Thread by @not_ghuf

The original Zionist theorists, such as Theodore Herzl and Vladimir Jabotinsky, explicitly called Zionism a colonial project while referring to Palestinians as "natives" and themselves as "colonists".
The current nativist narrative is nothing but ad hoc justifications.

https://twitter.com/ManilanH/status/1710999193404215300

Zionism as an ideology was born among Ashkenazi Jews who for thousands of years had been living in Europe. Europe was the only home they'd ever known, and the Ashkenazis had developed distinct cultural and linguistic features.

The Ashkenazis in the 19th century had no connection with the land of Palestine, and very little with the Mizrahi Jews who actually lived in Palestine. For them, "Israel" was a promised utopia born in reaction to the oppression they faced in Europe.

The founders of the Zionist movement, like the ones mentioned, had little pretense of being "native" to Palestine. They knew they were not, and referred to the natives as savages and barbarians awaiting the light of civilization that Ashkenazis must carry to them.

These Zionist leaders were well aware that their movement was a settler colonial project, and they explicitly modelled it after existing settler colonial projects such as Rhodesia.

It's only in recent decades that the rise of indigenous rights language has been co-opted by the current generation of Zionists to whitewash their colonial project, conveniently erasing how the founders of their movement themselves saw it.