Israeli Colonialism

Fred Allebach    5/1/10

Thesis

Arab- Israeli conflict in Israel and the occupied territories recapitulates all other Western colonial conflicts.

Definition of colonialism

Colonialism includes: economic, political and physical domination of natives, possession of superior technology and military, lawless policing of natives, exceptionalist moral justifications, the transformation of natives to an underclass or even slaves, pervasive native poverty, sequestering and ghettoization of native populations, occupation of land, suppression of native culture, racism and sometimes genocide.

Common aspects of decolonization

Decolonization includes: guerilla war, terrorism and strategic use of technology and low-level weaponry, independence/ liberation/ resistance movements, boycotts, non-cooperation, sponsorship by previously liberated colonies, some emulation of Western nationalist and independence ideas, a rejection of many if not all Western precepts and an insistence that occupying powers withdraw.

Main argument A: Common Aspects of Israeli and Western colonialism

The crux of the issue for Israel and Western colonialism is just what Colonel Mathieu said in the movie The Battle Algiers, “they (the natives) want us to go, we (the occupiers) want to stay”. Therein lies the struggle.

Common aspects of colonialism: Israel physically, economically (1) and politically (2) dominates the Palestinians in much the same way as Indians were by the British, native Africans were by South Africa, to cite just two examples.

Like the French in Algeria and also the British and Germans in South Africa, Israel uses unlawful imprisonment to control resisting natives. (3) Natives have no rights or recourse.

Israel clearly has superior military might, advanced technology and has used overwhelming force on multiple occasions (4) just as the US in Vietnam and the British in Egypt and Malaysia. It is the technology and organization that allows Israel and allowed the West to dominate colonies so thoroughly. Technological domination has proven to not be equal to victory however, a lesson Israel might learn. 

Israel employs moral exceptionalism: they are self-described as God’s chosen people. (5) Divine Right is about as exceptional as it gets and is similar to various other Western exceptionalisms: French “superior” civilization, Manifest Destiny in the US or absolute monarchy by the Spanish, French and English. Natives are by contrast “savage”, “passionate”, unreasoning, heretics, unclean etc. similar to colonialism in the Belgian Congo and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Israel’s exceptionalism is also based on Zionist nationalism, seeking to right worldwide historical wrongs to the Jewish people. The only trouble: there happened to be other people in the way with claim to the same land. Regardless of self-described exceptions all colonialism has built-in land claims conflict from day one.

Palestinians are made into an underclass doing the most menial jobs for minimum pay, having to go through checkpoints, have ID, get permission for what to write in their own newspapers (6). This type of total oppression and domination is what transpired in other western colonies as well. Israel is on par with some of the worst examples of colonialism here: South Africa, Algeria. The occupied Palestinian milieu is also comparable to the colonial domination of Latin America by the Spanish.

Racism, stereotyping and genocide: In Israel Palestinian civilians are reduced to and perceived as equivalent to terrorists. (7) Palestinians are just like American Indians, Armenians or African Americans, reduced to animals, less than human, “niggers” (8). Mass murder is committed: Sabra and Shatila (9), Wounded Knee, Srebenica. Is there any difference between Israeli behavior and that of other nationalists, colonialists and imperialists? They are birds of a feather. The behavior is the same. In order to justify such brutal treatment the natives are dehumanized; this is a common point with Israeli and Western colonialism.

The occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is equivalent to apartheid, to Indian Territory, to German colonial concentration camps, the sequestering off of natives (Algerian Casbah District/ Wall between West Bank and Israel); Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon are equivalent to Oklahoma in the 1800s. The natives get driven out, period like the Yaqui Indian diaspora from Mexico. The creation of Israel initially displaced a whole local population, just took their land. These parallels are easy to see.

The Rise of the West started out exploiting slaves and indentured servants and the whole  Western economic system has come to depend on cheap labor through the centuries. Western economies, Israel included, depend on this universal underclass to prop up economies based on growth and cheap labor, Palestinians clearly become members of the modern Third Estate along with all the rest: Central Americans, Africans, Philippinos, etc.

To sum up this section: in the world there are oppressors and oppressed. Israel is the colonizer, the oppressor, same role as the West. Palestinians are the colonized, the oppressed, same as the Third World. Israel as a state emerged from aspirations of Jews embedded in the Western trajectory and these Jews brought with them all the same tactics and methods used by the main European colonizers. The founding of Israel was aided and abetted by the main actors of Western conquest. It is no wonder Israel would appear to be just one more colonial enterprise. Israel itself is equivalent to an ethnically cleansed colony and the occupied territories are sequestered colonies within.

