Being

Being wise also means recognizing what a rare occurrence life is in the universe; and therefore, how precious. 

Being good also means that you always recognize a remote human possibility, even in your worst enemies.

Being brave also means that you are ready to stand your ground against those that would destroy people, things, ideas and principles that you value dearly. But recognizing that you do so out of necessity. Because the circumstances demand it, not out of hatred. 

Being kind also means that you understand that vengeance is a snake eating its tail, and that the important thing is to prevent those that would do harm from being able to act on it. 

Being empathetic also means recognizing the frailty of life, that people carry invisible scars, and so you try to temper your language with civility. But when civility is weaponized against you, you draw a line and hold it, because empathy does not mean naivety.

Understanding what it means to live in a liberal democracy, you expect, and even celebrate, the free expression and clash of ideas. Because you see it as the most effective way to identify flaws, quickly and efficiently, in this ever-developing system, so that you can then work to correct them. You see this clearly as the only reliable path to improvement and a healthier democracy.

Being a good citizen is also an ongoing exercise in prudence, patience and tolerance. It means you are willing to listen, to understand, and to see clearly the futility of battling paper tigers.

But some of us are none of those things.

Παραμυθάκι για το Σαββατοκύριακο

 Παραμυθάκι για το Σαββατοκύριακο

ΜΙΑ ΦΟΡΑ ΚΙ ΕΝΑΝ ΚΑΙΡΟ… σε ένα παράλληλο σύμπαν …

…στα χρόνια του Μεγάλου Μανιτού, όταν ακόμη τα ποτάμια ψιθύριζαν ιστορίες και τα βουνά τραγουδούσαν με τον άνεμο, ζούσε ένας λαός εύθυμος, με καρδιά μεγάλη σαν τον ορίζοντα, και με καπνά διαλογής. Τη γη τους την έλεγαν Χελώνεια Νήσο, γιατί πίστευαν πως μια μαγκούφα Μεγάλη Χελώνα κουβαλούσε όλη τη δημιουργία στην πλάτη της. 

Που λέτε παιδιά, ο χρόνος εκεί κυλούσε ήσυχα, με γιορτές, με τελετές, με μέτρημα των φύλλων των εποχών, και με καμία ανθρωποθυσία για να περνάει διασκεδαστικά η ώρα και για να κλάψει ο ουρανός και να χαρεί η φύση. Μαλώνανε, αγκαλιαζόντουσαν και τα ξαναβρίσκανε, και γενικά γελούσανε και κλαίγανε για τα ίδια πράγματα που γελάει και κλαίει ο κόσμος σε όλη την υφήλιο. Όλα καλά.

Μιά μέρα κάτι χλωμά πρόσωπα ήρθαν εξ ανατολάς σε ξύλινα καράβια μακρομούτσουνα. Φτιάξανε κάτι ξύλινα χωριά περίεργα και αρχίσανε να καλλιεργούν τη γή (άκουσον άκουσον) αντί να κυνηγούν βίσωνες όπως κάθε σοβαρός άνθρωπος, αλλά τελικά δέν τα βρήκανε με τους ντόπιους, οι οποίοι τους πετάξανε πίσω στη θάλασσα να πάν απο κεί που ήρθαν. Έτσι πάει. 

Πέρασαν πολλά χρόνια, και τα χλωμά πρόσωπα, άλλα χλωμά πρόσωπα αυτά, ξαναπήγαν. 

Χαλόου όλ γιου πίπλ! Χάβ γιου χέρντ οφ άουρ λόρντ Τζίζους Κράιστ;

Οι ξύλινες πιρόγες τους ήταν τεράσιες αυτή τη φορά. Οι ντόπιοι έκλασαν μέντες σαν αντίκρισαν τα σιδερένια τσουτσούνια τους. Ήρθαν που λέτε τα χλωμά πρόσωπα, στρώθηκαν, και γνώρισαν και στους ντόπιους τις ξαδέρφες τους, την Ιλαρά και την Ευλογιά, που κυριολεκτικά τους πέταξαν τα μάτια έξω. Αργότερα φέρανε και κάποια μαύρα πρόσωπα σε αλυσίδες, αλλά αυτό είναι άλλο παραμύθι για άλλη φορά.

