Talk:Zionism as settler colonialism

Analysis of original source

1. The Iron Wall does not include this quotation, as can be easily checked by checking source material.
2. For The Iron Law, see further down.
3. The Hidden History of Zionism, which the book claimed is where the quote was taken from, does not include the quote. See the chapter talking about The Iron Wall.
4. It is a bit odd that two essays are being cited, I believe it is due to the citation being partially stolen from The Iron Wall: Zionist revisionism from Jabotinsky to Shamir in an attempt to make it more verifiable. I investigated that source below.

Since its addition, the source has been removed and was replaced by others. These are: Liu, James H. (2022). Collective Remembering and the Making of Political Culture; Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi (1992) Original Sins: Reflections on the History of Zionism and Israel; Masalha, Nur (9 February 2012). The Palestine Nakba: Decolonising History, Narrating the Subaltern and Donald E. Wagner, Walter T. Davis (2014). Zionism and the Quest for Justice in the Holy Land'. The quote does not appear in Masalha's book, so there is nothing to investigate there.

Investigation of Liu, James H (2022), Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi (1992) and Donald E. Wagner, Walter T. Davis (2014)

For the quotation, both Liu, James H (2022) and Donald E. Wagner, Walter T. Davis (2014) cite Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi (1992). All of these citations are one single source. Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi (1992) itself cites another book called The Iron Wall: Zionist revisionism from Jabotinsky to Shamir by Lenni Brenner (1984). Brenner cites Jabotinsky, ‘The Iron Law’, Selected Writings, (South Africa), p. 26 as a source for the quote. However, this essay does not exist, as a search in Jabotinsky's archive reveals. So it appears that all of these sources contain a quote without a source. Source found

I have removed all these (except Masalha) from the page.

Best, NorthernWinds (talk) 09:52, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

For interest for this mystery, this interesting discussion and a convenience link to Lenni Brenner's book. There is also this from Jabotinsky's archive, but the pdf download doesn't work for me. Sean.hoyland (talk) 11:12, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Interesting.

The link does contain the essay and the quote, but it is said that the essay was written by Rosh Betar in 1926. I am assuming the translation from Betar is correct In 1931, Jabotinsky was elected rosh Betar ("head of Betar") at the first world conference in Danzig.

According to Jan Zouplna, While Jabotinsky became head of Betar in January 1929, the actual organization had been founded at the turn of April to May 1923 by a young activist, Aron Propes.^[1] So it seems like this quote does exist, it just does not belong to Jabotinsky. Mystery solved?

Best, NorthernWinds (talk) 12:41, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

@NorthernWinds, shouldn't you restore what you removed at this point? IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 18:02, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

@IOHANNVSVERVS, I'm told NW is on enforced wikibreak right now and won't be able to respond for some time. -- asilvering (talk) 18:27, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. I reverted their edit which appears to have been acknowledged as erroneous. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 18:42, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Thank you,

I've replaced the secondary sources with the primary source.

wikibreak ended sooner than expected.

Best, NorthernWinds (talk) 21:04, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

@IOHANNVSVERVS I have re-added the primary source but I still believe that the other sources I originally removed are inappropriate to come after this statement as if they support it, specially for liu, who wrote (on the extended quote that included both 'adventure' and calls to pick up arms) that "Such bald language did not sit well with more peaceful mainstream Labour Zionists in the 1920s..." and did not discuss the usage of the term by Zionists at all. Best, NorthernWinds (talk) 22:33, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

To editor NorthernWinds: I agree with the remove of "colonization adventure" and sources that are only there to support it, but you removed other stuff from the footnote as well. Jabotinsky did consider Zionism to be a colonizing venture and in The Iron Wall this is direct and explicit. Some of it has to go back. Zero^talk 13:18, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

The footnotes with excerpts were one case of usage by one Jabotinsky and another discussed the usage in right-wing Zionism; only Masalha discussed the usage of the term by Zionists in general. Considering that most leaders were leftist/socialist, I don't think that a source focusing on right-wing Zionist leaders is appropriate for such generalization. As to Jabotinsky, it can be cited as an example but not as a footnote supporting the statement it originally followed.

