Brilliant piece! Succinctly lays out why Zionism first and foremost has to be understood as settler colonialism (which is premised upon the annihilation of the native) - because everything that this ethno-supremacist genocidal movement has done since 1882 has been with a singular minded focus of colonising the land between The Jordan and the Mediterranean (and arguably more land around it), getting rid of everyone that lived there by one way or another and establishing upon it an exclusivist state for one group of people.
That it was motivated in part by centuries of anti-Jewish persecution in Europe (which was undoubtedly very real) is of little relevance. The choice to COLONISE and destroy another people who has nothing to do with said persecution as a response is nonetheless a deliberate one (as opposed to let's say seeking refuge, which hundreds of thousands of Jews from Europe received in Ottoman lands over the centuries - in particular after the so called 'Reconquista').
The proof is in the data too. Of the 3 million European Jews who survived the Shoah, less than 15 percent of them made their way to mandatory Palestine (and they were widely looked down upon, seen as cowardly and weak, in their so called 'safe haven'). The vast majority eventually settled in the US and Canada - the same countries that closed their doors to Jews fleeing persecution in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The same countries that admitted hundreds of thousands of ex-Nazis post WWII on the grounds of their anti-Communism.
Zionists of the early late 19th and early 20th century consistently spoke of their project in overtly colonial terms. Herzl spoke of the movement as an extension of Europe's so called 'civilizing mission'. In his 'Iron Wall' essay, Jabotinsky wrote, "Colonization is self-explanatory and what it implies is fully understood by every sensible Jew and Arab. There can only be one purpose in colonization. For the country's Arabs that purpose is essentially unacceptable. This is natural reaction and nothing will change it." The organization established in the late 19th century tasked with finding places for Europeans Jews to migrate to was called the Jewish Colonization Association. The bank established at the Second Zionist Congress in 1899 to buy land in Palestine for Jewish settlement was called the Jewish Colonial Trust.
Modifying an expression often used by Gideon Levy when describing 'Israel' as an apartheid state, if it walks like settler colonialism, talks like settler colonialism, CALLS ITSELF colonial - then it's settler colonialism.
1. The Zionist project specifically prioritized Jews with money, influence, or connections. Through the Haavara Agreement, they negotiated with Nazi Germany to bring in capital—not to rescue the most vulnerable.
2. Holocaust survivors who did make it to Palestine were often treated poorly. The Israeli state kept much of the reparations money from Germany while many survivors lived in poverty.
3. Countries like the U.S. weren’t just closed to refugees—they deferred to Israel’s goal of rapidly populating the territory with Jewish bodies. That’s also part of the push behind operations targeting Jews in Iraq, North Africa, and elsewhere: to force migration, not to offer safety.
The Zionist movement didn’t embrace survivors—it used them.
Indeed, the safety of Jews (be they Ashkenazi, Sephardic or Mizrahi) was of little, if any, concern to Zionists. Ben-Gurion is on the record having said: "If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel." Of course, Zionists refuse to reckon with this, and many other 'uncomfortable' chapters in the movement's history, be it the Lavon Affair, Mossad orchestrated Synagogue bombings in Baghdad, the forced abduction of Yemeni Jewish children for adoption by Ashkenazi families, the list goes on and on.
They are of course, like their coloniser counterparts, masters of fabricating mythology and peddling it as historical fact. I think Norman Finkelstein best described this phenomenon when recounting how Alan Derschowitz smeared his mother in the most appalling manner, calling her a Nazi collaborator, after he exposed 'The Case for Israel' for the fraud that it is - anything goes if it furthers the cause of Am Yisrael Chai.
All you learn in the US education system is propaganda. It’s why 90% of the US society live in an alternate reality. Critical thinking in the US, barely exists.
Every once in a while, professors take truth seriously. In my experience they end up in private colleges... places they can be a little bit idiosyncratic
There is also blackmail, threats and bribery going on amongst the highest levels of authority in governments and media, including the ICC and ICJ. You see the inescapable proof in non-actions everywhere.
Congratulations. My health is AWOL when I encounter the total lies, bullshit and propaganda the Israel Lobby has fooled the Western World into believing.
