Patrick Wolfe, the originator of settler colonialism as an academic branch of study, defined the concept as “an inclusive, land-centered project that coordinates a comprehensive range of agencies, from the metropolitan centre to the frontier encampment, with a view of eliminating indigenous societies.”1
Ilan Pappé, esteemed theorist who has examined Israeli history from a critical viewpoint, provides a non-technical definition of settler colonialism:
“So let me go back to this idea of settler colonialism, because I think it’s a crucial point. Settler colonialism, as you would know from the history of this country [the United States], is the movement of Europeans outside of Europe. And these people are moving outside of Europe in different moments in time, but mostly these movements are different from the expansion of empires into other parts of the world. These are movements of communities, of individuals, sometimes according to the lines of imperial expansion, sometimes preceding imperial expansion or following imperial expansion.
“Most of these people are persecuted for various reasons, and most of these people have no wish to stay in Europe and are looking for a new home. And they want also, when it comes to the 18th century, 19th century, they want to create also a new homeland.
“And in many cases, the main obstacle for creating a new, safe homeland for people who were victims of persecution is the fact that they choose places where someone else is already living. And that’s a problem! And that’s a problem. And, in many cases, the settlers dehumanize the natives and the indigenous to such an extent that they find it in their heart to genocide them, to eliminate them. Or, to impose an apartheid system on them. Or, as in the case of Palestine, to strive and get them out of their homeland, or, as I called in 2007, to ethnically cleanse them from their homeland.”2
With regards specifically to Israel, Wolfe said this in response to a set of questions posed to him in an interview:
“In the case of Israel [as opposed to apartheid South Africa], Israel is doing everything it can to avoid being dependent upon Palestinian labor. Wherever they can replace Palestinians with somebody else, they do. That might be importing Russians, some of whom are Christians—it doesn’t matter. They’re not Palestinian.
“Come 1967, when Israel invades the West Bank and takes it over and occupies it, suddenly they’ve got this huge Palestinian population they actually don’t want. They can’t simply drive them all out. While they’re around, they use their labor. Why not? But they don’t want it. They want an alternative source if they can find it.
“So they have not colonized the West Bank in order to use Palestinian labor. Rather, it’s the other way around: having occupied the West Bank, they’ve got all of these cheap, available sources of labor—they might as well use them until they can replace them. But the idea ultimately is to replace Palestinians, not to exploit them.
“So the reason that Palestinians are separated from the Jewish population of Israel is not to use their labor in the way that Africans were separated off from whites in bantustans; rather, Palestinians are being separated in the process of, ideally, what Israel wanted: to drive them out, to eliminate them, to get rid of them.” [...]
“The idea of ‘transfer,’ which is the euphemism that Zionists use for ethnic cleansing, for getting rid of Palestinians, has been around since the very beginning of Zionism. It’s there in Herzl’s diaries from the 1890s. . . .
“All along, the idea of making the Jewish state has been an exclusive idea. The Jewish state hasn’t been a state that can be a haven for Jews along with other people. A Jewish state has always been imagined as a state for only Jews. They even go so far sometimes as to call it a Jewish democracy, which is of course a contradiction in terms. Imagine a white people’s democracy or a men’s democracy, or any other kind of ethnic or specific democracy—it doesn’t work. Democracy is universal, Jewish is particular. The idea of a Jewish democracy is a contradiction in terms. But that’s what they have always been after, is an exclusively Jewish state.
“Now, you can’t imagine an exclusively Jewish (or anything else, Catholic or African or whatever) state in somebody else’s country without having to dream of getting rid of those people in order to achieve it. And that has always been there in the logic of Zionism. . . .”3
As Zionism is settler colonialism, the logic of Zionism is a genocidal logic. This is the keystone relationship.
