Gaza genocide: Global North's premeditated crime

ISRAEL would "form a part of a wall of defence for Europe in Asia, an outpost of civilisation against barbarism". This was how Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism - the Jewish response to Christian Europe's antisemitism, couched his idea of Israel to win the hearts and minds of European powers that were no strangers to settler colonialism.

- By Dr. Ameer Ali

Just as Europe justified its conquest and colonisation of Americas, Africa and Asia five centuries ago as mission civilisatrice designed to pull the indigenous, uncivilised and barbaric communities out into the world of modernity and civilisation so was Herzl selling his future Israel as a blessing in disguise to barbaric Palestine. "It is their wellbeing, their individual wealth, which we will increase by bringing in our own," he added.

Thus, colonisation of Palestine by Zionists was presented as continuation of Europe's own historic mission. Even the degrading epithets "human animals" and "cockroaches" for example, which Israeli politicians and military men employ today to dehumanise Palestinians are no different from the ones such as "savages", "barbarians" and "cannibals" employed by European colonialists.

Once the Europeans conquered the lands of the indigenous, guns and cannons were readily employed to subdue any rebellious leaders and their followers. Wholesale massacres and genocide of natives were more the rule than exception in the history of colonialism. The bloody history of colonial America is its best illustration.

Frontier of Global North's imperial expansion