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How ‘decolonization’ became the latest flashpoint in the discourse over Israel
(JTA) — Attend or watch footage of a campus pro-Palestinian demonstration these days and you are likely to see someone carrying a sign reading “Decolonization is not a metaphor.” Almost immediately after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, George Washington University Students for Justice in Palestine put out a statement praising the terrorists, declaring “Decolonization is NOT a metaphor.”
As a political slogan, it may not pack the same punch as “Free Palestine” or “From the river to the sea.” But to activists on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide, the charge that Israel is a “settler colonial” state and calls to “decolonize” Palestine are becoming an increasingly potent part of the toxic, perhaps unbridgeable, discourse.
Two nearly simultaneous events inspired me to take a dive into the meaning of the slogan. The first was a news release from the American Jewish Committee announcing that, in light of the “terrifying increase” of antisemitism since Hamas’ Oc7. 7 attack against Israel, it was adding new terms to its online “Translate Hate” glossary of antisemitic terms. Among those terms, alongside “from the river to the sea,” is “settler colonialist.” “Those who oppose the State of Israel as a Jewish state,” writes AJC, use the term the charge that Israel “engages in ethnic cleansing by displacing and dispossessing a native or pre-existing population.” It goes on to explain why the term is “categorically false.”
More on that in a moment. The second event was a webinar in memory of Hayim Katsman, 32, the Israeli ethnographer and peace activist killed when Hamas infiltrated his kibbutz. The webinar was the launch of a new book of scholarly essays, “Settler Indigeneity in the West Bank,” that features an essay by Katsman. Like many of the other Jewish and Israeli contributors to the book, Katsman appears to have been quite comfortable applying “colonialist” to describe Israel’s national enterprise, in whole or in part.
In the book’s introduction, its editors, Rachel Z. Feldman and Ian McGonigle, explain why. They acknowledge the argument — put forth by AJC and others — that unlike the Europeans who colonized Africa, the Americas and Asia, Jews had a longstanding connection to and presence in the Land of Israel, and that the “early Zionist settlers did not have a home empire.” (Or, as AJC puts it, “unlike European settler colonialists who settled colonies to enrich their motherlands, and who maintained a connection to their home countries to which they could return if they so wished, Jews who came to Mandatory Palestine had no motherland in Europe to enrich.”)
However, write Feldman and McGonigle, aspects of political Zionism certainly resemble colonialism. “If we read Hertzl, if we read Jabotinsky, they’re speaking about a colonizing project,” Feldman said at the book launch, referring to two of political Zionism’s founding fathers. “And, unfortunately, they were subject to the modalities of European thought that … looked at Palestinians as primitive people who could not possibly have a sovereign imagination of their own.”
But “colonialism” doesn’t tell the whole story of Israel, Feldman, assistant professor of religion at Dartmouth, told me on Friday. “I think that’s where things can slide into antisemitism, when this just sort of blanket equation is made between Zionism and all European colonial projects. It would be missing the fact that Israel is the historic ancestral homeland of the Jews,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean that Jews haven’t acted in ways that are settler colonial.”
Ignoring those power dynamics — or, as many Palestinains and their supporters tend to do, denying any Jewish connection to the land — “will never get us closer to peace and reconciliation,” Feldman continued. “This debate about who is more native is a fundamentally flawed debate and it leads to dehumanization of either Israelis or Palestinians. Both people are in this land together, and that is the absolute basis of any future kind of reconciliation.”
“Reconciliation” is barely on the minds of those who quote “Decolonization is not a metaphor,” the 2012 paper by American academics Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang that poularized the phrase. The two argued that “decolonization” means exactly what it says: “repatriating land to sovereign Native tribes and nations, abolition of slavery in its contemporary forms, and the dismantling of the imperial metropole” – that is, the colonizing “homeland.” It is not a handy bit of jargon for improving our societies and schools or fighting racism or “easing” an occupation, they write.
The paper only mentions “Palestine” once, in a roll call of colonialist malefactors that includes Australia, the United States and apartheid South Africa, but it became a touchstone for radical movements that felt the widespread rhetoric of anti-colonialism had lost its bite.
George Washington University Students for Justice in Palestine, since suspended by the administration, takes the phrase to its logical, violent extreme, calling the Hamas attack a “tangible, material event in which the colonized rise up against the colonizer and regain control of their lives.”