This is a laudable effort to counter the de-contextualisation which has been weaponised in the interest of validating Golda Meir's famous dictum regarding the non existence of the Palestinian entity. However, you could have made reference to a significant event regarding the birth of a Jewish terrorist state, namely the bombing of the King David Hotel in June 1946. Also after the assaination of Avram Stern, his replacement by future Israeli Prime Minister Menachim Begin and the activities of Jewish terrorist gangs such as Lehi and Irgun, provide further evidence that it is the Zionist entity that should be proscribed as a terrorist organisation rather than resistance groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. Nevertheless, this is a very accurate and well researched piece which honours the memory of all who have been martyred in the cause of Palestinian liberation.
Excellent history book re. the sneaky Sykes-Picot Treaty/Balfour Declaration. Fascinating details. Shocking too and very sad since you understand that from the very beginning Palestinians never really had a chance. 😞
"The Chief Rabbi of the Ashkenazi community in Jerusalem, Rabbi Joseph Hayyim Sonnenfeld referred to Zionists as "evil men and ruffians" and claimed that "Hell had entered the Land of Israel with Herzl."[26
.. who ...threatened the peaceful relations the Orthodox community had enjoyed with their Arab neighbors until this point.[25] "
A couple of important fact I could not find in your timeline. The Arabs and Jews at the time fought side by side against the British. Many of the leaders of the Zionist such as the Stern Gang blew up the King David Hotel and anywhere the British could be found. Menachem Begin, Golda Mier, and others were wanted by the British Crown and could not visit England.
Iraq had a massive historical Jewish population and Baghdad in the 1930's use to have over a 200,000 Jews according to the British Census from the time. Northern Iraq also had a similar size Jewish population.
The rise of anti Jewish sentiment in Europe in the 1920's and 1930's was already influencing the move to Palestine.
To make things worse, the rise of Arab Nationalism that led to the rise of Jamal Nasar in Egypt was taking place all over the Arab world including Iraq. BEFORE 1947 all of the Jews left Iraq. Europe and the US did not want them. They went to Palestine.
"In 1948, when we were attacked by six Arab armies and had nothing to fight with-but thank God we did not lose our sense of humor--we said, yes, but we have a secret weapon and our secret weapon is: no alternative, we must win because we have nowhere to run to except the sea."
That isn’t history. It’s the propaganda of a genocide.
It’s Zionist mythology weaponized to erase Palestinians, to sanitize colonial conquest, and to normalize mass murder.
You are justifying ethnic cleansing, defending settler-colonialism, and excusing the systematic extermination of an Indigenous people. You’re repackaging Zionist terror as "liberation,” rewriting massacres as "self-defense,” and pretending that Palestinian existence is some kind of threat rather than what it is: a refusal to die quietly.
This is the language of genocide.
It exists to dehumanize. To erase history. To rationalize the flattening of Gaza, the siege of millions, the mass graves, the snipers at checkpoints, the torture of children, and the bulldozing of lives.
Let’s be crystal fucking clear:
-Zionism was never about coexistence. It was always a project of Indigenous elimination. Herzl, Weitz, and other Zionist leaders explicitly called for the removal of Palestinians—long before 1948. The Nakba wasn’t a tragic outcome of war—it was a deliberate and systematic plan of ethnic cleansing.
-Irgun and Lehi weren’t freedom fighters. They were terrorist organizations, carrying out attacks like the King David Hotel bombing and massacres at Deir Yassin. The fact that Israel later elevated these figures (Begin, Shamir, etc.) shows that violence against civilians is foundational to the state—not incidental.
-No, Jews didn’t just “leave” Iraq or Arab countries. Many were driven out through a mix of Zionist sabotage, backlash, and fear-mongering—to populate a settler state built on stolen land and genocide.
-Golda Meir’s quote isn’t a moral defense—it’s genocidal justification. While Palestinians were being ethnically cleansed, she claimed there was “nowhere else to go”—a lie that reframes colonization as self-defense while Gaza burns and children are buried under rubble.
You’re not “telling history.” You’re laundering atrocity.
Zionism is not a liberation movement. It is a settler-colonial project—and it is genocidal.
Arab Nationalism is not propaganda, it actually happened. Jews being shipped to Palestine actually happened. Jews being driven out of Arab Countries actually happened. Spanish Inquisition happened. Wave after wave of Jews going to Palestine.
That does not justify Genocide. Its explains it. It is naive to explain this situation so one sided and leave out facts you dont like. You leave out so much of how this all happened with your narrative. Power vacuum is a real thing after WW1. WW2 delayed it a bit. Then the mad scramble for power and control.
