Professor David Peimer
Countering the Words: ‘Settler, Colonial, Apartheid’

Professor David Peimer | Countering the Words ‘Settler, Colonial, Apartheid’

- So today, we’re going to dive into a complicated subject, which obviously, as we all know, can be highly emotive and evocative. And I wanted to approach this from a specific angle, which is much more, which is part of the whole meaning of lockdown from an educational context where we are engaging not with the polemic of goodies and baddies, you know, right and wrong, or a kind of Friday night dinner argument, family discussion, or sort of quick, you know, news flashes on the news or even a TV or even a newspaper article. I wanted to look at it with the nuance that bypasses emotion and opinion, that focuses more on nuanced thought. What Oscar Wilde called, you know, “the art of graceful, intelligent debate and discussion.” And it’s that word graceful that I keep being reminded of from him, which brings us back to a more, I guess, educational context overall. And of course, this is highly emotive for me as much as for anybody I’m sure. But the focus, obviously, I need to say this upfront, is to engage educationally with my interpretation of these three words and how to counter them, because they are so provocative, evocative, and emotional in obviously, in our times today. Obviously, post-October the seventh, but even before. This gives I hope, a more nuanced, in-depth look at the actual meaning of these words. The origin of these words are to counter them. And also, my sense is that these words have given rise to a very simplistic, binary way of thinking amongst many people in many countries. And not only, you know, students or young people at universities, but many everywhere. And that binary, simplistic way of thinking, I think grooms identity or to use film language, storyboards identity. I think it grooms identity.

So, it’s not only the words, it’s the thoughts behind the words that really grooms identities, which then just gets so caught up in the heat of emotional clash. So, what I’m going to do is look very carefully and try as hard as possible to give a nuanced in-depth understanding of where these words come from, what they really actually mean, and how, for me, utterly inappropriate they are in applying them to the state of Israel. And I say that not as an emotive statement or because my sister and nieces and family live there or anything. I say that because from a, I have done many, many years, decades of post-colonial theory study. Obviously, from a South African background originally. So much is studied post-colonial theory and put into practise. And it’s coming from that perspective, which zooms out and takes a much bigger view of the whole picture rather than just zooming in, in a number of months or a year or two of just throwing words together, which can become a dangerous and threatening slogan. So, I say this with that passion and that thought in mind to share with everyone. And I don’t want to get into a simple debate, is Israel a colonial settler, apartheid state, et cetera, et cetera, because I think that will immediately force the polemic. And I don’t believe it is, for a second. Once we can get to grip what these words mean, where they come from and how they originate, what they actually mean, not only from a post-colonial theoretical point of view, but in understanding, simple understanding, we can see that it’s ridiculous to apply it to one small, little, you know, tiny little place in the Middle East, in my opinion.

This is, of course, my opinion, and I would welcome, you know, as always on lockdown, you know, debate, discussion, argument and difference of opinion. Great. So, I need to say that upfront, because I know how much emotion is invested in this phrase. But my question is, what does it mean and how to counter it? Because it does groom identities in a binary way of thinking. That’s the crucial key. So, what is the origin of colonisation? What does it really actually mean, if we think about it stepping back? Well, obviously, it comes from the imperial project, which can be anything. Can be ancient Greece, ancient Rome, the French Empire, the Spanish Empire, the Russian Empire, the British Empire, Portuguese, Dutch. We can go on and on and on. You know, the Mongolian Empire, you know, and there are certain common themes that run through all empires. As we look back through history, we can identify not only from a post-colonial, highly theoretical point of view, but from a simple point of view, certain attributes, which they all pretty much have in common, because it’s the imperial project that drives the word colonisation. Why colonise? Why conquer?

Why colonise a land, a people, a huge area? Why do it? What for? What does it mean? And it’s under that phrase, first, of the imperial projects, which is about colonisation. Later, one can look at the more, you know, lesser important phrases for me of settler and apartheid, which I think do not apply. It has to be seen under the meaning of that first word, empire and colonisation. This is a map, obviously, of the world, and I want to show it because we can see, and I’m going to go into more detail, but where the British conquered. You can see Britain is red. Look at all those places. We are talking serious empire, imperial projects. We are talking serious colonial endeavour. And I’m not judging rights or wrongs here, I’m just trying to understand what these words mean. We see the Russian at the top, we see the whole of Australia, we see there, we see the Portuguese, which becomes Brazil, of course. We see Spanish, which is, we can see that where Spain is and the colour. We can see it, you know, there’s obviously America. We see British going all the way up through Africa. French is in blue, you know, parts of Africa and around. I’m going to come into more detail with this as we go along. Okay. So, the main point about empire, to put it in a nutshell, and I don’t want to go into a whole discourse in theory, but the whole point of it is to go out, conquer a land, and the word conquer is used advisedly. Conquer a land, conquer a people, or peoples, in order to trade more efficiently. What that means in order to take the resources from the land back to the home country. The whole point of empire is to get rich back at home.

There’s no point in conquering people, there’s no point in conquering land, unless one can get richer back at home. It’s ridiculous. And no empire’s ever done it without that thinking in mind. From ancient Rome through Mongolian Empire, to the British, to whoever. So, the first is a kind of sense of trade linking with colonisation and empire. It’s making trade cheaper. You conquer, and you take the resources from the land, whether it’s what you grow, whether it’s sugar cane in Jamaica, or sugar cane in Zululand, or whether it’s gold and diamonds from South Africa, or you take whatever, wheat from Egypt for the Roman Empire. Egypt was the wheat basket for the Roman Empire. Supplied them with grain. So, it’s about trade in terms of resource. And secondly, you take slaves or you take cheap labour in a more contemporary, modern sense of that. In the old days, slaves, but in our times, it’s cheap labour. The two key elements you have to have of the land for resources and the humans for cheap labour or slavery, if we go back to ancient times. Without that, you don’t have an empire. There is no colonisation, there is no point in colonising. And every empire that ever happened understood that. Third thing you need obviously, is a massive military an intelligent, and how you organise your military in order to enforce it. Then you need magistrates as the British and the Romans did superbly. You need magistrates, taxes. You implement a whole admins.

And in India, the British, the whole administrative system, because you can’t have millions and millions of your own people there unless you don’t have enough. So, you need administrative structure, which sounds boring and banal, but you need it in order to enforce it and creates law, order, structure. Got to keep the streets quiet, got to keep the old Roman horse way paths quiet. The bottom line. So, those are the three key elements. Gerter’s great phrase was trade, piracy, and colonisation. You know, for Gerter. I’ve mentioned before David Livingston, sorry, and war, Gerter included as well, because you’ve got to have war to do this. And then David Livingston, in a way summed it up. And he summed up much thinking, going way back to ancient Rome of the three Cs, which I’ve mentioned before. I know, but worth repeating. To colonise, Christianize, and commercialise. Well, if you don’t commercialise, as I’ve said before, there’s absolutely no point. In doing the Imperial project. And if you don’t have an ideology that goes with it, Christianity or another religion. Whatever the religion, if you don’t have that, you don’t have a theoretical set of knowledge stories that you can sell to the locals that you’re conquering. And you don’t have a set of ideas that you sell to your own people, administrators, magistrates, and soldiers in order for them to go out and do it. Of course, they’re going to get rich, but they also need an idea. They need, as Harari would say, a story. They got to get rich. And the story is, we’re civilising, we’re christianizing, and so on. So, those are the key elements that run through every empire from ancient Greece to ancient Rome, Mongolia, all the way through to contemporary empires. You need an ideology.

