The last settler colonial state committing genocide under the auspices of the first settler colonial state

Hakimeh Saqhaye-Biria, Assistant Professor at Tehran University

Understanding the colonial nature of the Zionist regime and that of the United States of America is the first blow necessary to end Zionism in the world.

Today many anti-colonial thinkers view colonialism as not something of the past but as a current reality seen in the very nature and behavior of the Zionist regime.  In this view, the illegitimate Zionist regime is the last colonial project of the settler colonial type that must end. Therefore, the feeling of sympathy between the nations oppressed by colonialism with the Palestinian people is most visible in the current struggle for the freedom of Palestine. The legacy of colonialism is still tangible for the people of the colonized countries as well as for the colored and indigenous people affected by the history of colonialism in Western countries, and a deep sense of identification and empathy with the Palestinian people is felt. In other words, the issue is more than a few hundred square kilometers of Palestinian land, but in addition to this, it is the complete transition from open colonialism in the world to a world free of colonialism. As such, achieving victory in the struggle for the cause of Palestine is considered the victory of all mankind in confronting the miserable history of Western colonialism.  It is, in fact, considered the last stage of moving beyond more than 500 years of Western colonial order.

 Comparing Israeli settler colonialism with the American settler colonialism is something that is happening today among the target communities of the two nations, and we are witnessing the expression of solidarity with the Palestinian people using this conceptual framework. The awakening of Western countries, especially among the young generation, in relation to the Zionist regime is largely due to the emergence of an ideational movement in the world that defines the Zionist regime as a regime based on settler colonialism that is systematically committing the crime of apartheid. This movement has created a distinct discourse about why and how to end Zionism. The expansion of this movement has opened the space for the people of Western countries to express their support for the Palestinian people in unprecedented ways.

Settler colonialism occurs when colonizers invade and occupy a land in order to permanently replace the existing society with their own. Two phenomena are an integral part of settler colonialism, such as what happened in the United States of America, Canada, and Australia, and what is happening now in Palestine: land usurpation and the elimination of the indigenous people. And of course, when we talk about the elimination of the natives, this event can happen through a complete annihilation of the population, or it can be limited to population reduction, territorial limitation based on systematic repression, forced removal, and cultural elimination of communities under the domination of settler colonialism. Patrick Wolfe, an Australian professor of history and the founder of settler colonial studies, refers to this phenomenon as “the logic of elimination” (387). Aggression in settler colonialism is a “structure not an event” in which “settler colonizers come to stay” (388) and destroy the native society to replace it with their own.

The logic of the elimination of native people has two aspects. On the one hand, the logic of elimination seeks to physically eradicate the indigenous people. Therefore, every settler colonialism includes genocide but is not limited to it. On the other side, in this type of colonialism, after destroying the structures of the previous society, a new colonial society is established on the base of confiscated land, which includes the cultural genocide of the target society. “Settler colonialism destroys to replace” (388). Wolfe refers to parts of the manifesto of Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism in this regard: “If I wish to substitute a new building for an old one, I must demolish before I construct” (qtd. in Wolfe 388).

In this context, one of the reasons for the United States’ support for the Zionist regime is the common cultural heritage based on settler colonialism, which, as mentioned, is increasingly receiving the attention of historians and experts on West Asian issues. In other words, the last example of settler colonialism in the world (that is, the Zionist regime) is committing the most heinous crimes against humanity with the support of the first example of settler colonialism (that is, the United States of America).

In his article entitled “Settler Colonialism: Then and Now,” Mahmood Mamdani suggests the settler colonialism of the Zionist regime is more inspired from the American model than the South African model of apartheid. The Zionist regime has been using the dual policy of genocide and encampment of natives in reservation camps just as was used in the United States against Native Americans.  This has been pursued by the Zionist regime not only at the beginning of its establishment but also throughout its existence. The point of similarity between the Palestinians and the Native Americans ends there because while Native Americans lived in a world where colonialism was on the rise, “we are now reaching the end of a period of five centuries of Western domination, a period that began in 1492″ (613). Mamdani believes that “Palestinian political isolation in the Middle East is gradually joining history. … It is now possible to imagine a free Palestine” (613).

Rereading the history of the formation of America from the point of view of settler colonialism helps us to better analyze some subtleties of this practice. For example, the American colonial society looked at black slaves as labor and economic capital but looked at Native Americans as a source of land. Therefore, the confrontation with the blacks was focused on individual dominance, while the confrontation with the Indians was focused on ethnic-tribal dominance. Therefore, the structures and tools of systematic repression were formed in different ways. In this regard, Mamdani says: “In the language of the law, the African American was like a dog that could be tamed, but the Indian American was like a cat that remained wild” (607). Each one’s fighting method was also different. If the blacks wanted to return to Africa or fight for equal citizenship in America, there was no such possibility for Native Americans, because trying to become a citizen meant accepting complete failure or total colonization. Therefore, these populations mainly sought to receive a semblance of independence in the form of tribal rule in limited territories.

