Unlike colonial powers such as France, Great Britain, and Spain, who sought to expand their empires for economic exploitation, Zionism arose from the Jewish people’s centuries-long aspiration to return to their ancestral homeland, a land where they have maintained continuous presence for thousands of years.
By Rachel Avraham
In recent years, some critics have attempted to label Zionism — the national liberation movement of the Jewish people — as a form of colonialism. This claim, however, is fundamentally flawed both historically and ideologically. According to the Stanford Dictionary, colonialism is the “policy of a nation seeking to acquire, extend, or retain overseas dependencies.” Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language defines colonialism as the “system in which a country maintains foreign colonies for their economic exploitation.” The Oxford English Reference Dictionary, Second Edition, describes colonialism as “a policy of acquiring or maintaining colonies,” which is especially regarded as the “economic exploitation of weak or backward peoples by a larger power.” This same dictionary describes a colony as “a group of settlers in a new country fully or partly subject to the mother country.”
Unlike colonial powers such as France, Great Britain, and Spain, who sought to expand their empires for economic exploitation, Zionism arose from the Jewish people’s centuries-long aspiration to return to their ancestral homeland, a land where they have maintained continuous presence for thousands of years. According to Irwin Mansdorf, the term colonialism “can assume validity only if it is assumed that the settlers have no indigenous roots and rights in the area.”
With the sole exception of ancient peoples like the Jebusites, Amorites, and Canaanites, which don’t exist today, American archeologist Eric Cline stressed that the Jewish nation has the oldest claim to the land of Israel. He noted that one of the oldest archeological proofs for the existence of the Jewish nation in the land of Israel can be found in Egypt, where “a victory monument of Pharaoh Merneptah claims that the Egyptians defeated a people called Israel who were living in the land of Canaan by about the year 1207 BCE. In 1993 and 1994, archeologists excavating at Tel Dan in northern Israel discovered an inscription that commemorates a military campaign in Israel by Hazael of Aram about the year 841 BCE and that mentions the House of David.’’
Thus, as a result of this excavation at Tel Dan, Tel Aviv University ancient historian Nadav Na’aman has stated that, in his opinion, the facts “strongly support the biblical claims a) that David conquered Jerusalem and made it his capital and b) that he founded the royal dynasty of Jerusalem.’’
According to American archeologist Eric Cline, “few would seriously challenge the belief that most modern Jews are descended from the ancient Hebrews.’’ Cline is backed up by a study that was published in the American Journal of Human Genetics and was conducted by Gil Atzmon and Edward Burns of Yeshiva University, and Harry Ostrer of New York University. After doing a detailed study entitled “Abraham’s Children in the Genome Era: Major Jewish Diaspora Populations Comprise Distinct Genetic Clusters with Shared Middle Eastern Ancestry,” Burns, Atzmon, and Ostrer came to the conclusion that Eastern European Ashkenazi Jews; Italian, Greek, and Turkish Sephardic Jews; and Iranian, Iraqi, and Syrian Mizrahi Jews not only share a common religious and national heritage but “all have common genetic links derived in the ancient Middle East despite their dispersion.’’
These results were compared to the genes from the non-Jewish communities from where these Jews originated from, and it was concluded that “Jews from the different regions of the world were found to share many genetic traits that are distinct from other groups and that date back to ancient times.’’
These findings are not surprising, given the fact that Judaism is not a proselytizing religion and intermarriage has been heavily discouraged by the Jewish religion. As a result of colonialism, there are many nations across the world that speak English, Spanish, French, Arabic, etc. and there are many nations that are either Muslim or Christian. However, there is only one nation that is Jewish and speaks Hebrew. This right here demonstrates the lack of colonial ambitions possessed by the Jewish people.
It should also be stressed that there were always Jewish communities that lived in Israel since antiquity. However, even Jews that lived in the diaspora maintained their connection with the land of Israel for the holiness of the land of Israel is incorporated into the Jewish religion. For example, Kelim 4 in the Talmud states that “the land of Israel is more holy than all other lands.” Yeroshualmi Sanhedrin 4 of the Talmud states “a small group in the Land of Israel is more beloved than a large Sanhedrin abroad.’’ And Ketubot 4 of the Talmud states “whoever lives in the Land of Israel, lives sinless.”
The Midrashim just as strongly expresses Jewish attachment to the Land of Israel. For example, Bereshit Raba 4 states “it is better to lodge in the desert in the Land of Israel than in the palaces of other countries” and Sifrei Re’eh 4 states “settlement in the Land of Israel is equal to all the commandments in the Torah.’’ Such sentiments are reinforced by the Jewish prayer books, which includes phrases like “Lift up the banner to gather our exiles, and gather us from the four corners of the earth. Blessed art thou, O Lord, who gathers the dispersed of thy people Israel.” Or “Let our eyes behold thy return to Zion. Blessed art thou, O Lord, who restores thy divine presence unto Zion.”