And together with that, comes the binary of superior and inferior. I am superior, ‘cause I’m civilised, I’m Christianized and I’m going to commercialise. If I am a British man or woman going out to colonise in the imperialistic sense, you know, Kenya or wherever it is in the world, I need that in my mind. And I’m superior. So, I can have five or six servants. I can have workers who are paid peanuts or slaves or whatever I can justify to myself. And that’s part of the key of the whole thing. It’s driven by trade, it’s driven by economics, and that’s the understanding of it all. There’s no point otherwise colonising and imperializing. And then it leads to a settler. You have settled, but who settles? Your own people, of course. But administrators organises a military for the British and the Romans. You had the taxes, you had the magistrates, it goes on and on and on. J.M. Coetzee’s novels capture this brilliantly waiting for the barbarians and many others. Okay, and apartheid we’ll come too. So, I want to to establish that first as a beginning concept. We can go on to the next slide, please.

Okay, this I’m going to show is a short video of what Britain achieved. And I’m not judging it one way or the other, but merely to understand what it really means to establish colonies, which are the crucial part of an imperial project. Empire cannot be an empire without colonies. This is what the British achieved over hundreds of years. Let’s have an example. It’s an example of what it really means from the big picture of what the word colonisation and conquering really means compared to this phrase bandied about, you know, in our times in relation to Israel. Okay, and part of to counter it is this little video I’m going to show now. If we can show it please, Hannah.

• [Narrator] Good chunk of the past few centuries, this music was the final pass music played for people across the entire world. The English and later the British have been responsible for invading and conquering more countries and people than any other nation in human history. And honestly, it’s startling just how many places they’ve been to. In this video, I’m going to do my best at attempting to visualise all of Britain’s invasions and conquests for you continent by continent in as brief a time as possible. So, let’s begin with the closest continent to Britain, Europe. Ireland was the first target of British conquests and was invaded as early as 1169. Within 400 years of gradual conquests, the entire island was ruled by the British and remained that way until most of it was granted independence in 1921. Historically, France has probably been invaded by the English more times than any other country in the world. Just take a look at this huge list of invasions. There’s not even enough time to talk about a third of these. And for a time, all of this territory inside of modern France was directly controlled by the English, with Calais being the final piece that fell in 1557. Well, except for that time when the British took over Corsica for a couple years. The British continued to invade Spain by the millions every winter. But in the past, they’ve come with a lot less friendly intentions. English and later British soldiers invaded under the Black Prince in 1367 and continued on through the first, second, third, and fourth raise on Cadiz. And that time when the British took over Gibraltar and Menorca, they gave Menorca back, but decided on keeping Gibraltar forever.

In recent history, the British have invaded Belgium in order to support the Belgians, but that wasn’t always the case. They conducted two pretty large-scale invasions of modern day Belgium in 1654 and again in 1701. And Flanders itself was ruled by the English for a few years in the 14th century. The Netherlands was one of England’s historical arch rivals, and so, there’s been plenty of invasions going in this direction across the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1940, the British technically, invaded and took over Iceland peacefully for a year in order to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Germans, but this was heavily protested by the Icelandic government at the time. So in my books, it still accounts as an invasion. Italy, of course, was invaded by the British army during the Second World War as well in 1943, but there were plenty of invasions before then dating back to Richard the Lionheart’s invasion in 1190. Germany too was obviously, invaded by the British Army in 1945, and Northwestern Germany was occupied by the British for three years until 1948. But a lot of German territory was ruled by Britain long before then. The islands of Heligoland were British for most of the 19th century, and the Kingdom of Hanover was effectively ruled under a personal union for over a century between 1714 and 1837. Austria was also invaded in 1945, and the southwest of the country was occupied for a decade. Norway was invaded in 1810 and 1812 during the Napoleonic Wars when it was a part of Denmark, Norway, because Denmark was aligned to France.

So obviously, Denmark was invaded during that time as well. Finland, Estonia, Latvia were all briefly invaded by small units during the Crimean war against Russia, because they were all part of the Russian Empire at the time. And of course, Russia itself was invaded then too, as well as in 1918 when the British took over a large chunk of Northern Russia for a time in their fight against the Bolsheviks. The territory of modern Ukraine was invaded by British army units during the Crimean war. The British took over the Croatian island of Vis between 1807 and 1814 during their fight against Napoleon, the British army had boots and guns on the ground in Bosnia recently between 1992 and '95, fighting against the Bosnian Serbs. And around the same time the RAF also carried out bombing strikes against Serbian Serb targets in Serbia in 1999. Montenegro was briefly blockaded and invaded in 1913 during the first Balkan War. The British owned the westernmost Ionian islands of Greece between 1815 and 1863 before they gave them back, while Bulgaria was invaded and almost entirely occupied by the British army between 1918 and 1919 at the end of World War I. Cyprus was a British protectorate between 1878 and 1914 when they decided to just outright annex it to piss off the Turks. And it remained annexed until 1960, except for two small chunks that are still British today.

Turkey itself was massively invaded by the British during World War I, and part of it was occupied between 1919 and 1923. That wraps up Europe. So, let’s move on to Asia next. Modern day, Israel and Palestine, as well as Jordan, were British controlled from the end of World War I to 1948 and 1946 respectively. Lebanon and Syria were both occupied from the Vichy French government briefly during World War II. Iraq was ruled between 1919 and 1932 and invaded again during the Second World War. and again in 1991, and again in 2003. Kuwait was a colony for over 60 years until 1966. Georgia and Azerbaijan were both invaded and occupied right at the end of World War I for a year. Iran has been invaded at least three times with the most notable example being the joint Anglo Soviet invasion of 1941. Turkmenistan was invaded in 1918 to prevent Bolshevik influence from spreading any further. Afghanistan is a favourite British invasion spot since it’s been invaded in 1839, 1878, 1919, and again in 2001. Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates and Oman were all controlled by the British until the early 1970s, while a chunk of Yemen was controlled for over a century between 1839 and 1967. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka were all, of course, invaded many times and outright ruled by the British Empire in parts for nearly two centuries between 1757 and 1947. Nepal was invaded in 1814, but never successfully conquered. Bhutan was invaded in 1772 and again in 1864 and was sort of conquered as a protectorate between 1910 and 1948. Burma slash Myanmar was invaded in 1826 and was definitely successfully conquered and ruled through 1947.

Thailand was briefly invaded in 1945 since they were allied to Japan in World War II. And so, was Vietnam in the same year, but that was to support the French government against the growing independence movement. Malaysia and Singapore were each conquered and ruled up until the 1950s and 1960s. Brunei was conquered and ruled up until the 1980s, whereas the Philippines were briefly invaded during the seven years war. China got invaded a lot, and Hong Kong was a colony until as recently as 1997. And while not outright invaded, part of Japan was occupied following World War II between 1946 and 1952. And finally, Indonesia was invaded a bunch during the Napoleonic Wars since it was a Dutch colony aligned to France at the time. Next up, Oceania, Australia and New Zealand, of course, were invaded by the British and establishes colonies that each gained independence in 1931. Papua New Guinea was also a British colony for a time as were the island countries of Fiji, Kiribati, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. Let’s move back over to Africa next, which the British have violently visited a lot. In terms of just places the British outright colonised after invasions, there’s Gambia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa, along with parts of modern day Somalia and Guinea.