Best, NorthernWinds (talk) 13:33, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

The sentence "Many of the fathers of Zionism themselves described it as colonisation" is actually very weak. It would be more interesting to know of a "father of Zionism" who didn't call it colonisation. The usage was completely ubiquitous. Pinkser did it, Nordau did it, Weizmann did it, Sokolow did it, Ben-Gurion did it. The minutes of the Zionist congresses call it colonization hundreds of times. Zero^talk 13:54, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

It would be more interesting to know of a "father of Zionism" who didn't call it colonisation Very possibly Moses Gaster. He wrote “Zionism means a resettling of Jews in their own ancient home, not the establishment of a colony or a number of colonies.” NorthernWinds (talk) 15:11, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Yes, many "fathers of Zionism" said such things. But it isn't the full story. Gaster was the leader of the Colonization Committee (Colonisations-Commission) established by the 3rd Zionist Congress and permanently (ständiger Colonisations-Ausschuss) by the 4th Zionist Congress. From his report to the 4th congress on the work of the committee [Protokoll, p272]: "Wir haben versucht, mit allen colonisatorischen jüdischen Vereinen Fühlung zu nehmen. Wir haben allen die Liebe zur Arbeit entgegengebracht. Wir haben gezeigt, dass wir Hand in Hand gehen wollen mit ihnen." [We have tried to establish contact with all the Jewish colonizing associations. We have shown them our enthusiasm for the work. We have demonstrated our willingness to work hand in hand with them.] Zero^talk 02:46, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Well, I don't think that calling organizations by their name should count. I am sure he used the word daily since it was widely used, but the question is did he use it in his essays. I have personally been able to locate only one. NorthernWinds (talk) 21:06, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

"I am sure he used the word daily since it was widely used, but the question is did he use it in his essays." What is the logic of this? IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 21:25, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

In your essay you convey your opinion, in reality you communicate using terms everyone use.

For example, many use terms like "Human Resources," but I am sure that a lot of them do not view them merely as "resources" but as people too. NorthernWinds (talk) 21:41, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

This is both illogical as well as moving the goal posts. You said Moses Gatner was an early Zionist who didn't call it colonization. Now you acknowledge "he used the word daily [...] but the question is did he use it in his essays." IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 21:47, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

I don't think this is moving the goal post.

I believe I initially miscommunicated. I intended to say that he did not charectarize Zionism as such, not that he did not use the term. In the essay I quoted it is very clear he distinguished Zionism from regular colonization (It cannot be without a specific character of its own, and it must be distinguished, say, from an English or a French colony. See essay in Zionism and the Jewish future)

I also did not authoritatively say he did not use the term, but instead opted to "very possibly" because I have only been able to find two pieces in which he expresses an opinion, and there could be more. NorthernWinds (talk) 22:03, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

It's irrelevant whether he used the term in his essays specifically. You say "In your essay you convey your opinion" but people frequently lie and dissimulate in their writings, so I don't see the logic of this argument/point. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 21:51, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

I did not take potential misleading writing into account. I am currently seeking more writings by him (specifically his memoirs) which may reveal more, but none of the sources I was able to find were any more reliable than these. NorthernWinds (talk) 22:14, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

It's somewhat bizarre to imagine that a person who is the chair of the Colonization Committee and praises the work of the colonizing societies might not actually believe that Zionism is an example of colonization. More to the point, quotation from the Birmingham Daily Post, 14 April 1900: "The ball has been set rolling; nothing will ever stop it. It may be checked for a whole, but the history of Zionism during the past fifty years has shown unmistakably that it is a forward movement. Beginning in the form of a charitable work for Palestinian Jews, it soon expanded into the colonisation of Palestine with Jews from other countries". Incidentally, you didn't tell us where your quotation came from. Zero^talk 11:20, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Incidentally, you didn't tell us where your quotation came from did here