At the end of WW1 Ottoman Empire falls (aka modern day Turkey), Trans Arab Nationalism rose and removed the Jewish people from Jordan, Iraq and even Saudi Arabia. It is a myth to pretend they all came from Europe. Zionism came from Europe. Many Arab Jews died at the hands of them when the fighting broke out. Think about what happened to the ethnic Arab Christians in Gaza. Where did they go?
It was the Ottoman fleet that brought the many European Jews from Europe during the Spanish Inquisition to Palestine.
After WW1 it was a mess. The mayor of Jerusalem was friends with my parents and lost his home when this happened and moved to the US next door to us. He fought against the English with the Zionist. Then they all started to fight each other when the English began to pull out. He had a very different story than you are attempting to paint. Colonialism? Which empire had this colony? The British ran it after the Ottomans lost. They were not shipping Englishmen to settle the place. For the better part of the last thousand years before 1947 they got along fine.
- "June 1924, Jewish poet, scholar & journalist Jacob Israel de Haan was shot in Jerusalem by Zionist militia to stop him seeking a peaceful solution with Arabs"
Naeim GILADI : Ben-Gurion's Scandals "Many of the Iraqi Jews in Israel who lived in poor conditions blamed their ills and misfortunes on the Israeli Zionist emissaries or Iraqi Zionist underground movement.[6] The theory that "certain Jews" carried out the attacks "in order to focus the attention of the Israel Government on the plight of the Jews" was viewed as "more plausible than most" by the British Foreign Office.[7][8][9][4]
Thank you so much. I don't have many followers here but, l cpied the link to my FB page so my "friends" might read it.
very informative, Thank you
Exactly!!!!!!
TRUE
Brilliant piece! Succinctly lays out why Zionism first and foremost has to be understood as settler colonialism (which is premised upon the annihilation of the native) - because everything that this ethno-supremacist genocidal movement has done since 1882 has been with a singular minded focus of colonising the land between The Jordan and the Mediterranean (and arguably more land around it), getting rid of everyone that lived there by one way or another and establishing upon it an exclusivist state for one group of people.
That it was motivated in part by centuries of anti-Jewish persecution in Europe (which was undoubtedly very real) is of little relevance. The choice to COLONISE and destroy another people who has nothing to do with said persecution as a response is nonetheless a deliberate one (as opposed to let's say seeking refuge, which hundreds of thousands of Jews from Europe received in Ottoman lands over the centuries - in particular after the so called 'Reconquista').
Here’s another piece I wrote addressing the fact that the holocaust was not the motivation for “israel’s” violent colonial project: https://open.substack.com/pub/marginaliasubversiva/p/zionist-settler-colonialism
The proof is in the data too. Of the 3 million European Jews who survived the Shoah, less than 15 percent of them made their way to mandatory Palestine (and they were widely looked down upon, seen as cowardly and weak, in their so called 'safe haven'). The vast majority eventually settled in the US and Canada - the same countries that closed their doors to Jews fleeing persecution in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The same countries that admitted hundreds of thousands of ex-Nazis post WWII on the grounds of their anti-Communism.
Zionists of the early late 19th and early 20th century consistently spoke of their project in overtly colonial terms. Herzl spoke of the movement as an extension of Europe's so called 'civilizing mission'. In his 'Iron Wall' essay, Jabotinsky wrote, "Colonization is self-explanatory and what it implies is fully understood by every sensible Jew and Arab. There can only be one purpose in colonization. For the country's Arabs that purpose is essentially unacceptable. This is natural reaction and nothing will change it." The organization established in the late 19th century tasked with finding places for Europeans Jews to migrate to was called the Jewish Colonization Association. The bank established at the Second Zionist Congress in 1899 to buy land in Palestine for Jewish settlement was called the Jewish Colonial Trust.
Modifying an expression often used by Gideon Levy when describing 'Israel' as an apartheid state, if it walks like settler colonialism, talks like settler colonialism, CALLS ITSELF colonial - then it's settler colonialism.
Just to add to that:
1. The Zionist project specifically prioritized Jews with money, influence, or connections. Through the Haavara Agreement, they negotiated with Nazi Germany to bring in capital—not to rescue the most vulnerable.
2. Holocaust survivors who did make it to Palestine were often treated poorly. The Israeli state kept much of the reparations money from Germany while many survivors lived in poverty.