Senegal was briefly invaded and had some of their coastline taken over in the 1700s. While during the Second World War, the British invaded the French colonies of Djibouti, Madagascar, and Comoros after they aligned themselves with the Nazi Vichy regime and the Italian colonies of Libya, Eritrea, and Ethiopia. Although they had also invaded Ethiopia much earlier in 1868. And as German colonies right before World War I, the British also invaded Togo and Cameroon without annexing them afterwards. For the final area of world left to discuss, let’s move over to the Americas. All of Canada was a British colony until 1931, while Newfoundland remained until 1949. The United States, of course, was a colony until 1776 and was invaded again in 1812. And the modern states of Oregon and Washington were claimed right up until 1846. As far as other outright British colonies here go, there was The Bahamas, Jamaica, Belize, Grenada, St. Vincent, and the Grenadines, Barbados, St. Lucia, Dominica, Antigua, Barbuda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana. Besides colonies, Cuba was invaded and occupied during the seven years war in 1762. Haiti was invaded in 1793 during the French Revolutionary Wars. The Dominican Republic was invaded way back in 1655 in an attempt at conquest under Oliver Cromwell. Parts of the east coast of Honduras and Nicaragua were conquered and ruled for nearly two centuries until 1819. They sent the Navy to invade Mexico in 1861 to force them to repay some debts. And during this splendidly named War of Jenkins’ Ear, AKA, the more lame sounding War of the Austrian Succession.

The British invaded a lot of Spain’s colonies, including Panama, a huge one into Columbia, and ultimately, Peru. In 1796, the British took over Suriname, because it was a Dutch colony and they were allied with the revolutionary French and later Napoleon. They also invaded Martinique and Guadalupe, because they actually were French during the Napoleonic Wars. Venezuela was invaded in 1902 as part of the so-called Venezuela crisis to force the country to repay some debts they had defaulted on kind of like Mexico, while Argentina and Uruguay were both invaded during the Napoleonic wars as well in 1806 when Spain and her colonies were still allied with Napoleon. And that pretty much sums up all of the territory the British have ever ruled and all of the countries the small island has ever invaded. There are a total of 65 countries today who celebrate their independence days from the British Empire. The Empire used to rule over a quarter of all the world’s land at the same time and was the biggest empire in human history. And in total today, there have been 117 modern countries that have been aggressively invaded by the British Armed forces during some point in their histories. Representing a total of 60% of all the world’s nations, which is almost the same number of countries that you can watch this video in. YouTube is available in 130 countries now, or about two thirds of them. But the algorithm that YouTube uses won’t always work the way you think.

• Thanks, if you can hold it there please. Thank you, we go to the next slide, please. So, this is to give an example, if we look at the big picture, what on Earth it really means to colonise, to have an empire, and to rule. What it really means, what it takes to do it from one smallish island of Britain over centuries, of course, but primarily, the last couple of centuries. This is what colonisation really means. And I’m not judging it good or bad, just trying to help us all understand what the imperial project of colonisation, what it actually, means when that word is bandied around. And you can imagine the planning, the organisation, the thinking, the thought, the trade, the resources of cheap labour or slavery. Taking resources that is, you know, wheat, or sugarcane, or whatever’s grown, or spices from India and you know, get rich back at home. That’s how it became one of the richest countries in the world. And today, you know, is obviously, one of the half dozen richest in the world. So, the bottom line is, all of this is what empire means. This is what colonisation actually means. And when we step back and zoom out with a historical picture of what this understanding of colonisation, we start to see this is what it means. It starts to become so obviously, ridiculous to apply it, you know, to current events and even the last couple of decades, if one wants, to a tiny little place of the Middle East. Okay, this is overall when the British Empire was at its height, aside from all those other invasions and attacks, et cetera. This is what it means to colonise.

We go on to the next slide, please. This here is the picture I love, because you can see the British Empire in red. You can see the Russian Empire in purple. I mean, when the Russian Empire is at its height. You can see the French Empire in blue down through Africa, Madagascar. There’s France going across even to North America. That’s the French empire. Spanish Empire, you can see in yellow going all the way down there. Tiny little Portugal on the side of Spain. In green, there’s Brazil, and there’s Spanish, there’s Angola, and there’s Mozambique with parts of Africa as well. And we can go on and on and on of different empires all over. Italian, you can see in light green, et cetera. This is what a real imperial project. This is what colonisation means. And I’m only going back a couple of centuries here in terms of Europe, or the more recent Europe of the last few centuries. and why they did it as I explained before. Trade and what you need to rule to administer, the military, how you need the ideology of superior, inferior, how you civilise, Christianize, or religious, whatever it’s going to be. Why you do it, and how? It’s a massive project, which you’ve got to plan, understand, and organise. Which is totally different from the dare I say, “fashionable”, you know, banding around of that word today applied to Israel. Go on to the next slide, please. This is one of the pictures I love. You can see a very contemporary here, and you can see obviously, with the flags of Britain all over, the British flag. You can see the Brazilian flag down here, the Portuguese, which is, you know, Brazil down at the bottom there. You can see all the different empires, France in blue, and so on. We get a sense of the world, you know, the history of the world sometimes some historians have described it and some playwrights, you know, fantastic German playwright, describe the history of the world as the history of colonisation.

You see it from a broad global perspective, and you start to understand what this really means. The Ottoman Empire, even there in the middle, you can see where Turkey is. You know, we start to get a sense of what it is, what it takes to achieve, you know, and it becomes, to be honest, ridiculous, you know, when it’s applied in the contemporary way today. To colonise you need one group of people dominate another, use them as cheap labour or slavery, use the resources of the land, need the army, of course, to conquer, whether they have spears and arrows or they have guns or whatever. And you do it for your own benefit, your own economic benefit, and that’s the key. So, you become rich back at home, or you send out your own people wherever, Australia, wherever, and they can become rich there. You don’t do it just because you want a piece of land or because you enjoy ruling over other people. There’s a much more intelligent meaning behind empire. We go on to the next slide, please. This is the Roman Empire. Let’s look at it where they conquered all over through Europe at the height of the Roman Empire. Just post the period of Augustus 117, you know, after CE. So, this is the Roman Empire at its height. And they wanted Egypt, because that for them was the bread basket, was the grain. They wanted Spain, because that’s where the fruits, many vegetables were. You know, they wanted parts of what we call France or Gaul in those days for other, et cetera, et cetera. It goes on and on. This is the Roman Empire.

