Israel and Settler Society

by Lorenzo Veracini

The struggle between Israel and the Palestinians is not unique -- whatever the news media may suggest. Lorenzo Veracini argues that the conflict is best understood in terms of colonialism. Like many other societies, Israel is a settler society. Looking in detail at the evolution of other colonial regimes -- apartheid South Africa, French Algeria and Australia -- Veracini presents a thoughtful interpretation of the dynamics of colonialism, offering a clear framework within which to understand the middle east crisis.

Veracini challenges two important firstly, that the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is unique and defies comparative approaches; and secondly that the struggle is mainly based in nationality and religion and therefore different to typical colonial conflicts. On the contrary, Veracini shows how Israeli society is organised along apartheid lines -- and that apartheid was not unique to South Africa, but a common feature of colonisation. He examines wars of decolonization, and conflicts where whole native populations were all but eradicated -- as in Australia. Comparing and contrasting these with the more recent history of Israel and Palestine, he offers a critical perspective on colonialism as well as important new insights into patterns of imperialism today.

Genres: Israel, Politics, Nonfiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 20, 2006

About the author

Lorenzo Veracini is a historian and professor at Swinburne University of Technology’s Institute for Social Research. He is the editor in chief of Settler Colonial Studies and has been a key figure in the development of the field of settler colonialism. His book Settler Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview was published in 2010.

Reviews

[Randall Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is basically about showing you that the crimes Israel has long been committing are nothing new under the sun: It’s basic Settler-Colonialism 101 – what the US shamelessly did to the Native Americans, what Brits did to Aboriginals in Australia, and what Hitler planned to do to the Slavs before Russia stopped his plans after the Battle of Stalingrad. Veracini also looks at parallels to the French colonial experience in Algeria and apartheid South Africa. And because Israel is a present-day colonizer long after the rest of the world and ex-colonizer Britain grew up and moved on, Veracini mentions Frantz Fanon’s great colonizer critiques a few times too.

Why Israelis obsess about Palestinian Complete Disempowerment: According to Maron Benvenisti, “If the Palestinians control even one border crossing – and gain the ability to maintain direct relations with the outside world – the internal line of separation will become full-ledged international borders, and Israel will lose control over the passage of people and goods.” Here is Ariel Sharon explaining controlling the OPT: “The Palestinian state will be completely demilitarized …Israel will continue to control all movement in and out of the Palestinian state, will command its airspace…” So, even when Israel “pulled out” (like Donald Trump’s dad should have) of Gaza in 2005, those Gazans weren’t left alone – they were still totally connected to Israel by that martinet marionette’s control strings. Jeff Halper refers to this string pulling as Israel’s “matrix of control.” Veracini sums it up as “the unilateral Gaza pullout (of 2005), which ensured Israeli control of Gaza airspace, water, and border crossings, did not depart from this pattern and showed how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be framed less in terms of territory and more in terms of control.”

Fun Facts: Famed Englishman Cecil Rhodes once said, “I prefer land to niggers.” This flamboyant exemplar of colonial racism was the creator of the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. Merely change his object of his comment to “I prefer land to those dirty Arabs” and you would arrive at the historical mantra of Zionism – theft of land is okay if you hold the weapons, the will to steal by force, the PR and US lobby financing, and of course the unbridled racism. The “Old Yishuv” was the name of the “community of Jews before the establishment of the independent state of Israel (1882 to 1948).”

Australian Settler-Colonialism as Similar to Israeli Settler-Colonialism: Australian Prime minister John Howard’s “practical reconciliation’ for Aboriginal communities was that “they have every right in the land, no rights to the land.” “Australia’s constitutional practice denied Aboriginal people’s citizenship until 1967.”

I liked reading this book because I’ll read any book about settler-colonialism especially if it is written by Patrick Wolfe or Lorenzo Veracini (the top two experts), and I’ll read any book tackling Israel’s flagrant breaching of international law for decades (Pappe, Chomsky, Finkelstein, Sara Roy, Rashid Khalidi, etc). Glad to have read this, although I only learned less than a page worth.

[Muhammed Nijim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great work by Veracini. Some of his discussions are so relevant, but this book may be a bit old now in light of the updates and changes in Israel/Palestine. An updated version would perhaps be valuable.

The author, who is an expert in settler-colonial histories and one of the founding members of settler-colonial studies, draws many comparisons between Israel/Palestine and other similar cases like Australia, Algeria and South Africa. Though, somehow I felt that the comparisons were not sufficient; writing a book about one case could have been more insightful and intelligible maybe.

As well, the concluding chapter has great value, yet I also believe that it needs a re-visit by Veracini in light of the developments of this conflict.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a decent book. Not my favorite book on the topic though if you want to understand how the settler colonial framework asses the modern conflict and the mentality existing today, this is the book for you.