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Israel: A Colonial Project from Inception

Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism, was inspired by European Colonialism. He was passionate about the Zionist project of founding a Jewish state, and even appealed to Cecil Rhodes, an infamous English colonialist, for support in this colonial endeavour:

You are being invited to help make history. That cannot frighten you, nor will you laugh at it. It is not in your accustomed line; it doesn’t involve Africa, but a piece of Asia Minor, not Englishmen, but Jews. But had this been on your path, you would have done it by now. How, then, do I happen to turn to you, since this is an out-of-the-way matter for you? How indeed? Because it is something colonial.

— Theodor Herzl. (1902). Letter to Cecil Rhodes

Herzl also wrote in his famous pamphlet about the colonial tasks that would be undertaken:

Should the Powers declare themselves willing to admit our sovereignty over a neutral piece of land, then the Society will enter into negotiations for the possession of this land. Here two territories come under consideration, Palestine and Argentine. In both countries important experiments in colonization have been made, though on the mistaken principle of a gradual infiltration of Jews. An infiltration is bound to end badly. It continues till the inevitable moment when the native population feels itself threatened, and forces the Government to stop a further influx of Jews. Immigration is consequently futile unless we have the sovereign right to continue such immigration…

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 than purely colonial tasks.

— Theodor Herzl. (1896). The Jewish State

Israel also occupies a very important geopolitical location in the world. This topological map of the world, which shows international borders and nothing else, demonstrates how Israel is a bottleneck on land, and a land bridge between the Mediterranean Sea and the Arabian Sea (via the Red Sea). Herzl appealed to its central location:

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.

— Theodor Herzl. (1897). Address to the First Zionist Congress

As the Zionist project developed, the colonial character was undeniable:

The colonization process revealed an even more telling feature of the nature of Zionism. The names and purposes of the early colonization instruments read as follows: “The Jewish Colonial Trust” (1898), the “Colonization Commission” (1898), the “Palestine Land Development Company.” From the start the Zionist colonists sought to acquire lands in strategic locations, evict the Arab peasants and boycott Arab labour, all of which were requirements closely related with the essence of Zionism, the creation of a Jewish nation on “purely” Jewish land, as Jewish as England was English to use the famous Zionist expression…

What about the fate of the natives? “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 own country… The property owners will come to our side. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.”

But before spiriting them away Herzl had some jobs for the local population: “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.”

— Abdul-Wahab Kayyali. (1977). Zionism and Imperialism: The Historical Origins

Nakba and Illegal Settlements

Following the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, the ensuing expulsion of Palestinians became known as the Nakba (“Catastrophe” in Arabic).

The Palestinians were driven out of their homeland and their properties, homes were taken away from them, and they were banished and displaced all over the world to face all kinds of suffering and woes. More than three quarters of historic Palestine were occupied in the Nakba of 1948. Moreover, 531 Palestinian towns and villages were destroyed and 85% of the Palestinian population were banished and displaced…

Israelis controlled 774 towns and villages during the Nakba. They destroyed 531 Palestinian towns and villages. Israeli forces atrocities also include more than 70 massacres against Palestinians killing 15,000 Palestinians during Nakba time…

Nakba in literary terms is expressive of natural catastrophes such as earthquakes, volcanoes, and hurricanes. However, the Nakba of Palestine is an ethnic cleansing process as well as destruction and banishment of an unarmed nation to be replaced by another nation.

— Luay Shabaneh. (2008).

Around 750,000 Palestinian Arabs out of the 900,000 who lived in the territories that became Israel fled or were expelled from their homes. Wells were poisoned to prevent their return. Even after the state of Israel was formally established, it continued to expand into Palestinian land, displacing the Palestinian people and creating illegal settlements to this day.

The Security Council reaffirmed this afternoon that Israel’s establishment of settlements in Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, had no legal validity, constituting a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the vision of two States living side-by-side in peace and security, within internationally recognized borders.

— UN Security Council. (2016). Israel’s Settlements Have No Legal Validity, Constitute Flagrant Violation of International Law, Security Council Reaffirms

These policies and practices have predictable outcomes:

Since the occupation first began in June 1967, Israel’s ruthless policies of land confiscation, illegal settlement and dispossession, coupled with rampant discrimination, have inflicted immense suffering on Palestinians, depriving them of their basic rights.

Israel’s military rule disrupts every aspect of daily life in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It continues to affect whether, when and how Palestinians can travel to work or school, go abroad, visit their relatives, earn a living, attend a protest, access their farmland, or even access electricity or a clean water supply. It means daily humiliation, fear and oppression. People’s entire lives are effectively held hostage by Israel.

— Amnesty International. (2017). Israel’s Occupation: 50 Years of Dispossession

These illegal settlements also violate the Geneva Convention:

Israel’s policy of settling its civilians in occupied Palestinian territory and displacing the local population contravenes fundamental rules of international humanitarian law.

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” It also prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory”.

— Amnesty International. (2019). Chapter 3: Israeli Settlements and International Law

Apartheid

Israel’s inspiration from European colonialism also clearly laid the foundation for an apartheid regime. The word “apartheid” is a term derived from the Afrikaans language which means “separateness”. Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd, former South African Prime Minister, is infamously credited with being the principal architect of apartheid. In 1961, when the UN (including Israel) voted to condemn South Africa for its apartheid policies, Verwoerd said: “Israel is not consistent in its new anti-apartheid attitude … they took Israel away from the Arabs after the Arabs lived there for a thousand years. In that, I agree with them. Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state.”

Israeli authorities must be held accountable for committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians, Amnesty International said today in a damning new report. The investigation details how Israel enforces a system of oppression and domination against the Palestinian people wherever it has control over their rights. This includes Palestinians living in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), as well as displaced refugees in other countries.

— Amnesty International. (2022). Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: a cruel system of domination and a crime against humanity

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Across these areas and in most aspects of life, Israeli authorities methodically privilege Jewish Israelis and discriminate against Palestinians. Laws, policies, and statements by leading Israeli officials make plain that the objective of maintaining Jewish Israeli control over demographics, political power, and land has long guided government policy. In pursuit of this goal, authorities have dispossessed, confined, forcibly separated, and subjugated Palestinians by virtue of their identity to varying degrees of intensity. In certain areas, as described in this report, these deprivations are so severe that they amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.

— Human Rights Watch. (2021). A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution

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A UN expert called today on the international community to accept and adopt the findings in his current report, echoing recent findings by Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights organisations, that apartheid is being practiced by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory.

“There is today in the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967 a deeply discriminatory dual legal and political system that privileges the 700,000 Israeli Jewish settlers living in the 300 illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank,” said Michael Lynk, the UN Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.

— Israel’s 55-year occupation of Palestinian Territory is apartheid – UN human rights expert | UNHCR (2022)

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Citing inhumane acts, arbitrary and extra-judicial killings, torture, the denial of fundamental rights, an abysmal child mortality rate, collective punishment, an abusive military court system, and home demolitions, [Michael] Lynk said the international community bears much responsibility for the present situation.

— Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territory is ‘apartheid’: UN rights expert | UN News (2022)

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