Reverse Colonialism

At the core of many a Palestinian supporters’ condemnation of Israel is that it’s a ‘colonial enterprise’, but is the reverse in fact the case?

The broader region, known as the Levant, has been the subject of colonialism for much of its history, as in fact has much of the Middle East and North Africa. The longest-lasting colonial hold over the region was that of the Ottoman Empire, stretching from 1301 to 1922.

Then followed a period of British and French rule, in some cases very brief, before the previously ruled Ottoman-Turk areas were given their own autonomy, most of them becoming ruling-family ‘Kingdoms’. The largest of those ‘Kingdoms’ was without doubt Saudi Arabia, an area of 830,000 sq. miles, granted to Ibn Saud by the British in 1932 for his part in fighting alongside the British and the famed T.E. Lawrence (‘Lawrence of Arabia’) against the Ottoman Turks to end their empire.

Another large acquisition at the time was granted to King Abdullah with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, some 34,500 sq. miles in compensation for the Hashemites previous loss of the Hejaz region, which included Mecca and Medina. But also as part of that ‘map dividing and Kingdom granting’ by the British and French led later – via the UN approved partition plan of 1947 – to the formation of Israel, only 8,500 sq. miles (a quarter the size of Jordan and almost 100x smaller than Saudi Arabia). So much has been written already about the successive Arab/Palestinian wars of 1947-48, 1967 and 1973, that it’s not worth repeating here – devolving now into numerous waves of terrorist attacks, culminating in October 7^th.

But alongside those physical assaults by disgruntled, firebrand Arabs and Palestinians at Israel’s formation has seen a battle of words, much of it led by a virulent ‘misinformation campaign.’ And alongside the many false or exaggerated claims has been that the formation of Israel was a ‘Colonial Enterprise’ – when, in essence, it has been entirely the opposite: a previously native population returning to their roots to replace the previous British and Ottoman Turk colonial rule.

The other crucial point on which this claim falls down is that historically all colonialism has stemmed from a mother nation – Italy/Roman, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman-Turk and British and French Empires – whereas, since Biblical times, there has never been a Jewish nation, until Israel; their ‘diaspora’ of living in other nations is indeed well-known.

So, how did this somewhat ludicrous claim take root? Part of it stems from an Arab/Palestinian desire to insist that the Jews returning to their roots aren’t in fact Jews who originated there, but a separate Jewish strand, Ashkenazi’s, who originated in Eastern Europe and Germany; therefore they were ‘outsiders’ that didn’t belong. Then, stretching that flimsy premise to its ludicrous conclusion, they were therefore ‘outside colonial invaders.’ However, while very small portions of Ashkenazi DNA link to central Europe, the vast majority link back to the Levant.

A 2007 study by the Bauchet team found that Ashkenazi Jews were most closely clustered with Arabic North African and Levant populations when compared to a global population. In turn, research conducted in 2001 by Noah Rosenberg and colleagues on six Jewish populations (Poland, Libya, Ethiopia, Iraq, Morocco, Yemen) and two non-Jewish populations (Palestinians and Druze) showed that the eight groups had genetic links to each other. So, from genetic links, to make the claim that Ashkenazi Jews were ‘outsiders’, you’d have to claim the same for Palestinians and Druze.

Aside from the failure of this fundamental claim about the roots of Ashkenazi Jews, the claim further collapses due to the fact that Ashkenazi’s only account for 42% of Israel’s overall Jewish population, 58% are in fact Sephardi or Mizrahi Jews – a number indeed descendants of the 1 million Jews who fled or were expelled from Arab nations in the Middle East and North Africa in the 1948-1950 period, as a result of those nations’ hostile reaction to the formation of Israel. An ‘ethnic cleansing’ that, while considerably larger than the number of Palestinians who fled or were expelled in 1948, is rarely focused upon.

So, the claim that the Jews who now constitute Israel – aside from the 20% Arab-Muslim, Druze and Christian population – are ‘outsiders’ fails on every possible supporting principal.

Indeed, those who wish to claim that anyone who doesn’t come strictly from the immediate Israel-Palestine area is an ‘outsider’ should pay more heed to Joan Peters’ book ‘From Time Immemorial’, in which she asserts that as much as 25% of the current Palestinian population originates from outside. Paradoxically, due to the fact that Jewish immigration between 1920-1940 had created something of an economic boom in the area, with many new cities, such as Tel-Aviv, being built from scratch, and wages being 80-100% higher than neighbouring Egypt, Jordan or Syria. There was therefore a large influx of ‘economic migrants’ during that period.

To this day, something like 75-80% of the population of Gaza have surnames that originate in Egypt, and it has been recorded that even the spearhead of the ‘Palestinian Cause’, Yasser Arafat, was in fact born in Cairo to Egyptian parents. You have to have incredible chutzpah to start protesting about people being ‘outsiders’ to support your cause when in fact one of the founding members of that ‘cause’ is from outside.

