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History of Settler Colonialism in Palestine
By Dr. Zuhair Sabbagh
Global Research, August 17, 2020

Url of this article:
https://www.globalresearch.ca/history-settler-colonialism-palestine/5721303

The following research article aims at exploring the issue of history of settler colonialism in Palestine. It will tackle three different settler colonial projects that were established in Arab Palestine: the German Templers, the Jewish and the Zionist.

In the beginning, the research article will provide a background that will deal with British imperial interests in Palestine and how they were related to both trade and communication routes and the concept of a buffer state.

British Imperial Interests in Palestine

There were two trade and communication routes that connected Britain with its markets and colonies in the East, a long one around the Cape of Good Hope and a short one that passed through the Ottoman Empire.Both routes were vulnerable and needed protection.

The search for protection of the trade and communication routes by British strategists and politicians coincided with the search for a viable solution to the Jewish Question, namely finding a solution for the Jewish refugees who began to immigrate from East Europe to West Europe. The British imperialists came up with the idea of establishing a buffer state in Palestine as a solution to both problems.

Vulnerable Trade and Communication Routes

Palestine was targeted to become a British colony for one reason: its strategic location. Its location on the cross roads of Europe, Africa and Asia, gave it an important strategic location. Moreover, Palestine was located on the trade and communication route that connected Britain with its colonies and spheres of interest in the East[1]  which in turn possessed a huge market that was vital for British capitalism. The importance of this market increased after Britain lost thirteen colonies in North America.[2]

Prior to the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, a trade and communication route, connected Britain with the East. It passed through Egypt, beginning in Alexandria, then went by land to Cairo, then by land to the Suez City, then through the Red Sea to the East. It should be pointed out that this route was first operated by Britain by “…using horse-drawn vehicles and, later, trains …”[3] as means to pass the land part of it. The trains connected Alexandria with Cairo, then Cairo with Suez City.It could be called a sea-land-sea route. This route was used by the British to transport troops, merchandise, travelers and post.

Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798 and Palestine in 1799, led to the closure of this route and highlighted its vulnerability. Mohammed Ali’s invasion of Syria in 1831, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire, and his attempt to create an Arab Empire encompassing all the Arabic-speaking Ottoman subjects, had alarmed the British and other imperialists.[4] His invasion of Syria resulted in the closure of this route for nine years (1831-1840). These two military incursions constituted a real threat to imperialist interests. They specifically threatened the vulnerable trade and communication route.

In 1840 Mohammed Ali’s political military designs in the Syria were frustrated when the European imperialist powers of Britain, Germany, France, Russia and Austria-Hungary united in a military coalition and defeated the Egyptian army.[5]

It was precisely under these circumstances of wars and fierce European rivalry over markets and spheres of influence, that some British imperialist politicians began to look for ways and means of protecting this vulnerable trade and communication route. The British solution for such a problem was the creation of an artificial colonial settler state in Palestine, which at that time was supposed to form as a buffer state separating Mohammed Ali’s Egypt from the rest of the Ottoman Empire.

Moreover, when the Suez Canal was opened in 1869, British imperialist interests in Palestine achieved more weight. The Suez Canal occupied a pivotal position on the trade route that connected Britain with its colonies especially India. Therefore, the establishment of a settler state became imperative for the protection of the Suez Canal. It should be pointed out that the Suez Canal shortened the distance between Britain and the East.

…when opened it was realized that it shortened by some considerable distance the journey to India. The distance around the Cape to Bombay was 10,450 miles but just 6,000 miles through the canal. The opening of the canal increased the need for Britain to remain the dominant power in the Middle East as it was now India’s lifeline.  The Middle East became henceforth a major focal point of British interest.[6]

The first European statesman to propose the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine was Napoleon Bonaparte who called for it in 1799[7], namely 97 years prior to Herzl’s call. Later on, a group of British politicians, strategists, archaeologists, and scholars, advocated the same idea in the period 1838-1902.

