I answered you in the other comment, but my "resolution" would've been not carving out a chunk of a number of middle eastern former colonies and turning it into a Jewish ethnostate. But that's done now, and now Israelis have lived there for so long that simply "packing it up" and moving them elsewhere is now also, if not equally IMO, problematic as an action.
Israel is itself a project of the latter end of colonialism, and like many projects and side-effects and consequences of colonialism, we will be feeling it for hundreds if not thousands of years into the future. I don't know how you fix it, apart from letting Israel demolish Palestine, and all the human horror that comes with that.
> I answered you in the other comment, but my "resolution" would've been not carving out a chunk of a number of middle eastern former colonies and turning it into a Jewish ethnostate. But that's done now, and now Israelis have lived there for so long that simply "packing it up" and moving them elsewhere is now also, if not equally IMO, problematic as an action.
That's a lot of words to say you have no resolution.
> I don't know how you fix it, apart from letting Israel demolish Palestine, and all the human horror that comes with that.
Israel is not the product of "the latter end of colonialism". It was the product of the Holocaust, which occurred just three years before its founding.
Should Europe have used Palestine for this purpose, that is debatable. But to lump it into the same colonial endeavors such as England's occupation of India or Belgium's occupation of the Congo just doesn't add up.
Yes, there was a lot of factors, going back years before WWII, but I still believe that the aftermath of the Holocaust was major contributing factor to the creation of the State of Israel.
I don't take issue with the creation of Israel as a means to put all the displaced Jews somewhere. I take issue with that the land provided for this project was taken without the consent of any of the nations from which it was taken, which is colonialism and why it's impossible to separate Israel from the colonialist roots that helped create it. Just as it's impossible to not see it as an act of Western dominance towards the middle east to whom it was done. Like, there's no reason at all (apart from latent, extremely quiet antisemitism on the part of the Allied powers post WWII that they didn't want to discuss) that all those refugees couldn't have been subsumed into any of these countries, especially America, who at the time was boasting not only the only economy not obliterated by WWII, but also shit tons of open land. We could've absolutely made room for all the Jews that would be sent to colonize Israel (yes I chose that word on purpose).
However localizing it in an area none of them had any stake in was better politically, and yeah it meant pissing off basically every neighboring country to Israel, but that was also in line with the other priorities the West was holding: a strategic, permanent emplacement in the middle eastern region that would not ever oppose Western interests in any way, because it owed it's existence to the West.
It's a brilliant strategy overall as long as you ignore how it treated entire swaths of humanity as beneath consideration for what their own futures looked like, as long as those swaths of humanity were darker in complexion than yourself.
The same thing happened to Jewish people in those "pissed off" surrounding countries, to the extent that a plurality of the Jewish population of Israel is of MENA origin (the "Mizrahim"). There is no simple history of the area, and nothing that will fit into an HN comment.
"I take issue with that the land provided for this project was taken without the consent of any of the nations from which it was taken, which is colonialism and why it's impossible to separate Israel from the colonialist roots that helped create it"
Who was the land taken from? It was owned by the British from WWI to '48. Before that, it was owned by the Ottoman empire, before that it was an Egyptian kingdom and going further back it was the Roman empire. And at some point before that, it was Judea which was the land of the Jews. The Romans renamed Judea to "Palestine" to remove the connection of Jews to that land.
"Like, there's no reason at all (apart from latent, extremely quiet antisemitism on the part of the Allied powers post WWII that they didn't want to discuss) that all those refugees couldn't have been subsumed into any of these countries, especially America, who at the time was boasting not only the only economy not obliterated by WWII, but also shit tons of open land."
Israel was pretty empty too in 1948. There was enough room for the European refugees and the Palestinians. The 1948 partition was not the best for everyone, but it did give both Jews and Palestinians a new homeland, something neither had post Judea or anytime for the Palestinians.
A big reason for wanting their own land, was to provide a safe haven. Jews were doing very well in pre-Nazi Germany, and that changed quickly. The same could happen in the US too. There's historically been very few safe havens for Jews in Europe (And America is pretty much an extension of Europe).
I don't agree with your premise about colonialism or that Israel was created to be a bridgehead for western powers. But I do appreciate your writing and dialog on the matter.
Israel unilaterally declared independence following what was in essence a civil war in Mandatory Palestine. The UN had partitioned the territory but Israel took much more than had been allotted to them. Israel also illegally expelled many Palestinians and refuses them the right of return to this day, which they do counter to international law. In 1967 Israel expanded even further and took the remaining Palestinian territories which they occupy to this day in the world’s longest occupation. To this day, Israel keeps taking more land from Palestinians e.g. by setting up illegal “security corridors” or opening new illegal settlements.
So to answer the question. The land was taken from the Palestinians. And it keeps being taken from the Palestinians, in defiance of a number of UN resolutions, to whom the British had given the mandate to.
In an alternative universe where Israel wouldn’t be colonial, there would not have been a civil war, Israel would not have unilaterally declared independence, but done so in agreement with Palestinians, the UK and the UN. They wouldn’t have expelled any Palestinians, and they wouldn’t have maintained a policy of maintaining an ethnic majority. Jews would live now as a minority in Palestine, hopefully with some minority protections mandated by the UN (and probably demanded by the UK as part of the independence agreement).
In a slightly less alternative universe where the Zionist national project still happens and Israel unilaterally declares independence, at any time after 1948, in an effort to right previous colonial wrongs, Israel would offer the expelled Palestinians the right to return and reparations for their years or decades in exile. They would dismantle their ethnodemographic policies, and either integrate the occupied territories into a single democratic (non-apartheid) Israel-Palestine or recognize an Independent Palestine at the 1967 borders with some freedom of movement between the two states (similar to Ireland and Northern Ireland). For as long as non of this happens. Israel’s current policies are an unbroken link to their colonial past.
You are omitting that each of those events happened after the neighboring Arab states declared war on Israel. Israel won those wars. If they didn't, Israel would not exist.
Israel should get out of the West Bank, just like the way Israel exited Gaza. And I would like to see Palestinians flourish in both those areas. I'd even be happy to see Israel go back to pre-67 boundaries. But this will only happen when both sides desire to have peace and acknowledge their rights to exist. Sadly neither do.
Why the hell should the Palestinians even come to the table anymore? They have been mercilessly brutalized for decades. You're effectively saying that a home invader who has taken your living room, kitchen, dining room, and left you isolated to your bedroom and bathroom upstairs has just as much right to your home as you do, and you need to now come and negotiate to maintain access to your upper floor.
It's patently ridiculous. Do both sides aggress? Yes. But one side enjoys the strategic and financial backing of the West for their aggression, and one does not, and ergo, the conflict will never, EVER be on a level playing field. To go back to my own metaphor, the invader in your first floor has the backing of the police department. What are you going to do in this situation?
I‘m not omitting anything. The neighboring Arab states invaded after Israel declared independence, and after many Palestinians had already been expelled from their homeland. The colonial act came first, and the invasion and wars were a reaction to that colonialism.
Also what Israel ought to do, is not what Israel is doing, and what Israel is doing, is pure colonialism, taken straight from the 19th century, genocides and everything.
