On Thu, 12 Jul 2001, Nathan Newman wrote:
> Settlement is not colonialism.
Why? Because you say so? Most of the world uses the word colonialism to cover settlement. Many of us would even consider it the core meaning. If you want to use it differently, that's your prerogative. But you can't say the world is wrong for not adopting your idiosyncratic usage. That's humpty-dumptyism.
More to the point, zionism and colonialism were intimately connected, and it's bad faith IMHO to act as if they weren't. If England had not colonized the Middle East after WWI, there never would have been an Israel. There was never any other way it could have come about -- nor was any other way aimed at by political Zionism -- than by getting a Big Power to secure a place. So in that sense, Israel is a deposit left behind by the retreat of colonialism.
Secondly, to deny the colonial narrative is to suppress one of the two competing mythic narratives. If the Israelis are allowed to see themselves as returning home after 2000 years, the Arabs can with as much justification see them as the last outpost of the Crusades. I wish both narratives would just disappear. But to dismiss one sharply as nonsense while expressing sympathy for the good faith of people who believed in the other, seems rhetorically designed to build ill will (much like the use of "zionism" to mean "Israel"). Better, it seems to me, if neither will go away, to admit that each contains an important partial truth.
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com