(C) Common Dreams
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Why Israel is Not a Settler Colonial State [1]
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Date: 2023-11-10 11:46:06-05:00
The truth is that the Jewish people are indigenous to the land of Israel and first achieved self-determination there 3,000 years ago.
The Romans expelled the majority of Jews in 70 C.E., but the Jewish people have always been present in the land of Israel. A portion of the Jewish population remained in Israel throughout the years, and those who lived in the Diaspora yearned to return to the Jewish homeland and the holy Jewish city of Jerusalem, both of which are mentioned multiple times in daily Jewish prayers. This historical and religious link for Jewish people to the land of Israel is indisputable—even the word “Jew” comes from Judea, the ancient name for Israel.
As Jews around the world faced increasing persecution at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries, they began moving to what is now Israel in greater numbers. Since Israel’s establishment shortly after the Holocaust, Jews have moved to Israel from all over the world, seeking a place to call home in which they can live freely and safely as Jews. At the same time, Jewish and Israeli leaders have consistently acknowledged the presence of Palestinian Arabs and have supported efforts to partition the land into Jewish and Arab states, from 1937 to the present day. The best-known attempt to divide the land came in the form of the 1947 UN Partition Plan, which was accepted by the local Jewish population but rejected by their Arab neighbors, who waged war to eliminate the Jewish state. More recently, successive Israeli prime ministers have offered to concede more than 90% of the West Bank and all of Gaza to create a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Palestinian leaders, however, have consistently rejected efforts at bringing about a two-state solution, as they did in 1947, and they continue to do so to this day.
“Settler colonialism” refers to an attempt by an imperial power to replace the native population of a land with a new society of settlers. It cannot describe a reality in which a national group, acting on its behalf and not at the behest of an external power, returned to its historic homeland to achieve self-determination while simultaneously supporting the creation of a nation-state for another national group alongside the creation of their own state.
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[1] Url:
https://www.ajc.org/why-israel-is-not-a-settler-colonial-state#:~:text=Introduction,in%20the%20land%20of%20Israel.
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