Due to capitalist developments inside feudalist Europe, Jewish refugees began to emigrate from East European countries to West Europe. This coincided with the rise of anti-Semitism. This European Jewish problem demanded a solution.

In 1838[8], Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury[9] drew up a detailed project for the settlement of Jews in Palestine under British protection. This venture predated both the rise of Political Zionism and Theodor Herzl’s call by 58 years. Shaftesbury presented his project to the British government as well as to other Western governments.[10] Lord Shaftesbury justified his colonial project as follows.

Syria and Palestine will before long become very important. … The country wants capital and population. The Jews can give it both. And has not England a special interest in promoting such restoration? It would be a blow to England if either of her rivals should hold of Syria. Her Empire reaching from Canada in the West to Calcutta and Australia in the South East would be cut in two…[11]

Shaftesbury added that the British Empire

… must preserve Syria to herself. Does not policy there … exhort England to foster the nationality of the Jews and aid them … to return as leavening power to their old country? … To England then, naturally, belongs the role of favoring the settlement of Jews in Palestine.[12]

Shaftesbury’s idea of Jewish settlement was adopted by foreign secretary Henry Palmerstone[13] who in 1840 sent a letter to the then British Ambassador to Istanbul, in which he asked him to deliberate with the Ottoman authorities the idea of Jewish settlement in Palestine. Palmerstone stated in his letter that the “Jewish people if returning [to Palestine] under the sanction and protection and at the invitation of the Sultan, would be a check upon any future evil designs of Mohammed Ali or his successor.”[14]

There were other colonialists who recognized the strategic importance of Palestine and who regarded the Jewish refugees of Europe as candidate colonizers who were available to colonize and hold Palestine under British aegis. These colonialists included: Colonel Charles Henry Churchill (1841) who took part in war against Mohammed Ali in Syria[15], E.L. Milford[16], a friend of Palmerstone (1845), the Italian philosopher and politician Benedetto Musolino (1851), Colonel George Gawler, former governor of South Australia (1852), founder of the International Red CrossJean Henri Dunant(1863), who founded the Palestine Colonization Society in Londonin 1875, Charles Warren and Claude Reignier Conder from the Palestine Exploration Fund (1865), and the British industrialist and economist Edward Gazalet.[17]

All these imperialists proposed the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine prior to the emergence of the Zionist movement in 1897 and prior to the publication of Theodore Herzl’spamphlet The Jewish Statein 1896. Therefore, the very idea of establishing a Jewish State in Arab Palestine was originally not a Zionist idea but an imperialist idea. It was a colonialist venture that was deemed as a necessary step in safeguarding vulnerable imperialist trade and communication routes that connected Britain with its colonies and markets in the East. Herzl and other Zionists simply adopted this imperialist idea and decided to establish administrative and financial means to implement it. Zionism in other words, exploited an existing imperialist idea and capitalized on a proper opportunity and readiness of British imperialism to implement this grand colonialist scheme.

European Settler Colonialism in Palestine (1882-1899)

Historically speaking, Arab Palestine has witnessed the establishment of three types of European settler colonial projects: German, Jewish and Zionist.

  • The Templers Settler Colonial Project

Prior to the beginning of Jewish settler colonialism, a German religious group called the Templers exhibited interest in colonizing Palestine. Few of them came to Palestine in 1868, purchased land and within seven years, founded a German colony in Haifa. The settlers soon reached more than 300 people. They owned 3000 dunums of land (800 acres), 85 buildings, and two flour mills. Later on, the Templers established six more settlements: Jaffa (1869), Sarona (1878), Jerisalem (1878), Wilhema (1902), Galilean Bethlehem (1906) and Waldheim (1907).[18]