Main Argument B: Common Aspects of Palestinian and Western de-colonial resistance

Commonalities between Palestinians and other natives in terms of strategy and method of resistance are clear. With such asymmetric power relations guerilla war and terrorism are all that is left to fight back with. Here Northern Ireland and Vietnam (10) are good examples. Low-level technology is common: ambush, bombs, stones, Molotov cocktails, grenade launchers, AK-47s and these tools and methods are used effectively by all small resistance movements: Iraq, Basque, Afghanistan etc. The natives have a simmering resentment and use whatever means at their disposal to resist.

The Palestinians are sponsored by other decolonized states, just as India after 1948 became a prime sponsor of independence movements. (11) It is obvious that regional/ global powers would take sides and use local independence movements as proxies in larger struggles for spheres of influence, just like the older colonies were proxies for European countries, Japan and the US and also just like during the Cold War. (12) The struggle today is between the West and the former colonies of China, India, Middle East. The West supports Israel, many of the rest support the Palestinians.

Israel is using the same colonial tactics by making facts on the ground, i.e. forcibly taking more territory and then assuming that can be the new status quo. Israel emulates the exact process of Western domination of the world. No wonder the Third World is disillusioned with the West; there is no moral justification for the raw exercise of power. What appears exceptional to the West is hypocrisy to the rest. Here is where one man’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist.

Palestinian independence/ liberation follows all other freedom movements in that the Palestinians are the oppressed; they are the occupied little guy fighting against a stronger bully. (13) The dynamics of this type of struggle are universal in history. The intifada is equivalent to the American Revolution, to Fidel Castro, same dynamic. (14) Again, what is good for the goose should be good for the gander, freedom, self-determination, liberty and justice for all. Yet for all the enlightenment, new bosses are the same as the old. The Age of Revolutions didn’t make new men; human nature has stayed the same. (15) The once persecuted become the new persecutors; Israel, the US, China and Cuba are good examples. One empire and tyranny replaces another.

Natives world-wide are by this time sick and tired of being colonized and imperialized by the West. There is quite a bit of sentiment against Israel and this is brought to bear by the members of all former colonies.

Conclusion

If the Arab-Palestinian-Israeli conflict is basically one of colonialism, then it is logical to ask: what have been the outcomes of the huge majority of colonial struggles? The answer: the majority of colonizers have pulled back from occupied territory and where they have not there is still armed conflict. This then provides a crystal ball for Israel’s future: pull back from the occupied territories or find a future of violence and revenge.

De-colonized areas are shattered, culture and tradition broken; everything dysfunctional and not even close to able to operate in any normal way; local strong men come in and further dominate the natives; this is the wreckage of the Rise of the West and colonialism.

What Israel has wrought, no matter the historical ties to the West, the religious claims, the past of Jewish persecution, is an unjust colonial situation where Israel is the bully and oppressor.

As long as nations (16), the West, Israel and the new top dogs are primarily about power and control and not about any universal moral right, then I fear we, the Arabs and Israelis are doomed to more brutality than compassion.

References

Friedman, Thomas, L. From Beirut to Jerusalem Anchor Books, NY 1989, 1990, 1995 unless otherwise noted

(1) pp. 325-26: Palestinians not allowed any economic independence that could lead to statehood

(2) pp. 328-29: Palestinian newspapers censored by Israel, Palestinians intimidated to cooperate

(3) p. 338: Palestinian/ terrorist same meaning to Israelis, p. 353: evidence can’t be seen as it is state secret, p. 329: arrest anyone remotely like a local leader

(4) p. 144: Sharon’s shock and awe tactics, recent obliteration of Gaza

(5) p. 284, all of Chapter 12 Whose country is this anyway?

(6) p. 336: soldier makes guy open store for an ice cream

(7) p. 163 the words Palestinian and terrorist have same meaning for many Israelis

(8) p. 391 many Israelis viewed Palestinians as “niggers”

(9) p.159 Sharon claimed there were 2-3000 guerillas in Sabra and Shatila

(10) p. 181: colonist occupiers will never win the hearts and minds of the natives, p. 373: natives have a basic elemental rage against occupiers

(11) Getz, Trevor R et al Exchanges: A Global History Reader vol 2 from 1450 to present Pearson/ Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ  2009 

pp. 282-84

(12) Exchanges, Part 4

(13) p. 340: enraging to Palestinians that they can’t express themselves culturally/ politically, p. 381; (first) intifada as tipping point of oppressed standing up to oppressor

(14) p. 376: commercial strike, assertion of native identity

(15) Moyers, Bill, A World of Ideas interview with Barbara Tuchman Doubleday, NY 1989 p. 13

(16) Why do the nations so furiously rage together, and why do the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth rise up, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord, and against His Anointed. (Psalms 2: 1-2, Acts 4: 25-26) Messiah: Charles Jennens lyrics. G.F Handel music

-Why do they rage so furiously together? That’s the big question: to be another paper or class discussion.