Post-Colonialism as an Introduction to Anti-Semitism

by Dr. Avi Bareli, historian, and senior lecturer at Ben Gurion University , translated by Hillel Fendel.

Anti-Semitic college students threatening Jews on campus and calling for Israel's liquidation is not a new phenomenon and is not exclusively related to October 7^th. At least since the 1970's, a post-colonial school of thought has spread and gained steam in academia, seeking to explain Zionism based on two seemingly academic assumptions: that there is no Jewish nation, and that the return of this non-nation to "its land" is nothing more than cruel conquest and dispossession.

According to the cultivators of this approach in Western academia, the group of people known as "Jews" has no right to self-determination. They would be best advised to disperse throughout the world and assimilate, or else continue to absorb the special type of hatred known as anti-Semitism [or both]. The source of anti-Jewish hatred, according to this view, lies in religious separatism, or in the Jews' attempt to be a distinct "people" among the nations - in the lands of the Diaspora, or in Palestine, which, it is claimed, is Muslim or Arab in its essence.

This school of thought has a history starting back in 19th century Europe. It is rooted in the liberal ideology of the European multinational states and empires, and then in the "anti-colonialist" propaganda of early Soviet communism (which itself then practiced oppressive colonialism in its territories). European Communism was instilled with a view that the Zionist enterprise was a dispossessing colonialist enterprise – a far cry from a national enterprise of a native, dispossessed, and oppressed people returning to their ancient homeland.

Today's Brand

The contemporary academic school of thought continues to absurdly "explain" the Zionist enterprise and Israel as an enterprise of pure colonialism, based on the Communist legacy. In its historical explanation of the reasons for the establishment of Israel, it is a distinct academic failure. But this has not prevented it from gradually gaining dominance in the humanities and social sciences in Western academia. This dominance is concretized, for example, in the way the elite Harvard University behaved precisely when it was trying to cleanse itself of charges of anti-Semitism. These charges, it will be recalled, were based on the school's negation of the Jews' right to self-determination, and on the absurdity of its president telling the US Congress that calls for Jewish genocide must be evaluated "in context."

And whom did Harvard appoint for the cleansing operation? Jewish History Professor Derek J. Penslar, who teaches courses, inter alia, in the history of Zionism and Israel. He recently told an Israeli media outlet, for example, that "the Zionist enterprise definitely has colonialist attributes." That is, he feels that the post-colonialist, non-nationalist approach provides at least part of the causal explanation for Israel's establishment.

However, he did qualify this by saying that describing Zionism as a colonial, conquering dispossession of another people explains only part of the historic phenomenon of Zionism.

This halfway approach is very evasive. For if we remove the nationalist motivations that brought Jews from around the world to move to, and invest their capital in, Israel, and remain with only the colonialist motives, we are left with no way to explain the success of Zionism. Zionism is primarily and essentially a movement to liberate the Jewish Nation. A historian who runs away from this conclusion for the sake of some "middle ground" – maintaining that Zionism is both colonial and nationalist – will not be able to counter the arguments of a wave of anti-Semitism that denies that Zionism is a movement for national self-determination.

Harvard can rectify its recent anti-Semitism only by totally denying any colonialist nature to Zionism, and not by taking a pareve, in-between approach.

We see the dominance of this post-colonialist approach to explaining Israel in American academia by the very fact that Harvard chose someone like Prof. Penslar to cleanse itself of charges of anti-Semitism. It is not surprising that a historian like him sought, in the above interview, to take a middle-ground approach even between Jews and those who wish to murder them – even to the point in which he makes a form of equivalence between the bloodthirsty sadism of Hamas and the self-defense of Israel.

[Translator's note: The writer seems to be ahead of his time, even if just by a few days, given the decision by the ICC prosecutor to request war-crime warrants for the arrests of both Netanyahu and Sinwar, warmly welcomed by various countries.]

The PA and the Lion King

 by Amotz Miller, Yisrael HaYom newspaper, translated by Hillel Fendel.

Instead of self-flagellation, we must unite behind our immediate common goal: The PA-PLO must not be allowed a foot in the door of Gaza rule.