it soon expanded into the colonisation of Palestine with Jews from other countries I stand corrected. NorthernWinds (talk) 13:29, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't notice that you sourced your quotation (I searched high and low ;). But I believe you misread it. Gaster is using "colonies" in the meaning of "settlements" and is saying that Zionism doesn't just mean the establishment of a few colonies. This is clearer in Sokolow's recount of a Gaster speech in "History of Zionism", vol 2, p109 (however it is Sokolow's paraphrase, not a direct quote): "What they [Zionists] wished to obtain in Palestine was not merely a right to establish colonies, or educational, cultural, or industrial institutions. They wanted to establish in Palestine an autonomous Jewish Commonwealth in the fullest sense of the word." Overall, though, it is true that Gaster used "resettle" more often than "colonize". Zero^talk 08:51, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

For interest, you can see the displacement of 'colonies' by 'settlements' in the google n-gram viewer, with the cross over around 1948. Sean.hoyland (talk) 09:54, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

That's really interesting. Speaks to how these terms changed their meanings before and after the Partition/founding/Nakba, which should also caution us against understanding older usages anachronistically BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:31, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Yes and no. The fact that Zionists called their settlements "colonies" is not important and that usage still exists (if we establish a base on Mars it will be called a colony for sure). However, this is different from the widespread, near universal, Zionist description of their project as one of colonization. Colonization for them was more than just establishing colonies. Zero^talk 01:48, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

@Zero0000 Following this discussion I've spilled way too much time meant to prepare for tests but I believe it has yielded results — according to Gemini translation, Zvi Hirsch Kalischer did not use the word "colonization," although he did use "colony" (Moshava). NorthernWinds (talk) 16:25, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

@NorthernWinds Kalischer was a member of the society Colonisationsverein für Palästina founded by Hayyim Lorje. Also see vol 2 of Sokolow's History of Zionism, page 262. Zero^talk 06:31, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

This is pretty interesting, but still nothing on the usage of “colonization.” The book, by the way, is out of copyright, so I can share if anyone wants. NorthernWinds (talk) 07:18, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

I must've been blind when I wrote this. The usage of the word is right there. Pardon NorthernWinds (talk) 20:54, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Colonization for them was more than just establishing colonies I think it is more accurate to say that for them Zionism was more than colonization NorthernWinds (talk) 20:05, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

@Bobfrombrockley which should also caution us against understanding older usages anachronistically Currently if you click the link where it says “Zionists... described Zionism as colonization,” you find that colonization is exploitive, which is not what Zionists meant when they said it. See Selig Brodetsky’s speech where he says “We are not in Palestine as exploiters of cheap labor and Jews do not want a Jewish upper stratum and an Arab lower stratum in the economic system of Palestine.” Also these quotes (long quotes made small to not take up space):

