In my world understanding colonialism was never good, but anything after ww2 is just invalid. There needs to be some cut off date where we say “at this point everyone knew and we had international laws against genocide” after which it just becomes invalid and any land claimed afterwards is not recognized or supported.
Israel was definitely too late to the colonial party and kinda should be considered illegitimate.
Ofcourse they are, but if you go back to times where colonialism was the norm and in no way internationally frowned upon, then not a single current day country would be legitimate. So it kinda makes sense to set the cut off at a point where colonialism was at an all time low, because if you dont then all you get is world war.
who were the people that did not frown upon it then
The fellow colonizers… yeah that was worded badly. But i think you know what i mean. Back then maybe other European countries were jealous of other colonizers, but they didnt really see it as a bad thing to be colonizers. Now even the ex-colonizers see it as a bad thing and when countries do it, they get called out for it. Russia, China, USA, Israel, etc
Its the same as with oil and coal dependency. Yes the West disproportionally profited from those historically, and we can think about compensation etc, but in the end its in everyones interest to just stop using it and bully anyone that doesnt reduce their usage of it.
My point is that your baseline for legitimacy and moral acceptability is based on the attitudes taken by the colonizers, then and now. It can feel pragmatic and reasonable, but I think it only seems like a defensible position because the “ex”-colonizers (I mean, the U.S. hasn’t been decolonized, has it?) broadly agree that “colonialism is bad”, though it does seem like strong support for Zionist Israel by colonial countries like the U.S. and UK is a clear counter-example to this.
Ultimately if you look closely and found Zionist occupation illegitimate, you will certainly think so of other occupations. The reasons you give for ignoring the illegitimacy of other occupations don’t feel that different than those given for ignoring the illegitimacy of the Israeli occupation.
A huge proportion of the world was still under direct colonial control after WWII. Like most of Africa, swathes of Asia. Pick a country on a map and look at the date it was granted independence. I can almost guarantee that it will be later than you expected. Post-WWII is not a low point for colonialism.
I would further argue that many of the countries that were granted independence only received the ability to install administrators who were of an indigenous ethnic group. Trade agreements and terms dictated by loans from groups like the international monetary fund still directed a large proportion of domestic and foreign policy. So even though the government of a country may have had a constitution and veneer of democracy it was still operating at the behest of foreign interests (ex. Shell in Nigeria, Firestone in Liberia, Exxonmobil in Indonesia, etc.), who propped up puppet leaders that allowed them to continue to extract resources under the same or similar agreements they enjoyed under colonialism.
I was thinking creating new colonies, not maintaining existing ones. Ofcourse dismantling colonial government structures is also important, but arguably not creating new ones is the most important first step. Just pulling out all presence from all colonies over night would have most likely been disastrous for the natives too in most cases. But yeah the West definitely overstayed for far too long in many areas of the world and still does to this day.
One of the more jarring facts is that the so-called “post-colonial” era was more of a move to outsourced administration of colonies than actual independence. The fact that “intervention” is still performed basically only when some area has valuable resources or some kind of strategical advantage really says it all.
It’s also a function of how far back are we willing to go? Are we going to split and merge countries? Or is it more important to get representative governments in place for the people that live there?
Saw an excellent video from some Al Jazeera offshoot yesterday. The guy was explaining the concept that Europeans actually tended to put in minority populations in charge that were sympathetic to their interests - Alawites in Syria, the Hashemite monarchy in Jordan, European Zionists in Palestine - and that the borders were essentially designed for colonial administration instead of representing existing groups.
No it didn’t. Most of the Jews came after the Palestine nakba/massacre which made Jews feel unsafe in the middle east (jeez I wonder why, but also not their fault.) the Jews who came before the independence were all European terrorist who built armed settlements and militas Far away from Palestinans and Palestinan Jews as they didn’t support them.
Thing is, most likely Palestinians are descendants of Jews who lived in Palestine, who were once the caanites of Canaan and so on and so forth. The Jews who over time converted to islam, (but not all, Christians and Jews still very much exist tho not sure about numbers) before 1918 the Jewish population was a 56,000 thousand and many of those were immigrants by 1939 they were almost half a million
And Jews that converted to Christianity under the Romans/Byzantines and then converted to Islam. Israel focuses on calling them Arabs to imply they migrated from the Arabian peninsula but that’s not what happened. They were arabized by Arabian rulers that migrated. It’s not like the berbers ceased to exist, but somehow Israel wants us to think the levant was mystically empty.