3. Countries like the U.S. weren’t just closed to refugees—they deferred to Israel’s goal of rapidly populating the territory with Jewish bodies. That’s also part of the push behind operations targeting Jews in Iraq, North Africa, and elsewhere: to force migration, not to offer safety.
The Zionist movement didn’t embrace survivors—it used them.
And that exploitation still echoes today.
And speaking of German reparations, don't get me started on that country's 'remembrance culture' fraud...
Indeed, the safety of Jews (be they Ashkenazi, Sephardic or Mizrahi) was of little, if any, concern to Zionists. Ben-Gurion is on the record having said: "If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel." Of course, Zionists refuse to reckon with this, and many other 'uncomfortable' chapters in the movement's history, be it the Lavon Affair, Mossad orchestrated Synagogue bombings in Baghdad, the forced abduction of Yemeni Jewish children for adoption by Ashkenazi families, the list goes on and on.
They are of course, like their coloniser counterparts, masters of fabricating mythology and peddling it as historical fact. I think Norman Finkelstein best described this phenomenon when recounting how Alan Derschowitz smeared his mother in the most appalling manner, calling her a Nazi collaborator, after he exposed 'The Case for Israel' for the fraud that it is - anything goes if it furthers the cause of Am Yisrael Chai.
Thank you for this detailed history. It’s unfortunate that it is not mandatory material in every western school.
The U.S. doesn’t even teach real accurate history lol
All you learn in the US education system is propaganda. It’s why 90% of the US society live in an alternate reality. Critical thinking in the US, barely exists.
Every once in a while, professors take truth seriously. In my experience they end up in private colleges... places they can be a little bit idiosyncratic
There is also blackmail, threats and bribery going on amongst the highest levels of authority in governments and media, including the ICC and ICJ. You see the inescapable proof in non-actions everywhere.
Congratulations. My health is AWOL when I encounter the total lies, bullshit and propaganda the Israel Lobby has fooled the Western World into believing.
This is a laudable effort to counter the de-contextualisation which has been weaponised in the interest of validating Golda Meir's famous dictum regarding the non existence of the Palestinian entity. However, you could have made reference to a significant event regarding the birth of a Jewish terrorist state, namely the bombing of the King David Hotel in June 1946. Also after the assaination of Avram Stern, his replacement by future Israeli Prime Minister Menachim Begin and the activities of Jewish terrorist gangs such as Lehi and Irgun, provide further evidence that it is the Zionist entity that should be proscribed as a terrorist organisation rather than resistance groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. Nevertheless, this is a very accurate and well researched piece which honours the memory of all who have been martyred in the cause of Palestinian liberation.
Thank you. Comprehensive and devastating.
Excellent history book re. the sneaky Sykes-Picot Treaty/Balfour Declaration. Fascinating details. Shocking too and very sad since you understand that from the very beginning Palestinians never really had a chance. 😞
https://archive.org/details/the_eighth_crusade
Merci
Thank you for this often missed and misunderstood information.
"The Chief Rabbi of the Ashkenazi community in Jerusalem, Rabbi Joseph Hayyim Sonnenfeld referred to Zionists as "evil men and ruffians" and claimed that "Hell had entered the Land of Israel with Herzl."[26
.. who ...threatened the peaceful relations the Orthodox community had enjoyed with their Arab neighbors until this point.[25] "
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haredim_and_Zionism
A couple of important fact I could not find in your timeline. The Arabs and Jews at the time fought side by side against the British. Many of the leaders of the Zionist such as the Stern Gang blew up the King David Hotel and anywhere the British could be found. Menachem Begin, Golda Mier, and others were wanted by the British Crown and could not visit England.
Iraq had a massive historical Jewish population and Baghdad in the 1930's use to have over a 200,000 Jews according to the British Census from the time. Northern Iraq also had a similar size Jewish population.
The rise of anti Jewish sentiment in Europe in the 1920's and 1930's was already influencing the move to Palestine.
To make things worse, the rise of Arab Nationalism that led to the rise of Jamal Nasar in Egypt was taking place all over the Arab world including Iraq. BEFORE 1947 all of the Jews left Iraq. Europe and the US did not want them. They went to Palestine.
"In 1948, when we were attacked by six Arab armies and had nothing to fight with-but thank God we did not lose our sense of humor--we said, yes, but we have a secret weapon and our secret weapon is: no alternative, we must win because we have nowhere to run to except the sea."