• Our settlers do not come here as do the colonists from the Occident to have natives do their work for them; they themselves set their shoulders to the plow and they spend their strength and their blood to make the land fruitful. But it is not only for ourselves that we desire its fertility. The Jewish farmers have begun to teach their brothers, the Arab farmers, to cultivate the land more intensively; we desire to teach them further: together with them we want to cultivate the land to ‘serve’ it, as the Hebrew has it. The more fertile this soil becomes, the more space there will be for us and for them. We have no desire to dispossess them: we want to live with them. We do not want to dominate them: we want to serve with them
  • M. Buber, open letter to Gandhi, The Zionist Idea p. 464.
• It is clear that this colonization has nothing in common with the politics of colonial conquest, expansion, and exploitation. The Jewish people possessing no power of statecraft and seeking neither markets nor monopolies of raw materials for production in favor of a “mother country,” cannot think of launching a policy of colonial politics in Palestine or of molesting the population of the country.
  • Ber Borochov, Poalei Tziyon Peace Manifesto, 1917.
• We do not want to create a situation like that which exists in South Africa, where the whites are the owners and rulers, and the blacks are the workers. If we do not do all kinds of work, easy and hard, skilled and unskilled, if we become merely landlords, then this will not be our homeland.
  • David Ben-Gurion to Musa Alami 1934, quoted in Shabtai Teveth, Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs p. 140.
• A distinction should be drawn between colonial policy and colonization policy. Colonial policy is aimed primarily at exploiting the natural resources of a country, and is little concerned with its settlement. It has prejudicial results in various respects: the enrichment of a small group of European immigrants who establish enterprises in which natives do all the work; exploitation of the aborigines and creation of deep-lying differences between the two classes of the population. In the end, all this tends to check the development of a country, especially if it is thinly populated. Colonization policy, on the contrary, is bound up with settlement on a large scale: room must be found for the largest possible number of immigrants who will take a personal share in every field of activity.
  • Avraham Grannot, quoted in Ilan Troen, Imagining Zion, (2003), p. 57.
• I saw the English colonies in Egypt. The English have introduced their administration there, capitalism, railways, post, telegraph; but if you ask the Arabs, who want to live under the rule of England, you will hear a negative answer, for the English seek their own good there and not the welfare of the people of the country. [...] Our role should be completely different from this, with this old world, with the world of the East, we should unite... Only by leaning on the East... will the people of Israel restore to it its glory as ancient times.
  • Menachem Ussishkin, “Third Journey to the Land of Israel,” Sefer Ussishkin, p. 133. (GPT translation)
• The essential goal of Zionism is not the idea of imperialistic capitalism, but of cooperation with the Arabs and the East in general.
  • Chaim Weizmann, 1 Nov 1936, letter to Leonce Bernheim, in The Letters and Papers Series A, Vol. XVII, p. 382.

... the list keeps on going

On a related note, this article by S. Ettinger in an official Zionist newspaper is also pretty interesting (See Civilizing mission, cited by some as a reason to not consider Zionism as colonialism). “We are confident that the government will ultimately be led to recognize that a completely satisfactory solution of the labor problem in Palestine will be found when the demand is acknowledged for an adequate share of employment and fair pay for Jewish labor on the one hand, and steps taken, on the other hand, to adjust the working conditions of the Arab worker to the higher standard of the Jewish laborer. Under the civilizing influence of Jewish settlement work in this country and of the struggle for workers’ rights by the Federation of Jewish Labor, the regime of old-time colonial exploitation will have to be finally abandoned for conditions more in keeping with trend of modern ideas.” NorthernWinds (talk) 21:45, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

Thank you. This needs to be reflected in the article. BobFromBrockley (talk) 23:45, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

Interpreting primary sources is literally WP:OR إيان (talk) 00:00, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Interpreting primary sources is a problem but most of these quotes are easily available in secondary sources and for major figures in Zionist history in particular I don’t think it’s a problem to directly quote the primary sources occasionally, as we do now with Nordau for example. Conversely, we shouldn’t be treating the interpretations of secondary sources as facts which can be expressed in wikivoice, as we currently do with John Collins for example. BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:41, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

we shouldn’t be treating the interpretations of secondary sources as facts which can be expressed in wikivoice Interpretations of something written in a secondary source or interpretations that a secondary source provides? John Collins is quoted word for word here, I see no instance of the interpretation of his book. It is also not stated in wikivoice. And in general Wikipedia does rely on secondary sources and can treat them as facts if there is a consensus of scholars/sources. NorthernWinds (talk) 08:21, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Which is why I published this in talk and not in the article, but it's not hard to find experts agreeing with me. See these citations for example^{[2][3][4][5][6]} NorthernWinds (talk) 05:44, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Also these^[7][8] in addition to existing refs on the page itself (including by those who think the paradigm applies) NorthernWinds (talk) 06:07, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

You seem to be confusing the difference between colonialism and settler colonialism. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 06:32, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

or maybe the problem is the way our current article blurs the distinction between several different senses of words with colon- in them. BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:35, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

@IOHANNVSVERVS No, even though those I cited do not consider Zionism as colonialism. The citations are there for what they say about exploitation, not whether Zionism is colonialism. There are also scholar who see it fit to characterize Zionism as settler colonialism (e.g. Sayegh) while saying it wasn't exploitive. The above is my two cents ("Currently if you click the link where it says “Zionists... described Zionism as colonization,” you find that colonization is exploitive, which is not what Zionists meant when they said it."). We should probably specify in the article that they meant non-exploitive colonization. NorthernWinds (talk) 07:12, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean.