The Templers were professional artisans and farmers. They “…had no nationalist aspirations but were content with the autonomous status they had achieved within their colonies…”. They were motivated by religious beliefs and religious oriented ideology. They regarded that colonizing Palestine “…was part of the fulfillment of their faith. The Holy Land had to be prepared for the Second Coming of Christ, which was to occur in the year 2000.”[19]

After they occupied Palestine, the British colonial authorities treated the Templers as German citizens and in July and August 1918 they decided to deport

…850 Templers to an internment camp at Helwan near Cairo in Egypt. In April 1920, 350 of these internees were deported to Germany. All the property of the Templers was regarded as belonging to an enemy nationality (except of that of a few US citizens among them). Thus, it was taken into public custodianship.[20]

With the rise of Nazism in Germany, the majority of the Templers began to identify with the Nazi ideology. As a result, the British colonial authorities began to treat them as enemy aliens. In 1941, the British colonial authorities deported 661 Templers to Australia and confiscated their property.[21] With the deportation of the Templer settlers, there came an end to their settler colonial project in Palestine.

  • The Jewish Colonization of Palestine (1882-1899)

In addition to the Templers colonial project, Palestine had witnessed two types of colonization projects, a Jewish non-Zionist settler colonial project and a Zionist settler colonial project.  There are fundamental differences between these two types especially regarding their attitude towards the utilization of indigenous labor potential, their final political objectives and their colonial metropolis (mother country).

As a direct result of the conflict with settlers over land, all indigenous societies have undergone profound class restructuring. Colonial projects are initially carried out by the coercive radical change of land proprietors.[22] The possible options in the relationship of both settlers and indigenous people could include any of the following combinations.

The colonial enterprise involves in the first place the capture of land and other physical resources. One possibility after this has occurred in the development of an estate system in which new owners either develop the land in the form of large estates which they either work themselves in such non-labor intensive activities as sheep-rearing, or let out in smaller lots of tenant farmers. More commonly, however, the possession of the land by itself is not enough. Those who have been expelled from the land have to be compelled by one means or another to work for the new proprietor.[23]

Jewish non-Zionist colonization of Palestine began by the English Jewish banker Sir Moses Montefiore who in 1855 bought a citrus orchard adjacent to Jaffa.[24] Montefiore “made various plans which would, he hoped, lead to a resettlement of Jews in the country.”[25] He did not secure satisfactory conditions from the Ottoman authorities, therefore he decided to assist the Palestinian Jews, who were already residing in Palestine, by improving their living conditions through agricultural work.[26] In short, he failed to attract any Jewish settlers to Palestine.

Moses Montefiore was “not interested in creating a Jewish state, he did regard the normalization of Jewish life through self-supporting labor, as essential.”[27] However, the accumulated impact of his project has contributed to the development of Jewish colonization efforts.

A more successful colonization project was initiated by Baron Edmond de Rothschild, a capitalist French Jew, who established a settler colonial project in Palestine in order to secure two goals: (1) a haven for East European Jewish refugees[28] fleeing anti-Semitic massacres that took place in East Europe and the Russian Empire, and immigrated to West Europe; (2) establishing a ‘sphere of influence` for French imperialism[29] in the Ottoman Empire.

Between 1882 and 1899, Edmund de Rothschild established 19 Jewish colonial settlements and a Jewish agricultural school[30] on lands he purchased in Palestine in 1853. “The Baron bought land from the feudal Effendis[31], sometimes by bribing the Ottoman administration, and then drove the fellahin[32] off the land…”[33]  The landless Palestinian peasants and ex-tenants of the land, were later hired by the Baron as seasonal and cheap agricultural workers.

The Baron’s colonial activity in Palestine “… clashed with the Palestine Arabs over one fundamental issue – land ownership …”[34] He bought a total of 275,000[35] dunams[36] of arable land, and this fact led to the dispossession and pauperisation of many Palestinian Arab tenant farmers.