Αυτά τα χλωμά πρόσωπα που λέτε παιδιά, δέν μασούσαν κάστανα, και τα ήθελαν όλα εδώ και τώρα. Πλακωθήκανε χοντρά με τους ντόπιους και οι ντόπιοι φάγανε τόσο πολύ ξύλο, που πήγαν να κρυφτούν όπου μπορούσαν. Καμιά φορά, οι πιό ριψοκίνδυνοι απο τους ντόπιους, σήκωναν χέρι και πετούσαν κανένα κοτρόνι στα χλωμά πρόσωπα, ή τους έπιαναν και τους κούρευαν, αλλά ότι και να έκαναν, δέν άλλαζε τίποτα. Τζάμπα κόπος.

Τελικά, για να μη πολυλογώ, τα χλωμά πρόσωπα κατάφεραν να ξεκάνουν τους περισσότερους ντόπιους. Μερικοί παραδόθηκαν άνευ όρων και μείνανε μίζεροι και απομονωμένοι σε μικρά χωριά να θυμούνται και να κλαίνε τη μοίρα τους. Οι περισσότεροι όμως σήκωσαν πανιά και την κοπάνησαν πέρα απ τη θάλασσα, σε μέρη άγνωστα, και βρήκαν καταφύγιο σε άλλες χώρες. Χώρες όπου δεν τους ήθελαν, τους έλεγαν κοκκινομούρηδες, τους έδειχναν στα καρναβάλια, τους φορούσαν καπέλα με φτερά, αλλά που τουλάχιστον δέν τρώγαν φάπες τόσο συχνα όσο τις έτρωγαν στο σπίτι τους. Έτσι πάει. 

Και το πάθημα γίνεται μάθημα, άν έχεις δύο δράμια μυαλό.

Και πέρασαν τα χρόνια… πολλάααα χρόνια …

...και τα χλωμά πρόσωπα φτιάξανε μια Αυτοκρατορία μεγάλη, ναααα! Τόσο μεγάλη, που νόμιζαν ότι θα ζήσει χίλια χρόνια, όπως όλοι οι σαρδανάπαλοι που δεν σκαμπάζουν από Ιστορία. Και χτίζανε ουρανοξύστες που ξύναν τα οπίσθια του ουρανού, στέλνανε ανθρώπους στο φεγγάρι να μαζέψουν τυρί, μά τον Μανιτού!, και βάζανε και παρδαλή σημαία, έτσι για ενθύμιο οτι γαμ**ν και δέρνουν και τα λοιπά, και τα λοιπά. Έτσι πάει, και να μου συγχωρήσετε τα Γαλλικά.

Τέλος πάντων, για να μη σας τα πολυλογώ παιδία μου, οι αυτοκρατορίες που λέτε, κάποια στιγμή γίνονται τοξικές, και μετά αρχίζουν να λιώνουν σαν παγωτό τον Αύγουστο. Οι φτωχοί φώναζαν και πεινούσαν, οι πλούσιοι βαριόντουσαν και έτρωγαν παντεσπάνι, κι οι μικρομεσαίοι βλέπανε Netflix και βρίζονταν στα σοσιαλμύδια.

 Έ, και κάποια στιγμή που λέτε άρχισαν να πλακώνονται όλοι αναμετάξυ των, και απο το πολύ το ξύλο, κλάταρε η χώρα στην οποία είχαν έρθει οι παππούδες τους ώς σιδηροτσούτσουνοι κατακτητές, και που τώρα ήταν πλέον και δική τους, και τα κοράκια τριγύρω άρχισαν να τους λιμπίζονται και να ζωγραφίζουν γραμμές σε χάρτες. Έτσι πάει.

Και σε όλη αυτή την αναμπουμπούλα, ο μεγάλος σαμάνος, το Φαλακρό Γεράκι του Βουνού, κάλεσε ένα πάου-γουάου, όπου παρευρέθηκαν όλοι οι αρχηγοί απο τις τέσσερις γωνιές του κόσμου, που όμως δέν είναι ούτε τέσσερις, ούτε γωνίες. Όπως ούτε αυτό το παραμύθι είναι ακριβώς παραμύθι. Και η συζήτηση πήγε κάπως έτσι:

-Φαλακρό Γεράκι του Βουνού (ΦΓΒ): Πώ!!! Παίδες είδατε τί παίζει;

-Φίδι στον Κόρφο Σου (ΦΚΣ): Άσε, φιλαράκι, άσε!