At the heart of the Zionist vision is possession of the land. This, too, nests within a genocidal logic. Take the Australian case. Tony Barta, an Australian scholar, examined the campaign against the Aborigines and said this about the motives of the colonists:
The key relation, I have argued elsewhere, was instituted by the determination of Europeans to take over the land. Officially declaring Australia to be not effectively inhabited, they set about establishing a new economy, based on pastoralism, which converted every yard of grassland into private property as fast as the flocks and herds could travel.4
[A]ll the subsequent pressure on the Aborigines as a people is a direct result of their losing the unequal war for possession of the land. . . . The killing on the frontier, then, had to be of a kind that would destroy the ability of Aborigines to survive as independent peoples, with their own social organization, ethnic separateness, and cultural value system in conflict with the world view and economic interest of the invaders. This was clearly understood at the time, by both sides. The Europeans knew that if they could not establish their right to secure property — possession of the land — they had no future; the Aborigines knew that when they lost the fight for the land, all was lost.5
At the center of this relationship — both in consciousness and in actuality — was the land. Both peoples, the Aboriginal inhabitants and the invaders, needed the land.6
This importance shared between a genocidal logic and the logic of settler colonialism comes to the fore, as the intent toward the genocidal act is built into the structure of the society itself. Having a utopic, homogeneous land is the core aim and belief.
Ben Kiernan, professor and expert on the topic, offers up genocide as a stratagem, meaning it operates both as a means as well as a goal in itself:
[T]he word ‘motive’ is not mentioned in the Genocide Convention. And it covers cases where genocide could be a means rather than a motive. And so, for instance, driving a population away could be the motive, and committing genocide against part of a group would be a means of conquering a territory or carrying out ethnic cleansing.
Or it could be, for the motive of seizing their wealth. Genocide can be a means as well as a motive.
There are other factors that can be examined as well, not just the determining feature of singling out ethnic or religious groups for mass killing but also other features that sometimes accompany or often accompany or are associated with genocide. And over the centuries, many of these have recurred again and again: not just racial or religious hatred, but also territorial expansionism is something that usually happens alongside genocide.
Of course, it brings warfare to the front for consideration of when genocide is really happening. And of course war often gives genocidists a cover or an excuse to carry out genocide against an ethnic group, and that’s usually in the context of territorial expansionism.7
The intent is central to the structure itself. It’s in the ideology; it’s in the mottos (“a land without a people for a people without a land”); it’s in the design. It is a deep, integral function of Zionism. Zionism is a project for a homeland. And, because the aim is so central, the logic becomes inescapable.
Let me note here, as well, that there is an important difference between motive and intent. (As Kiernan notes, the Genocide Convention does not speak of motive.) In the framework I present here, Israel may indeed intend for genocide to take place, whereas the motive for genocide would be to take the land.
Helen Fein, in her work “Defining Genocide as a Sociological Concept,” quoted two scholars examining the Cambodian genocide, where they said:
The ‘intent’ required by the Convention as a necessary constituent element of the crime of genocide cannot be confused with, or interpreted to mean, ‘motive.’ . . . The ‘intent’ clause of article II of the Genocide Convention requires only that the various destructive acts — killings, causing mental and physical harm, deliberately inflicted conditions of life, etc. — have a purposeful or deliberate character as opposed to an accidental or unintentional character.8
So, one may ask, what of it? Why does it matter one way or another if Israel is considered a settler-colonial project?
Indeed, that seemed to be the underlying question animating a singular response on this issue, this from Derek Penslar, a leading historian of Israeli society. In a recent presentation, Penslar recounted an instance where he conceded that Israel is just that — settler-colonialism — and he implied that the viewing audience should follow his example:
“There’s lots of aspects of Zionism that don’t fit colonialism. And I was at an event recently where Palestinian speakers were talking about Israel as colonial, and at one point I said, ‘You know what? I’ve been arguing against this for twenty years. I’m going to stop now and I’m going to say, “Let’s just say for a minute Israel’s colonial.” Okay, now what?’
“In other words, so what? It’s colonial. So is the United States. The United States is a settler colonial state. It is a bunch of people who came from somewhere else, settled on the territory, and expropriated the native people. So is Canada. So’s Australia. So’s New Zealand.
“Are we going to make the United States disappear? Is Canada going to disappear? What are we going to do? Is it going to be like Algeria, where the French-speaking settlers just went off to France? No. No, Israelis aren’t going to leave. They’re not going to go anywhere.”9
However, Ilan Pappé states very clearly that settler-colonial societies are inherently eliminationist. Thus, if Israel fits the bill, it is a logical extension to see their modus operandi as that of extirpating all Palestinians within its borders.