Another pro-Palestiniang group, Decolonize This Place, calls for “direct action and [is] driven by the belief that all colonized and oppressed people have the right to take back their land, to realize self-determination, and to win their liberation by any means necessary.” The day after the Hamas attack , it said on Instagram: “[T]he heroic Palestinian resistance and the people’s steadfastness continue, while settler colonial Israel, the US, and the ‘international community’ ignore that Israel is the violence.”
Israeli ethnographer and peace activist Hayim Katsman was murdered by Hamas on Oct. 7. (Courtesy Hannah Katsman)
“Softer” versions of decolonization call for divesting from countries and institutions that support colonialism. Corinna Mullin, who teaches international relations at the University of Tunis in Tunisia and recently at CUNY’s John Jay College, used the “not a metaphor” phrase during a Nov. 17 Labor for Palestine teach-in in support of the boycott of organizations with “links to Zionism.” “We need to materially decolonize these institutions so that they no longer are serving the causes of oppression and exploitation, but instead are in the service of liberation,” she said.
Those who wave the “not a metaphor” sign at rallies may embrace all or none of these interpretations. AJC insists that the “settler colonialist” label is, however it is used, a slur. And when it is “used to say Jews do not have the right to national self-determination or to deny Israel’s right to exist,” it explains in the glossary, “that is antisemitism.” The historian Simon Sebag Montefiore writes that the “decolonizing narrative is much worse than a study in double standards; it dehumanizes an entire nation and excuses, even celebrates, the murder of innocent civilians.”
In his chapter for the “Settler Indigeneity” volume, about religious Jews living in the Negev, Katsman appears to agree with scholars who describe Israel’s efforts to “‘Judaize’ Palestinian space” as colonialism in effect, if not intent. But he doesn’t reject Israel, only those Jewish ideologues who want to erase the Green Line separating pre-1967 Israel from the West Bank. He bewails “the growing acceptance [among Jews] of a one-state reality between the river and the sea.”
That seems of a piece with the scholarship and activism for which he was known. His mother, the American-born Orthodox feminist activist Hannah Katsman, told Haaretz that he came to Kibbutz Holit after the army to help revive the desert outpost. Although he studied in the United States, he was determined to return home. Among other things, he took part in solidarity shifts to protect Palestinian communities harassed by Jewish settlers in the West Bank.
His dissertation, about political trends in Religious Zionism, was dedicated to “all life forms that exist between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.”
“He was determined to understand the political rise to power of Israel’s religious right wing, which he viewed as a serious obstacle to the establishment of a just and lasting peace,” Feldman said in her opening remarks at the book launch. She also quoted Katsman, whom she got to know over the years, saying that he worked to create a world where “Israelis and Palestinians both are able to live full lives as equals under the law.”
Since his death at the hands of Hamas, Katsman has been held up as a counterpoint to the zero-sum nihilism represented by his murderers. Perhaps he should also be seen as a symbol of the possibility of two peoples sharing a land without either one trying to expel, dominate or colonize the other.
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As Gaza War Continues, Hamas Calls for Global Protests While Israel Marks Breakthroughs in Medical Innovation
A pro-Hamas march in London, United Kingdom, Feb. 17, 2024. Photo: Chrissa Giannakoudi via Reuters Connect
As the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas calls for global protests amid stalled Gaza ceasefire talks, Israel has broken new ground despite the ongoing conflict, achieving a major medical breakthrough in synthetic human kidney development.
The contrast illustrates a stark contrast between the priorities of Hamas, an international designated terrorist group that has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades, and Israel, the lone democracy in the Middle East that has long been a leader in tech and medical innovation.
On Wednesday, Hamas urged worldwide protests in support of Palestinians, calling on the international community “to denounce Israel’s genocidal war and starvation policy in Gaza.”
“We call for continuing and escalating the popular pressure in all cities and squares on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday … through rallies, demonstrations and sit-ins outside the embassies of the Israeli regime and its allies, particularly in the US,” the statement read.
The Palestinian terrorist group also called to expose what it described as “the terrorism of the Zio-Nazi occupation against defenseless civilians.”
Hamas’s latest move against Israel comes amid stalled indirect negotiations over a proposed 60-day ceasefire and hostage release deal, which collapsed last month after the group vowed it would not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established — rejecting a key Israeli demand to end the war in Gaza.
In its statement, Hamas demanded the opening of all border crossings to allow immediate aid into the war-torn enclave and urged a global condemnation of “the international community’s inaction on the Israeli crimes.”
Amid mounting international pressure to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Israel announced new measures to facilitate the delivery of aid, including temporary pauses in fighting in certain areas and the creation of protected routes for aid convoys.
