Let’s be honest: calling Israel a “colonial project” is like calling my Polish grandma’s pierogi a weapon of war—technically possible, but utterly deranged. The comparison collapses the moment you apply even the gentlest breeze of past. Jewish people didn’t arrive in the land of Israel with muskets, monocles, and imperial blueprints. They came home. After millennia of exile, pogroms, ghettos—gas chambers—and in some cases; very long queues at immigration.
Unlike the classic European colonialists who went swanning around the globe to pinch spices and gold, the Jewish community returned to their ancestral homeland and, in many cases, actually bought the land they settled on. Imagine the audacity of trying to pay for something instead of seizing it by musket and manifesto...
But that’s not how the modern storyline wants it told. We’re stuck in an ideological blender imported from Western universities—where timeline has been flattened into a two-column spreadsheet: oppressors on one side, the oppressed on the other. And no room for historical nuance, thank you very much.
In this binary Disneyland, Jews (historically speaking)—who’ve been booted, butchered—and banished from virtually every corner of the planet—are cast as villains. As if coming back to the only home that ever truly had a mezuzah on the doorframe makes you the neighbourhood thug... Please.
Before the 1960s; there was no unified “Palestinian” identity as we know it. Most Arabs in the area identified as Syrians, Jordanians, or members of this or that clan. The term “Palestine” was more of a postal convenience than a national consciousness. It wasn’t until Israel became a geopolitical inconvenience that a retroactive national identity was minted—and even then—largely as a tool to frame Jewish people as invaders.
This wasn’t a historical evolution. It was a version of events weapon. And let’s be clear: I’m not denying anyone’s right to self-determination or dignity... But when historical record is rewritten with the finesse of a first-draft TikTok manifesto, the actual record becomes the casualty.
The fabrication of Jewish foreign dominance is not just historically false—it’s dangerous. It fuels antisemitism, empowers extremist ideologies—and reduces an ancient—multi-layered territory into a cartoonish battle between evil occupiers and innocent victims... Convenient; sure. Accurate? Not remotely.
Let’s zoom out for a second. The Arab world spans over 20 countries, with millions of square miles and oceans of oil... The Jewish world has one tiny state—smaller than Wales—and I should know, I once got lost hiking in both. And yet, somehow, it’s Israel that’s seen as the regional bully.
Words matter... They’re the storyboards of our collective consciousness. When you start with a fabrication—you end up scripting reality in its image... That’s why “Palestine” isn’t just a name—it’s a Trojan horse. And once it’s wheeled in; out pour the claims that erase Jewish time, deny Jewish trauma, and justify Jewish isolation.
As someone who’s wrestled with hate not just on film sets but on pavements and screens, I know how seductive false storylines can be. They offer clarity in a messy world. But clarity built on fiction isn’t clarity—it’s propaganda in a tailored jacket.
We need to stop mistaking storyline for reality. Historical justice can’t be achieved by burying one people’s past to elevate another’s. If we want long-term calm—and I assume that’s still on the table—it has to begin with honesty. Not hashtags. Not half-truths.
Israel isn’t a colonial project. It’s the return of a people who never gave up on home. That may not fit neatly into the activist slogan du jour—but historical record rarely does. And frankly, it’s time we got comfortable with nuance again.