And let’s think the Romans had horses, chariots, spears, soldiers, you know, on foot, few officers on horses and all the rest of it. Nevermind the Hollywood movies, you know? So, they’re doing it with far less ability and transportation. And why are they doing it? For the same reason, Rome at its height had a million people. Probably two thirds were slaves and one third were Roman citizens. They had to rule. And you have Roman law, you have Roman administration, taxes in Judea, taxes everywhere. You have the whole infrastructure, you have the military. And the aim again, is take the slaves or take the labour as cheap and take the resources, bring them back home so you can be rich at home. Exactly the same, which the British and many, many others learned from ancient Rome, which themselves learned from ancient Greece as well. Totally different understanding of this word, colonising and imperial project. We go to the next slide, please. This is the Mongolian Empire. Look how huge in the 1200s Genghis Khan with just horses and arrows and some spears, you know? 1200s sweeping across China, Asia, India, everywhere, all the way virtually into Europe. You know, people don’t talk about it today, but this empire together with the British, the two biggest that had ever been established in human history, you know? The Mongolian Empire and how they perfected their kind of warfare on horseback with arrows and so on, no saddles, et cetera. Huge empire conquered for the same reasons, as I mentioned before. This is what a real empire is. This is what it means to colonise, and why colonise, and why go on and on and on. You don’t stop in one small territory, you know, which is a tiny little piece of whatever.

You don’t stop for that. It’s ridiculous, you go on and on. Okay, that’s Genghis Khan. Let’s go to the next, please. This is part of the Russian empire we can see up there. We go to the next one, please. Okay, this is the Spanish Empire. There’s Spain, you can see, of course, and then conquers all of that. There’s Mexico, we can see elsewhere, et cetera. The Spanish Empire, not only the, you know, Cortes and those stories and so on, but doing it in the same way for the same reason. You know, as they were told, you know? Told, did you find gold? What did you find? What did you bring back? How do we get rich back at home? Queen Isabella, first question, “Did you find gold? What did you find?” And it goes on and on. So, colonisation you dominate with using all these things. Cheap labour, army, for your benefit back home. The Brits in India, you know, it’s not because they love India or anything, but cheap labour, textiles, everything that comes. Then we get the phrase today of settler colonialism. Well, what does that mean? It means that your army has to be there. You have to have administrators. You know, the British ruled India with about 55,000 soldiers.

They ruled 400 million Indians, but they had infrastructure of magistrates, and officers, and bureaucrats, administrative. Administration was as important as the army. Trade and organisation, the British East India Company, as we all know, it was begun by a company wanting to trade and trade cheaply. So, it’s trade that makes it all. It’s all of these things that make for the word colonisation. How else? And that’s how you rule. You rule through, you know, the bureaucracy, you rule through military, you rule through administrative organisations, stamping books. People couldn’t go here, they can’t go here, et cetera, et cetera, paperwork. The Romans perfected it, and everybody else followed it from them. Certainly in the West. So, settler colonialism is something else. It’s not setting up some settlements. It means you go there intending to be permanent forever, but you’ve got to have all this other stuff going with it. And you are always sending it back home, as I’ve said before, to get rich at home. One of the reasons I always used to criticise the Soviets was because the Soviet Empire primarily, did it for ideology of communism and totalitarianism. They forgot the main point is to get rich back at home, to get rich back in the Soviet Union, you know, didn’t last very long, you know? They forgot that point of the imperial project. So, you have to rule and how do you rule all these questions? When I’ve looked at Gertrude Bell and even Lawrence of Arabia and all these other, it was always about not only how you conquer, that’s the probably easier part. It’s how you rule, how you organise, how you plan.

And of course, you take the resources back home, very different. Israel’s founding begins with a British mandate. It begins with the British controlling the then Palestine for a 30-year period. And it begins with the Holocaust. Besides Judaism, obviously, the biblical references, the biblical meanings. I’m going to hold on that, because that’s an entirely different debate and discussion about what God gives and what God doesn’t. That’s different to the study of colonialism itself. We have the popular buzzword applied today. Well, we are talking about people who come from a British mandate, which the British then decide. They come from a history of antisemitism in Europe, persecution, and the victim status. They are desperate to find a little piece of land to live, because they’re persecuted, they’re the victims, and they are ultimately, annihilated, obviously, during the Second World War Holocaust. So, they find a little piece to try and make a home. Well, that’s maybe partly a victim psychology, but persecuted, I would say is better. But they are going, because they have that as their project. It’s to live in freedom. It’s just to live and not be exterminated or radically discriminated against forever and ever. And persecuted for whatever, and denied so many things. Now, that’s denied jobs, denied access to so many things. Kicked out of England for 300 years.

That’s a very different impetus and drive than the drive of all these other countries I’ve mentioned as to why they go out and colonise and imperialize, you know? The Jews are not coming to the then Palestine in order to achieve all the things I mentioned, which classic colonial theory involves. They come in for a very different thing, a small, tiny persecuted group finding a tiny piece of land, which is mandated by the British Empire, the biggest empire of the times, and United Nations. It’s voted in at the United Nations. Well, no other colonial project has ever had that, where it’s been mandated by the other empire and it’s had a vote in the United Nations, even Russia voting for it, et cetera. So, the origins are important and entirely different. The antisemitism is important. Balfour, the declaration, it’s all speaks to this. So, the migration, and let’s be honest, some historians argued that the British backed the Zionist movement, because they were anxious about Jewish migration into Britain. Also, they were searching for new allies in the First World War up against the Turkish, the Ottoman Empire. So, you know, use some of the Jewish people, and to keep control of the Suez Canal, which was a disaster in the fifties, of course, that the British and the French tried, which failed. So, the founding project of Israel and the founding idea of Zionism comes from a very different route to the founding of empires going back over 2000 years and more. Go back to ancient Egypt, I don’t want to go there now, but you’ll find it similar. It’s a persecuted group.

Then Zionism is the aspiration of a persecuted group. Not only who are going there, but they’re not going the interest of the mother country. They’re not going there in the interest of Spain to go and do all this here on the side of South America, or Mexico, or somewhere else. They are not doing it for the interest of the mother country. They’re doing it, because they have been ruthlessly exterminated, persecuted, and discriminated against. They’re not doing it to enrich a home country. It’s very different the impetus behind Zionism as obviously, Herzl and many others have spoken about. So, it is a desire to be free, self-determination, to live, to survive. It’s a very different narrative and truth than the persecuted one. Than the non-persecuted one, which is the classic approach of empire and colonisation in particular. Resolution 181, you know, is passed in 1947 by the UN and you have Palestine becoming Israel. So, it is an entirely different understanding to settler and colonialism. It’s got nothing to do with it. It’s an entirely different meaning. If people understood who use those words for a second. I don’t want to go into what, you know, what China does in Tibet or what India in Kashmir. You know, all these other localised, I don’t want to, you know, get sidetracked by that. The second main idea is, so the first one is the origin, which is persecution. Very different to the origin of colonisation and empire. The second origin is the need for security.

To live in security, to not be annihilated. Well, none of all these empires that I’ve shown are doing empire conquest, because they need to feel secure at home, because they are scared of their very existence being wiped off the face of the Earth. None of them. The British, the Spanish, the French, the German, whoever, it’s, you know, the Portuguese, the Dutch, none of them are doing it for that reason. Or it’s the other reason I mentioned right at the beginning, the resources. Here, it’s the duty to protect the citizens, which is they’re doing it for security and the essence of existence itself, which is the threat of annihilation. It’s not only the Holocaust, it goes way back before that. In Jewish cultural and historical memory and accuracy, I would argue. So, you have the founding origin, which I would call the persecuted origin. You have then the drive is that. Together with security and the very existence of a tiny little group of people. Three primary reasons, which is very different from all the other reasons of colonisation and imperialism and settler, you know? Why they settled in India?