Israeli officials have previously accused Hamas of diverting aid for terrorist activities and selling supplies at inflated prices to civilians, while also blaming the United Nations and other foreign organizations for enabling this diversion.
Hamas’s statement also emphasized that the “global resistance movement must continue until Israeli aggression on Gaza ends and the siege on the coastal strip is lifted.”
Meanwhile, as Israel faces escalating hostilities and the heavy toll of war, the Jewish state continues to push the boundaries of innovation and resilience, achieving new medical breakthroughs while confronting ongoing challenges.
In a major medical breakthrough, scientists at Sheba Medical Center and Tel Aviv University have successfully grown a synthetic 3D miniature human kidney in a lab using specialized stem cells derived from kidney tissue — one of the most promising advances in regenerative medicine.
Dr. Dror Harats, chairman of Sheba’s Research Authority, described this achievement as a reflection of Israel’s leading role in global medical innovation.
“Despite growing efforts to isolate Israel from international science, breakthroughs like this prove our impact is both lasting and essential,” he said.
In a landmark study, a team from Sheba’s Safra Children’s Hospital and Tel Aviv University’s Sagol Center for Regenerative Medicine created synthetic kidney organs that matured and remained stable for 34 weeks — the longest-lasting and most refined kidney organoids developed to date.
Nearly a decade ago, the research team became the first to successfully isolate human kidney tissue stem cells — the cells responsible for the organ’s development and growth.
Previous attempts to grow kidneys in a lab using general-purpose stem cells were short-lived, typically lasting only a few weeks and often producing unwanted cell types that compromised research accuracy.
However, this Israeli research team used stem cells taken directly from kidney tissue — cells that naturally develop into kidney parts — allowing them to create a much purer and more stable model with key features found in real kidneys.
This medical breakthrough could have far-reaching implications, redefining the current understanding of kidney diseases and advancing the development of innovative treatments.
Researchers believe the model could help assess how medications impact fetal kidneys during pregnancy and move science closer to repairing or replacing damaged kidney tissue with lab-grown cells.
The discovery came days after researchers from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and international partners discovered a way to boost the immune system’s cancer-fighting ability by reprogramming how T cells, which are white blood cells critical to the immune system, produce energy.
The researchers explained in a study published in the peer-reviewed Nature Communications that disabling a protein known as Ant2 in T cells greatly enhances their effectiveness against tumors.
“By disabling Ant2, we triggered a complete shift in how T cells produce and use energy,” Prof. Michael Berger of Hebrew University’s Faculty of Medicine, who co-led the study with doctorate student Omri Yosef, told the Tazpit Press Service. “This reprogramming made them significantly better at recognizing and killing cancer cells.”
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Netherlands to Push EU to Suspend Israel Trade Deal but Won’t Recognize Palestinian State ‘At This Time’
Netherlands Foreign Affairs Minister Caspar Veldkamp addresses a press conference, in New Delhi on April 1, 2025. Photo: ANI Photo/Sanjay Sharma via Reuters Connect
The Netherlands is spearheading efforts to suspend the European Union-Israel trade agreement amid rising EU criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza, while simultaneously refusing to recognize a Palestinian state, contrasting with other member states as international pressure mounts.
On Thursday, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp announced that the Netherlands will push the EU to suspend the trade component of the EU-Israel Association Agreement — a pact governing the EU’s political and economic ties with the Jewish state.
This latest anti-Israel initiative follows a recent EU-commissioned report accusing Israel of committing “indiscriminate attacks … starvation … torture … [and] apartheid” against Palestinians in Gaza during its military campaign against Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist group.
Following calls from a majority of EU member states for a formal investigation, this report built on Belgium’s recent decision to review Israel’s compliance with the trade agreement, a process initiated by the Netherlands and led by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas.
According to the report, “there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations” under the 25-year-old EU-Israel Association Agreement.
While the document acknowledges the reality of violence by Hamas, it states that this issue lies outside its scope — failing to address the Palestinian terrorist group’s role in sparking the current war with its bloody rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israeli officials have slammed the report as factually incorrect and morally flawed, noting that Hamas embeds its military infrastructure within civilian targets and Israel’s army takes extensive precautions to try and avoid civilian casualties.
In a Dutch parliamentary debate on Gaza on Thursday, Veldkamp also announced that the government would not recognize a Palestinian state for now — a position that stands in sharp contrast to the recent moves by several other EU member states to extend recognition.
