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Indigeneity in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict

The notion of indigeneity—the quality of being descended from the original inhabitants of a territory, especially a territory that has been colonized—has been central to debates about political legitimacy in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. These debates have centered on whether or not Israeli Jews, Palestinians, or both peoples are to be defined as indigenous peoples to the region of Palestine. During the 21st century, many Zionists have advocated the view that Jews are the indigenous people of the Land of Israel. Advocates of the Palestinian cause often advocate the view that Palestinians are an occupied Indigenous people and that Zionism is a form of settler colonialism. Some observers consider both Jews and Palestinians to be Indigenous.

Jews as indigenous

The Zionist claim to Palestine, over other proposals for a Jewish state, was based on the notion that Jews had a hereditary right to the land that outweighed the equivalent nationalist claims of the local Arabs.[1] After suffering as a minority in Europe and the Middle East, establishing a Jewish state, with a Jewish majority, became a focus of the Zionist movement. Zionist organizations encouraged immigration to Palestine, and antisemitism produced a strong push factor.[2]

Political scientist Dore Gold notes that Jews (along with Samaritans) comprised a majority in the Southern Levant from the Roman period until the Muslim conquest and only began to diminish due to the institution of persecutions, such as the Jizya tax. Jews continued to live in the land without interruption, and those who left maintained cultural and religious ties with the land. In his view, Jews have "deep, indigenous roots" to the Land of Israel. As such, the idea of Zionism as a colonial project should be rejected.[3]

Ilan and Carol Troen say that Jews were considered to be indigenous by themselves and the international community until relatively recently. The "indigeneity argument" was taken up by Palestinian Arabs in 1990s to cast themselves as the sole legitimate indigenous population, re-framing of Jews as being recent foreign invaders by adopting a colonial-settler paradigm. The argument that modern Jews from around the world have no connection to historical Jews who lived in the region is not based in fact, but is a product of a political supersessionism to deny legitimacy of Israel.[4][5]

According to anthropologists Rachel Z Feldman and Ian McGonigle, "Israeli settler organizations and allied American-Jewish lobbyists have responded to international condemnation of the occupation by mobilizing narratives of indigeneity, claiming sovereign and divine rights to the land."[6] Major Zionist organizations including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Jewish Committee, and the Israel Action Network of the Jewish Federations of North America have stated that Jews are Indigenous to the Land of Israel.[7][8] The International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs defines the Palestinian Bedouin as the Indigenous people of Palestine.[9][10]

In 2015, a proposal titled "Recognition of the Jewish People as Indigenous to the Land of Israel" was submitted and approved by a 51% vote in favor at the World Zionist Congress. The bill's author stated that the bill rejects "the core anti-Israel accusation that Jews are foreign colonialists in the country and instead affirms that the Jewish people have indigenous rights to live in their ancestral home." The proposal was opposed by the liberal Zionist organization J Street, the Reform movement's ARZA, and the Conservative movement's Mercaz USA, among other organizations.[11]

The New Zealand Jewish Council has stated that "Indigeneity and colonialism" are "not useful metaphors for Israel", citing Jewish presence in the land for thousands of years.[12]

Palestinians as indigenous

The Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) have stated that "[W]e strongly protest the illegal occupation of Palestinian lands and the legal structures of the Israeli state that systematically discriminate against Palestinians and other Indigenous peoples...We reaffirm this sentiment that recognizes the rights of Indigenous Palestinians when we demand an end to the illegal occupation of Palestinian lands and a free Palestine.[13]

Jamal Nabulsi, a PhD candidate at the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland, argues that Palestinian indigeneity is a "resistant identity" that is fundamentally defined as the "embodiment of the land of Palestine," meaning the land and the Palestinian body are ontologically inseparable. He contends that this indigeneity is a political relationship to the structure of settler colonialism rather than a measure of "cultural authenticity," maintaining that the connection to the land remains inextinguishable even for those outside Palestine. Nabulsi asserts that this collective indigeneity serves to unify a fragmented population against Zionist efforts to "erase" Palestinian presence. Ultimately, he frames this as the basis for an "Indigenous sovereignty" that rejects liberal state-building projects in favor of a radical decolonial future.[14]

Historian Nur Masalha says, "The Palestinians share common experiences with other indigenous peoples who have had their narrative denied, their material culture destroyed and their histories erased or reinvented by European white settlers and colonisers."[15]

The United Nations has referred to Palestinians as the "indigenous people of Palestine".[16][17]