To that point, historian Benny Morris is quoted as stating in one of his works, “The idea of transfer was inbuilt and inevitable in Zionism.”10 A celebrated Israeli historian (who happens to be pro-Zionist) admits that Zionism has an eliminationist core, one that is structural and inexorable.
Part of this is due to the design of Zionism in the first place, being not only a colonial venture but a nationalist movement as well — these two concepts interlock and reinforce each other. Nationalism brings to bear a widespread belief of the superiority of one’s own group, and settler colonialism has as its heart a goal of clearing the land to foster the growth of the conquering group.
But, too, this pattern falls directly in line with the manner in which genocides unfold. In a presentation about Raphael Lemkin (the person who originally conceived of the crime of genocide, which the UN adopted in 1948), Damien Short, an expert on genocide, explained:
“‘So, genocide,’ [Lemkin] says, ‘has two phases: one, the destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed group; the other, the imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor. This imposition, in turn, may be made upon the oppressed population, which is allowed to remain, or upon the territory alone after the removal of the population and the colonization of the area of the oppressor’s own nationals.’”11
Whether through absorption, forced transfer or physical destruction, the dispersal of the oppressed group by the colonizing group is what constitutes the pattern of genocide. In Israel’s case, the Palestinians cannot be absorbed, due to the strictures of their belief system — to do so would be to ruin the idea of the purity of the Zionist project.
And note, again, that the definition given by Lemkin says nothing specifically about settler colonialism (though it does use the term ‘colonization’). Yet the pattern of settler colonialism mirrors almost exactly that seen in genocide. There’s an intrinsic relationship.
The tension we see playing out in Rafah is precisely this struggle between a colonized people attempting to preserve their way of life and a colonizer intent on removing all vestiges of those people so as to impose its own national pattern. Without the destruction of Rafah, a corner of Palestinian existence will persist. For the ideal of Zionism to be realized, the land must be entirely cleared so as to create the promised Greater Israel.
This is why Benjamin Netanyahu maintains resolve and presses his intent to invade Rafah. The pretext is to eliminate Hamas (which is impossible as Hamas is an ideology); the real goal is to claim all of the land. Genocide is the means toward fulfilling Zionism’s precepts. In essence, Israel is doing what it’s always been tasked to do. It is operating according to its inherent logic.
“Lecture 12 — The Insidious Logic of Settler Colonialism,” Dr. Rob’s Archaeofilms (YouTube, September 29, 2021), ~ 3:11. Emphases added.
“Ilan Pappe - How the Mainstream Media Depicts the Conflict in Israel and Palestine,” talkingsticktv (YouTube, May 23, 2017), ~ 13:44.
“Patrick Wolfe interview Pt.1,” HWCSTPIP (YouTube, November 13, 2012), ~ 2:02. Emphases added.
Tony Barta, “After the Holocaust: Consciousness of Genocide in Australia,” Australian Journal of Politics & History (1985), Vol. 31, No. 1, p. 156. Emphasis added.
Barta, “Relations of Genocide: Land and Lives in the Colonization of Australia,” Geelong Historical Records Centre (2001), p. 246.
Ibid., p. 248. Emphasis added.
“Prof. Ben Kiernan: Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity,” Yale University (YouTube, December 10, 2008), ~ 5:19. Emphasis added.
Helen Fein, “Defining Genocide as a Sociological Concept,” Current Sociology (1990), Vol. 38, No. 1, pp. 19-20 (quoting Hurst Hannum and David Hawk, The Case Against the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, Cambodia Documentation Commission, 1986).
“Zionism: An Emotional State,” Sir Martin Gilbert Learning Centre (YouTube, October 31, 2023), ~ 1:03:12.
Norman Finkelstein quoted Mr. Morris from memory: “[Morris] has written in one of his books, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Question Revisited, if you turn to page 46 in that book, he says, ‘The idea of transfer. . . .’” In “DECONSTRUCTING ISRAELI GENOCIDE — With Norman Finkelstein & Yusuf Ismail,” Cov FF Channel (YouTube, May 18, 2024), ~ 14:22.
“Damien Short: Genocide and Human Rights,” Tom Lantos Institute (YouTube, September 21, 2015), ~ 7:47.