That’s all it is, we don’t call the Europeans Romans and it’s the same with the middle east, did Arabs migrate around the world and we share some genetics with them? Sure but in reality it’s in the minority apart of the vast diversity of the genetics of one of the most diverse and ancient regions on the planet. My father used to tell me our ancestors were all Arabs who conquered into sindh and Punjab and settled there, which may or may not be true but in reality when I checked, it was below %5, my ancestors weren’t just Arabs, my ancestors were also Hindus, Sikhs, Jain’s, Zoroastrians, perhaps some Hellenism in there too along with many many many other cultures and religions, which is like a mosaic. Our eyes should be opened now that the western media and imperialism never died in ww1 or ww2 but in reality just changed forms. Do your own research, find primary sources and dig deep. Don’t become a nuthead type conspiracy theory but there is a lot of information and misinformation out there so critical analysis of information is one of the most vital skills you can have now
It was socially important to claim descent from the Arabs, so many overstated it and it became part of their family story regardless of the truth. The Turks/Mongols didn’t do this mind, they viewed themselves as equals to Arab conquerors.
As you say, many families converted to Islam out of choice or simply left. Drag thinks maybe the original point was that Palestine has always been a place where Jews could live in peace. But Israel has never been.
Palestine was a place for Jews to live in peace and personally the whole religion war is a smokescreen. You look at the stats you look at the footage and historical texts and historic Palestine was a multi faith and cultural society recognition as important to many faiths. It’s not my place to say but even after all this I wholeheartedly accept Jews in Palestine BUT the Jewish supremcist apartheid state is all of the most evil aspects of European colonialism and nazi Germany/american manifest destiny into one shitty little state. Israel has done nothing for anti semitism and may be the thing that resets the clock back to post Roman conquest levels of Jewish hatred if things don’t change. I don’t want that, all humans are humans and no people are a monolith. I pray for a multi faith Palestine with no supremacy of any people (tho Jewish right to return should be revoked and Palestine right to return established as their actually refugees while vast amount of Jews coming to Israel to settle are dual citizens.
In my world understanding colonialism was never good, but anything after ww2 is just invalid. There needs to be some cut off date where we say “at this point everyone knew and we had international laws against genocide” after which it just becomes invalid and any land claimed afterwards is not recognized or supported.
Israel was definitely too late to the colonial party and kinda should be considered illegitimate.
A little convenient that the cutoff date is after Europeans divided the world for themselves.
right? all colonial states are illegitimate
Ofcourse they are, but if you go back to times where colonialism was the norm and in no way internationally frowned upon, then not a single current day country would be legitimate. So it kinda makes sense to set the cut off at a point where colonialism was at an all time low, because if you dont then all you get is world war.
When you mention colonialism wasn’t frowned upon, who were the people that did not frown upon it then?
The fellow colonizers… yeah that was worded badly. But i think you know what i mean. Back then maybe other European countries were jealous of other colonizers, but they didnt really see it as a bad thing to be colonizers. Now even the ex-colonizers see it as a bad thing and when countries do it, they get called out for it. Russia, China, USA, Israel, etc
Its the same as with oil and coal dependency. Yes the West disproportionally profited from those historically, and we can think about compensation etc, but in the end its in everyones interest to just stop using it and bully anyone that doesnt reduce their usage of it.
My point is that your baseline for legitimacy and moral acceptability is based on the attitudes taken by the colonizers, then and now. It can feel pragmatic and reasonable, but I think it only seems like a defensible position because the “ex”-colonizers (I mean, the U.S. hasn’t been decolonized, has it?) broadly agree that “colonialism is bad”, though it does seem like strong support for Zionist Israel by colonial countries like the U.S. and UK is a clear counter-example to this.
Ultimately if you look closely and found Zionist occupation illegitimate, you will certainly think so of other occupations. The reasons you give for ignoring the illegitimacy of other occupations don’t feel that different than those given for ignoring the illegitimacy of the Israeli occupation.
A huge proportion of the world was still under direct colonial control after WWII. Like most of Africa, swathes of Asia. Pick a country on a map and look at the date it was granted independence. I can almost guarantee that it will be later than you expected. Post-WWII is not a low point for colonialism.
I would further argue that many of the countries that were granted independence only received the ability to install administrators who were of an indigenous ethnic group. Trade agreements and terms dictated by loans from groups like the international monetary fund still directed a large proportion of domestic and foreign policy. So even though the government of a country may have had a constitution and veneer of democracy it was still operating at the behest of foreign interests (ex. Shell in Nigeria, Firestone in Liberia, Exxonmobil in Indonesia, etc.), who propped up puppet leaders that allowed them to continue to extract resources under the same or similar agreements they enjoyed under colonialism.