Those of us who grew up in the mid-90's not only remember, but can still feel, their pain and even fury at the Lion King scene when cruel Scar - who had just dropped his brother the king off a cliff to his death - persuades his nephew, little crown-prince Simba, that he was actually to blame for his father's death. 

Scar despicably offers his "generous" help in rectifying the situation, and Simba falls gratefully into his arms. Scar proposes that the newly-orphaned Simba run far, far away, and never return, and that he, Scar, would take upon himself the yoke of royalty. 

The children of the 90's also bear other scenes of hurt and fury, but these are not taken from Disney movies. They remember buses that turned into giant balls of fire and restaurants that became death traps – a nightmare wrapped in pink cellophane, tied with a ribbon, and adorned with the festively-written words: "Peace Process."

The cruel implosion of the "peace process" surprised many – but not those who listened with even half an ear to the jihadist declarations of the bridegroom of the festivities: arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat, may his name be blotted out.

Yigal Carmon, a former senior Israeli Intelligence official and an expert advisor on anti-terrorism warfare, listened to and recorded the unsuspecting speeches of Arafat. He heard Arafat say clearly, shortly before the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, that the agreement with Israel was not a recognition of the Jewish state's right to exist, but rather simply a tactical move in the ongoing war of extermination against the Zionist entity. 

Carmon tried to warn the public of the dangerous fraud being perpetrated upon Israel. He took his information to top journalist Nachum Barnea, who did nothing with it. Barnea later said he did not sufficiently understand the material; Carmon said he purposely covered it up in order not to sabotage the peace process. [Six months later, Arafat delivered his famous Johannesburg address, in which he called on the "Islamic nation" to "come and fight and start the Jihad to liberate Jerusalem," and in which he likened the Oslo process to a historical ceasefire agreement between Muhammad and the Quraysh tribe, which was meant to be only temporary.]

Home internet was just beginning, and social media were just a dream, such that the press was a closed clique, marketing Oslo almost unanimously as the "new Middle East."

Three Decades Later

Thirty years have passed, and the murderous PLO-Fatah-Hamas enemy, which never laid down its sword, pulled off the Oct. 7th massacre against unsuspecting civilians and unprotected soldiers in and around Israel's western Negev communities. The attack caught Israeli society in a period of extreme disunity, and actually led to a burst of brotherhood and cooperation. All parts of the society chipped in, whether in the reserves or in volunteering; whether presenting Israel's case to the world or giving of their money or time; whether praying or crying out.

However, the war has dragged on – prevented from reaching a successful conclusion by our many friends in the international community. While our hostages debilitate in the tunnels of Gaza and IDF soldiers endanger their lives in combat, cracks of disunity have become to emerge. One bitter feature thereof is the blame game, where accusations against everyone from the Prime Minister and his government, down through the military and intelligence establishments, and then to various sectors of society for their role, are furiously censured and denunciated. 

And thus, the despairing and sad nation, bewildered by events and its Simba-like self-flagellation, searching for stability and hope, falls like ripe fruit into the blood-stained hands of the Palestinian Authority – which has so generously volunteered, with American encouragement, to take over the yoke of governing Gaza when the war ends. 

But we are no longer in the 90's, and we are no longer blind to reality.

Israel's Regavim Association, which works to prevent illegal Arab use of state lands, very recently released a chilling report about top figures in the Palestinian Authority. The names, ranks, and official positions of bona-fide terrorists in the PA's security apparatus are listed. The report leaves no room for mistakes:  The official leaders of the PA have nothing but praise for its shahid workers taking part in the violent struggle against Israel and its citizens. 

And of course, its "pay for slay" policy – monthly salaries or pensions to terrorists and/or their families – is well-known to everyone in the West, which continues to pretend it doesn't know. 

The truth is out in the open: The Palestinian Authority is no different than Hamas. We do not need exploding buses or another version of Oct. 7th to tell us the true murderous intentions of the PA, or to foresee the blood that will be shed if we allow it any part in the future government of Gaza.

