Incongruous and Ill-Conceived: Israel as Settler Colonialism
Part 2 of a 2 Part Series
In this second article addressing Tina Ngata’s attack on Maori and other indigenous support of Israel, Dr Sheree Trotter considers her claims and demonstrates the absurdity of the settler colonial model when applied to Israel.
The YouTube video is an abridged version of the following article.
Settler colonialism is a relatively recent political construct that seeks to dismantle the structures of nations it deems fit its model, such as New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the USA. Israel is considered the archetypal settler colonialist project in this ideology. Settler colonialism is a totalising worldview that ignores historical realities to push a divisive and destructive political agenda.
In her article ‘Make No Mistake - there is no Indigenous support for Israel’, Tina Ngata states, ‘The most obvious issue is that the nation-state of Israel is a product of Western colonialism, which is the source of all Indigenous oppression around the world. Were it not for the systems of Western colonial domination put in place through the Doctrine of Discovery, Israel would not have been able to establish itself as a nation-state’.
It will not be possible to properly address these false assertions in a single article. However, it must be said that such statements reveal the paucity of Ngata’s grasp of history. Ngata makes much of the Doctrine of Discovery, but her claims are not backed by historical evidence. The 15th century Papal Bull of the Catholic church opened the door to Catholic Europe’s colonization of certain non-European lands, but had no direct impact on the protestant British colonisation of New Zealand. Further, it had absolutely no influence on the establishment of Israel. Even a rudimentary familiarity with the historical Jewish experience in Europe would make obvious the absurdity of Ngata’s claim. Indeed, Jews in the 15th century experienced extreme persecution by the Catholic church and were expelled from Catholic Spain. For many centuries Jews in Europe were marginalised, discriminated against, treated as inferior and often slaughtered.
The settler colonialism paradigm, when applied to Israel, becomes absurd indeed. Jews are Indigenous to the land of Israel, with a continuous presence spanning over three millennia. That is a far cry from the experience of other so-called settler colonial states, which involved strangers laying claim to foreign territories. Rather than being driven by a metropole or mother country, the return of Russian and East European Jews to their ancestral land in the nineteenth century was largely in response to the persecution and antisemitism experienced in those nations. The political Zionist movement which began in the late 19th century, likewise a response to antisemitism, was supported by small Jewish communities all over the world, including in New Zealand. The Zionist movement struggled for many decades. Few, if any, in that period doubted that Jews had a right to a home in their ancestral land. Even Arab leaders admitted as much. Indeed countries like New Zealand preferred that Jews return to British Mandate Palestine rather than immigrate to New Zealand. Jews did not return as powerful white Europeans - they were considered ‘other’ in those countries, and they were certainly not white enough for Hitler. These factors sharply distinguish Zionism from settler colonial projects motivated by economic expansion or imperial ambition.
Colonisation of the Middle East
The inadequacy of the settler colonial model becomes starkly obvious when applied to the Middle East. In analyzing Israel-Palestinian dynamics it cherry picks (or fabricates) information deemed to fit the model, and ignores historical and geo-political realities that do not. Ideologues ignore the fact that the major colonising force in the Middle East is Islam. If the predominance of language is an indicator of imperial power, then Arabic provides strong evidence to support this assertion. As a result of the Islamic conquests of the 7th to 9th centuries, Arabic spread to North Africa, the Middle East, Central and Western Asia, and even to parts of China. Peoples across the region were made to submit to the new religion, Islam, and the language of the Islamic imperialists was imposed on native inhabitants. Many Indigenous languages were banned and some were subsequently lost. Although Indigenous groups such as the Kurds, Assyrians, Chaldeans and Amazighs resisted assimilation, continued to live on ancestral lands, and tried to maintain their language, culture and heritage, they were placed under the rule of Arab leaders. The Yazidis are an indigenous group that experienced the same kind of radical islamist attack through ISIS, that Israel faces with Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and others. To this day, these Indigenous Peoples in the Middle East face discrimination and persecution, and the suppression of their languages.