“The Netherlands is not planning to recognize a Palestinian state at this time,” the Dutch diplomat said.
“This war has ceased to be a just war and is now leading to the erosion of Israel’s own security and identity,” he continued.
This latest decision goes against the position of several EU member states, including France, which has committed to recognizing Palestinian statehood in September.
The United Kingdom has likewise indicated it will do so unless Israel acts to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and agrees to a ceasefire.
For its part, Germany said it was not planning to recognize a Palestinian state in the short term, and Italy argued that recognition must occur simultaneously with the recognition of Israel by the new entity.
Spain, Norway, Ireland, and Slovenia all recognized a Palestinian state last year.
Israel has been facing growing pressure from several EU member states seeking to undermine its defensive campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.
On Thursday, European Commission Vice President Teresa Ribera strongly condemned Israel’s actions in the war-torn enclave, describing the situation as a “grave violation of human dignity.”
“What we are seeing is a concrete population being targeted, killed and condemned to starve to death,” Ribera told Politico. “If it is not genocide, it looks very much like the definition used to express its meaning.”
Until now, the European Commission has refrained from accusing Israel of genocide, but Ribera’s comments mark one of the strongest European condemnations since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
She also called on the EU to take decisive action by considering the suspension of its trade agreement with Israel and the implementation of sanctions, while emphasizing that such measures would require unanimous approval from all member states.
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Graduate Student Unions Promoting Antisemitism, Reform Group Says
Students listen to a speech at a protest encampment at Stanford University in Stanford, California US, on April 26, 2024. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.
Higher-education-based unions controlled by United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE) are rife with antisemitism and anti-Zionist discrimination, according to a new letter imploring the US Congress’s House Committee on Education and the Workforce to address the matter.
“Tracing its roots to communism in the 1930s, the UE is a radical, pro-Hamas labor union that has a long history of antisemitism,” the National Right to Work Foundation (NRTW), one of the US’s leading labor reform groups, wrote on July 30 in a message obtained by The Algemeiner. “The UE openly supports the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which is designed to cripple and destroy Israel economically. Today, the UE furthers its antisemitic agenda by unionizing graduate students on college campuses and using its exclusive representation powers to create a hostile environment for Jewish students. The hostile environment includes demanding compulsory dues to fund the UE’s abhorrent activities.”
NRTW went on to describe a litany of alleged injustices to which UE members subject Jewish student-employees in the US’s most prestigious institutions of higher education, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to Cornell University. At MIT, the letter said, “union officers” aided a riotous group which illegally occupied a section of campus with a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” participating in the demonstration and even denying access to campus buildings. UE members at Stanford University, meanwhile, allegedly denied religious accommodations to Jewish students who requested exemption from union dues over that branch’s supporting the BDS movement. And Cornell University UE was accused of denying religious exemptions in several cases as well and followed up the rejection with an intrusive “questionnaire” which probed Jewish students for “legally-irrelevant information.”
The situation requires federal oversight and intervention, NRTW said, including Congress’s possibly clarifying that student-employees are not traditional employees and are therefore afforded protections under sections of the Civil Rights Act which apply to the campus.
“These continuing patterns of antisemitism are illegal, immoral, and must be stopped,” the letter continued. “We encourage you to do all that is in your power to investigate and help bring an end to the UE and its affiliates’ nonstop harassment and intimidation of Jewish students … The Trump administration can also use tools available to it under Title VI and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act against colleges who work with unions to create a hostile environment for Jewish students.”
July’s letter is not the first time NRTW has publicized alleged antisemitic abuse in unions representing higher education employees.
In 2024, it represented a group of six City University of New York (CUNY) professors, five of whom are Jewish, who sued to be “freed” from CUNY’s Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY) over its passing a resolution during Israel’s May 2021 war with Hamas which declared solidarity with Palestinians and accused the Jewish state of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and crimes against humanity. The group contested New York State’s “Taylor Law,” which it said chained the professors to the union’s “bargaining unit” and denied their right to freedom of speech and association by forcing them to be represented in negotiations by an organization they claim holds antisemitic views.
That same year, NRTW prevailed in a discrimination suit filed to exempt another cohort of Jewish MIT students from paying dues to the Graduate Student Union (GSU). The students had attempted to resist financially supporting GSU’s anti-Zionism, but the union bosses attempted to coerce their compliance, telling them that “no principles, teachings, or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees” to the union.
“All Americans should have a right to protect their money from going to union bosses they don’t support, whether those objections are based on religion, politics, or any other reason,” NRTW said at the time.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.