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Israel Is Not a Colonial State. If Anything, It's the Reverse
(Telegraph-UK) Naomi Greenaway - The distorted narrative painting Israel as a country of "colonizers" is a tawdry falsehood. Given that many Israelis were driven out of surrounding Middle Eastern countries and many others were survivors of the Holocaust, branding them "colonial" is laughable. My own grandfather was nine when, in 1935, his parents managed to get him out of Mashhad in Iran - a city where being Jewish was punishable by death. Following pogroms in Mashhad a century earlier, those who weren't murdered or didn't manage to escape were forced to convert to Islam. At home, his family preserved their identity and traditions. My grandfather would tell me about their underground synagogues, clandestine matzah baking on Passover, and secret Shabbat observance. In Baghdad, my husband's grandfather wasn't having a great time either. After Iraqi independence, Jews were no longer allowed to hold public office, their houses were regularly looted. Riots saw them murdered and abducted. Most of the Jews fled, leaving everything they possessed behind. If you can spot a colonialist in this story so far, please do stop me. Some 850,000 Jews were driven out of their homes in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Tunisia, Iran and Libya. The Holocaust survivors also don't fit the colonial bill.