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Source: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-815762
Challenging the "Settler-Colonialism" Argument
(Jerusalem Post) Yisrael Medad - The call to be Zionists did not start with Theodor Herzl (1860-1894) or even Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer (1795-1874) and Rabbi Yehuda ben Shlomo Alkalai (1798-1878). Throughout the centuries of exile, the fervent commitment "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem" was never forgotten. Jews always returned to the land in every century, such as the sages of Babylon, the rabbis of Paris and London in the 13th century, the kabbalists exiled from Spain to Safed in the 15th century, the 18th-century Hassidim, and the pupils of the Vilna Gaon in the 19th century. The Muslim Arabs became a permanent presence after their invasion of Jerusalem in 638 CE. Given that the Arab Muslim presence resulted from the 7th-century wars of Muslim expansionism and conquest, why are they not considered settler-colonialists? Israel is the victory over Arab-Muslim colonization.