Is Zionism Colonialism?

Jews at the Kotel in Jerusalem, in the 1870s. (Felix Bonfils / wikipedia)

The characterization of Zionism as colonialism has become increasingly common in academic discourse and public debate, particularly following recent events in Gaza. This argument, now prevalent on university campuses and in international forums, contends that Israel represents a "settler colonial project" comparable to European ventures in Algeria or Australia. Understanding why this analytical framework falls short requires examining both the historical evidence and the theoretical models being applied.

Let’s examine the defining characteristics of colonial movements: their relationship to metropolitan powers, the economic structures they created, the nature of the settler population, and the role of indigenous identity claims. Each of these elements reveals fundamental differences that challenge the colonial framework.

Absence of metropolitan power

Colonial movements, by definition, involve settlers serving the interests of a mother country. British colonists in Australia remained British subjects, advancing London's imperial ambitions. French settlers in Algeria were instruments of Parisian policy. This metropolitan relationship – with its flows of authority, resources, and loyalty – defines the colonial structure.

Jewish immigration to Palestine lacks this essential characteristic. When Jews fled the Russian pogroms of 1881-1906, they represented no imperial power. Holocaust survivors arriving in the 1940s served no European state's interests. Even during the British Mandate period (1920-1948), Jewish immigrants often acted in direct opposition to British policy, particularly after the 1939 White Paper restricted Jewish immigration precisely when European Jews most desperately needed refuge.

As Harvard historian Derek Penslar notes in Zionism: An Emotional State (2023), Zionist organizations constantly sought international support – from the Ottomans, British, Americans, and others – reflecting not colonial power but the vulnerability of a stateless people. While Britain's Balfour Declaration provided crucial recognition, British support proved limited and often hostile, culminating in British forces actively preventing Holocaust survivors from reaching Palestine.

Refugees and survivors, not colonial settlers

The demographic composition of Jewish immigration bears examination. Colonial settlers typically leave secure homelands seeking opportunity or adventure, maintaining citizenship and the option to return. The Jewish experience inverts this pattern entirely.

The waves of Jewish immigration (aliyot) corresponded directly to persecution: the First Aliyah followed Russian pogroms, the Fifth Aliyah brought German Jews fleeing Nazism, and post-1948 immigration included 850,000 Jews expelled from Arab countries. These were not voluntary colonists but refugees – often arriving with nothing, having lost homes, property, and family members to violence.

Consider that over half of Israel's Jewish population today traces ancestry to the Middle East and North Africa, not Europe. The 49,000 Yemenite Jews airlifted in Operation Magic Carpet (1949-1950) or the 130,000 Iraqi Jews who fled between 1950-1952 hardly fit the image of European colonizers. Their arrival represented not colonial settlement but the ingathering of persecuted Middle Eastern Jewish communities.

Economic investment vs. colonial extraction

Colonial economies follow predictable patterns: resources flow from colony to metropole. The wealth of British India built London's prosperity. French Algeria's agriculture fed France. Belgian Congo's rubber enriched Brussels. Colonies existed to enrich the mother country through resource extraction and captive markets.

The Zionist economy operated in reverse. Jewish immigrants brought capital to Palestine rather than extracting it. The Yishuv (pre-state Jewish community) developed new industries, agricultural techniques, and infrastructure funded by Jewish philanthropy and immigrant savings – not colonial exploitation. Tel Aviv University economist S. Ilan Troen calculates that Jewish investment in Palestine far exceeded any economic benefits extracted.

The kibbutz movement exemplifies this inversion. These socialist communes, based on complete equality and collective ownership, bear no resemblance to colonial plantations. Members shared all property and labor, pursuing utopian visions rather than profit. The controversial "Hebrew labor" policy – excluding non-Jewish workers – meant Jews performed their own manual labor, contradicting fundamental colonial labor patterns.

Addressing settler colonial theory

Contemporary scholars applying settler colonial frameworks to Israel – most notably Patrick Wolfe and Lorenzo Veracini – focus not on metropolitan relationships but on what Wolfe calls the "logic of elimination." 

This theory emphasizes demographic replacement, elimination of native sovereignty, and establishment of new settler majorities as defining characteristics, regardless of metropolitan connections.

This framework appears more applicable to the Israeli case than classical colonialism. Palestinians did experience displacement, particularly during the 1948 war. Jewish immigration did transform the demographic balance. A new sovereign structure did emerge. These realities deserve acknowledgment.