Well, as I said, to organise it, bureaucratize it, to trade, to facilitate it, to rule the Indians as the servant class. So, they had the servants, they had the cheap labour, not slavery in India, but cheap, very cheap labour, textiles, you know, traded and sent it across. Again, for the mother country’s benefit was the key. As with all the empires, from Mongolian and Genghis Khan to all the others, all the way through. And of course, Ireland is settled by the, I’m just using the British as an example. Ireland, Kenya, Zimbabwe, today, South Africa, et cetera. You know, and they are sent out as part of the colonial project. Is sent out to rule in this way. And they need the theory of the binary, you know, superior, inferior and religions and other things. The fourth reason I want to give is the history of trauma, not only the Holocaust. And what’s Jabotinsky warned, “The frozen stampede that is to come,” is a fantastic phrase. “The frozen stampede that is to come in Europe.” And this is quite a few decades before the Holocaust, as I’m sure many people know. So, the trauma is the word I would use for the history, which links obviously, to persecution of others. Well, none of all these other countries that I showed earlier are doing it, because of an anxiety about trauma and the history of trauma. No, from the Romans all the way through the Mongolians and many of the others, the Portuguese, the Spanish, et cetera. They aren’t doing it for that reason of trauma. So, that’s the other reason, another reason. Which leads on to the idea of survival, which must be defended no matter what. I will also say there’s another reason. When the Jewish people get the little piece of land, the British mandate, the United Nations votes for it, et cetera.

They didn’t get it by conquering or choosing war. It’s voted by the United Nations, it’s given by the British mandate. They don’t go out and conquer through warfare like all the other countries I’ve shown earlier. You need war to conquer. If you’re going to go into like Spain, I’m showing now, you know, Mexico, wherever else you need war. And you conquer the indigenous people. Well, in ‘47 it was a vote at the United Nations and it was handed over by the biggest empire the world that ever seen together with the Mongolians. But the British Empire, it’s a mandate. War is forced upon them. So, they have to fight to keep that little piece of land. So, the part of the imperial project is warfare and conquering. They don’t do it, the Jews of Palestine at the time. The other part that’s really important is 1982. Begin, who is part of Likud, not Labour, as we all know. Begin does the deal with Sinai. So, '67 war, '73, et cetera. Sinai was conquered, Sinai was taken, whichever word we choose to use. But in the land for peace deal with Sadat, Begin and Sadat together, of course, Americans and many others, and certain others, agree, give back Sinai for peace, land for peace. Well, what empire has ever done that? If we really think about it, what empire’s ever done it and what’s Sinai to Egypt really other than prestige, I mean they’re really going to, you know, fertilise it, grow, and it’s really going to be resources, get rich back in Egypt, et cetera, et cetera. No, it’s land for peace.

So, Begin, who is right wing, gives it back. Likud, in the hope of land for peace, 1982. Now, an empire with a colonial project does not do that unless it’s forced to for economic reasons or it’s forced to because it’s defeated militarily, or you know, things like that. So, an empire from the Romans all the way through to the others, don’t do a land for peace deal. That’s not empire thinking. That’s not the theory and practise of colonisation in thinking. So, it’s really important. If we link it briefly to, because apartheid and settler to me are minor issues compared to that one, because it all comes under that big one word, colonisation. Without that you can’t have the others. Apartheid, was it really so similar as apartheid? Different benches, different doors, different toilets for Black and white, different parts of the road, Group Areas Act in South Africa, Immorality Act, Black and white can’t hold hands, can’t be married, can’t kiss, can’t be on a stage together. The discrimination of race and the separation, which goes on. I don’t want to go into all the detail of South Africa, but it is so extreme and so specific to the minutia of daily life. Of living, you can’t study in the same university. You can’t stay in the same place, you live here, the Indian lives here, the mixed race, the white, the Black person here, the Zulu, it goes so deep, this idea of apartheid. It is so much more extreme, okay? So, it’s driven and the whole point of empire compared to Israel is that Israel is driven by security consideration. The entire area around it wants to destroy it. True states solution.

Yes, it comes and goes. It’s on an off land for peace, Begin, et cetera. It’s tried, it’s not, it’s this, it’s that. But this idea that every part around Spain wants to destroy Spain, because they have an empire. They want to annihilate the Spanish. They want to in its charter. Every person in the French Empire wants to, you know, do the same with France, or the Dutch Empire, or the Portuguese, or whoever, the British. I mean, it’s not about that. It’s a very different attitude. So, now I’m not, and I’m purposely holding back on the religious and the biblical, because that’s another whole discussion I think, which will take a whole nother session. There’s also the idea of where does this all come from? We go to the next slide, please. Okay, this is the French, probably the French Empire. Some of the images here we can see. We go on to the next slide, please. Okay, so there’s the British, obviously, you know, the mandate just before handing over. We see, obviously these are soldiers, but they’re also administrators, because as they learn from the Romans and the ancient Greeks, you cannot rule and colonise unless you have administrators, soldiers, organisers, tax collectors, every single detail of running a country, and cheap labour in order to get richer. All the rest, I said, okay? Go to the next slide, please. Again, this is Herzl in the late 1890s, looking at the then Palestine, and his idea, as we all know, you know, with Zionism and why the Zionist project, which is the persecution, the Frozen Stampede, the persecution, he experiences the antisemitism to come. No country went out to colonise of all the ones I mentioned, no country did it, because of a terror, of a fear of persecution leading to far, far worse of annihilation.

Okay, go to the next slide, please. So, this is Hamilton Hall in Columbia. A recent picture, obviously. And ironically, I studied at Columbia in the mid to the late eighties, where on a Fulbright, where I did my first grade studies there, and I know this Hamilton Hall. This happened before I arrived. I arrived in September, 1985. And before this in Hamilton Hall, which was interesting in the early 1985 period, was the anti-apartheid demonstrations. And what’s fascinating is that the people who were organising anti-apartheid demonstration, which of course linked, there’s a link obviously, to demonstration, the Vietnam War and other things, civil rights, et cetera. So, Hamilton Hall has got a very famous, I’m sure Americans will know much more than I do, you know, around Hamilton Hall specifically, and its current name, et cetera. So, the anti-apartheid demonstrations are happening, seven students, and they originated, they go in there and they chain themselves and then they try to force remove them, but for 21 days they go on a fast and they refuse to eat. And there’s a student blockade and the whole thing becomes named Mandela Hall, et cetera. And students demand that the school divests from corporations profiting from apartheid South Africa.

There’s a coalition for the free South Africa, the CFSA, which is the first successful divestiture campaign at the university, and it spreads through America. Divest in South Africa and the sanctions. And the divestment starts to begin, take the money out, and five years later apartheid ends in South Africa. Not only because of this, but partly. The objective, educate, mobilise opposition to apartheid, students, staff, et cetera. Begun by seven students who do a fast in Columbia University based in Hamilton Hall, and becomes known as the divestment blockade. This moves into a global, non-violent action today database. The trustees at Columbia at the time said, “Well, let them keep on fasting.” But very quickly they realised they’re going to fast themselves to death, changed their attitude, which forced the six trustees into divesting from South Africa, which began the whole project in the mid eighties. Ironically, a few months before I actually, arrived to study there. And they discovered one third of the university’s endowments were invested in businesses who had business dealings with South Africa. So, it became the first major American university to divest from South Africa. We have today much more the Jewish Voice for Peace, all these things that are founded much later. So, what we have is part of, this is the anti-apartheid. What we have is a group of people who were there in the eighties, young people, very intelligent, not only Palestinian, and Muslim, and Arab, and others, but understood how this worked against the apartheid regime.

