The last great colonial project

Every colonial project has its own internal logic. And it cannot renounce it. In certain cases, such as in the so-called Congo Free State (1885-1908), the personal property of King Leopold II of Belgium, the objective is to exploit the native population to the fullest. Even if, as during those 13 years of Congolese history, it costs ten million lives. The other colonizing archetype involves replacing the local inhabitants with settlers of foreign origin: typical examples would be those from the United States, Australia, or Israel.

Supernatural arguments must be used to deny Israel's colonial character. Curiously, these arguments are still quite commonly accepted: the "land promised" by God, etc. The story, however, is clear: when Theodor Herzl published "The Jewish State" (1896), Zionism (named after the biblical Mount Zion, next to Jerusalem) was openly recognizing its goal of settling the world's Jews in Palestine, then part of the Ottoman Empire. And it spoke openly of colonization. The European powers had just divided up Africa (Berlin Conference, 1885), the British colonies in Australia had completed their political autonomy (1890), and the success of the colonizing epic was being celebrated in the United States.

Herzl's "Diaries" are explicit. On July 17, 1902, he wrote to Lord Rothschild, the richest Jew of the time: "You can affirm before your [British] government the fact that a large-scale Jewish colonization would strengthen English influence in the eastern Mediterranean, at a point where numerous interests affecting Egypt, Persia, and India converge." He continued: "For how long do you think the assets that can be appropriated in that part of the world will continue to go unnoticed? If we Jews do not seize the opportunity now (we, who are so cunning and yet always allow ourselves to be swindled) we will once again become laughingstocks."

At the same time, Herzl made a clever conceptual leap. Four days later, he wrote again to Lord Rothschild and said: "The Greeks, the Romanians, the Serbs, the Bulgarians have emancipated themselves. Will we be the only ones incapable of doing so?" That is to say, the colonization project is at the same time its opposite: a movement for national emancipation. There have always been Jews in Palestine. But while this correspondence existed, there were no more than 45,000, compared to a total population of nearly 600,000, of whom about 60,000 were Christians and the rest were Muslims.

The fierce oppression suffered by Jews in the Russian Empire and anti-Jewish prejudices in Western Europe (remember the Dreyfuss Affair) had created what was called "the Jewish question." And Zionism offered a solution to the problem. It should be noted that the most anti-Jewish political regime ever established in the world, German Nazism, in 1933, years before the horrendous "Final Solution," agreed with the Jewish Agency for the emigration of almost 300,000 Jews to Palestine. And so the Jewish population grew. In 1923 there were 90,000. In 1940, 450,000.

The Nazi "Shoah," also called the Holocaust, finally facilitated the recognition of the new Jewish state, Israel, by both the United States and the Soviet Union, in 1948. The UN granted Israel 52% of Palestinian territory, even though Jews constituted only a third of the total population. Since then, as a result of wars against Arab countries and the occupation of new territories, Israel has continued to expand and expel Palestinians.

Herzl believed that Israel should extend from the Sinai to the Euphrates (neither Iraq nor Syria existed yet); Benjamin Netanyahu believed that the borders should be the Jordan and the Mediterranean, with no other place for Palestinians than exile. Indeed, those Palestinians who can do so leave. Today, it is estimated that there are around 12 million Palestinians, of whom just over 5 million live in the West Bank and Gaza, 1.5 million in Israel, and the rest scattered throughout the world.

Anyone with even a passing familiarity with current reality knows that a two-state solution is unviable, because Gaza and the West Bank are separated, and Israeli settlements are constantly being built in the West Bank. There is no more space. Hamas assumes the solution, as long as it conforms to the borders prior to the 1967 war. Something Israel will never accept: we return to what was said earlier about the logic of colonial projects and population replacement.

It is unthinkable to expel the Jews from Israel, as it was to expel the white minority from South Africa. The only rational option is the South African one: democracy and coexistence, however improbable that may be. The latest peace plan, sponsored by Donald Trump, is nothing more than a ceasefire. Much needed and welcome after the slaughter in Gaza, but as precarious and sterile as any of the previous ones. As long as the colonial logic persists (disguised as national emancipation and increasingly theocratic), there will be no way out.