The early #Zionists bought up huge tracts of fertile #Palestinian land and drove out the #indigenous inhabitants. They subsidized #European Jewish #settlers sent to #Palestine, where 94% of the inhabitants were #Arabs. They created organizations such as the Jewish #Colonization Association, later called the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association, to administer the #Zionist project.

But, as Khalidi writes, “once #colonialism took on a bad odor in the post-World War II era of decolonization, the #colonial origins and practice of Zionism and #Israel were whitewashed and conveniently forgotten in Israel and the West. In fact, #Zionism — for two decades the coddled step-child of #British colonialism — rebranded itself as an anticolonial movement.”

#history #apartheid #violence #HumanRights

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