A major contributor to ‘Colonialism’ being seen as a new-age evil is in fact another Palestinian, Edward Said. In his book, ‘Orientalism’, Said claimed that those in the West automatically saw those in the East as ‘inferior’, therefore ‘Orientalism’. Though by the time his ‘West vs the Rest’ theories were gaining traction on university campuses, colonialism had by then moved on and was displaying a more benign face.

A case in point is the West Indies shifting from mainly English and French colonial yolks. One of the last to take the vote in the French West Indies was Martinique. But by that time they’d witnessed the horrors of what had happened in Haiti under Papa Doc, so voted to stay as part of France rather than split away. Today Martinique is one of the most settled and stable of Caribbean islands, and the people there generally love still being part of France and considered French citizens. Whereas Haiti has become one of the most impoverished, crime-ridden islands of the Caribbean. So, Said’s theories, while well-intentioned, were out of date and sync with historical reality by the time they gained popularity.

Yet today in many universities in the West, Said’s books are lauded as the ‘Holy Grail’ on Colonialism, and no doubt is at the root of thinking that Colonialism generally stems from a ‘White Supremacy’ background – again a label thrown with abandon at Israelis due to their (falsely perceived) Ashkenazi ‘outsider’ background. It must come as something of a shock to Jews to be labelled for hundreds of years as ‘too swarthy and dark’ to fully belong in European culture (indeed, Hitler considered them decidedly non-Aryan), to suddenly find themselves depicted as ‘White Supremacists’ when it suits.

Said’s theories also fall short on answering how the Ottoman Empire generally subjugated its own fellow Muslims, some of them indeed to the West of them. Or indeed the Mongol Empire, where most of the people they subjugated were to the West. But you can see in Said’s writing many of the pet theories applied to Israel by Palestinian activists: first get them depicted as ‘outsiders’ not belonging to the region; then term them ‘white supremacists’; finally, ‘Colonialists’. Each stepping stone taking them further away from reality.

Of course, one thing Edward Said and many Palestinian activists ignore is that for many years Islam was a largely ‘Colonial’ exercise, often spread at the point of a sword. ‘Ah, but Islam is not a nation spreading its influence, but a religion,’ they often answer. True, but looking at nations like Spain, for those years of Islamic rule every Spaniard was expected to follow Islam as a religion rather than Christianity, along with Sharia law. And if Israel had lost any of its successive wars over the years and the region had become yet another Islamic nation – to add to the 55 worldwide they already have (colonized?)– it’s doubtful that conflict would continue. So, at heart, it remains a religious issue.

But overall to make those ‘Israeli-Colonist’ theories work in practice requires a great lack of knowledge of the region and its history, as well as an ignorance of Jewish history and roots, and an attraction to simple buzzwords and labels that look good online or on protest banners. The fact that in one final sentence I might have accurately summarized today’s Palestinian activists and many students stands as condemnation of both the standard of today’s activists and the level of intellect of those students.

******

John Matthews - Notes from the Edge. If you like my articles and wish to receive them regularly - 2-3 a week on Israel, Middle East and World Affairs, plus now a comedy spoof and two thrillers in serial form - then I look forward to getting your subscription.

*** SPECIAL OFFER***

I will be continue offering a FREE book to all new subscribers: Past Imperfect, an intense groundbreaking crime thriller set between England, France and the USA, exploring the link between two young boys thirty years apart. This will be in Word for Windows form, which you can either read on your computer or transfer to your Kindle. For all those who have already subscribed to me, I make the same offer of this free book if you add Notes from the Edge to your ‘Recommend’ list.

But for those choosing a paid option to compensate me for my regular weekly articles, I will be offering THREE extra FREE books: ‘Letters from a Murderer’, a classic murder mystery exploring whether Jack the Ripper has found fresh killing ground in 1890s New York; ‘The Crescent Wars’, focusing on the Lebanese Civil War and a British journalist investigating a large scale banking plot behind the war; and ‘The Vienna Writers Circle’, following two Jewish cousins, part of Sigmund Freud’s circle of writers and intellectuals, as they strive in 1938 Vienna to save themselves and their families from Nazi death camps.

******

John Matthews is an experienced writer and journalist. The author of 24 books, including two centred around WW2 and the holocaust in the name of J.C. Maetis (his father’s original Jewish name) his first experience of writing about the Middle East came as a war correspondent covering the last years of the Lebanese Civil War, which led to his second book, ‘The Crescents of the Moon’. He has since written on the subject for a number of journals, including The Times, Sunday Times, Newsweek, The Independent and The Spectator. He was also in the run-up to the millennium editor of European Brief, the main magazine for the European Parliament, editing the likes of Tony Blair, Al Gore and Henry Kissinger on subjects ranging from the fall of the Berlin Wall and European unity, climate change and nuclear fusion to, once again, the Middle East. He lives in London with his wife and family.

******