However, even within this framework, crucial differences emerge. Settler colonial theory assumes settlers are foreign to the territory they colonize, possessing no prior connection. Yet Jewish communities maintained a continuous presence in Palestine for millennia, with Hebrew, Jewish religious sites, and cultural practices indigenous to the region. Genetic studies confirm that Jewish populations worldwide retain Middle Eastern ancestry, linking them to the ancient Levant.

Furthermore, settler colonialism typically involves powers with secure homelands colonizing foreign territories. Jews in 1948 faced a fundamentally different situation: a people without a state, facing extermination, seeking refuge in a territory where they claimed ancient indigenous roots. The Law of Return (1950) codified not colonial privilege but refugee protection for a persecuted people.

The limits of historical analogies

Comparisons to Algeria or Australia reveal the analytical limitations of the colonial framework. French Algeria involved metropolitan France controlling territory 1,000 miles away, extracting resources, and imposing French culture on an Arab majority. When decolonization came, a million pieds-noirs "returned" to a France many had never seen, but where they held citizenship.

Israeli Jews have no such metropole. Descendants of the Jewish diaspora cannot "return" to Poland, Iraq, or Yemen – countries that expelled or murdered their families. Unlike French colonists who maintained estates in France while exploiting Algeria, Jewish refugees arrived in Palestine often as the sole survivors of destroyed communities.

The linguistic evidence alone demonstrates this difference. Colonial powers impose metropolitan languages – English in India, French in Vietnam. But Hebrew was not the language of any empire. Its revival from ancient texts represents not colonial imposition but indigenous restoration.

Acknowledging complexity

Recognizing why Zionism differs from colonialism doesn't require denying Palestinian experiences or suffering. Two people can possess legitimate connections to the same land. Palestinians did lose homes and villages in 1948. Jewish immigration did transform the country's demography. These facts coexist with the reality that Jews were not foreign colonizers but a people with ancient regional roots seeking refuge from persecution.

The conflict's tragedy lies partly in this complexity: a persecuted people seeking safety in their ancestral homeland encountered another people who had developed their own deep connections to the land. Accuracy matters. Mischaracterizing Israel as a colonial project suggests solutions – like expecting millions of Israeli Jews to "go home" to places that no longer exist – that ignore historical reality.

Moving beyond flawed frameworks

The colonial analogy obscures more than it illuminates. It fails to capture the unique circumstances of Jewish return after millennia of exile, the refugee character of most Jewish immigration, the absence of a metropolitan power, and the economic patterns of investment rather than extraction. Most significantly, it suggests that Israel's existence is inherently illegitimate – a conclusion that makes conflict resolution impossible.

Understanding Zionism as a nationalist movement of a persecuted people with ancient regional connections offers more analytical clarity. This framework acknowledges both Jewish historical claims and Palestinian grievances without denying either people's legitimacy. It recognizes that two people with valid claims to the same territory must find ways to coexist.

Progress requires acknowledging the full complexity of two people, each with deep roots and tragic histories, inhabiting the same small territory. Only by moving beyond inadequate historical analogies can we begin to imagine futures that provide both peoples the security and dignity they deserve.

Bibliography

Gat, Azar, Nations: The Long History and Deep Roots of Political Ethnicity and Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).

Karsh, Efraim, Palestine Betrayed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010).

Ostrer, Harry, and Karl Skorecki, "The Population Genetics of the Jewish People," Human Genetics 132, no. 1 (2013), pp. 119-127.

Penslar, Derek, Zionism: An Emotional State (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2023).

Vogt, Stefan, Penslar, Derek, and Saposnik, Arieh, eds. Unacknowledged Kinships: Postcolonial Studies and the Historiography of Zionism (Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2023).

Shapira, Anita, Israel: A History (Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2012).

Shapira, Anita, Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881-1948 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).

Troen, S. Ilan, "De-Judaizing the Homeland: Academic Politics in Rewriting the History of Palestine," Israel Affairs 13, no. 4 (2007), pp. 872-884.

Troen, S. Ilan, Imagining Zion: Dreams, Designs, and Realities in a Century of Jewish Settlement (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003).

Veracini, Lorenzo, Settler Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).

Wolfe, Patrick, "Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native," Journal of Genocide Research 8, no. 4 (2006), pp. 387-409.

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Elon Gilad is an Israeli author, journalist, and linguist. His work focuses on uncovering the historical roots of contemporary issues, particularly in current affairs, Jewish history, and the Hebrew language. Gilad is the author of "The Secret History of Judaism." His analytical pieces draw on his diverse background to provide unique insights into complex issues.