"Derek Penslar's Algebra of Modernity: How Should We Understand the Relation between Zionism and Colonialism?" in Ethan B. Katz, Lisa Moses Leff and Maud S. Mandel, Colonialism and the Jews (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2107).

In this chapter I consider the debate over the nature of Zionism as a colonial settlement movement through an analysis of its actual record, rather than its declared intentions. From this perspective I make the following main points:  Until the First World War, the term “colonial” and its derivatives were used freely by Zionists to describe Jewish settlement activity in Palestine. Thus the Jewish settlements were referred to as “colonies” (moshavot) and the Zionist movement’s bank (currently Bank Leumi) was initially called the “Jewish Colonial Trust.” The efforts to distinguish Zionism from European colonial movements began only once colonialism acquired a negative reputation.  Contrary to the claim of Zionist scholars, Zionism did have a “mother country” – Great Britain. While GB did not provide the Zionist settlement project with the same unequivocal support it gave colonization efforts of its own nationals, British political and military power was essential for the success of the Zionist project.  In the manner of colonial settlement projects elsewhere, Zionism had a devastating effect on the indigenous Palestinian population, culminating in the Nakba of 1947-49.

Arnon Golan is in the

The historical, methodological, ideological, and political background

Examining recent developments in the study of Zionism, and focussing on the notion of Jewishstatehood, this article argues that the alleged uninterrupted continuity of Zionism in the 20 th cen-tury (as an ideology, movement, and political project) masks deep ruptures and transitions. The‘Jewish State’ is often presented as the unchanging core principle of Zionism. And yet the consti-tutional framework of Israel differs considerably from Zionist visions of statehood of the 1920s and1930s.

This article examines the rise and key characteristics of Neo-Zionist political thought in Israel and its relationship with mainstream Zionist thought. It argues that despite the radical and repulsive discourses of Neo-Zionism and the critique expressed by liberal Zionists towards it, the former has always been embodied in classical Zionism. The justifications provided by Neo-Zionists are based on principles propagated by central leaders of mainstream Zionism. Utilising new perspectives in Settler-Colonial Studies, the article demonstrates how both strands encapsulate the Zionist continuum and continuous expansionist drive for new settlements in Palestine based on 'Biblical right' of Jews over the land of Palestine. Both advocate supremacist, exclusivist, and volkish rights for Jews with disastrous consequences for the indigenous people of Palestine. The convictions and practices of the Neo-Zionists in the post 1967 period help unveil the camouflaged motivations, justifications and practices of mainstream expansionist Zionism.

Published in Encyclopedia of Women in Islamic Cultures, Vol. 6, pp. 9-15.

The study examines the political philosophy of Zionism in relation to European colonial ideology. It analyzes the conceptual application of meta-narratives such as "progress", "modernity", and "civilization" which dominated the fin de siècle discursive sphere. The study focuses on the different discursive strategies means of writing and knowledge production in the works of Zionist intellectuals. In doing so, the research advances the conception of Zionism within the field of settler colonialism and sheds light on the relations between the constitutive imaginaries of late European colonialism and Zionism's self-understanding from a postcolonial perspective. It is argued that based on the myths of progress, modernity, and civilization, Zionism has established not just a new social-political system, but also a new epistemic order whose roots lie in the symbolic construction of the "West" and it's "other".

Hell if I know

In recent years, the term 'settler-colonialism' has gained significant traction among scholars of Zionism, the Palestinians, and the conflict between them. Most of this scholarship employs the term to explain Zionism as a hybrid movement of colonialism and ethno-nationalism, determined to create and preserve a 'Jewish state' in the 'Holy Land.' In contrast, the following will argue that a more nuanced application of the settler-colonial framework to Zionist history can, perhaps counterintuitively, explain why a drive for Jewish-Arab parity, integration, and reconciliation is as ingrained into Zionism as the aggressive ethno-nationalism it is primarily known for nowadays.

www.donmilligan.net, 2023

FOR THOSE WHO'VE offered 'conditional' support for the recent pogrom launched by Hamas, and fulsome support for the Palestinian cause in general, the words "colonialism", "apartheid", "imperialism", are employed to render the complex reasons for the foundation of the State of Israel irrelevant. These words and their associated concepts have assumed an almost magical status, suppressing any reasonable discussion of the catastrophic situation in which Palestinians find themselves. In these political and social circles the history of Zionism is not discussed, or explained. It is simply asserted that Zionism was a colonial venture sponsored by a number of imperialist powers in order to replace Palestine with Israel as a secure base for imperialism in the region-Zionism is, so to speak, imperialism's trojan horse in the Arab world. What follows is an introduction written in 2018 to accompany sixteen articles on Israel that I'd written in the previous ten years. These can still be accessed in Articles at www.donmilligan.net.