-Ηχώ της Κραυγής που Άφησε σάν Πάτησε Ακίδα Καθώς η Μάνα του Γαργάριζε Εύθυμα Δίπλα στο Ποτάμι (ΗΚΑΠΑΚΜΦΕΔΠ): Παίδες, τα πράγματα δέν πάνε καθόλου καλά εδώ που είμαστε! Έχουν αρχίσει να μας την πέφτουν πανταχόθεν. Χθές μας είχαν πάρει πάλι με τις φάπες και χάσαμε το Μικρό Κυκλάμινο και το ψάχνουμε εδώ και βδομάδες.

-ΦΓΒ: Ναί μωρέ, κι εδώ τα ίδια, έρχεται μεγάλη μπόρα. Ζήσαμε εδώ όσο ζήσαμε αλλά ίσως είναι καιρός να σκεφτούμε να γυρίσουμε σπίτι.

-Μαλ**** του Χωριού (ΜΤΧ): Ναί! Μά το μεγάλο Μανιτού! Το Μεγάλο Πνεύμα πάντα προόριζε τη γή αυτή για τη φυλή μας. Μεγάλη η χάρη του!

-Όλοι μαζί: Σκάσε ρε συ! Μιλάμε σοβαρά εδώ.

-(ΜΤΧ, ψιθυριστά): Καλάαααα, τα ξαναλέμε σε μερικές δεκαετίες.

-ΦΓΒ: Λοιπόν, συμφωνούμε όλοι, πάμε πίσω στα πάτρια;

-ΗΚΑΠΑΚΜΦΕΔΠ: Μισό! Γιατί δεν πάμε στη Φουγκάντα; Εκεί θα είμαστε τουλάχιστον ασφαλείς. Για πολύ καιρό. Νομίζω. Δεν ξέρω δηλαδή, λέω τώρα, αλλά, έ.

-ΦΓΒ: Δεν είναι κακή ιδέα. Να το συζητήσουμε. (Δυνατά) Ποιός θέλει να μαζέψουμε λεφτά να πάμε στη Φουγκάντα, να αναψει τώρα την πίπα του. … … … 

-ΦΓΒ: Δέν βλέπω καπνό. … Ποιός θέλει να επιστρέψουμε σπίτι;

-Όλοι μαζί: ΠΟΥΦ ΠΟΥΦ ΠΟΥΦ ΓΚΟΥΧ

- ΦΚΣ: Άν πάμε δεν τα βλέπω καλά τα πράγματα. Δέν θα μας θέλουν ούτε εκεί. Πρέπει να είμαστε έτοιμοι για κάθε ενδεχόμενο…

-ΦΓΒ: Ναί ρέ, κλασικά. Πουθενά δε μας θέλουν. Τουλάχιστον ας είμαστε σπίτι μας κι ας μη μας θέλουν τα χλωμά πρόσωπα. Ίσως αλλάξουν τα πράγματα, θα δούμε. Θα πρέπει να κάνουμε όμως συμβιβασμούς. Στη χειρότερη θα πέσει ξύλο.

Έτσι που λέτε παιδιά μου άρχισε η επιστροφή αυτού του βασανισμένου λαού. Μάζεψαν λεφτά και άρχισαν να μισθώνουν πλοία και να γυρνάνε. Λίγοι στην αρχή, περισσότεροι αργότερα όταν τα πράγματα άρχισαν να γίνονται πολύ δύσκολα. Και κουβάλησαν μαζί τους τις γλώσσες των τόπων που έζησαν και την κληρονομιά τους που ποτέ δεν ξέχασαν. Ήρθαν με τα παιδιά τους, με βιβλία, με τσουγκράνες, με τραύματα, με όνειρα.

 Άρχισαν να αγοράζουν γή και να την καλλιεργούν. Τα χλωμά πρόσωπα ταράχτηκαν.

-Χλωμό Πρόσωπο #1 Μα καλά, ξαναγυρνάνε αυτοί; Δεν μας φτάνουν αυτοί οι κουρέληδες που έχουμε ήδη στους καταυλισμούς τους;

-Χλωμό Πρόσωπο #2 Και τί θέλουν δηλαδή; Χώρα λέει;! Καλά, πάνε καλά; Πού νομίζουν ότι έρχονται;

-Χλωμό Πρόσωπο #3 Κάτι για ένα παππού τους λένε και για έναν Μανιτού. Τί είναι αυτός; Τσίζους πάντως δέν είναι.