The very first sentence in the Concepts section says: "In Patrick Wolfe's model, settler colonialism differs from classical colonialism in that it focuses on eliminating or removing, rather than exploiting, the original inhabitants of a territory." IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 08:26, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

The lead, however, says Zionists described Zionism as colonization. Clicking on colonization to learn what exactly they characterized Zionism as will lead you to a page saying that Colonization is a process of establishing control over areas or peoples for foreign people to advance their trade, cultivation, exploitation and possibly settlement. This may will mislead readers into believing Zionists said Zionism is exploitive NorthernWinds (talk) 08:33, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

That seems like something to be fixed at the colonization article. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 09:27, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

That article talks about colonization as it is defined and viewed today, not as how it was used back then. And does saying they described it as colonization even do justice to how they described it? There is only one, questionable source attached to this, Masalha, and he says “As Chapter 1 will show, for decades Zionists themselves used terms such as ‘colonisation’ (hityashvut) to describe their project in Palestine” but does not say that they described Zionism (as a whole) as colonization as defined by the dictionary. NorthernWinds (talk) 09:29, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

The quotation (continued)

Regarding the quote, I believe it is genuine. The 1962 compilation that "The Iron Law" appears in is called "The Selected Writings of Ze'ev Jabotinsky". The introduction says "It is with a great feeling of pride, and a sense of humility, that we, the South African Betar, have compiled a booklet containing selected writings of our beloved leader and teacher, Rosh Betar, Zeev Jabotinsky." The name "Rosh Betar" appears at the start of the article in a note from the compiler, not on the article itself as its author. So historical sleuthing about when exactly Jabotinsky became head of Betar is irrelevant and the article is presented explicitly as one by Jabotinsky. Given that it doesn't contain anything that is not Jabotinsky-like, there is no reason whatever to doubt it. Zero^talk 14:21, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Upon closer inspection it does seem like this is the book that is considered “missing” in the archive. It is still odd that there is no other record of this paper, but it seems like it is real. I’ve notified the archive of this find and hopefully the catalogue will be updated.

Best, NorthernWinds (talk) 15:24, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

The place field listed as "missing" likely refers to the place of publication though it would be interesting to know what the archive says. The PDF Sean.hoyland linked to contains The Selected Writing of Ze'ev Jabotinsky on pages 133 to 272. If that was split and linked to from the catalogue record that would aid discoverability. Richard Nevell (talk) 19:40, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Yes, "missing" definitely refers to place of publication in that schema as easily verified by looking at cases where the property is present. Sean.hoyland (talk) 03:37, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

It's possible that finding it elsewhere is hard because the original language wasn't English. That compilation only has English articles, despite Jabotinski having written in Russian, Yiddish and Hebrew as well. I suspect many are translations. Incidentally, Jabotinsky wrote an article called "On Adventurism" but I can only find a mention of it in another of his articles. Zero^talk 01:49, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

I'm curious what the source 'The Shahak Papers, no. 31' or maybe 'The Israel Shahak Papers, no. 31', "Collection on Jabotinsky: His Life and Excerpts from his Writings," p. 16' mentioned in the Reddit discussion, cited in various sources including UN documents refers to. The '31' is mysterious. There's 'Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights (The Shahak Papers)' which doesn't seem to help. Sean.hoyland (talk) 04:38, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

It seems like other works have been called "The Shahak Papers" as well. See "About the Translator" here. NorthernWinds (talk) 21:12, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

"On Adventurism" was a brief 1932 article in Yiddish. See Russian wikisource. Zero^talk 04:49, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Source representation issues and recent edits

@NorthernWinds, in response to your removal of the quote and your justification for it, @Sean.hoyland linked to Brenner citing it, and to a PDF from the Jabotinsky archive, though he said he could not access it himself.

