Palestine solidarity activists reclaimed their place in mainstream politics and demanded the dismantling of Israel’s colonial settlement project. But this raises a very basic question: “What is settler colonialism?”
Some commentators were quick to dismiss this accusation of settler colonialism against Israel, calling it “just another form of anti-Semitism.” Others have insinuated that “settler colonialism” is nothing more than a trendy academic theory bandied about by left-wing academics and activists.
But settler colonialism is not just an academic fad. It is a real political project that has marked the past and present of indigenous communities around the world.
A central feature of this project is that it seeks to eliminate the indigenous population to make way for the establishment of a settler society. Ideologically, this erasure is considered justified and inevitable because, for the settler, the indigenous people have no status as a distinct people or historical claim to the land they inhabit. Thus, faced with the civilizational, technological and military superiority of the colonizing state, the “barbaric” indigenous society is practically expected to capitulate and “go away”.
We see it in depictions of clashes between western settlers and indigenous communities in American folklore. They generally end with the disappearance of the latter. I saw a similar narrative in the apartheid-era Voortrekker monument, dedicated to Boer borderism, outside Pretoria. Exhibitions there celebrate the white settler as having brought the “light of civilization” to the wild hinterland of southern Africa.
Israel-Palestine is no different. The ideology of erasure was written into the founding myth of the State of Israel – the myth that Israel was built on “a land without a people for a people without a land.” A popular slogan among Zionists, it helped both to perpetuate the assumption that the “Holy Land” was virgin territory and to characterize the Palestinians as not being “a people” with a distinct identity, and therefore devoid of any legitimate claim to the land.
The father of political Zionism, Theodor Herzl, outlined his utopian vision of a modern Jewish state in his novel Altneuland (Old-New Land), where he wrote: “If I wish to substitute a new building for an old one , I have to demolish before building.” Here, too, the insinuation was that Palestinians and any sign of their existence and connection to the land would inevitably be erased by the settler state.
When Israeli geographers drew their own map of Palestine, they also based their work on the idea that Palestinians are “not a people.”. They were convinced of their indisputable right to the “ancestral land” and redrew Palestine in a way that entirely erased all evidence of the indigenous Palestinian presence.
Following the Hamas attack on October 7, we heard Israeli politicians refer to Palestinians as “human animals.” They also demanded that Palestinians “leave” Gaza and settle elsewhere. Clearly, the colonial ideology of erasure is alive and well today.
But settler colonialism is not just an ideological force. This ideology of erasure often motivates efforts to materially upend every pillar of Indigenous life and existence.
We are witnessing this today in Gaza – and not just in terms of the catastrophic loss of life. The urge to erase is evident in the way all institutions, including universities and hospitals, are targeted. Israel’s war on Gaza appears to be an attempt to prevent Palestinians from maintaining their existence in the Gaza Strip.
The parallels with the Nakba of 1948 are unmistakable. Oral histories and declassified Israeli government documents revealed that there was a systematic effort to erase all evidence of Palestinian existence. Israeli military leader and politician Moshe Dayan confirmed this when he said: “Jewish villages were built in place of Arab villages. You don’t even know the names of these Arab villages, and I don’t blame you because the geography books no longer exist – not only do the books not exist, but the Arab villages aren’t there either. Of course, this type of genocidal violence is common in colonial contexts and explains a significant part of the decline of the indigenous population in settler states such as Australia and Canada.
However, the capitulation of indigenous communities is also the consequence of a process of cultural genocide. This includes how the Church of the settler states played an active role in the erasure of indigenous cultural identity and heritage through the Christianization of the indigenous population. This also includes the removal of Indigenous children from their families in Canada and Australia. The apparent goal was the “protection” of these children. However, in practice, it was a “civilizing” mission intended to annihilate the cultural identity of generations of indigenous children.
Palestinians are also faced with a colonization project that aims to destroy their cultural heritage. This includes the deliberate targeting of archaeological sites in the Gaza Strip. Civil society organizations argued that this was not an “empty gesture”. Rather, it is an attempt to strip Palestinians of “the very substance (i.e. culture) that constitutes the backbone of their right to self-determination.” The mass appropriation of Palestinian cuisine as Israeli similarly erases key evidence of a distinct Palestinian cultural heritage. And when Israeli forces destroy or steal olive trees, they are not only attacking an important source of income. They also steal an important symbol of Palestinian resilience. Just like the olive tree that bears fruit despite difficult conditions, the Palestinian national struggle also persists despite the harsh conditions of occupation and siege.
Ultimately, it is important to view settler colonialism as a tool to better understand what is happening today in Gaza and throughout Palestine. In part, this reveals that what we are witnessing is structural, in the sense that it is the deeply rooted structures and institutions of a colonial state that justify and rationalize the various forms of erasure we are currently witnessing in Gaza. But it also helps connect Palestine to a global history of settler colonialism – a history that could explain why indigenous communities around the world have stood in solidarity with Palestinians, while settler states like the United States, Canada and Australia seem to perpetually waver in their politics. support for Palestinian rights.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.