-Χλωμό Πρόσωπο #4 Και ποιος τους έδωσε την άδεια; Ξενόφερτοι! Εμείς ζούμε εδώ. Δικός μας είναι ο τόπος.

Κι στο τσουπ-τσουρέκι, τους φόρεσαν το ταμπελάκι "νεο-κατακτητές".

- Εκπρόσωπος των Επιστρεφόντων (ΕΤΕ):  Ρε σείς, ώπα. Χόλντ γιόρ χόρσες,που λέτε κι εσείς εδώ. Θα τα βρούμε κάπως. Η αυτοκρατορία διαλύεται. Φτιάχτε εσείς όσες χώρες θέλετε, όπως τις θέλετε, θα φτιαξουμε κι εμείς μια μικρή χώρα για μας, στους πατρογονικούς τόπους μας. Κι όσους δικούς μας θέλουν να φύγουν απο τα χωριά τους, όπου κι άν είναι, θα τους πάρουμε. Κι όσοι από σάς θέλετε να μείνετε, θα τα βρούμε κάπως, αλλά εμείς θα κάνουμε τους δικούς μας νόμους γιατί στα σύνορα της μικρής μας χώρας που θέλουμε να κάνουμε, είμαστε πιά πλειοψηφία. Κι όσοι λίγοι απο μάς θέλουν να παραμείνουν στα καταλύματά τους στις δικές σας χώρες, να τους μεριμνήσετε, όπως κι εμείς τα χλωμά πρόσωπα που θα ζούν στη χώρα μας. Εντάξει; Ντίλ;

- Άρχοντες των Χλωμών Προσώπων (ΑΧΠ): Με καμία δύναμη λέμε! Θα κάτσετε στις δικές μας νέες χώρες και θα αποφασίζουμε εμείς για σας. Δέν θα κάνετε δική σας χώρα στη γή μας.

- ΕΤΕ:Ορίστε; Στη γή σας;

- ΑΧΠ: Ναί ρε! Στη γή μας! Να πάτε πίσω στις χώρες απ’όπου ήρθατε. Άσταδιαλα.

- ΕΤΕ: Καλά, πάμε πρώτα μια βόλτα απ’τα Ηνωμένα Έθνη, που έχουν έρθει για καφέ, να δούμε τι θα πούν κι αυτοί;

- ΑΧΠ: Πάμε, αλλά ότι και να πούν, στα τέτοια μας.

- Ηνωμένα Έθνη: Χάλοου ντάρλινγκς. Φτιάξτε χώρες όσες θέτε και η μια θα είναι για τους επιστρέφοντες, αυτό είναι το σωστό, αλλά να είστε όλοι αγαπημένοι και να μη μαλώνετε. Εμείς φεύγουμε, καλή τύχη.

- ΕΤΕ:Οκ, έγινε, φτιάξαμε χώρα. Να σταματήσουμε να μαλώνουμε τώρα και θα τα βρούμε κάπως.

- ΑΧΠ: Τώρα θα φάτε καλά! Πόλεμος! Θα σας πετάξουμε στη θάλασσα!

(Λίγο αργότερα …) 

- Χλωμό Πρόσωπο #1: Ώχ, μας πετάξανε στη θάλασσα οι καρμίρηδες. 

- Χλωμό Πρόσωπο #2: Και τώρα δεν μας δέχονται πίσω. Πώπω, καταστροφή. Χάσαμε τα σπίτια μας. 

-Χλωμό Πρόσωπο #3: Ούτε οι διπλανοί που φτιάξαν κράτη μας θέλουν. Και τώρα; 

-Χλωμό Πρόσωπο #4: Έ, μια στραβή ήταν, θα τους γα**σουμε! Τους αποικιοκράτες, τους νεο-κατακτητές, αυτοί φταίνε για όλα. Ο Τσίζους είναι μαζί μας, κατά τας γραφάς. Πάμε άλλη μία… 

Κι έτσι που λέτε καλά μου παιδιά είχανε στο περίπου τα πράγματα.

Και ζήσανε αυτοί σκ*τά κι εμείς καλύτερα. 

Προς το παρόν.

You Keep Using That Word: 'Settler-Colonial'

There’s a fashionable framework, imported from Western academia, that likes to slap the label “settler-colonialism” onto the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It’s tidy. It’s ideological. And I think it’s about as accurate as seeing the starving Irish who fled the Great Famine and washed up in Boston as nefarious agents of the British Empire. I’m exaggerating of course, but humor me while we explore it.