You then responded by saying you had checked the PDF, that it does contain the quote and but that it was not authored by Jabotinsky but rather another figure who had the status of Rosh Betar, citing an unrelated source.

But if you look at the PDF the quote is from the Iron Law essay on page 26, which in turn is in Jabotinsky's Selected Writings, which is prefaced with: It is with a great feeling of pride, and a sense of humility, that we, the South African Betar, have compiled a booklet containing selected writings of our beloved leader and teacher, Rosh Betar, Zeev Jabotinsky. The PDF begins by stating explicitly that Jabotinsky is the Rosh Betar.

Furthermore, this exactly matches the Brenner source Sean cited: Jabotinsky's Selected Writings, Iron Law, page 26.

How could you have read the source and not seen this, and instead say it was not authored by Jabotinsky and then go find another source to make this point despite it not being true? Not only that but why did you continue arguing over it with @Zero and @IOHANNVSVERVS, and then remove the other secondary literature?

Additionally, I see you added Jeff Halper's analysis from his book Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine, which you summarised as: Jeff Halper said that Zionism went in the direction of Settler-Colonialism without a full understanding of what it may involve.

Personally I think that summarising Halper's thesis that way is SYNTH-ly attempting to weaken the analysis represented on this page, namely Zionism as settler colonialism. Halper's central thesis in that chapter, book and the page you cited is that regardless of whether the founders fully understood the implications, Zionism functioned as a deliberate and systematic settler-colonial project from its inception:

As it was, settler Zionism landed on the Arab population out of the blue. Although Palestinian resistance has had its effect on the Zionist project, the colonial system was conceived and executed exclusively for the benefit of the Jews, with no consideration for the those already living in Palestine. As Frantz Fanon noted, "The settler owes the fact of his very existence ... to the colonial system." (p. 32)

Depicting Zionism as a settler colonial project is therefore fair and useful...

Regardless, once Palestine became the object of settlement, Zionism, a foreign national movement, took on a settler colonial form with all the dire consequences to the indigenous Palestinians. (p. 34)

Quoting Yoav Peled's analysis approvingly: ...an examination of the Zionist discourse at the early stages of settlement reveals that a colonial terminology and colonial analogies were used openly by the Zionist settlers and by their sponsoring organizations. (p. 34)

For all that, Zionists never denied the colonial nature of their enterprise, describing themselves as colonists and settlers and their institutions as well. (p. 35)

As it was, the overarching aim of Zionism from its inception until our present day is clear and unchanging: to 'Judaize' Palestine, to transform an Arab country into a Jewish one, Palestine into the Land of Israel. (p. 40)

'Disappearing the Arabs lay at the heart of the Zionist dream,' writes Segev... 'and was also a necessary condition of its realization... With few exceptions, none of the Zionists disputed the desirability of forced transfer – or its morality.' p. 63

Your edit is a clear example of WP:CHERRYPICKING.

Then there is this edit you did, adding a primary source from Herzl's diary to weaken the claim about the use of colonial names. The Herzl diary quote is a primary source and is being used to complicate an argument about Zionism as settler colonialism. Per WP:PRIMARY and WP:SYNTH, primary sources should not be used to advance analytical conclusions unless supported by reliable secondary sources. If a historian has made this connection, it can be added with a proper citation; otherwise it constitutes original synthesis and undue weight.

Back to Halper, he wrote an entire book on the subject, and you added only one sentence from it, and it was to downplay and minimise the settler-colonial argument by cherry picking.