I was thinking creating new colonies, not maintaining existing ones. Ofcourse dismantling colonial government structures is also important, but arguably not creating new ones is the most important first step. Just pulling out all presence from all colonies over night would have most likely been disastrous for the natives too in most cases. But yeah the West definitely overstayed for far too long in many areas of the world and still does to this day.
One of the more jarring facts is that the so-called “post-colonial” era was more of a move to outsourced administration of colonies than actual independence. The fact that “intervention” is still performed basically only when some area has valuable resources or some kind of strategical advantage really says it all.
It’s also a function of how far back are we willing to go? Are we going to split and merge countries? Or is it more important to get representative governments in place for the people that live there?
Saw an excellent video from some Al Jazeera offshoot yesterday. The guy was explaining the concept that Europeans actually tended to put in minority populations in charge that were sympathetic to their interests - Alawites in Syria, the Hashemite monarchy in Jordan, European Zionists in Palestine - and that the borders were essentially designed for colonial administration instead of representing existing groups.
i disagree with your logic but you got to the right conclusion so cheers 😆
Israel as a state or the Israeli people? Because most of the jewish immigration to Palestine happened before 1945
No it didn’t. Most of the Jews came after the Palestine nakba/massacre which made Jews feel unsafe in the middle east (jeez I wonder why, but also not their fault.) the Jews who came before the independence were all European terrorist who built armed settlements and militas Far away from Palestinans and Palestinan Jews as they didn’t support them.
Let’s read it charitably. Maybe they mean more middle eastern Jews moved to Palestine in the last 6000 years than did europeans in the last 50.
Thing is, most likely Palestinians are descendants of Jews who lived in Palestine, who were once the caanites of Canaan and so on and so forth. The Jews who over time converted to islam, (but not all, Christians and Jews still very much exist tho not sure about numbers) before 1918 the Jewish population was a 56,000 thousand and many of those were immigrants by 1939 they were almost half a million
And Jews that converted to Christianity under the Romans/Byzantines and then converted to Islam. Israel focuses on calling them Arabs to imply they migrated from the Arabian peninsula but that’s not what happened. They were arabized by Arabian rulers that migrated. It’s not like the berbers ceased to exist, but somehow Israel wants us to think the levant was mystically empty.
That’s all it is, we don’t call the Europeans Romans and it’s the same with the middle east, did Arabs migrate around the world and we share some genetics with them? Sure but in reality it’s in the minority apart of the vast diversity of the genetics of one of the most diverse and ancient regions on the planet. My father used to tell me our ancestors were all Arabs who conquered into sindh and Punjab and settled there, which may or may not be true but in reality when I checked, it was below %5, my ancestors weren’t just Arabs, my ancestors were also Hindus, Sikhs, Jain’s, Zoroastrians, perhaps some Hellenism in there too along with many many many other cultures and religions, which is like a mosaic. Our eyes should be opened now that the western media and imperialism never died in ww1 or ww2 but in reality just changed forms. Do your own research, find primary sources and dig deep. Don’t become a nuthead type conspiracy theory but there is a lot of information and misinformation out there so critical analysis of information is one of the most vital skills you can have now
It was socially important to claim descent from the Arabs, so many overstated it and it became part of their family story regardless of the truth. The Turks/Mongols didn’t do this mind, they viewed themselves as equals to Arab conquerors.
As you say, many families converted to Islam out of choice or simply left. Drag thinks maybe the original point was that Palestine has always been a place where Jews could live in peace. But Israel has never been.
Palestine was a place for Jews to live in peace and personally the whole religion war is a smokescreen. You look at the stats you look at the footage and historical texts and historic Palestine was a multi faith and cultural society recognition as important to many faiths. It’s not my place to say but even after all this I wholeheartedly accept Jews in Palestine BUT the Jewish supremcist apartheid state is all of the most evil aspects of European colonialism and nazi Germany/american manifest destiny into one shitty little state. Israel has done nothing for anti semitism and may be the thing that resets the clock back to post Roman conquest levels of Jewish hatred if things don’t change. I don’t want that, all humans are humans and no people are a monolith. I pray for a multi faith Palestine with no supremacy of any people (tho Jewish right to return should be revoked and Palestine right to return established as their actually refugees while vast amount of Jews coming to Israel to settle are dual citizens.