York University in Canada is facing calls to decertify a major student union over a public statement that called Hamas’ attacks in Israel a reminder that “resistance against colonial violence is justified and necessary.”
Global News (h/t Marvin W) The York Federation of Students, which represents 55,000 undergraduate students at York University, issued a “statement of solidarity with Palestine” on Thursday, in which the union argued the actions of Hamas represented a “strong act of resistance.”
“Since 1948, Palestinian people have been systemically displaced from their land and homes as a result of state-sanctioned violence, siege, and genocide,” the statement read. ” These events serve as a reminder that resistance against colonial violence is justified and necessary.”
JNS One of the most persistent slurs against Israel in recent years, especially among academics, is pinning to it the label of “settler-colonial project” or simply “imperialist state.” Like almost all the slanders against Israel, this one has a zero factual basis.
Colonialism is the policy or practice of one country acquiring full or partial political control over another, occupying it with settlers and exploiting it economically. Israel, however, has no other country under its control and has never shown any interest in conquering the lands of others.
The Jewish people have only had one land to which they are indigenous, and that is their national homeland. If Israel is an imperial or colonizing power, it would be the first case in history of an indigenous people colonizing its own country.
The Jewish homeland has only ever been colonized by others:Romans, Arabs, Crusaders, Ottomans, British and many other imperialist forces have subjugated the Land of Israel and its indigenous Jews. No other people in human history—except the Jews—sought to give this land independence.
Following Israel’s War of Independence, the almost one million Jews who lived in the “Arab world” were driven out or fled for their lives from homes in which they had lived long before the Arabs and Islam arrived. Yet the imperialist Arab mentality could not countenance that the original inhabitants of this small sliver—a minuscule fraction of the territory it considers “Dar al-Islam” (“the abode of Islam”)— would throw off its colonizers and return to indigenous rule.
While some claim that today’s Palestinian Arabs are indigenous to the Holy Land, this is also clearly false. Before the 20th century—and for the most part before 1964—Jews were the only people who referred to themselves as “Palestinians” (i.e., residents of Palestine). More importantly, the people we call Palestinians today never had a distinct identity—no distinct language, religion, organized society or culture—all required markers of indigeneity. In fact, they are Arabs, hailing from all over the Arab world.
Ironically, Jews are the only people in history since the brutal Arab conquest, occupation and colonization of the region who have risen up to reclaim their land. This has been considered an affront to Islam, and it is no coincidence that Hebrew, the indigenous language of the Jewish people, and Zionism, the national movement to return the people to their land, were violently repressed and banned in Arab countries.
There’s no doubt who is the colonizer and who are the colonized. There is only one empire in this conflict, and it is not Jewish, a people who have never conquered any territory on the planet not their own, as opposed to the Arab world, which currently encompasses 5,070,419 square miles of land mass.
Rather than condemning Israel, progressives in the West who recoil at “settler-colonial projects” should embrace the Jewish state as an example of decolonization—indigenous return and restored sovereignty. If they were honest, they would stand by the side of tiny Israel—with a population of nine million, surrounded by hundreds of millions who seek its destruction and its return to the huge Arab empire.
Just ask the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa who lived under Arab repression, discrimination and constant fear of violence for almost 13 centuries—who have finally returned home and make up the majority of the Jewish citizens of the State of Israel. Their recent history and experience of Arab imperialism, conquest and oppression reflect a sad, violent tale of Arab Muslim privilege. These Jews truly understand colonialism and what it is like to live under its yoke.
Daniel Erbstoesser says
Think about this. The name of the nation says all and the names of the places enforce that so cut the crap. The nation was and allways will be JEWISH and that we defend with our lives, or some of us then many are caught in the we are more lies. Read history and you can learn whos land that is and allways has been so cut the crap.
The Woke Ender says
It’s going to be a cold day in hell once a large coalition of Muzzies admit their ancestors were the WORST oppressors in history, far worse than any straight, white man at any given time.
For the life of me, I cannot wrap my head around the left’s obsession with “indigenous people’s rights” except for the Jews in the Levantine region (and also white people in Europe, but that’s whole different story for another day.)
Of course they don’t exist anymore, but I blame the old Soviet Union for funding and propagating the PLO’s agenda for several decades.
Right here in the West, its ideological successors have risen from the ashes of the USSR and essentially did the KGB’s work for them.
Muzzies feel emboldened this fervent support for their ancient hatred of the Jews and lefties today are rolling out the red carpet for a global jihad to finally eradicate Western civilization.
sixlittlerabbits says
Robert Spencer makes many of the same points at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDs58krKXm0