Today, the words “colonialism” and “colonization” bother Zionist sensibilities, as indicted war criminal and genocidaire benjamin netanyahu is clearly bothered by the word, but that’s how the Zionist movement described itself and saw itself for much of its history.
For Zionists, colonization was not a dirty word, it was something to be proud of, which is why they embraced the term:
The Imperial Charter for the Colonization of Palestine, for example, was a proposal submitted by Theodor Herzl to the Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II to secure Ottoman legal guarantees for Jewish settlement in Palestine.
The Jewish Colonisation Association encouraged the emigration and resettlement of Eastern European Jews to Argentina, Palestine and elsewhere.
The Jewish Colonial Trust, a Zionist financial institution, acquired capital and credit for a Palestine charter.
The Palestine Jewish Colonization Association facilitated Jewish land purchases in Palestine.
The Zionists thought of themselves as bringing development and modernity to Palestine, as Herzl put it, “an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism.” they saw colonization and colonialism as good things.
But the Zionist movement was not just any old colonial movement, it was a settler-colonial movement, a specific kind of colonialism that veers towards replacement rather than extraction and permanent settlement rather than temporary residence.
And, indeed, the Zionist movement did not seek to integrate into Palestinian Arab society, it sought to take it over.
It sought to establish a Jewish State with a Jewish supermajority working at Jewish-only cooperatives living in Jewish-only colonies operating Jewish-only schools maintained by Jewish-only militias in a country, Palestine, that was overwhelmingly Palestinian Arab, not Jewish. What could possibly go wrong?
They accuse Israel – little Israel – of colonialism. And who is doing the accusing?
Among others, people in Britain and France.
For goodness sake, they are the ones who invented this concept – their colonies stretched across the entire world.
Colonialism? Please, give us a break!