Not as Innocent as They Seem

by Nadav Shragai, Israeli author and journalist, Yisrael Hayom newspaper, translated by Hillel Fendel. 

With all the media talk of the suffering of "innocent Palestinians in Gaza," it is important to know that many or most of them are not all that innocent. Hamas and the general populace of Gaza are one and the same - in the elections that Hamas won handily, in their hearts, and in actually keeping secret and helping out in the preparations for the mass attack.

The media coverage of what is happening in Gaza invariably mentions that the Gazans currently under attack are mostly the "non-involved" – i.e., not involved in the horrific attack on Jewish families two weeks ago. Let us take a look how "non-involved" they actually were.

Twenty thousand of them used to leave Gaza every day, before the massacre, to work in Israel. They worked in the Jewish villages near the border, as well as in larger towns such as Sderot and Ofakim, in the fields and elsewhere. Some of them had an extra assignment as well – assigned by Hamas: They wrote down details of their Jewish employers, such as number and locations of houses in a village, the locations of the living rooms and safe rooms, how many people live in each house, whether they have a dog, where they park their cars, and more. Everything was documented, and everything was handed over to Hamas. This was part of the infrastructure of the barbaric atrocity – the contribution of the "un-involved."

Many thousands of "non-involved" held "demonstrations" in the days before the massacre alongside the fence, where they apparently planted explosive devices and marked its weak points. They took active part in the great camouflage operation that succeeded for Hamas beyond all its expectations.

Salah Arouri, a top Hamas leader who generally hides out in Gaza, attempted to speak up for his fighters and say that it wasn't they who carried out the massacre, but rather the residents of Gaza. He said that many of the latter entered through the border fence and fought with Jewish settlers, and "as a result, people were killed." 

In addition, myriads of "non-involved" – the IDF says it was "hundreds of thousands" – have participated over the years in the "Marches of Return" along the fence. Over the course of these events, they threw explosives and Molotov cocktails over to our side, sent explosive balloons, and burned our fields. With their hearts filled with hatred, they know only their dreams of taking our place in Ashkelon, Lod, Acco and Ashdod.  How do we know this? Because they say it outright – just like, incidentally, their brothers in Judea and Samaria and even some of them in Israel. Hopefully, many of us now will take them seriously and actually believe them. 

It's true that our true friend in the White House, President Biden, is not yet convinced, but this will come as well – for the Palestinians have creative ways to explain themselves.

What else can we say about the "non-involved?" They danced with wild joy around the vans holding the kidnapped children, elderly, women and young boys. They chanted "Death to the Jews!" and helped Hamas hide them. They also helped Hamas move their rockets to hiding places. "Non-involved" mothers declared how proud they were to send their children to the campaign so that they would become martyrs, and "non-involved" teachers taught Gazan children that it is a religious duty to kill Jews.

In many funerals over the years of arch-terrorists that Israel managed to liquidate, hundreds of thousands of "non-involved" took part. For those who want to know exactly what happened there, Google and important tracking organizations such as MEMRI and Palestinian Media Watch can supply the precise wording of the horrific chants heard at those funerals, which received hate-filled roars of approval from the masses.

And who voted Hamas into power in the first place? Hundreds of thousands of Gazans voted in 2006 for Hamas, the organization whose charter calls openly for the destruction of Israel and the Jews. Hamas thus received 18 out of the 24 seats on the legislative council in Gaza. While Fatah received only 33% of the vote at the time, Hamas received 43%. It also won in eastern Jerusalem, and did well in Shechem (Nablus), Hevron, and elsewhere. Uncommonly for the PA, these were actually democratic elections, run according to law; the 250 EU observers who were on hand confirmed this. Thus, the results mirrored precisely the preferences of the Arabs of Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Today, 17 years later, all indications are that support for Hamas has grown, not weakened.

In short: Hamas and Gazan residents are one – in elections, in heart, and in deed. Many of them knew of the preparations for the massacre, helped facilitate it, and certainly did not reveal it. The IDF is a moral army and does not purposely target civilians – but in case civilians are hurt, we need to know who they are and what they stand for.