Originally, this concept was invoked to describe real imperial expansions: British Australia, the American frontier, apartheid South Africa. There’s a metropole that sends its people to settle, extract, dominate, and, when circumstances call, eliminate. Land is taken. Natives are displaced and/or killed. Wealth flows to the imperial center. Sometimes resistance eventually uproots the settlers and the metropole is forced to concede and withdraw, as happened with the French in Algeria. Other times, the settler colony breaks from the metropole and a new nation is born. That’s the model.

Apply it wholesale to Israel and you get a narrative that’s sufficiently complex and emotionally satisfying, but one that’s historically problematic. Worse still, it doesn’t just misread the past; it actively undermines the present, narrowing the prospects for resolution by flattening a tragic clash of national movements into a one-dimensional morality play. And beneath its righteous surface, it carries a neo-colonially racist logic, one that erases Palestinian agency, casting them as passive objects of history rather than political actors in their own right.

Ok, so let’s walk through this ugly mess together, slowly.

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1. No metropole

The first red flag is the absence of an empire calling the shots. In traditional settler colonies, the motherland pulls the strings. But in the case of Zionism, there is no “motherland.” Jews didn’t arrive in Palestine as imperial agents. They were dodging pogroms, fleeing the ashes of Europe, observing the collapse of the Ottoman empire. British policy first approved but then restrained Jewish immigration, culminating in the 1939 White Paper, which slammed the gates shut on Europe’s Jews right as the Holocaust loomed. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of colonial backing.

By 1947, the British were forcibly turning back refugee ships and sending Holocaust survivors back to camps in Germany. Look up or Google the Exodus affair.

The idea that Israel is a colony is not just wrong; it’s grotesquely weaponized to serve a particular narrative. It ignores that Jews were stateless and often unwelcome even where they lived. They weren’t exporting empires. They were clawing for survival.

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2. Not an invasion

What makes Israel particularly complicated is that the Jews weren’t strangers to this land. The historical memory runs deep: Jerusalem, Judea, the Second Temple. These are words with deep meaning that have been the cornerstone of Jewish identity for millennia. The land is littered with monuments of ancient Jewish civilization. Yes, Muslim ones too, and Christian. History is layered, one does not negate the other.

Yes, many Zionists came from Europe. But many more came later from Baghdad, Fez, Aleppo, and Cairo, fleeing Arab nationalism or Islamic backlash. These weren't conquistadors in fancy hats. They were also refugees.

Ok, here’s a thought experiment: Imagine if the Native Americans were exiled from their lands, scattered across the world and persecuted for centuries. All the while keeping their traditions and historical memory alive. And then returned. Not as conquerors, but as a people trying to re-establish a homeland in their ancestral lands during an opportune global moment of imperial collapse and national reawakening. Would you call it “settler-colonialism”?

The re-emergence of Jewish desire for sovereignty happened in parallel with Arab, Armenian, Greek, and Kurdish national movements while the Ottoman Empire was disintegrating. But it was not driven by the same forces. It was primarily driven by the realization and urgency of rising hostility in the lands where they had lived for centuries, always as outsiders. Not every national movement succeeded. Some clashed. Some bled. But none of them fit cleanly into the settler-colonial mold. Including this one.

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3. “A land without a people”?

One enduring myth is that Zionists saw Palestine as empty. That is not true. Some early pamphlets were naive and romanticized, but serious Zionist leaders knew otherwise and wrestled with the implications. Ahad Ha’am, in 1891, warned that Arabs “see and understand what we are doing.” Jabotinsky’s “Iron Wall” (1923) assumed Arab resistance, not erasure, and argued that only when Jews were seen as permanent would moderates agree to concessions. He saw a path to coexistence:

"Not till then will they drop their extremist leaders whose watchword is 'Never!' And the leadership will pass to the moderate groups, who will approach us with a proposal that we should both agree to mutual concessions. Then we may expect them to discuss honestly practical questions, such as a guarantee against Arab displacement, or equal rights for Arab citizens, or Arab national integrity. And when that happens, I am convinced that we Jews will be found ready to give them satisfactory guarantees, so that both peoples can live together in peace, like good neighbours."

