# The creation of Israel was not a colonial project **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 23, 2023, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-israel-was-not-a-colonial-project/991967 "2023-10-23T18:48:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2023, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-israel-was-not-a-colonial-project/991967/101 "2023-10-24T06:08:55Z")
Madagascar was suggested. By the Nazis… ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2023, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-israel-was-not-a-colonial-project/991967/102 "2023-10-24T06:14:56Z")
A hypothetical. Suppose the Native Americans were to collectively band together, take on the US government, win, and reclaim full ownership of all land in the former US and restore it to the tribes that had previously claimed it before it was taken from them from the 15th-19th centuries. Would that be “colonialism”? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2023, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-israel-was-not-a-colonial-project/991967/103 "2023-10-24T06:15:53Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > since there was, quite literally, no safe place for Jews on Earth The Lower East Side doesn’t sound like it was unsafe. Well, no more than any other large Victorian/Edwardian city. And the situation for Jews in America seemed to improve quite a bit after that, from the 30s to the 50s. At least, that’s what [these Jews](https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/a-golden-age-for-jews/) tell me. Are they wrong? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2023, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-israel-was-not-a-colonial-project/991967/104 "2023-10-24T06:17:30Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > That’s why anti-Zionism is anti-Semetism I know a few anti-Zionist Jews. Are they all just self-hating? They seem quite fervent in their Jewish practice, for anti-Semites. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2023, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-israel-was-not-a-colonial-project/991967/105 "2023-10-24T06:18:52Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > The point is that the Jewish people were made homeless and never allowed to settle anywhere else. When one quarter of America’s largest city is Jewish, that doesn’t sound all that accurate to me. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2023, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-israel-was-not-a-colonial-project/991967/106 "2023-10-24T06:25:24Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Would that be “colonialism”? The Native Americans _who had been living in America_ all along? Or a whole bunch of European- and MENA-born Native Americans (and maybe one tribe of 1000 people in Upstate New York)? Because _that_ would be the analogous situation. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2023, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-israel-was-not-a-colonial-project/991967/107 "2023-10-24T07:10:40Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Or a whole bunch of European- and MENA-born Native Americans (and maybe one tribe of 1000 people in Upstate New York)? Because _that_ would be the analogous situation. So a people reclaiming their ancestral homeland is only colonialism if most of them were forced to leave at some point? What percentage of the population needs to currently live in the territory for their reclaiming it to not be colonialism? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2023, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-israel-was-not-a-colonial-project/991967/108 "2023-10-24T07:47:36Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > So a people reclaiming their ancestral homeland is only colonialism if most of them were forced to leave at some point? If they were forced to leave and pretty soon after came back, that would just be a return. It’s about who they are after they leave, and about who remains. If they were forced to leave, became a markedly different people from the few who stayed (say, for instance, adopted a completely different language), and, in addition to their own remnant population, there were also other indigenous Natives that they didn’t consider part of their nation and they proceeded to displace the majority of the population of those people as part of their return? _That_ would be colonialism. > [@Smapti](#): > > What percentage of the population needs to currently live in the territory for their reclaiming it to not be colonialism? Ooh, continuum fallacy, hello!. But in any case, it’s not _just_ about the relict percentage of the returnee group, it’s also about the other indigenes they displace or otherwise establish hegemony over. If the returnees just establish themselves in a place where they had, say, only 5% relict population, but they don’t displace other indigenes or turn them into second-class citizens, _that_ wouldn’t be colonialism. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2023, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-israel-was-not-a-colonial-project/991967/109 "2023-10-24T08:48:21Z")
It worked out reasonably well for Jewish Americans. But having suffered pogroms and the Holocaust, how could the Jewish diaspora at the time have known that? ISTM that after suffering all that they might look at a country that tolerated lynching and the KKK as not a long term safe place for Jews. My point isn’t that Jews have suffered like no one else forever (that’s not true), but that after the pogroms and the Holocaust that many Jews had a very reasonable belief that nowhere on Earth would they be safe unless they made a safe place. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2023, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-israel-was-not-a-colonial-project/991967/110 "2023-10-24T08:55:46Z")
On colonialism, I still think there’s two (related) elements that are required that the creation of Israel does not meet - exploitation and power differential. In the Americas, Africa, and everywhere else, colonialism was about systematically exploiting those weaker than the colonial power. Most commonly, exploiting labor and resources. There was no power differential here, at least not for the Jews. They were refugees. And they weren’t systematically exploiting the local people for labor. But this is just a semantics discussion, so maybe it doesn’t matter. There were and still are bad things about it’s creation no matter what it’s called. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2023, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-israel-was-not-a-colonial-project/991967/111 "2023-10-24T08:58:29Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > But having suffered pogroms and the Holocaust, how could the Jewish diaspora at the time have known that? 100+ years pogrom-free in America wasn’t at least a hint? And it’s not like being in Israel wasn’t without constant existential threat, either… > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > ISTM that after suffering all that they might look at a country that tolerated lynching and the KKK as not a long term safe place for Jews. Possibly. Or possibly - looking at the examples of all the Jews before them who did quite well in America - they might have seen that they were not in the same situation as Blacks and never would be. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2023, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-israel-was-not-a-colonial-project/991967/112 "2023-10-24T09:05:22Z")
