The Arab World is Guilty of Colonialist Reversal

In 1978, Professor Edward Said published the book, “Orientalism,” which helped create Post-Colonists Studies – the study of the legacy of imperialism and colonialism. Said also wrote, “The Question of Palestine,” and throughout his work he argued that Israel’s creation was an act of colonialism. Said’s nephew, Professor Saree Makdisi, has taken up his uncle’s mantle. In one lecture, Makdisi argued that “Israel should be revealed for what is; a nakedly racist settler-colonist enterprise.”

The argument that Israel is an imperialist state takes two forms: The first argument is that Israel acts as an extension of British and then later American Imperialism. The second argument is that Israel is controlling the Palestinians like an empire. Another premise of this claim is that the Palestinians’ national movement is a grassroots movement inspired by a group of native people who simply want their own land. However, all of these claims are false. The reality is the Arab and Muslim states seek to use the Palestinians as a tool to restore the land of Israel back to Arab-Islamic control. The Arabs want to enforce Arab-Islamic colonialism onto the Jews, while at the same time the Arabs accuse the Jews of being colonists; this is a form of propaganda, which should be considered colonialist reversal.

The theory of Post-Colonialism studies focuses on the consequences of European Colonialism. Ironically, this view of colonialism is somewhat ethnocentric and only focuses on a relatively brief historical period. The long history of the ancient world is replete with examples of imperialist nations. Indeed, the Arab-Islamic Empire (632-1258) was itself such an imperialist power. In Arabia, Muhammad’s claim that he was the “Messenger of God” was opposed by many of the Bedouin tribes, as well as by the Jewish population. In response, Muhammad waged war to conquer the Arabian Peninsula under the banner of his new religion.

He transformed the pagan Arabs into an army motivated by a single desire to bring the world under the dominion of Allah. The earliest Arab-Islamic conquers came from the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century and invaded Africa and the Levant. They went on to conquer lands from Spain to India. They subjugated numerous indigenous populations and imposed upon them their own language, customs, and religion. In roughly two hundred years Islam became the political organizing principle of one of the largest empires in the world. For roughly 600 years Islam was the dominant religion and military power in the world. In 1258, the empire started to decline after the destruction of Baghdad by the Mongols.

Islamic doctrine mandates the creation a single religious and political body out of all Muslims, called, the Ummah, which will be ruled by the Caliph. Such a desire is reflected in the 2017 updated version of the Hamas Charter which explains that, “Palestine is at the heart of the Arab and Islamic Ummah and enjoys a special status. Within Palestine there exists Jerusalem, whose precincts are blessed by Allah.” And, “Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine… Its Islamic and Christian holy places belong exclusively to the Palestinian people and to the Arab and Islamic Ummah.”

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-arab-world-is-guilty-of-colonialist-reversal/