From this point of view, America is not the first modern anti-colonial revolution, but the first settler-colonial state, a state that resulted in the conquest and destruction of Native American lives. According to Mamdani, what is exceptional about the United States of America is that it has not yet raised the issue of decolonization in the public domain (608). It is interesting to note that when the white-dominated South Africa became independent from England in 1910, it sent a delegation to North America, namely the United States and Canada, to study how to create tribal territories. The logic was based on the fact that these governments had created such structures for the first time half a century ago to systematically suppress the natives. When the genocide of black South Africans began in 1913, their camps were called “reserves,” a name adapted from “reservations” or American camps for natives. In fact, not only is the United States a pioneer in the history of settler colonialism, but also an exporter of its technology. According to Mamdani:

All the defining institutions of settler colonialism were produced as technologies of Native control in North America. The first of these was the concentration of Natives in tribal homelands. The prototype concentration camp from which the Nazis drew inspiration was not the one built by the British to confine Boers during the Anglo-Boer War; rather, it was the reservation built to confine Indian tribes—under the watch of Presidents Lincoln and Grant in mid-nineteenth century America. (608)

The second institution that the apartheid government of South Africa modeled on the United States was the technology known as the PASS system. The pass system was first created in the slave plantations of the American South with the aim of controlling their movement. With this system, the Americans kept the slaves under complete supervision. The pass system was vital to the control of blacks, whether enslaved or not, and exposed them to a variety of abuses that ranged from interrogations, searches, whippings, and beatings. Therefore, the checkpoint system, which was later used in South Africa and now in the Zionist regime, was used by the United States government against slaves years ago.

Native Americans were considered “savages” in the Declaration of Independence and were never recognized as a minority with basic political rights in the American Constitution. Although Native Americans were recognized as citizens in 1924, as long as they live in designated areas under self-governing rule and adhere to their own way of life, they do not enjoy the civil liberties guaranteed by the US Constitution. As Mamdani says: “They possess political rights but not civil rights” (609). Although they can vote and hold political office, as a native population they are subject to congressional rules without having representation in Congress. Even the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not apply to Native Americans living in certain areas, and the Indian Civil Rights Act (the label used for Native Americans after Christopher Columbus) is not guaranteed in the Constitution.

Using the conceptual framework of settler colonialism in relation to the “American Revolution of 1776” which led to the independence of the white population living in America from England, makes it clear that this “revolution” was not an anti-colonial revolution, but rather a movement toward the expansion of American settler colonialism. From this point of view, American independence is similar to the independence of white South Africans in 1910 and the independence of Zionists in 1948. In all three cases, it was a rebellion against the native populations living in these areas and the establishment of the settler-colonial structure in it.

Interestingly, after visiting and studying different areas of the occupied territories, Mamdani says, “Apartheid South Africa was not a fitting lens through which to understand Israel” (610). This is settler colonial United States being modeled in the Zionist regime. Mamdani argues:

As in North America, the settler in Israel is not interested in Palestinians as a source of labor; he or she wants their land. Zionists in Israel have long drawn inspiration from how Americans cleaned the land of Indians. As late as 22 December 2013, The Jerusalem Post reported this exchange between a member of the Knesset and a committee chairman on a bill that would regulate Bedouin settlement in the Negev: “You want to transfer an entire population,” a member of the Knesset (MK), Hanna Swaid (Hadash), said. Committee chairwoman MK Miri Regev (Likud) responded, “Yes, As the Americans did to the Indians.” (610)

It is plausible that even the two-state solution proposed by the United States is similar to the approach it had with the Native Americans. The pattern of limited self-governance in limited territories that was imposed on Native Americans through ethnic cleansing and forced migration is the same as the granting of sovereignty over limited territories to the Palestinians.

In an article entitled “Rethinking Settler Colonialism,” Rosara Sánchez and Beatrice Pita say:

The year 1948 was the Nakba, the year of catastrophe for Palestinians. For Mexicans in the US Southwest, Nakba came in 1848, with Mexico’s loss of almost half of its territory. … There is much that we, the people of Mexican origin in the United States, share with the Palestinians living in Israel as well as those living in the West Bank and Gaza.  Significant differences notwithstanding, what we do have in common is the dispossession of land as well as a history of living a second-class status under a hegemonic state power imposed by historical circumstance. (1039)

And of course, as was said earlier, the common denominator between Palestinians and American Indians or Americans of Mexican origin ends here, because American settler colonialism happened at the height of colonialism in the world, while Israeli settler colonialism is taking place during the decline of colonial powers and global rethinking of destructive colonial structures. With this theoretical framework, every blow that each of us gives to this colonial regime to end it is a service to all humanity as we turn the last page of the history of settler colonialism, aiming to arrive at a decolonized world in near future.  This is the only just resolution to the Palestinian question, and the unity of humanity around this cause is very much possible given the global awakening of oppressed populations: we are all Palestinians.

References:

Mamdani, Mahmood. “Settler Colonialism: Then and Now.” Critical inquiry, vol. 41, no. 3, Spring 2015, pp. 596-614.

Sánchez, Rosaura, and Beatrice Pita. “Rethinking settler colonialism.” American Quarterly, vol. 66, no. 4, Dec. 2014, pp. 1039-1055.

Wolfe, Patrick. “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native.” Journal of Genocide Research, vol. 8 no. 4, Dec. 2006, pp. 387-409.

(The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Khamenei.ir.)