I don’t think we can judge those survivors like that. ISTM that, at the time, the surviving Jews had the quite reasonable belief that the world was at war with them. That America didn’t treat their Jews as bad as Blacks likely didn’t give them much confidence. And there’s another point Babale mentioned - with their own country, they could take state action to protect (and welcome) Jews around the world. America wouldn’t have taken the Beta Israel by themselves, most likely. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2023, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-israel-was-not-a-colonial-project/991967/113 "2023-10-24T09:11:47Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > 100+ years pogrom-free in America wasn’t at least a hint? Does it really have to be a pogrom to qualify as a strong societal sign of unwelcome? Anti-semitism has a long and sordid history in America. This is self-evident to me from plain history, and I’m not even Jewish. I can only imagine how Jewish people might feel at this kind of simplistic minimalization. > **[History of antisemitism in the United States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_antisemitism_in_the_United_States)** > > Different opinions exist among historians regarding the extent of antisemitism in American history and how American antisemitism contrasted with its European counterpart. Earlier students of American Jewish life minimized the presence of antisemitism in the United States, which they considered a late and alien phenomenon that arose on the American scene in the late 19th century. More recently however, scholars have asserted that no period in American Jewish history was free from antisemitism.... ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2023, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-israel-was-not-a-colonial-project/991967/114 "2023-10-24T09:26:16Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > There was no power differential here, at least not for the Jews. They were refugees. They were, at least for the period of Mandatory Palestine, twice as wealthy and way more urbanized than the Arab Palestinians, with a few very wealthy foreign benefactors to boot (including British development of Haifa). There was definitely a power differential. > [@wolfpup](#): > > Does it really have to be a pogrom to qualify as a strong societal sign of unwelcome? I’m not the one raising the spectre of lynchings… that’s a bit more than “unwelcome”. > [@wolfpup](#): > > Anti-semitism has a long and sordid history in America. Sure. I fully acknowledge that and haven’t said different. That’s not the same as America being at risk of pogroms. Especially not during and immediately after WWII. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2023, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-israel-was-not-a-colonial-project/991967/115 "2023-10-24T09:49:43Z")
I brought up lynching not to imply that Jews were at great risk of being lynched, but that it’s quite reasonable many would look at a place that tolerated lynching by white supremacists as “that’s probably not a safe place for us”. Even if there were already many Jews there. And in any case, many Jews did move to America, and that worked out well for most of them. But I can’t fault the others for making a different choice with the information they had. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2023, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-israel-was-not-a-colonial-project/991967/116 "2023-10-24T10:31:12Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I brought up lynching not to imply that Jews were at great risk of being lynched No, you brought it up as an appeal to emotion. > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > that it’s quite reasonable many would look at a place that tolerated lynching by white supremacists as “that’s probably not a safe place for us”. Why, when it was obviously one very specific demographic being lynched? > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > And in any case, many Jews did move to America, and that worked out well for most of them. That is my point. > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I can’t fault the others for making a different choice with the information they had. No one’s “faulting” them. But imperfect information doesn’t make them right, that Israel was the only safe place in the World for Jews (hell, several wars show it definitely wasn’t that). Do you think there would have been several wars, and the same scale of ongoing attacks on Jews in America, if all the Jews had moved there instead? Would most adult Jews in America have to serve in the armed forces? Would American Jews have spent decades [cozying up to pariah racist states](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93South_Africa_relations#1967%E2%80%931987:_Strategic_cooperation)? I highly doubt it. Jews moved to Israel because they felt it was their homeland, not because it was inherently the safest place for them to go. Which is fine as a motivation by itself. Bigging up the safety argument runs kind of counter to the actual situation we see, both in post-independence Israel and post-war America. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2023, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-israel-was-not-a-colonial-project/991967/117 "2023-10-24T10:51:17Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > No, you brought it up as an appeal to emotion. No I didn’t, but we can leave it there. > [@](#): > > Jews moved to Israel because they felt it was their homeland, not because it was inherently the safest place for them to go. Which is fine as a motivation by itself. Bigging up the safety argument runs kind of counter to the actual situation we see, both in post-independence Israel and post-war America. Looking at it from the POV of the Jews at the time (i.e. contemporary writings and such), safety and security were the primary motivations. At least, everything I’ve seen clearly demonstrates this. I’m not saying that, knowing what we know now, they were correct – I’m saying that this was a reasonable belief for them at the time. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2023, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-israel-was-not-a-colonial-project/991967/118 "2023-10-24T10:53:53Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > the POV of the Jews at the time (i.e. contemporary writings and such) Would these be the same sorts of Jews as the one I earlier cited, who _explicitly_ used the phrase “Zionist colonisation” to refer to his plan for settlement? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2023, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-israel-was-not-a-colonial-project/991967/119 "2023-10-24T10:54:52Z")
That doesn’t change anything but the semantics disagreement. “Colonisation” was understood differently at the time. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2023, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-israel-was-not-a-colonial-project/991967/120 "2023-10-24T10:57:10Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > “Colonisation” was understood differently at the time. I’ve read the essay, what he described was colonization in any time. He explicitly references American colonialism. He goes on to grossly misinterpret the American conquest of the West, but he is clearly talking about colonialism as we would understand it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-israel-was-not-a-colonial-project/991967.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-israel-was-not-a-colonial-project/991967.md?page=7)