In 1900, the Baron terminated his colonial venture by transferring his colonial settlements to the Jewish Colonisation Association (ICA) which was led and financed by Baron Maurice Hirsch[37]a German Jewish capitalist.

Jewish colonization of Palestine was carried out as a service to French imperialism. Its implementation was done in accordance with the classical examples of Western settler colonialism, of large estates, cheap indigenous labor, and colon settlement. Such a colonial project, if continued, could have developed Palestine into a typically settler colonialist entity similar to French Algeria, South Africa and Rhodesia. However, the advance of Political Zionism gave Palestine a different brand of settler colonialism.

  • Zionist Settler Colonialism

Settler colonialism had been used by the highly developed Western powers as a means of expanding European capitalism through the barrel of the gun. Political Zionism had been used as an agent for the implementation of this expansion in the Middle East. Therefore, Zionist settler colonialism could be regarded as the most important wave of direct European capitalist expansion that ever took place in the Middle East.

Unlike the non-Zionist Jewish colonization of Palestine, Political Zionism has entirely been focused on statehood. Since its very inception in 1897, Political Zionism had devoted its efforts for the establishment of a Jewish state, initially in Cyprus, Sinai, Uganda, Portuguese Angola, Libya, Palestine[38] and Argentine.[39] However, later historical developments made Palestine become the sole option for the establishment of a Zionist settler colonial state.

  • Similarities and Differences

Both Jewish settlement and Zionist settlement in Palestine were settler colonial projects. They began by purchasing Palestinian land then establishing colonies to which they attracted European Jews. Both projects exhibited similarities; nevertheless, they also bore fundamental differences in their conduct and practice.

One of the factors that distinguish Zionist from Jewish colonization is that the Zionist idea of establishing a Jewish state was never envisaged by neither Rothschild nor his predecessors Montefiore and Hirsch.  As Richard Stevens, an American author, remarked:

… While the philosophy of Montefiore and the Rothschilds might have been predisposed in favor of Jewish settlement in Palestine, they and other Western Jews were also willing to see Jewish settlement in various other countries as concrete solutions to particular problems of anti-Semitism. Jewish statehood was not envisaged. …[40]

Neither Montefiore, nor Baron Rothschild were Zionists, and the latter “… was soon criticized by the Zionists for his paternalistic administration of Jewish colonies and for permitting the development of a Jewish planter class dependent upon the labor of Arab farm laborers. …”[41]

In addition to Jewish workers, Jewish settler colonies employed Palestinian Arab workers in their agricultural settlements. They developed economic relations with the surrounding Palestinian Arab villages and exchanged goods with the Palestinian Arab peasants. Some of the Jewish settlers adopted the “Kafia”, an Arab head dress and this could be clearly observed in old photographs of these settlers.

Britain ruled[42] over Palestine as a colonial power in the period 1918 – 1948. It was under British protection and authority that Zionist settler colonialist project was set in motion. As French author Maxime Rodinson remarked:

… Although very few Zionists had come from Great Britain, this country, in regard to Palestine, played the role of mother country for a colony that was being settled, because, like it or not, it had protected the formation and growth of the Yishuv[43] as it had, for example, once protected British colonization in North America, and as France had protected French colonization in Algeria…[44]

Faced by the problem of “undercutting” by the Palestinian cheap labor, the Zionist settler workers

… found a way out of the deadlock by contracting an alliance with organized Zionism, which was at bottom a marriage of convenience, Jewish labor got the benefit of political sympathy and, more importantly, of economic subsidy to workers and their collective institutions. In return, their leaders undertook to manage the labor movement by Zionist criteria – which included keeping Arabs out of both jobs and workers’ organizations in the Jewish sector.[45]