Before 1947, there were no mass expulsions, no destroyed villages, no Nakba. Jews and Arabs lived in uneasy coexistence, fractured by violence. Much of that violence fell on Jews: the Jerusalem riots of 1920, the Jaffa riots of 1921, the massacres in Hebron and Safed in 1929. During the Arab Revolt of 1936–39, hundreds of Jews were killed, and Jewish militias retaliated in kind. Bloody episodes, yes, but not a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Until the British imposed restrictions in 1939, much of the land was purchased legally, often from absentee landlords, though some Arab tenants were displaced. Not seized. Not looted. That distinction matters because it speaks to intent.

By 1937, in the midst of the Arab Revolt, the British Peel Commission proposed partition as a compromise: one state Jewish (about 17% of Mandate Palestine), one state Arab (the rest, minus a British corridor around Jerusalem). The Zionist leadership was bitterly divided; many had hoped for more, but the Congress authorized continued negotiations, albeit reluctantly. The Arab Higher Committee unanimously rejected it outright. They refused any division that included Jewish sovereignty and proposed instead an independent Arab state, with protections for the Jewish minority, while demanding a halt to Jewish immigration and a stop to land sales. Two years later, the British White Paper slammed the gates, just as some Arab leaders, most notoriously the exiled Grand Mufti, began aligning with Nazi Germany.

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4. 1947–49: The war, the flight, the catastrophe(s)

As Britain prepared to abandon the Mandate in 1947, Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin summed it up in Parliament: “His Majesty's Government have thus been faced with an irreconcilable conflict of principles… For the Jews, the essential point of principle is the creation of a sovereign Jewish state. For the Arabs, the essential point of principle is to resist to the last the establishment of Jewish sovereignty in any part of Palestine.”

Britain washed its hands of the Mandate, passing the question to the UN. Resolution 181 was another shot at compromise: partition again. Two states. The Jewish Agency accepted. Arab leaders rejected it outright and mobilized. In May 1948, five Arab armies, Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq invaded the nascent state of Israel, because any form of independent Jewish state was unacceptable.

What followed was catastrophe. For Palestinians, the Nakba. Some 700,000 people displaced, hundreds of villages depopulated. But also for Jews across the Arab world, who were expelled or fled en masse. Around 800,000 of them. Hundreds of thousands ended up in Israel, swelling its population with people who had no European passports, no foreign motherland, no “metropole” to lean on.

If all of these people were “settlers,” they were the strangest kind: persecuted, stateless, homeless, and broken.

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5. The framing that blocks the solution

And this, perhaps, is the most damning thing about the settler-colonial framing: it makes peace impossible.

Because if Israel is a colonial project, then the only acceptable “solution” is its dismantling. No partition. No recognition. No compromise. Just return and reversal.

That may feel righteous to some, but every serious peace effort, whether Clinton in 2000, Geneva in 2003, or Olmert–Abbas in 2008, was built on mutual recognition, reparations, land-swaps, and partition. Two states, not “decolonization”.

An obvious objection is that this isn’t about erasure, but about equality and universalism: one democratic state, no state religion, equal rights for all. What’s the problem?

The problem is that this vision demands the end of Jewish self-determination, dressed in the language of liberal principle. It imagines decades of war, trauma, and clashing national identities can be resolved by folding everyone into a single, post-national flag. But “equality” that abolishes one people’s independence isn’t peace. It’s rejectionism dressed up in respectable clothing.

The maximalist return narrative necessarily obliterates Jewish self-determination and guarantees permanent conflict. It’s a morality tale that celebrates continued rejectionism and subverts any hope for what Palestinians themselves have long demanded: an independent Palestinian state.

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6. Not invaders, not demons, but no saints either

None of this is to say Israel is faultless. It isn’t. Occupation corrodes. Nationalism blinds. And yes, historical trauma can become a blunt weapon if not examined honestly. Israel also has a lot to answer for and continuously wrestles with its identity.

But if we want to talk seriously about peace, we have to understand what this conflict is *not*. It is *not* a replay of white settlers landing on native shores in the name of Queen and Country. It is *not* a story of Europeans extracting value from foreign soil.

It’s a story of two peoples, each with competing historical claims and wounds, colliding in the same space at the same time. One returning, one rooted. One exiled, one present. Both now native. Both scarred. Both stuck. And increasingly radicalized.

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Bottom line?

Zionism didn’t flow from Empire. It rose from statelessness and persecution. Jews weren’t foreign to the land. They were of it, culturally, historically. And 1948 didn’t unfold in some colonial boardroom, it erupted in the ashes of empire and the chaos of war.