Settler colonialism is based on the idea of interrogating power relationships and its proponents will paint Israel, supported by America as the superpower, as the oppressor of Palestinians. This ignores many middle eastern realities including the very real multiple existential threats to which Israel is subject in her ancestral homeland. The world Jewish population is 15 million, with approximately 7 million in Israel. The worldwide Islamic population is 1.9 billion. This numerical imbalance alone helps to explain the enormity of the security challenge faced by Israel. Muslims who have rejected their religion tell us that Jew hatred is taught and cultivated in their societies. Some of the strongest advocates for Israel are former Muslims who grew up hating Jews: Lebanese-Syrian, Rawan Osman; Lebanese, Brigette Gabriel; Somalian born Ayaan Hirsi Ali; Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of Hamas; Yemenite Luai Ahmed and Gazan born, Nonie Darwish, to name a few. In terms of the power differential, Hamas is part of a network of entities across the Middle East that embrace radical islamist views; groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, all backed by Iran, the spiritual leadership and Qatar, the funding arm. Hamas leaders were billionaires, who lived in luxury in Qatar. Recent research has revealed that millions of dollars of Qatar funding to US universities has contributed to the rise in antisemitism on those campuses.
Radical Islam sees no place for Jews in the Middle East. The Hamas charter states explicitly that it does not recognise any Jewish state and seeks to wipe it out. ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ is a direct call to eradicate the state of Israel. Israel completely withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Because of Hamas’s insistence on firing rockets into Israel, a military blockade on the border was put in place, deemed justified by the UNSC, to try to stop the flow of weapons into Gaza. What did Hamas do? They diverted a significant portion of Gaza’s economy into building a tunnel network, spanning an estimated 500 km at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. These tunnels, primarily used for military purposes, are fitted with reinforced concrete, ventilation systems, electricity, lighting, communication lines, multiple entrances and exits and booby traps. Imagine if instead of turning Gaza into a terrorist entity they had built the ‘Singapore of the Middle East’.
While Israel’s detractors have falsely accused Israel of genocide, the actual genocide took place on 7 October when Hamas and its accomplices set out with a clear intention to murder every Jew and Israeli they could lay their hands on and to take hostages. Not only has there been a rush to accuse Israel, but there have been attempts to redefine genocide in order to apply it to the IDF’s actions. Meanwhile, military experts concur that Israel takes unprecedented measures to protect civilian life, even while Hamas fires rockets from schools and hospitals and uses its people as human shields. The IDF has achieved a remarkably low civilian to combatant casualty rate in urban warfare, close to 1:1, and Israel has enabled the transport of thousands of tonnes of humanitarian aid into the strip. Driven by the decolonisation narrative that entrenches the false view that Hamas is the victim and can do no wrong, and Israel being strong can do no right, the media and world court of opinion prefers to imbibe Hamas’ propaganda and castigate Israel. As Norman JW Goda argues, “The accusation of genocide… is political, designed not so much to describe a crime, but to place Israel, its military, its citizens, and its supporters as outside the realm of decency and human values”.(1)
The ideology of settler colonialism was created and developed in western universities. Attempts to apply it to the Middle East situation, all the while ignoring radical islamic fundamentalism, the elephant in the room, become truly farcical. The settler colonial ideology ignores the specificity of the Middle Eastern context and ironically pushes a western-centric perspective. It’s no coincidence that the major settler colonial theorists are predominantly based in universities in Australia and Canada. For proponents, Palestine has become a symbol of all that is evil in the modern world, despite the lack of resemblance to facts on the ground. This is why politicians like Te Pāti Māori leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer can state, “Palestine is the last bastion of resistance against global Western colonisation. If Palestine is not free, neither are we”. Violence is implicit in these words. In the case of ‘Palestine’, ‘resistance’ means the murder of Jews. ‘Freedom’ means the eradication of the Jewish state. It’s not entirely clear what Ngarewa-Packer and Ngata’s demands for ‘freedom’ means for Aotearoa New Zealand, but it clearly involves destruction of society’s structures and institutions, including the very fora in which they propagate their dangerous ideas.
Adam Kirsch writes, ‘The great appeal of radical ideologies has always been this promise of a final solution’. He argues that it’s not only a sign of ignorance but also ideological malice to turn any country into a symbol of evil, stating, ‘And ideologues who “preach vengeance and murder from an ivory tower”, in Rodinson’s words, should be rebuked for their inhumanity, not praised for their idealism.’(2) In the case of Tina Ngata, I hope it is simply ignorance rather than malice that drives her attack on Māori who support Israel, and on Māori who value the freedoms and opportunities afforded by our own society. Be that as it may, followers would do well to consider the necessary implications of a settler colonial ideology, which seeks the destruction of Israel as well as the overthrow of our own society and government and the rejection of our most cherished values.
Footnotes:
2. Kirsch, Adam, Settler Colonialism: Ideology, Violence & Justice, 2024.