The campaign for strict racial exclusiveness within the settlers’ economy was envisaged and led by left wing Zionists, by the all-Jewish Mapai[46] party and by the Histadrut[47] an all-Jewish trade union. To implement their policy they used violence: “… [T]he Mapai leadership stepped up its commitment to the sanctity of all-Jewish labor and supported violent efforts to force Arabs out of their jobs – efforts impregnated with racist and nationalist rhetoric which parts of the labor elite believed possessed considerable ‘educational` value …”[48] As this first result, a total of 6,500 Palestinian agricultural workers who worked inside the Baron’s settlements were replaced by Zionist settler workers.[49]

Another aspect of this racial exclusiveness was implemented by the Histadrut, the Jewish labor union in Palestine. Since its foundation in 1920, the Histadrut did not play a trade unionist role dedicated to the defense of workers’ rights and interests. It opted for a colonial role based on inter-class solidarity and collaboration between the Zionist colonial bourgeoisie and the settler workers, and on racial exclusiveness in jobs and trade union membership.[50]

Both, the Histadrut and the left-wing Zionist parties preferred class collaboration with the Zionist colonial bourgeoisie and not class solidarity among all workers in Palestine, Jews and Arabs. In fact, “…trade unionism remained only a secondary concern for the Histadrut centre, and its leadership was inclined to restrain the workers’ pursuit of their immediate interests in the context of the employment relation. …” [51]

As a reflection of their ideology of racial exclusiveness, the left-wing Zionist leadership coined a number of racist slogans such as Kiboosh H’avoda[52] (conquest of work) and Avoda Ebrit(Hebrew work) as rallying slogans for settler workers. Another racist slogan added to the former, was Tutseret Ha’aretz[53] which called on colonial settlers to boycott Palestinian produce and buy Jewish produce only.  Another racist slogan to be added is that of Kibush Hakark’a[54] (conquest of land) or “Kark’a ‘Ebrit”(Jewish land) which called for the exclusive ownership and tenancy of Zionist purchased land. All these racist slogans were adopted by the Histadrut and the Zionist settler colonialist parties.

In a frank admission of the racist character, stemming from the racial exclusiveness of Zionist practice, David Hacohen,[55] a left-wing Zionist, reported the following reminiscences:

I remember being one of the first of our comrades to go to London after the First World War.  … There I became a socialist. … When I joined the socialist students – English, Irish, Jewish, Chinese, Indian, African – we found that we were all under English domination or rule. And even here, in these intimate surroundings, I had to fight my friends on the issue of Jewish socialism, to defend the fact that I would not accept Arabs in my trade union, the Histadrut; to defend preaching to housewives that they not buy at Arab stores; to defend the fact that we stood guards at orchards to prevent Arab workers from getting jobs there. … To pour Kerosene on Arab tomatoes; to attack Jewish housewives in the markets and smash the Arab eggs they had bought; to praise to the skies the KerenKayemet[Jewish Land Fund] that sent Hankin to Beirut to buy land from absentee effendi[land lords] and to throw the fellahin[peasants] off the land – to buy dozens of dunamsfrom an Arab is permitted, but to sell, God forbids, one Jewish dunamto an Arab is prohibited; to take Rothschild, the incarnation of capitalism, as a socialist and to name him the “benefactor” – to do all that was not easy. And despite the fact that we did it – maybe we had no choice – I was not happy about it.[56]

The Zionist colonial policy of economic exclusion was not without historical precedent. It had been employed by settler colonial bourgeoisies elsewhere to establish their own economic base and their own market. However, Zionist economic exclusiveness had led to the creation of a dual economy in Palestine: an advanced European capitalist enclave based on both capitalist industry and agriculture, and a colonized, developing capitalist economy that was based on capitalist agriculture and an emerging industrial base. Moreover, the Zionist colonial economy had developed during the period 1900-1948 in complete isolation from the basically Palestinian agrarian-based economy. Zionist economic activity in the field of production and marketing was carried out separately.[57]

Concluding Remarks

In conclusion both Jewish and Zionist settlement in Palestine were settler colonialist projects. They differed on three major aspects: (1) The Zionist settler colonial project aimed at the creation of a Jewish state, while the Jewish settler colonial project aimed at the creation of a sphere of influence for French imperialism; (2) The Jewish settler colonialist project employed indigenous Palestinian Arab workers on their land, while the Zionist settler colonial project opposed the employment of Palestinian Arab workers in their agricultural estates; (3) Both settler colonial projects were supported by two different metropolises. The metropolis for the Jewish settler colonial project was French imperialism, while the metropolis for the Zionist settler colonial project was British imperialism.