Throughout history, every day Jewish life in the Diaspora includes elements that preserved Jewish attachment to the Land of Israel. For example, in every single synagogue throughout the world, Jews pray in the direction of Jerusalem. In every single Jewish wedding, the groom who broke the glass symbolically remembers the destruction of the Temple. Following the destruction of ancient Israel, holidays were introduced into the religion with the sole purpose of remembering the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem, such as the 17 of Tammuz, which solemnly recalls the Romans breaking through the walls of Jerusalem before the Temple was ruined in the First Jewish Revolt Against Rome, and the 9 of Av, which mourns the destruction of both the first and second temples in Jerusalem.
The three weeks in-between the 17 of Tammuz and the 9 of Av are an annual mourning period that mourns the destruction of the Holy Temple and our launch into exile. Indeed, the sages of Yavne, after the collapse of the First Jewish Revolt against Rome in 70 CE, developed the Jewish religion in such a way that religious schools of learning would become a portable state, which inspired a spirit of attachment to Israel even though Jerusalem fell and most of the Jews would be dispersed throughout the globe. The work of the scholars of Yavne would be further developed by Jews who emerged from hiding in Eretz Israel in the second half of the second century. They would proceed to work on the Mishnah in around 200 CE and the Palestinian Talmud in 400 CE. Indeed, the Talmud would become the uniform legal code for the entire world Jewish community.
The Jewish connection to the Land of Israel is deeply rooted in history, religion, and culture. Not only did ancient Jewish kingdoms exist in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria long before the emergence of modern European colonialism. Jews in Israel even attempted to reassert their sovereignty prior to the rise of the Zionist movement. In 614 CE, during the Byzantine-Sasanian War, the Sasanian Persian Empire, with the support of Jewish rebels, captured Jerusalem from the Byzantine Empire and the local Jews with the support of the Persians managed to hold onto it for several years. Michael Avi-Yonah claimed between 150,000 and 200,000 Jews were living in 43 Jewish settlements in Israel at that time.
Later in history, Dona Gracia Mendes Nasi, a prominent Jewish lady of the Renaissance, created a Jewish province in the city of Tiberius in the Holy Land with the blessing of the Ottoman Turkish sultan, thus setting a precedent that the Zionist Movement was later on able to follow. According to Jane Gerber, author of the Jews of Spain, between 1391 and the fifteenth century, a significant number of Jews immigrated to the Holy Land in response to the persecution they experienced in Spain and Portugal: “Entire family groups banded together and rented ships. Most of these Jews would settle in Jerusalem, Safed, Hebron and Tiberius. Under the Ottoman Turks, these Jews were granted the right to establish a Jewish province in Tiberius in gratitude for the assistance that Dona Gracia Mendes Nasi gave to the sultan. Thus, several hundred years before Theodor Herzl, a Jewish woman worked to return Jews back to the Holy Land and set the ground for the establishment of a future Jewish state.” Thus, the return of Jews to their homeland was not an act of conquering foreign land but a process of national revival.
Zionism emerged in the late 19th century as a response to rising antisemitism across the globe. Far from being an imperial project, it was a grassroots movement to establish a safe haven for a persecuted people. The founders of Zionism, including Theodor Herzl, envisioned a state where Jews could exercise self-determination and live in peace.
Unlike colonial powers that were sponsored by mother countries, the early Jewish immigrants had no empire behind them. They arrived with limited resources, purchased land legally, and built communities from scratch — turning barren deserts and swamps into thriving agricultural settlements.
The legitimacy of the State of Israel is rooted not only in historical ties but also in international law. The Balfour Declaration of 1917, the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine in 1922, and the UN Partition Plan of 1947 all recognized the right of Jews to re-establish their homeland.
Colonialism typically involves imposing rule over an indigenous population and extracting its resources. In contrast, the Jewish state was built by returning exiles on land that was often uninhabited or underdeveloped, and its establishment was supported by international consensus.
Israel is not a monolithic society of settlers; it is a diverse country where Jews from over 100 nations — including Middle Eastern and African countries — have found refuge. Over half of Israel’s Jewish population descends from communities expelled from Arab lands after 1948. These Jews were not colonizers but refugees seeking a safe home.
Moreover, Zionism does not negate the rights of other peoples. From the outset, Zionist leaders expressed their willingness to live in peace and to cooperate with their Arab neighbors. The ongoing conflict is not a result of colonialism but of the refusal by some groups to accept the Jewish right to self-determination.
Zionism is not about conquest or domination; it is about survival, freedom, and the restoration of a people to its historic homeland. To equate Zionism with colonialism is not only historically inaccurate but also dismisses the legitimate aspirations of the Jewish people who have endured millennia of persecution and displacement.
Recognizing the true nature of Zionism is essential for fostering understanding and dialogue in the pursuit of peace. As history shows, Israel’s creation was not the imposition of a foreign power but the rebirth of a nation on its ancestral soil.
Photo from MASQUERAID: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel#/media/File:Ruins_of_the_Ancient_Synagogue_at_Bar’am.jpg