Yet you've now proceeded to dump large paragraphs of material from the other POV in the critiques section without any concern for WP:DUE or WP:WEIGHT. Disruptively (IMO) editing by dropping a gish-gallop onto the page and then saying oops I added a lot would someone please edit it is not very respectful of the process in CTOPs let alone the time of other editors.

The "Critiques of the framework" section now has grown to a size and level of detail that exceeds the description of the framework itself, which is the subject of the article. Per WP:UNDUE, WP:NPOV, WP:CRIT, WP:SUMMARYSTYLE, criticism sections should summarise major scholarly objections without overwhelming the article's main subject. Just in case: I don't think, for example, the provisions in WP:FRINGE apply here or justify these changes.

This article is specifically about Zionism as settler colonialism, not a general debate about Zionism or a comprehensive refutation of the framework. While scholarly critiques are appropriate, the current balance gives disproportionate weight to rebuttals and transforming the article into a point-counterpoint essay.

I have reverted these latest additions, so please obtain consensus for their inclusion by showing (1) Why you believe this content is worthy of inclusion and is not already covered (2) How you wish to include the content so that it adheres to our policies.

Now I see you have just come off a t-ban for violating NPOV in PIA in a very narrow vote, with admins saying they'd be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Can you please explain your edits here? Smallangryplanet (talk) 12:49, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

you have just come off a t-ban for violating NPOV this is not true. Can you please explain your edits here? Certainly. Please try to assume good faith; these questions could have been asked less confrontationally.

PDF the quote is from the Iron Law essay on page 26, which in turn is in Jabotinsky's Selected Writings The book starts later in the pdf, not in the beginning. Searching for the quote would overshoot and put you after that line you quoted. How could you have read the source and not seen this Search "adventure" until you find the quote, scroll up, see the title "The Iron Law" that says it was written by Rosh Betar, 1926. Naturally, I looked up who was Rosh Betar in 1926.

Not only that but why did you continue arguing over it Over what? I very clearly stated I was wrong following Zero's comment that prompted a closer look from me.

Personally I think that summarising Halper's thesis that way is SYNTH-ly attempting to weaken the analysis represented on this page I was trying to bring something new to the article; I think that detailing everything the author says will bloat the article with a lot of redundancy, which is why yesterday after I finished going over sources and adding them I asked people to shorten and remove said bloat, which is what I planned to do this evening when I have time. I saw that something new in the book that was not in the article, so I added. I did not attempt to provide all arguments in his book. If you think more should be added, you are more than free to expand on what I wrote.

this edit you did, adding a primary source from Herzl's diary to weaken the claim about the use of colonial names I don't see how it's even possible to weaken such facts the institutions had "colonial" in their names. I believe Herzl's quote directly relates to what precedes it and is relevant enough for the article. Also, it does not advance analytical conclusions; I did not draw any conclusion from it. If you think it is unwarranted in the article you are certainly welcome to remove it and/or discuss. I found this quote through a secondary source but opted to cite the primary. See "Theodor Herzl's Diaries as a Bildungsroman" by Shlomo Avineri... All you have to do is ask. Also, further searching reveals it also appears in Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jerusalem: the biography revised ed. 2024, chapter "The Kaiser and Herzl: The last Crusader and the first Zionist".

I agree with you on the length issue, which is why I pointed it out and why I planned (and am going) to fix it, so hold on before assuming I am editing in bad faith/trying to introduce bias. the current balance gives disproportionate weight to rebuttals. this is the third time you write this.

saying oops I added a lot would someone please edit it I said I'd appreciate it if someone edited; I didn't simply "ask" people, precisely because it is my job to do it. 18:23, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Just pointing this out, I am not sure what you mean by grown to a size and level of detail that exceeds the description of the framework itself. The description has always been the smallest size and the academic critique was bigger before I edited too. After my edits, the section overtook the background in size but remained smaller than the academic development section. I also do not understand who Yoav Peled is and how he is he related.

please obtain consensus for their inclusion by showing (1) Why you believe this content is worthy of inclusion and is not already covered (2) How you wish to include the content so that it adheres to our policies.