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Dr. Zuhair Sabbagh teaches sociology at Birzeit University in the colonized West Bank. He is a resident of Nazareth, Israel. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Manchester and is author of a number of books and research articles.

Notes

[1]These colonies were India, Cylon, Burma, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand and parts of China. In addition to these countries, British markets were also located in the Ottoman Empire, including Egypt, Syria, Iraq, the Gulf area, and South Arabia, Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, and other regions (ZS).

[2]The New Encyclopaedia Britannica (1974) Vol. 4 (15th Edition), (London: William Benton) p. 892

[3]History.com editors, Suez Canal,, 21-8-2018

[4]Lutsky, Vladimir (1975) The Modern History of the Arab Countries –in Arabic (Moscow: Progress Publishers) pp 102-145, pp. 131 – 132

[5]Ibid., pp 102-145

[6]The British Empire, “The Opening of the Suez Canal”, http://www.britishempire.me.uk. Retrieved on: 11-6-2020

[7]Sherif, Regina (1983)Non-Jewish Zionism (London: Zed Press), pp. 61, 51

[8]Ibid., p.  158

[9]Lord Shaftesbury was an anti -Semite.  He consistently opposed granting civil emancipation for English Jews and opposed their entry to Parliament. Lord Shaftesbury thought of Jews as being “stiff-necked, dark-hearted people, and sunk in moral degredation, obduracy and ignorance of the Gospel, and were not worthy of salvation.” Look in W.T. Gidney (1908) The History of the London Society for the Restoration of Christianity among the Jews(London: Centennial issue), as quoted by Regina, Sherif, op. cit., p. 128

[10]Makachy, Yona, “Christian Zionism”,Zionism, (Jerusalem, Keter Publishing House Ltd., 1973), p. 233

[11]Sokolow, Nahum,History of Zionism, 2 vols., Passim, index., p. 207.  As quoted by Jabbour, George (1970) Settler Colonialism in Southern Africa and the Middle East(Beirut: PLO Research Center), p. 23

[12]Ibid.

[13]The British statesman Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston (1784 – 1865), served in Whig governments as foreign secretary (1830-34, 1835-41, 1846-51) and home secretary (1852-55) and was twice prime minister (1855-58, 1859-65). Southgate, Donald,“Palmerston, Henry”, The Academic American Encyclopedia (1996 Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia Version), copyright (C) 1996, Grolier, Inc. Danbury, CT, USA.

[14]As quoted by Jabbour, George, op. cit., p. 22

[15]Ibid., p. 132

[16]Sharif, Regina,  “Christians for Zion”, op. cit., p. 131

[17]Makachy, Yona, op. cit., p. 235

[18]Yazbak, Mahmoud, “Templars as Proto-Zionists?”, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Summer, 1999), pp. 40-54,  https://www.jstor.org, Accessed: 21-01-2020.

[19]Ibid.

[20]Wikimili, “Wilhelma, Palestine”, https://wikimili.com, 3-11-2019

[21]David, “Nazis – in Israel, the Templars”, https://strangeside.com. Retrieved on: 12-6-2020

[22]Rex, John (1970)Race Relations In Sociological  Theory(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul), p. 38

[23]Ibid.

[24]Lutsky, Vladimir, op. cit., p. 158

[25]Parkes, James (1970) Whose Land?,(Middlesex: Penguin Books) p. 229

[26]Ibid.