Golda Meir
That isn’t history. It’s the propaganda of a genocide.
It’s Zionist mythology weaponized to erase Palestinians, to sanitize colonial conquest, and to normalize mass murder.
You are justifying ethnic cleansing, defending settler-colonialism, and excusing the systematic extermination of an Indigenous people. You’re repackaging Zionist terror as "liberation,” rewriting massacres as "self-defense,” and pretending that Palestinian existence is some kind of threat rather than what it is: a refusal to die quietly.
This is the language of genocide.
It exists to dehumanize. To erase history. To rationalize the flattening of Gaza, the siege of millions, the mass graves, the snipers at checkpoints, the torture of children, and the bulldozing of lives.
Let’s be crystal fucking clear:
-Zionism was never about coexistence. It was always a project of Indigenous elimination. Herzl, Weitz, and other Zionist leaders explicitly called for the removal of Palestinians—long before 1948. The Nakba wasn’t a tragic outcome of war—it was a deliberate and systematic plan of ethnic cleansing.
-Irgun and Lehi weren’t freedom fighters. They were terrorist organizations, carrying out attacks like the King David Hotel bombing and massacres at Deir Yassin. The fact that Israel later elevated these figures (Begin, Shamir, etc.) shows that violence against civilians is foundational to the state—not incidental.
-No, Jews didn’t just “leave” Iraq or Arab countries. Many were driven out through a mix of Zionist sabotage, backlash, and fear-mongering—to populate a settler state built on stolen land and genocide.
-Golda Meir’s quote isn’t a moral defense—it’s genocidal justification. While Palestinians were being ethnically cleansed, she claimed there was “nowhere else to go”—a lie that reframes colonization as self-defense while Gaza burns and children are buried under rubble.
You’re not “telling history.” You’re laundering atrocity.
Zionism is not a liberation movement. It is a settler-colonial project—and it is genocidal.
“Israel” needs to be dismantled.
Arab Nationalism is not propaganda, it actually happened. Jews being shipped to Palestine actually happened. Jews being driven out of Arab Countries actually happened. Spanish Inquisition happened. Wave after wave of Jews going to Palestine.
That does not justify Genocide. Its explains it. It is naive to explain this situation so one sided and leave out facts you dont like. You leave out so much of how this all happened with your narrative. Power vacuum is a real thing after WW1. WW2 delayed it a bit. Then the mad scramble for power and control.
At the end of WW1 Ottoman Empire falls (aka modern day Turkey), Trans Arab Nationalism rose and removed the Jewish people from Jordan, Iraq and even Saudi Arabia. It is a myth to pretend they all came from Europe. Zionism came from Europe. Many Arab Jews died at the hands of them when the fighting broke out. Think about what happened to the ethnic Arab Christians in Gaza. Where did they go?
It was the Ottoman fleet that brought the many European Jews from Europe during the Spanish Inquisition to Palestine.
After WW1 it was a mess. The mayor of Jerusalem was friends with my parents and lost his home when this happened and moved to the US next door to us. He fought against the English with the Zionist. Then they all started to fight each other when the English began to pull out. He had a very different story than you are attempting to paint. Colonialism? Which empire had this colony? The British ran it after the Ottomans lost. They were not shipping Englishmen to settle the place. For the better part of the last thousand years before 1947 they got along fine.
“wanting to terrorize Iraq Jews, Zionists placed bombs in US Info Service library & Iraq synagogues"
Wilbur Crane Eveland 'Ropes of Sand'
America’s Failure in the Middle East,: N.Y. Norton, 1980, pp 48-49)
https://historylessonsdeleted.blogspot.com/2018/12/how-jews-targeted-jews-in-order-to.html?m=1
- "June 1924, Jewish poet, scholar & journalist Jacob Israel de Haan was shot in Jerusalem by Zionist militia to stop him seeking a peaceful solution with Arabs"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Isra%C3%ABl_de_Haan
Naeim GILADI : Ben-Gurion's Scandals "Many of the Iraqi Jews in Israel who lived in poor conditions blamed their ills and misfortunes on the Israeli Zionist emissaries or Iraqi Zionist underground movement.[6] The theory that "certain Jews" carried out the attacks "in order to focus the attention of the Israel Government on the plight of the Jews" was viewed as "more plausible than most" by the British Foreign Office.[7][8][9][4]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1950%E2%80%931951_Baghdad_bombings&wprov=rarw1