Comments by "" (@RedXlV) on "Liberal Zionists Need A Reality Check" video.
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@chuckm1961 The original Zionists were completely upfront about the fact that they were colonizers. And why wouldn't they be? It wasn't until the 1950s that anybody in Europe thought of colonialism as a bad thing. In the 19th and early 20th century, colonialism was openly celebrated as being the height of civilization.
Theodor Herzl, founder of Zionism and revered in Israel as "the spiritual father of the Jewish State", openly and proudly declared in the 19th century that Jews would colonize Palestine, and that they would do so directly following the British Empire's model of colonizing the Americas and Africa. To support this endeavor, the Zionist movement would establish such companies as the "Jewish Colonisation Association" (1891), "Jewish Colonial Trust" (1899), and "Palestine Jewish Colonization Association" (1924).
Herzl and his World Zionist Organization insisted on using the colonial model because if European Jews asked for permission to immigrate to Palestine, the existing population could say no. By colonizing Palestine, they would take away the existing population's ability to reject their takeover of the land. This was not a secret, it was their openly-declared intention.
It's only now in the 21st century, when the vast majority of the world considers "colonialism" a dirty word, that supporters of Israel started denying that their country was founded by colonization. Israel isn't unique in that regard. Many nations were founded by colonization. Every single nation in the Americas originated out of colonialism, for example. The difference, of course, is that Israeli colonialism is still ongoing.
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