February 20, 2014

The Colonialism of the Anti-Israel Left

The Arabs are treated as a majority when it comes to their claim on the land and as a minority when it comes to soliciting liberal sympathy on their behalf. Judis justifies this political juggling act by rewriting history so that the Jews of Israel are reduced to European colonists rather than an indigenous minority.

Middle Eastern Jews are largely absent in his Eurocentric narrative because their existence upends his depiction of the Jewish resettlement as a Western colonial assault against a hapless native population. The Middle Eastern Jews, whose existence the left denies or minimizes, demonstrate that Zionism was no different than the national liberation movements of minorities like the Kurds or the Armenians.

Most Israeli Jews are Middle Eastern. Middle Eastern Jews were and are an oppressed minority under Arab Muslim rule. Their situation only improved under European colonialism. Instead of addressing that oppression; Judis pretends that Jews were better off as an oppressed minority under Muslim rule.

Like most champions of the Palestinian cause, Judis adopts the narrative of the Muslim conquerors, accepting its often imaginary and inconsistent history while disdaining the extensive history of the conquered and oppressed indigenous populations who suffered and suffer under their rule.


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