposable reflects something more sinister: white supremacy.
For Herzl, it did not just end with removing Palestinians from their land so Zionists could acquire it, but he wanted the local population to do the dehumanizing jobs, “If we move into a region where there are wild animals to which the Jews are not accustomed — big snakes, etc … I shall use the natives, prior to giving them employment in the transit countries, for the extermination of the animals.” The racist assumption that Palestinians are all accustomed to “wild” animals reflects that he did not even see them as people; he did see them as lesser than Europeans (he intended the settler-colonial project of Israel for Europeans and Western interests). To him, the Palestinians were something he could morph into anything he wanted because they just were not human in his eyes. Plotting to give degrading jobs like exterminating “wild” animals before forcibly displacing an entire population for the sake of stealing land to pursue a fantasy of creating a settler-colonial project that would uphold Western interests is simply despicable.
Herzl’s successor and later the first president of Israel, Chaim Weizmann, explained his plan for the future of Zionism to Arthur Balfour (the former Prime Minister of England). Weizmann explained how Zionism could help British interests: “a community of four to five million Jews in Palestine…from which the Jews could radiate development of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, not mere facilities for colonization.” His proposal echoed the Western desire in the area after the opening of the Suez Canal, the British occupation of Egypt, and World War 1. A memorandum by the General Staff at the British War Office, “The creation of a buffer Jewish State in Palestine, though this State will be weak in itself, is strategically desirable for Great Britain.”
Arthur Balfour supported the Zionists because he wanted to keep Britain a White Christian ethnostate. He had grown very concerned about Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe after World War 1. In 1905, Balfour had driven the Alien Act through Parliament while serving as Prime Minister. The Alien Act put restrictions on immigration into Britain and was specifically designed to target Jewish immigration.
In his introduction to Nahum Sokolow’s ‘History of Zionism’, Balfour noted that Zionism would “mitigate the age-long miseries created for Western civilization by the presence in its midst of a Body which it too long regarded as alien and even hostile, but which it was equally unable to expel or to absorb.” The Balfour declaration would lead to the current colonization of Palestine and result in the violent displacement/removal of Palestinian people for the sake of upholding Western interests.
Present Day Realities — Settler Colonialism in Action
On May 6, 2024, Israel ordered Palestinians to flee eastern Rafah and move west before the impending assault. Rafah is a place in which roughly around 1.5 million people are currently sheltered after being displaced multiple times and subjected to living in dire conditions. Palestinians inhabiting Rafah are living in tents and are presently malnourished, barely able to find adequate drinking water (the water they get from the ocean is highly polluted), and do not have access to adequate medical care, etc.
Prior to this order, Palestinians had already fled their homes due to evictions ordered by Israel. The full-scale destruction resulting from constant bombardments decimated many homes, forcing them to leave their no longer-existent house behind. Recalling that back to November and December, forced evacuation of Palestinians was ordered when Israeli forces dropped leaflets on areas of Khan Yunis, ordering residents to evacuate due to the fear of Israel increasing its assault on southern Gaza and warning them to leave.
Palestinians were told that Rafah was a “safe zone.” As we are discovering now, this too was a lie.
This was the question constantly on my mind today. How are we letting this happen? Every time I hear discourse about why the state of Israel is targeting Palestinians and decimating Gaza, reducing it to rubble, it always becomes about the resistance. That Israel has a “legitimate” aim, which is to target Hamas. However, this is very much false, as it was reported on May 6, 2024, that Hamas accepted a ceasefire deal, but Israel rejected it.
So all the attacks on the entire civilian infrastructure of homes, hospitals, schools and places of worship, is making life practically unliveable for over 2 million people. This military onslaught was never about fighting Hamas; the actions taken by Israel are about facilitating and continuing a racist settler-colonial project backed by Western powers.
As this horror in Palestine continues to unfold, it is essential to remember that our perception of “terrorism” and “freedom” has been warped to justify vast colonial violence so that Europeans continue to gain land and resources on every continent; no matter the human cost.