[27]Blumberg, Arnold (2007)Zion Before Zionism 1838–1880. (Jerusalem: Devora Publishing). As quoted by: Goodman, Bonnie K. , “British Colonel Charles Henry Churchill’s letter to Sir Moses Montefiore”, http://blogs.timesofisrael.com, 15-6-2018

[28]Bober, Arie (1972) “ The Palestine Problem ”, The Other Israel, (New York: Anchor Books), p. 37

[29]Ibid.

[30]Weinstock, Nathan (1979)Zionism:  False Messiah(trans. and edited by Alan Adler), (London: Ink Links), p. 67

[31]Effendi is a Turkish word that means land lord. It also denotes a respectable official of the Ottoman administration. (ZS)

[32]Fellahin is the Arabic word for peasants.(ZS)

[33]Bober, Arie , op. cit., p. 38

[34]Bober, op. cit., p. 38

[35]Israel Margalith’s (1957)Le baron Edmond de Rotschild et la colonisation juive en Palestine 1882-1889(Paris: Name of publisher unknown), p p. 141-142. As quoted by Weinstock, op. cit., p. 66

[36]One dunum equals 0.23 acres or 1000 squared meters.(ZS)

[37]Ibid.

[38]Stevens, Richard P. (1972)Zionism And Palestine Before The Mandate: A Phase of Western Imperialism(Beirut: The Institute for  Palestine Studies) pp. 14 – 19

[39]Herzl, Theodore, (1896) The Jewish State, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved on: 14-6-2020

[40]Stevens, Richard P., op. cit., p.7

[41]Ibid., pp. 10-11

[42]British rule over Palestine is usually characterised in numerous sources as the “British Mandate” (1922-1948). I do think that this is a misnomer because it does not correspond to reality. Instead of preparing the people of Palestine for self-government and independence as the Mandate should have been, the British rule treated Palestine as a typical British colony and the “Mandate” was nothing but a cloak for the transformation of Palestine into a Zionist settler colonialist entity. In addition, the British “Mandate” over Palestine was very much similar to South Africa’s “Mandate” over Namibia. Both Namibia and Palestine were brutally transformed into settler colonialist projects by the administrators of a theoretical Mandate that acted as a camouflage for classical colonialist policies (ZS).

[43]Yishuv,  is the Hebrew word for the Zionist settler society in Palestine. It was used only in the period 1900 – 1948 (ZS).

[44]Rodinson, Maxime (1973) Israel: A Colonial-Settler State?. New York: Monad Press, p.  64

[45]Shalev, Michael (1992) Labour and the Political Economy in Israel(Oxford: Oxford University Press) p. 35

[46]Mapai is the Hebrew abbreviation of “Workers of the Land of Israel Party” (ZS).

[47]Histadrut is the “General Confederation of  Jewish  Workers in Palestine” which was established by the Zionists in 1920. (ZS)

[48]Shalev, op. cit., p. 42

[49]Simpson, John Hope (1930) Palestine: Report on Immigration, Land Settlement and Development  (London: Cmd. 3686) p. 55. As quoted by Abdo-Zubi, Nahla (1987) Family, Women and Social Change in the Middle East: The Palestinian Case (Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press) p. 18

[50]Shalev, op. cit., pp. 40-41

[51]Ibid., p. 40

[52]Bober, Arie, op. cit., p. 11

[53]Ibid.

[54]Ibid.

[55]David Hacohen, is one of the leaders of the Mapai Zionist party which dominated Israeli politics. Hacohen was a member of the Israeli parliament for many years and chairman of its most important committee, the Defence and Foreign Affairs Committee. (ZS)

[56]Speech delivered by David Hacohen to the secretariat of the Mapai party in November 1969, Ha’aretzdaily (Hebrew), Nov. 15, 1969. As quoted by Bober, Arie, op. cit., p. 12

[57]Kamen, Charles S. (1991) Little Common Ground, (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press) p. 69

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