Call it tragic. Call it complex. But don’t stick a fancy label on it and call it something that it wasn’t. Don’t presume to know better than Israelis who they are and where they come from, and proceed to lecture them about it. Don’t distort what they tell you to fit your preferred narrative. 

Palestinians and Israelis have their own voices and they are valid, and important, and contradictory, and they matter. Afford them the dignity to listen when they tell you about who they are, and what they want. Not just the intellectual elites in the diaspora. But the voices of ordinary people, on the ground. 

When you deploy the settler-colonial framework to Israelis, you aren’t just arguing about history, you are failing to understand how they understand themselves. You are ignoring how they self-determine. And by doing so, you draw the wrong conclusions about how to engage with them effectively. If you persist in engaging people in terms they reject, you will only ever reach dead-ends.

Unless, of course, your goal isn’t understanding and resolution, but elimination, of one or the other, or both. And then the labels start to make a terrible kind of sense.

But it leads nowhere. Except back to the blood.

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Post-scriptum: Post-1967 and when the analogy begins to fit

Now that I’ve probably pissed off friends and family on one side, let me risk pissing off friends and family on the other. In for a penny, in for a pound. Social isolation must be the fate I’m building for myself.

If the "settler-colonial" shoe doesn’t fit the founding of Israel, the concept begins to gain some traction after 1967. West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights came under Israeli control, a temporary measure, to ensure security, the world was told. Yet the occupation was never rolled back. Nor were those territories formally annexed with equal rights extended to all. The situation calcified. Settlements sprang up and started expanding. These were not refugee camps or revival villages, but state-subsidized enclaves, often built on contested or privately owned Palestinian land. Security was the stated rationale. Permanence was the apparent political goal. 

Inside these territories, two populations now live under two legal systems. One votes in Israeli elections; the other is governed by military law. Roads, permits, courts, property rights, everything bifurcated. The Palestinian Authority’s autonomy is fragmented, conditional, and ultimately subordinate to Israeli control. When a democracy behaves like a landlord with a favoured tenant, it invites precisely the colonial analogies it claims to refute. Trust erodes. Legitimacy frays.

I can already hear the objections: but Hamas! Terrorism! And yes, the failures of Palestinian leadership have ranged from tragic miscalculations to outright betrayal. Opportunities for negotiated compromise have been squandered. Civilians have been targeted alongside soldiers. Terrible war crimes have been committed. An angry, zero-sum politics has often prevailed where painful compromise might have been possible. But none of this justifies an endless occupation and the slow-motion annexation of territory. 

Zionism began as a movement for national self-determination. Post-1967 expansionism is something else entirely. It distorts the original vision into a kind of nationalist overreach that threatens Israel’s future. A people who returned to their homeland as survivors risk becoming rulers by habit and occupiers by inertia. If Israel continues down this path, as it is currently doing, the question won’t be whether it was a settler colony, but whether it has chosen to become one.

[For a more comprehensive treatment of both Israeli and Palestinian narratives, including structural critiques, see my earlier piece: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Beyond Traditional Narratives.]

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Further Reading & References

• Morris, Benny. Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist–Arab Conflict, 1881‑1999 (Vintage Books edition 2001)

• Shafir, Gershon. Land, Labor, and the Origins of the Israeli‑Palestinian Conflict, 1882‑1914 (1989)

• Segev, Tom. One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate (2000)

• Khalidi, Rashid. The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917‑2017 (2020)

• Karsh, Efraim. Palestine Betrayed (2010)

• Halevi, Yossi Klein. Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor (2018)

• Yakobson, Alexander & Rubinstein, Amnon. Israel and the Family of Nations: The Jewish Nation‑State and Human Rights (2008)

The IAGS Vote and Specific Intent

I’m a wishy-washy liberal of the Stephen Fry variety—emotionally allergic to absolutism, and annoyingly attached to being precise with words, even when it gets me eye-rolls, as it often does.

Yes, yes, no one cares what an astronomer thinks about politics and it makes no difference. But it may make conversations with me easier.

So, Gaza. Here are my thoughts, dear friends, and you owe me a penny.

(Longish post, again. TLDR at the end.)

1. The IAGS resolution: what it is (and what it isn’t)

IAGS, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, recently passed a resolution calling what’s happening in Gaza a genocide. It went through a 30-day ballot and a majority of those who voted (about a ¼ of all its members) supported it. It was reported all over the media.

