Colonialism

The assertion that Israel has been created as a consequence of settler colonialism has become a major theme of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) activists. The movement argues that:

The origin of Israel's contemporary regime over Palestinians is found in the racist ideology of late 19th century European colonialism. This ideology was shared by the dominant stream of the Zionist movement, which was founded in Europe and would later establish the state of Israel.¹

This statement encapsulates the position of the BDS movement and some other allegedly pro-Palestinian activists. It is not used as an analysis of the origins of Israel or the trajectory of the Zionist movement, so much as an act of political denunciation with the intention of de-legitimizing the State of Israel. In a sense Israel is indicted with the crime of colonialism, "a racist ideology of late nineteenth-century European colonialism". The article reflects on the manner in which colonialism has become a part of the discourse on Israel and Palestine.²

THE COLONIAL QUESTION

Maxime Rodinson's essay "Israel, fait colonial" [Is Israel a Colonial?] opened the discussion on whether Israel was a colonial project. Rodinson was professor of Oriental Languages at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes. He was a Marxist although he ceased to be a member of the French Communist Party in 1958. The essay appeared in a special issue of Les Temps Modernes, Le conflit israelo-arabe³ in July 1967 in the wake of the 1967 war. The journal, edited by Jean-Paul Sartre, was in many ways the house journal of the French left. Sartre saw himself as being both pro-Israel and proArab and the special issue was organized as a dialogue between the two sides. The Arab contributors included Sami Hadawi and Loufti El Kholi while the Israeli side included Shimon Peres, Moshe Sneh, and Meir Yaari. Rodinson's essay was published in an introductory section after the editorials by Sartre and Claude Lanzmann. It appeared in English in 1973 with a new title and a significant byline, Israel: A Settler-Colonial State?, described as "A thoroughly documented study of Zionist colonialization and the process by which the State of Israel was formed."⁴

The introduction by Peter Buch attempted to frame an academic essay with very much the emphasis on the question-mark into a heavily ideological intervention.⁵ The essay itself is very tentative and certainly is not a "thoroughly documented study of Zionist colonization" as indeed no essay of 71 pages could claim to be. Whereas Rodinson carefully approaches the topic, "There is no such thing as colonialism and imperialism as such. What there is, is a series of social phenomena in which numerous analogies can be found, but also infinite nuances."⁶ Buch is quick to try to compare Israel with the "odious colonial empires and white racist states such as South Africa, Rhodesia, French Algeria".⁷ Rodinson argues that "The motivations of the masses that gave the Zionist movement its strength had little in common with those British capitalists, whose imperialist ambitions were given theoretical strength by Joseph Chamberlain."⁸ Furthermore, there "was not necessarily any colonialist or imperialist orientation per se in the motivations underlying this choice."⁹ However, Buch comments that he is being "overly charitable".¹⁰ For Rodinson the colonial element was simply that there was an existing population living in Palestine. He does not explain why this in itself would characterize the subsequent State of Israel as colonial. Enigmatically, later, writing about the 1947 UN partition plan he notes, "The colonial situation could have been left behind at this point and two states, recognized by the UN could have entered the realm of international politics."¹¹ Thus, his argument appears hedged around with conditionalities. The population of the so-called colonial-settler state did not have a colonial or imperial motivation, and had the UN partition plan been implemented colonialism would "have been left behind". This is hardly a "thoroughly documented account of Zionist colonization" but rather a highly speculative and thoughtful piece.¹² This is all too subtle for Buch who asserts, like the...