1. [for quote] it relates to the subject directly and is repeated in secondary sources [for critique] the article currently presents (following you revert) about 30 scholars' opinions while the critique talks of 7. This seems to underrepresent opposing opinions, making addition favorable. It also missed on some of the arguments used by opposers (e.g. legal purchase of land).
2. As I said earlier, the rejections section I wrote must be trimmed.

WP:AGF. Best, NorthernWinds (talk) 16:01, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

@Smallangryplanet See edits compressing critique section and adding a secondary source for Herzl's quote. If you are truly worried about quotes supported only by primary source that in your view try to "complicate an argument about Zionism as settler colonialism," it would only be fair for you to mention that there are quotes (specifically by Nordau) supported by primary source exclusively but that don't exactly demonstrate this "complication" of the argument, to say the least. NorthernWinds (talk) 19:47, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

New proposal

This proposal is not good enough

Zionism has been described by some scholars as a form of settler colonialism in relation to the region of Palestine and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Early Zionist leaders often used terms like 'colonization' to describe their activities in Palestine. Supporters of the settler colonial framing seek to 'compensate' for the absence of labor exploitation—distinguishing the movement from classical colonialism—by emphasizing what they contend is Zionism's involvement of processes of disposession and displacement of Palestinian Arabs. (Sabbagh-Khoury)

As the theoretical framework of settler colonialism emerged in the 1960s during the decolonization of Africa and Asia, it was applied by some scholars to the Zionist colonization of Palestine. The framework re-emerged in Israeli academia in the 1990s with Palestinian and Israeli scholars, particularly the New Historians, who refuted some foundational myths of Israel and considered the Nakba to be ongoing.

Things to note::

• This removes disclaimers on the Zionist use of words like "colonization"
• I’ve moved the framing of the paradigm to the first paragraph (I don’t think that most readers are interested in the development of the framework more than they are interested in what it is)
• This resolves the issue I had with the original lead and the misunderstandings that may arise

I think this addresses your concerns, please suggest improvements if you see fit. NorthernWinds (talk) 08:17, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

@Zero0000 @Aquillion @M.Bitton @IOHANNVSVERVS Please see if this resolves the issues with the first proposal. NorthernWinds (talk) 08:22, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

This is still not good. Why are you asserting as a definite fact that there was an "absence of labor exploitation" while framing the "disposession and displacement" as something that is "contended"?

"Supporters of the settler colonial framing" do not "seek to 'compensate' for" anything. Where does this language of "seek[ing] to 'compensate'" come from? IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 12:47, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

Areej Sabbagh-Khoury: Whatever the differences between earlier and current versions, all applications of the paradigm share, as a common denominator, the attempt to compensate for (but not to replace) the often overly broad use of the undifferentiated term “colonialism,” with its connotations of plantation and other exploitative labor economies, by emphasizing the discrete characteristics of the processes of colonization, predicated on not only relations of settler domination but also the dispossession and replacement of indigenous peoples by a colonizing population.

Sabbagh-Khoury only hints at the absence of exploitation of native exploitation (Over the next few decades, popular and academic Zionist thought offered two main arguments against conceptualizing Zionism within a settler colonial framework: first, that the Zionist movement did not intend to exploit local labor and thus was not a colonial movement... In this regard, it is important to emphasize that it is the appropriation of key resources and the displacement of the local population—rather than its exploitation—that define settler colonial societies, whether they have a metropolitan center or not.) I think I have cited many saying that Zionism did not exploit the natives and I can add more if you wish (I have noted a few, including Masalha, between our discussions).

The word "contend" is left over from the current lead NorthernWinds (talk) 16:32, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

There is room for improvement of the proposal NorthernWinds (talk) 17:18, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

I don't see your proposal as an improvement on what we already have. M.Bitton (talk) 14:53, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

The current lead is better than the new proposal. I do not see any pressing reason to change the text as it is now.Boynamedsue (talk) 07:08, 22 February 2026 (UTC)