The horrors of the apartheid regime. They understood how it worked financially and the effect one could have. So, not only empire in the traditional context, but ah, you can work through the economic, obviously, and divesting, obviously. And you can include that whole approach in a global protest movement. And these guys started to, I don’t want to go into the detail of their names and other things, et cetera, but they got together and realised we can use the same thing in the Middle East with the Palestinian areas together with Israel. And the BDS movement begins, boycott, divest, et cetera. So, the economic warfare becomes as important as the terrorist attacks. So, it’s a different approach to taking on Israel and the phrase apartheid gets put in through this experience in 1985. Hamilton Hall it begins at Columbia, it begins, and then it explodes, you know, it expands exponentially everywhere in so many other places. And there are many others. There’s Westpac Howard Horowitz he’s the chair of it. He says, “Well, it’s just the beginning of the ongoing genocide in Gaza.” It all becomes part of this big picture now that we see. And that’s how apartheid began to be linked. The anti-apartheid movement with its genuine and truly moral origins, how it is hooked onto a totally different area of conflict and a totally different set of conflicts.

Colonisation, first, that’s the word, apartheid comes after. But to link it, you start to see a link in a simple binary story, which is then linked to divest from the country. And I’ll give you one of two interesting little facts is that the Rockefeller Brothers fund gave 100,000 first to this movement against the pro-Palestinian after the October 7th attack. And then that Rockefeller Brothers Fund also gave half a million dollars to the Jewish Voice for Peace. So, it’s not only Palestinian or Arab or Muslim, it’s also, as we all know, Jews inside the Jewish Voice for Peace. And we know a lot about that as well. So, the protests start organising all of it like that. To quote Stephanie Fox, who is one of the executive directors of the Jewish Voice for Peace, she said, “Must recognise the rights of occupied peoples to resist.” Okay, Layla Khaled, as we all know, the terrorist who was imprisoned for hijacking aeroplanes , the Jewish Voice for Peace called her a Palestinian resistance icon. So, there’s not only from the outside, there’s also from inside, you know, Jewish communities. So, all of this is linked to the story of Hamilton Hall. I’m linking the word apartheid, linked to colonisation, linked to settler. This is the origin of it and how it’s linked and cleverly, very cleverly. And it’s linked to social media, because that becomes the mouthpiece. Social media, TikTok, Facebook, all of these things become, Instagram, they become the voice. One doesn’t need a literal voice, one just needs social media, that’s all. So, social media is the message and you know, and if you go into more detail about the funding, you’ll see even more where it all comes from the real funding.

And these guys realised in the early 1985, they realised they could put it all together at a global movement, which has taken fruition. And it just needed the horror of October the seventh massacre to kickstart it all, which they were waiting for. And I’m not giving a conspiracy theory argument here. This is the truth that has been researched. Very cleverly, all of it put together under the umbrella of colonisation again. And when we really understands what colonisation is and how colonisation was resisted over thousands of years, you see a very different approach. This is a modern approach to taking on a cause for a time now. And we see the links of what these words mean. Understanding them enables us to start really countering them, of course. In a YouTube video, Karen Kates, who is part of this all, she talks about October the seventh, attacks heroic. And we see an alliance of, I’m quoting, “We see an alliance of forces working together for a region that is free of US imperialism and free of Zionist colonialism.” Look at the language, it’s the language of imperialism, American imperialism, Zionist colonialism. We’ve just looked at what imperialism really means, what colonialism really means. It’s difficult in America with protected free speech, because of the First Amendment, obviously, you know? So, there’s a subtlety between speaking these things and being part of a violent group. So, in a democracy, ironically, we have this finite, this very fine use of words, which they are very aware of and intelligently so. So, all of this is put together and we see how it is happens together.

There’s even now to beginning with the same group that began in Hamilton Hall in 1985, and now talking about femicide, which is, you know, violence against women. There’s ecoside, which is violence, which is, sorry, genocide. Genocide against women, femicide. There is ecoside, which is genocide against ecology or nature. You have femicide, you have ecoside, you have genocide, which are all genocides, of course, Gaza. So, we see an intelligent putting together of all these different historical forces, words, binaries, ideas coming together in one little phrase, the settler colonial, sorry, the colonial settler and apartheid all put together. And I want to just at the end now, just remind us all Israel began for a need for a place to live free of antisemitism. Began with a vote to united Nations, a mandate from British, the empire, security without missiles, perhaps. The very existence of a small group of people as opposed to being annihilated. The trauma of not only the Holocaust, but the trauma of the antisemitism and persecution of pogroms before. No other empire and no other colonising country has ever begun a project or that origin. The displacement, that it did, survival, that it requires, the Sinai deal with Begin. No empire’s ever given back a piece of land in hope for a bit more peace. We have the annihilation, we have self-defense, the duty to protect.

And now, we see a global, ideologically-driven binary, which puts all these things together. I believe that we need to understand this in order to help us counter these words. So, I just want to share a little bit of everything. Could show the very last slide, please, and move on. Okay, we come back to this. From zooming into Hamilton Hall, we zoom right back to what empire really means and what empire really does when we understand it. therefore, what colonisation really means, and underneath it are the subsections of mentioned of apartheid and the settler, you know, and what they do and how they do it, which has got very little, if anything, nothing to do with what is going on at the moment, since October the seventh and before. And that’s how I believe we try to counter it with this bit of understanding. So, thank you for sharing that everybody. And now we can go straight on to questioning.

Q&A and Comments:

Questions, Robert. Okay, well, thanks so much. Thanks for the kind comment.

Ina, why is China on your map has stripes, and I can’t remember that. I’ll have to go back and check that. I think there’s a British and others invaded it at different times, but I’ll check that, Ina, thank you.

Q: Adele, what about the Ottoman Empire?

A: Well, absolutely, I mean I can’t go through everyone. Yeah, I just wanted to show some of the main ones. Ottoman, huge. You know what, today is Turkey. But you know, huge.

Thanks for that, Robert. The video focus on invasions, not colonisation. Yes, most invasions did not result in colonisation. Multiple motives other than resource extraction. Yeah, but it was ultimately, about resources and they knew it. They knew, because they’d studied the Romans. They’d studied the Greeks so, so intimately and so well. So, I agree partly with what you’re saying, Robert, but I also think that why did they go out to invade and attack, if not to colonise, you know? And not just to weaken a rival, partly, for the Napoleonic Wars. Yes, and to take on Napoleon is the bigger picture. But part of that then, of course, stay there and keep the colony, you know, wherever it is.

Okay, Diane, thank you. Great point that you’re both making.

Louise, perhaps a different definitions of occupation. I’m reminded of the story, the narrator, ah, ya, ya, ya. The guardian. When Yasser died, witnesses the expulsion of Arab villagers and observes will house and absorb immigrants. Hang on, let’s just jump for a second, okay.

