In 1902, Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, wrote to Cecil Rhodes, the Minister of Colonies for Great Britain: "You are being invited to help make history. It doesn't involve Africa, but a piece of Asia Minor; not Englishmen but Jews ... How, then, do I happen to turn to you since this is an out-of-the-way matter for you? How indeed? Because it is something colonial."
The occupation of Palestine was the last settler-colonial project the British empire commissioned, and this colonial project is still unfolding more than one hundred years later. In centering Palestine's modern history around settler-colonial discourses, Hatem Bazian offers a theoretical basis for understanding Palestine while avoiding the pitfalls of the internationally supported "peace process" that, on the one hand, affirms settler-colonial rights and, on the other hand, problematizes the colonialized and dispenses with the ramifications of the colonial project.
Preface
Introduction
1 Dissecting the Ottomans and Colonizing Palestine
2 Israel’s Biblical Theology of Dispossession
3 British Colonialism and Incubation of Zionism
4 Zionism: A Eurocentric Colonial Epistemic
5 Building a State and Ethnic Cleansing
6 The Nakba: “Justifiable Ethnic Cleansing”
7 Colonial Machination: From violent ethnic cleansing to “legalized” dispossession
Conclusion
Notes
Sources
Index
