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How to Combat the Lie That Israel Is a ‘Settler Colonial’ State
The Western Wall and Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
Since the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, there’s been a lot of public discussion of “settler colonialism” and the rights of indigenous peoples. Academics call for the “decolonization” of countries such as Australia, Canada, and the United States. Palestinian activists and their American student allies make the same demand regarding Israel, denouncing it as a “settler colonial project” and arguing that it must be “dismantled.”
Where did this movement come from? Does it have anything valid to say about Israel? Those questions are the subject of an important new book by Adam Kirsch, On Settler Colonialism: Ideology, Violence, and Justice.
The field of settler colonial studies has now been around for two decades. It began as an academic discipline centered on the rights of aboriginal Australians and Native Americans.
In the field, Kirsch argues, “the goal of learning about settlement in America and elsewhere is not to understand it, as a historian would, but to combat it.” Therefore, he says, “settler colonialism is best understood not as a historical concept but as an ideology, whose growing popularity among educated young Americans is already having significant political effects.” (Kirsch acknowledges that “To call it the ideology of settler colonialism is potentially misleading, since it means naming a political idea after what it opposes.”)
Settler colonial ideology closely resembles the antiracist ideology of Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi. Thus, just as all white people are supposedly born with the original sin of racism, all non-indigenous people are born with the original sin of settler colonialism –- even those who have been around for generations. (This leads to the bizarre result that to some scholars, Black Americans whose forebears arrived in chains are viewed as colonists.) And as with Kendi’s ideology, settler colonialism takes a Manichaean view. Kendi maintains that you are either a racist or an antiracist. There is no such thing as a non-racist.
Similarly, with settler colonialism, you are either indigenous and belong to the land, or you are non-indigenous and your presence is irrevocably evil.
As Kirsch has pointed out, there’s a certain irony here: While settler colonialists view themselves as leftists, their ideology bears a definite resemblance to fascist, blood-and-soil nationalism: The land belongs only to those who are (or claim to be) its original inhabitants.
Also, because all non-indigenous people bear the irrevocable stain of settler colonialism, they can be collectively punished. As Kirsch has written, this logic is comparable to the communist belief that the bourgeoisie are “outside the realm of moral concern.”
All of this might have remained merely an academic discipline — a form of intellectual posturing with no feasible goal. After all, Australia, Canada, and the United States aren’t going anywhere.
“But what if there were a country,” Kirsch asks, “where settler colonialism could be challenged with more than words? Where all the evils attributed to it … could be given a human face? Best of all, what if that settler colonial society were small and endangered enough that destroying it seemed like a realistic possibility rather than a utopian dream? Such a country would be the perfect focus for all the moral passion and rhetorical violence that fuels the ideology of settler colonialism. It would be a country one could hate virtuously — especially if it were home to a people whom Western civilization has traditionally considered it virtuous to hate.”
Of course, he is talking about Israel.
As Kirsch writes, “while the concept of settler colonialism was first developed to explain the history of Australia, Canada, and the United States, today it is perhaps most often invoked in connection with Israel.” The settler colonial claim is especially popular with Palestinian think tanks like Al Shabaka, which recognize that it plays well in Western leftist circles. And it’s become central to the work of writers like Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi. Indeed, Khalidi titled his latest book, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017. He has called Zionism a “classic nineteenth-century European colonial venture.”
But as Khalidi conveniently fails to note, at least half the Jewish population of Israel is made up of Mizrahim, whose families were expelled from Arab countries before and right after the founding of Israel. They are not European at all. But for Khalidi, there’s no need to let facts get in the way of rhetoric.
In other important ways, Israel simply fails to fit the definition of a settler colonial project.
The original Zionists who populated the British Mandate were refugees, not colonizers. They came to escape oppression and reclaim their homeland, not to widen the boundaries of European influence. As Kirsch notes, they “did not have the backing of any government but were self-supporting or relied on private philanthropy.” Moreover, unlike typical colonial ventures, Israel “has no mother country obligated to defend it, or to accept millions of refugees if it fails.” And the Zionists did not come to exploit the land’s natural resources — there weren’t any.
One integral part of the settler colonial claim is the argument that, unlike Arabs, Jews are not indigenous to the land. But that turns history on its head. As Kirsch writes, “insisting that Palestinians are the indigenous people of Palestine, the ideology of settler colonialism finds itself unable to reckon with the Zionist principle that Jews are the indigenous people of the land of Israel.” Therefore, “because recognizing Jews as aboriginal to the land of Israel would turn one of settler colonial studies’ key theoretical weapons against itself, it simply declines to engage with this idea and its implications.” Of course some Palestinian leaders have no problem simply denying that Jews have a historical connection to the land.
Here’s the worst part. Settler colonialism precludes the only just resolution of the conflict: a two-state solution. That’s because, Kirsch says, “the actual effect of the ideology of settler colonialism is not to encourage” such a solution. “It is to cultivate hatred of those designated as settlers and to inspire hope for their disappearance. In this way, it abets Arab rejection of the State of Israel, which has helped to freeze the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the same basic form since before 1948.”
Meanwhile, settler colonial ideology provides intellectual cover for academics and campus activists — a fig leaf for their hatred of Israel. It allows them to feel virtuous while condoning, even supporting, the eliminationist goals of groups like Hamas. As Kirsch puts it, such people “should be rebuked for their inhumanity, not praised for their idealism.”
Paul Schneider is an attorney, writer and member of the Board of Directors of the American Jewish International Relations Institute (AJIRI), an affiliate of B’nai B’rith International.
The post How to Combat the Lie That Israel Is a ‘Settler Colonial’ State first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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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.