And observe Jewish immigrants. Yeah, and Herzl himself said, you know, “We are not trying to, you know, annihilate, or displace, but just want to live there and live together.” So, you know, you’re making very good points here. The problem happens when the two, you know, don’t want to do a deal, don’t want live as neighbours. That’s part of the problem, which, and I’m not taking a pro or anti approach at the moment in terms of Gaza. I want you to draw this whole, the bigger picture at the moment. Monte, was not a work of fiction, okay. The reason I showed that map of, that little clip about England is because they were serious colonisers. They were serious about the imperial project. You know, at Eaton and Harrow, as we all know, the schools where the leaders were trained for long time, centuries in England. You know, at close to half of what they studied, those school boys was Roman, Greece, ancient Roman, ancient Greece. Why? To train them to become leaders of an empire, colonise.

Okay, the film, this is from Sheila, does not make sense. England invaded France in the late seventies, after France invaded, and England never went away. You’re absolutely right. But then English came back and there were so many between the two. I just wanted to show what invasion and colonisation, how they are linked ultimately, to an imperial project becomes later. I’m not saying invasion equals the imperial project, but I’m saying invasion is part of leading towards it as a context. Okay, but that’s important.

Thanks, Sheila. It sounds like anti-British American propaganda. Well, it’s just showing what, you know? When you think of empire, what it really means. We could do it about Mongolia and Genghis Khan as well. What about America invading the continent, taking permanently from the Spanish? Absolutely, I mean, you know, some argue the history of the world is history of colonisation. Absolutely. But I can’t go through every single country, you know, I can only do a certain amount here. And I’m just choosing a few particular, mainly from Europe.

Gita, do we get a prize for absorbing the details of this video for quite about often. Thanks, Gita, that’s a great comment.

Okay, Estelle, the film seems to miss out the Falklands. Yeah, absolutely.

Myrna, I recommend “Geography is Destiny” by Ian Morris. Yes, and Ian Morris. Thank you, does tie in. Ian Morris is fantastic and wonderful, because he talks about how geography leads to it all as well. And I’m talking how trade and resource acquisition leads to it also. And he’s absolutely right, Ian Morris, because geography is the driver there for him. For me, it is that, but it’s also trade, resource, cheap labour. So, it’s a combination of factors. It’s not driven by persecution, it’s not driven by the need for security, or the fear of annihilation, or extreme anti-Semitic, or discrimination, and all the other things I mentioned.

Okay, Joel, thank you. There we have it.

Yeah, Francine, this week’s portion of the Torah, the people who commanded across the Jordan take possession by force. Yeah, that’s why we can get into the biblical, but that would be a wonderful, fantastic, separate discussion, you know, what’s coming from the Bible in terms of all of this? I didn’t want to include it, 'cause I want to be brief and glib and focus more on colonisation itself.

Okay, in the Soviet time, Russia was stealing from the Soviet republics. Absolutely, what it could go back to Russia, cotton from Uzbekistan, et cetera, et cetera. Used the local labour. They installed the Russians, you know, just typical colonisation. They absolutely did and I agree with you in the Soviet time. What they did not do though, I don’t know if they prioritised as much the acquisition of resource and cheap labour to send back to the mother country, you know, as much as so clearly as the Romans and many others did.

Okay, Val, thank you.

Recurrent, Sheila, Sinai to Egypt oil. Absolutely, mean oil, of course. Oil is the slavery, the transportation of today or the labour. Electricity and oil.

Jonah, elements of non-colonization behaviour. Pre-independence land was purchased. You’re absolutely right. No natives enslaved. Land, no significant resources, exactly, to be brought home. There was the mother home absolutely, Jonah.

Sheila, Britain gave up many places occupied World War II when peace came. Yeah, because they had to do a deal with the Americans and the Soviets. And they needed allies, the British, they couldn’t do it on their own against the Germans in Second World War. So, they had to give some to the Americans, certainly, give some to the Soviets, because they were the allies there. And they had to give payback after the war. And even the French. They had to give payback, because they needed, you know, their armies to help defeat the Germans, absolutely.

Carol, Sadat made the peace with Israel provided he didn’t take control on Gaza again. Very interesting. Yeah, very interesting as well. I didn’t want to get into Sharon and Gaza, which that’s a separate thing as well.

Okay, Myrna, after the UN voted Israel to existence, can we not view the Arabs as colonisers to conquer Israel. Yeah. Well, let’s, again, you cannot have empire and colonisation without sending an army or something, a tribe, whatever, out to conquer, you know? So, who started that war? Exactly. And I won’t get into the nitty gritty of historical debate. But, you know, the colonisers, if they were sent out to conquer and annihilate to end it absolutely to conquer Israel. And this tiny little piece of land.

Jonah, divestment got a lot of publicity, but economically it did nothing. Forcing university to sell off financial. Yeah, the only thing I would add, Jonah. Coming from South Africa is that you may come from South Africa as well and know better than me. Is that the American sanctions from 1985 did have a huge impact in South Africa. And of course, the end of the Cold War was the biggest thing, Jonah, that could end apartheid. And that could end the apartheid army who were already, you know, they were ready to absolutely destroy. And the civil war of millions was predicted by many people. So, divestment did have an impact. It was the phrase that John Foster, who was one of the most vicious of the prime ministers during the sixties, during apartheid. He said, “Every loan from an American, British, and other bank is a brick in the wall of apartheid.” So, the loans were necessary to build up, of course, economically South Africa as well. So, divestment, I do think, and a lot of publicity as you’re saying, and certainly, not just one university didn’t have an impact, but overall, it certainly began to have an impact. But of course, the biggest thing was the end of the Cold War. Okay. In my opinion.

RK, thank you. It’s very complicated. I’m trying to be sensitive as possible here, exactly. I’m trying to stay within an educational context and not get caught up in a Friday night sort of debate and argument, which we as all families will have, and friends and families, Jewish or not Jewish, whatever. We’ll all have these debates and arguments. And I’m not talking about a pro-Netanyahu or an anti-Netanyahu. I don’t want to get into that, 'cause that’s very polemical contemporary thing. I’m trying to see it from the bigger picture as to how to really counter it, you know, because that to me is the real thing of zooming out not zooming into, but the bigger picture to help us understand what these words actually, mean before we use them. But you’ll tell me if I am doing it or not.

Okay, Greta, on a lighter note, I think the Brits were such huge colonisers to get away from the climate. Couldn’t agree with you more. Looking out on a day, which is grey and windy and rainy and supposed to be summer. It’s been like that mostly. I couldn’t agree with you more. Anything to get away from British weather, I agree.

Q: Marlene, how would you count a current West Bank scenario with respect to the settlers?

A: Well, that’s very hard, you know, because that is, I mean, we have to go into, that would require, and I’m not trying to duck it here. It’s an important question, Marlene, really good. Because it’s not the same as simply saying this is a apartheid, there it is. You know, boom, boom. A simple equalisation of it. We can do it, you know, in a Friday night discussion or family or a newspaper or whatever, but I think there are a lot of differences between the settlers in the West Bank and the facts of that together with apartheid specifically, you know, which to me is much more extreme and the way it’s enforced was so extreme as well.