But : this is not a court ruling or the result of a peer-reviewed forensic investigation. IAGS membership is broad—students, activists, educators, scholars, even artists. No credential checks. You can join for as low as $30. Think of it as a professional association vote (of scholars, flutists, and flower arrangers), not an ICJ verdict. Does it carry some weight? Sure, I guess. It’s a data point with huge uncertainties. Put it there, with the rest of the data points.

2. Why I hesitate to use “genocide” (for now)

This isn’t about minimizing horror—there’s no shortage of that (and not just in Gaza).

But “genocide” has a strict legal meaning. It requires not just mass killing or cruelty, but specific intent (dolus specialis) to destroy a group as such. That’s a very high evidentiary bar, and intentionally so. Not every atrocity is genocide. Not every war crime is genocide.

The ICJ has ordered provisional measures, saying the case is *plausible* under the Genocide Convention. In legal speak: “this needs scrutiny,” not “this is proven.”

3. What I condemn without hesitation

• Hamas’s October 7 massacre and hostage-taking: terrible war crimes, just horrifying.

• The massive destruction and civilian death toll in Gaza—and the absence of any serious day-after plan: also horrifying.

• Credible allegations of indiscriminate force and starvation as a weapon of war. This should alarm everyone.

• Urban warfare is messy, yes—but that does not excuse violations of the laws of war.

All of these things can and should be investigated and prosecuted under international law, without needing to “upgrade” them to genocide for moral weight.

4. Why language matters

Words don’t just describe reality, they shape it. They drive policy, diplomacy, and public opinion.

So who does it hurt if we use “genocide” a little too eagerly?

Well, for one, it risks dulling the concept. If “genocide” gets thrown around too loosely, people start to tune it out, and future victims may struggle to get recognition when the evidence truly fits.

Secondly, it risks politicization. When the term is used prematurely or sloppily, it becomes a rhetorical weapon, not a legal judgment. That can harden positions and make negotiation harder.

Thirdly, it risks backlash. If courts or independent investigations later conclude “war crimes, yes; genocide, no,” then survivors and advocates may feel doubly betrayed—first by the atrocity, then by the narrowing of the charge.

Fourthly, it risks obscuring other crimes. War crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing—these are all serious, prosecutable categories. Over-focusing on genocide can eclipse them, as though anything “less” is somehow less urgent.

On the other hand, if we are never willing to call something genocide, we risk moral cowardice and abandonment of victims.

So I try to be careful. Not timid—careful.

5. Experts don’t agree

Respected voices arguing for genocide include Raz Segal, Omer Bartov, Francesca Albanese, William Schabas, among others.

Respected voices urging caution include Menachem Rosensaft, Deborah Lipstadt, Stefan Talmon, Marko Milanovic, and others.

You may well object and dismiss some of them on this list citing various concerns, but I just mentioned them as examples, there are many more experts to be found on either side. Take your pick.

We can disagree with their conclusions, and acknowledge their individual biases, but we can’t dismiss their expertise. The fact remains that reasonable, well-meaning people, including genocide scholars, still disagree on whether the threshold has been met yet.

6. What would change my mind?

• Clearer, corroborated evidence of state-level or command-level intent to destroy a group as such.(1)

• A ruling on the merits by the ICJ or ICC.

• Independent investigations—transparent, professional, and accountable.

7. So what now?

Support a conditional ceasefire: stop the killing, release the hostages, disarm Hamas, establish security, get aid in. Not necessarily in that order. (I wrote another post on this, I won’t repeat it here.)

Let independent investigators establish the facts. That’s how we get to truth, accountability, and maybe—someday—a political resolution.

Most importantly, whatever we believe personally, ICJ and ICC rulings, when they come, will shape real-world consequences.

TLDR version:

I’m not calling it genocide right now, because that word has a specific legal meaning tied to specific intent, and I’m not convinced that threshold is met—yet. That could change.

What I am sure of is this: war crimes are happening, too many civilians are dying, and justice demands facts, not slogans.

[Your friendly neighborhood astronomer.]

1

No, not just hateful rhetoric from extremist ministers or fringe voices. Statements like those from Smotrich or Ben Gvir are abhorrent, but unless clearly tied to operational policy, they don’t meet the legal threshold for genocide. Hamas, meanwhile, has openly said October 7 will happen “again and again” until Israel is gone. Should that also count as official Palestinian policy?