The Indigenous Truth: Debunking the Colonizer Libel Against Israel

The Indigenous Truth: Debunking the Colonizer Libel Against Israel

Alright, buckle up. Let’s talk about the "Colonizer" label that antizionists love to throw at Israel and Jews who support it. This accusation, that Jews are "colonizers" in Israel, is one of the most blatant misrepresentations out there. Let’s unpack why it’s as absurd as it is insidious.

First, for any honest discussion, we need to be clear on what colonialism actually means. Colonizers are generally outsiders who arrive in a foreign land, exploit its resources, displace or oppress its native people, and then impose a foreign culture. Historically, colonial powers have been driven by the desire to profit and dominate. But… here’s where the argument crumbles in the context of Israel.

Jews are not "foreigners" in Israel. We’re the indigenous people. This isn’t poetic nostalgia; it’s historical fact. The land of Israel is where the Jewish people were born, thousands of years ago. It’s where our language, culture, laws, and collective identity were forged. You don’t need a doctorate in Middle Eastern history to know that ancient Jewish communities were thriving there long before any modern empires emerged on the scene. In fact, Jews have maintained a presence in this land continuously for over 3,000 years. Yes, there were periods of exile, but many Jews never left and the exiled Jews kept returning, even in the face of expulsion, discrimination, and death. This has been going on for over two thousand years.

Calling Jewish people "colonizers" in Israel ignores millennia of Jewish history in favor of a simplistic, skewed narrative. It’s like calling Native Americans "colonizers" if they reclaimed and resettled their own ancestral lands. Can you imagine someone telling the Sioux or Navajo, "Sorry, you’re just settlers here now"? Outrageous, right?

Now, let’s consider the experience of Jewish refugees from Arab and Muslim countries—who make up over half of Israel's Jewish population today. These Jews were expelled or forced to flee from lands they’d lived in for centuries, if not millennia. They lost everything, from homes to synagogues to entire communities. They didn’t arrive in Israel as colonizers; they arrived as people seeking safety and refuge among their own people. The accusation of "colonialism" doesn’t just misrepresent Jewish history; it erases the lived trauma of these families who were uprooted from places like Baghdad, Aleppo, and Casablanca.

What’s particularly revealing is that this libel of "colonizer" is rarely applied to other groups with deep historical connections to land. Nobody calls Greeks "colonizers" for having a homeland in Greece. The idea that Jews are uniquely denied this right to indigenous status in our ancestral homeland smacks of a double standard that borders on, if not embodies, outright antisemitism.

So, why does this label persist? For some, it’s easier to make the Jewish people fit into a familiar "oppressor" narrative than to understand the unique nature of Jewish history. It’s easier to ignore the complexities of a tiny people who survived millennia of persecution, genocide, and exile by creating a safe haven for themselves in their ancient homeland.

And that’s why we have to actively call out this "colonizer" libel every time we see it. Antizionists want to reshape Israel’s story into a simplistic struggle between "oppressors" and "oppressed" because it makes their anti-Israel agenda more palatable. If they acknowledged that Zionism is, in fact, a movement of indigenous people returning to their historic home, the whole antizionist narrative would collapse under the weight of reality.

The truth is that Zionism is a movement of liberation, of reclaiming our historical and spiritual home against all odds. And if we have to keep telling that story until the end of time, so be it. Because the truth doesn’t change, no matter how many times they try to rewrite it.