So, Laura Duckett, and I know time is moving on, but I think apartheid involved so much more of from the tiniest detail to the bigger economic and geopolitical picture of being part of America versus Russia or the West or capitalism versus communism, ultimately. But the West versus, you know, the totalitarian Russian Soviet empire. Jay Dresner, thank you.

Q: Sandra, could you talk about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?

A: Well, that’s colonisation, yes. He believes, I think Putin, and he said it in his speech in 19, I forget. Madeleine Albright refers to it. But he said it in a speech, Putin, he said that, you know, the need, I’m paraphrasing, to reestablish the Russian empire. He’s not interested in the Soviet, in communism. He’s interested in the Russian Empire and having that, and of course, weakening NATO, pushing to do that. So, that would be part of an imperial project that Putin has spoken himself about, and therefore colonisation would be part of it. And hence, Ukraine or Crimea, et cetera. It’s absolutely, the aim is colonisation in this broad context going back to the Romans.

Q: Adrian, why did England give the countries back?

A: Great question. Because after the First World War, they were utterly exhausted and economically disastrous. And after the Second World War, actually economically, you know, they owed so much money, not only to America, but other places as well. Exhausted, finished. I think it was the First World War was the biggest, and then the Second World War, it cost them so much that it was economic and it was disastrous economically. Even though they won the two wars, they couldn’t sustain it. They couldn’t pay for running all these colonies anymore, 'cause you got to send out soldiers, you got to send out administrators, tax collectors, everything. You had to organise so much, which costs a huge amount of money. You got a rule, you know? So, it was in the end, I think, to my personal opinion, it was economics after the first two wars. Especially, I think the first and later, the second.

Mumbly iPad, countries that developed sufficiently to give independence are, there you have it. Yeah, and also those other countries had developed a sense of independence, freedom. They, you know, understood the Christianity being the primary religion, you know, to argue back. And it became morally difficult for the English to justify to their own people at home the need to carry on being an empire and colonise, you know? So, it becomes harder and harder. And civil dispute, civil conflict inside England becomes part of it. Not so dissimilar to the Romans, but in the Romans, we imagine through Hollywood it’s much more brutal. You know, you have this brother, this, this, and this, the emperors fighting, conflicting, et cetera, et cetera. But you know, they’re outspent. As Mary Beard once said in her brilliant analysis of the Roman Empire in the end, and partly given, they outspent it. They spent too much. The money was far too much. And given, added in, you know, Christianity brought it down the Roman Empire as well. Norman, thank you, you’re very kind. Janie, unfortunately, the early Zionists call themselves colonists. Yeah, and they understood it in this context of Europe, which has the pejorative meaning and the meaning what, of course, today. So, you know, they’re seeing it in this way as well.

Gail, thank you. Okay, as you said, it’s an hour.

Q: Marshanie, why do academics and historians seem to lead the other argument and implement this university?

A: Well, because the other argument takes from post-colonial, what I’m trying to do is give, you know, many, many books in one line, in one hour, of post-colonial theory. But they take certain things from it, put it into, as I said, the binary and then it becomes simple, cowboy and Indian, right and wrong, goodies and baddies, you know? Without the nuance complexity of in-depth understanding, which the Romans had. The Romans wrote about it hugely. The Greeks wrote about it. You know, how you do it, what you do, everything it involves. And I think what happens in these university courses, they become simplified. They’re about to get the students through and give them good marks, and they become simplified and becomes reduced to binaries. You know, is Richard III a goodie and a baddie, if you’re studying Shakespeare? Yeah, it can become so reductionist, I think often in courses today. And you know, there’s also probably an ideological component. But more than that is that I think universities have become so PC that they reduce things. Again, it’s binaries, which lead to grooming of identity construction.

Kiara, thank you very much this is very provocative topic. You’re right, absolutely. Henry, thank you, you’re very kind.

Richard, the disappearance of royalty, the divine right, absolutely. The only rational left was democracy and economic. Yep, that’s a great point you’re making, Richard. Cheap goods from Japan, China, et cetera. Yeah, exactly. What cheap goods from Israel, exactly. It’s a great point you’re making there. You know, Isabella said, Queen Isabella said to Columbus, “Why what’re you going to find a new world for? If you do, what gold are you going to find me? Bring me back gold.” His obsession was to find gold, not to find a whole new continent, world. He believed it could be and he probably wanted that, but she financed it, Queen Isabella of Spain, because she said, “Well, bring me back gold.” And that sums it up.

Richard, of course, Africa, gold, diamond, slaves, et cetera. Exactly.

William, the Bible, policy based on myth. Yeah, as Harari would say, you know the stories. Absolutely.

Q: Okay, Ronnie, do Israeli Arabs suffer discrimination?

A: Yeah, and I think that’s a very important discussion to have. Unfortunately running out of time and going way over. But we could discuss it like when we spoke about Fowlder, you look at it from another perspective. Absolutely.

Peter, an abbreviated version to young Jewish students. Yeah. Well, that’s great, because I’m really taking 30 years of, nearly 40 years of my learning and academic writing and many books written, not only, but by many, many people to give the essence. But thank you for that, Peter, and thank you for that, Susan.

Q: By your definition, Israel is not colonising the West Bank. No. How would you describe Israel’s relation of the West Bank?

A: Well, it’s an occupation, you know? And to try from Israeli point of view, for security, as I’ve said, to try and prevent, you know, terrorists, you know, doing what they do. From another point of view, there’s a different argument, which is that it is discrimination. So, it depends on the point of view. One is looking at the same event through, you know? And as I’ve said, security argument, the annihilation, the trauma, history of persecution, all of that requires a certain sense of self-protection.

Nadine, okay, thank you. Susan, thank you, you’re very kind. It is a very sensitive, provocative subject.

And Janie, discussion we refute colonisation might argue that Zion is settlement. Yeah, but Zionism is a, yeah. I mean, one can argue, one can see it as that. But what I’ve tried to show is the origin of the Zionist movement. Is not the same as the origin of colonising movements throughout thousands of years of history. That’s the key difference. And even the practise and giving back Sinai with Begin, it’s not a colonising act.

Cynthia, early year settlers were called colonists. Yep, 'cause those were the phrases. Absolutely.

Q: What’s the difference between occupation and colonisation?

A: Well, I’ve tried to draw that here. What colonisation really means, as opposed to occupation. Colonisation, is you want to be rich back at home in the mother country. You want to have cheap labour, you want to send resources back, you establish a full military, you establish a bureaucratic organisation, rule everything. But the main thing, you get rich back at home. It’s for the mother country, the motherland to get rich. That’s the bottom line. Going way back to the ancient Greeks, the Egyptian, ancient Romans, that’s the meaning of colonisation, you know? You don’t just go out and take a land and put up a few people here away or even thousands.

Okay, Cynthia, thank you. Okay, so Hannah, thank you so much. Thank you, everybody. To me, it is such an important, and I’ve tried to be in-depth and nuanced here. But please debate with me, argue with me. Send me emails, I love it. Everybody sends lots of emails, you know, to debate, to discuss, in the spirit of graceful discussion and you know, educative argument. I love it. Thank you so much to everyone and hope you have a great rest of the weekend. Hannah, thanks again so much. Cheers.