Jews and Palestinians as indigenous

Some organizations, including the ADL and Center for World Indigenous Studies, have referred to both Jews and Palestinians as Indigenous to the Palestine region.[7][18]

Criticism of indigeneity rhetoric

AIJAC—the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council—has stated that "the claim Palestinians are indigenous in the same way Aboriginal Australians are indigenous is beyond ridiculous" and that "Jews are also not indigenous to the Land of Israel in the same prehistoric way that Aboriginal Australians are to Australia".[19]

See also

References

  1. ^
    • Gorny 1987, p. 210: "This set of assumptions was intended to stress the equal status of the Jews vis-à-vis the rest of the world, and to provide the basis for their superior right to Palestine."
    • Shapira 1992, pp. 41–42: "The basic assumption regarding the right of Jews to Palestine—a right that required no proof—was a fundamental component of all Zionist programs. In contrast with other prospective areas for Jewish settlement, such as Argentina or East Africa, it was generally believed that no one could deny the right of the Jews to their ancestral land... The slogan 'A land without a people for a people without a land' was common among Zionists at the end of the nineteenth, and the beginning of the twentieth, century. It contained a legitimation of the Jewish claim to the land and did away with any sense of uneasiness that a competitor to this claim might appear."
    • Slater 2020: "According to the standard Zionist and then the Israeli narrative, for a number of reasons the land of Palestine rightfully belongs to the Jewish people—and no others, including today's Palestinians."
    • Khalidi 2006: "[T]he Zionist claim to Palestine, which since even before the establishment of the state of Israel had depended in some measure on arguing that there was no legitimacy to the competing Arab claim"
    • Alam 2009: "Zionism was a messianic movement to restore Palestine to its divinely appointed Jewish owners... Conversely, the Palestinian, whether his ancestors were the ancient Canaanites or Hebrews, would forfeit all rights to his lands; he had become a usurper."
    • Sternhell 1999: "Like all Zionists, Gordon did not recognize the principle of majority rule, and he refused to acknowledge the right of the majority to 'take from us what we have acquired through our work and creativity.' Moreover, he had confidence in the spiritual vitality of the Yishuv, its energy and motivation, and believed it was supported by the entire Jewish people. In 1921, he spoke in much stronger terms than he had between 1909 and 1918: 'For Eretz Israel, we have a charter that has been valid until now and that will always be valid, and that is the Bible, and not only the Bible.'... And now came the decisive argument: 'And what did the Arabs produce in all the years they lived in the country? Such creations, or even the creation of the Bible alone, give us a perpetual right over the land in which we were so creative, especially since the people that came after us did not create such works in this country, or did not create anything at all.' The founders accepted this point of view. This was the ultimate Zionist argument."
  2. ^
    • Morris 2001, p. 14: "The reality of Jewish life, when most of the world's Jews lived in the European part of the Russian Empire known as the 'Pale of Settlement,' running from Memel in the north to Crimea on the Black Sea, was one of continuous discrimination and insecurity and occasional oppression and violence. The historian Elie Kedourie once spoke of the "deep insult of diaspora life." Basic freedoms—of movement, place of residence, language, occupation, and worship—were severely curtailed or regulated by the state. The restrictions, including prohibition of landownership, assured the impoverishment and socioeconomic immobility of most Jews in the Pale. During the mid-nineteenth century, Jews were subjected to a brutal system of twenty-five-year military conscription, which occasionally entailed the virtual kidnapping of their children at the age of twelve, or even some-times at eight or nine, and their attempted conversion to Christianity by the authorities in special preparatory military schools. Indeed, an official Rus-sian government commission in 1888 defined the Jews' condition as one of "repression and disenfranchisement, discrimination and persecution." The impulse to Zionism arose out of and was a product of this reality."
    • Meir-Glitzenstein 2004, p. 11 "The bloodshed [of the Farhud] prompted many of [the Jewish youth] to turn their backs on traditional leadership and its conservative policy and to seek a radical solution to the Jewish problem in Iraq. The revolutionary fervour of youth led in two different directions: the Jewish national direction, which took them to the Zionist movement; and the socialist direction, which brought them to the Communist Party."
    • Laskier 1994, pp. 85–86: "The Vichy period did stimulate a growing segment of pro-Zionist youths and young adults in Morocco and the rest of the Maghrib to engage in active Zionism (tsīyonut magshīma) leading to ʿaliya. [...]
      "The decision in the Yishuv to dispatch the special emissaries to North Africa and to other Arabic-speaking countries from 1943 onward in order to organize youth ʿaliya as well as self-defense, was supported by these and several other leaders in the Maghrib. The latter felt that the experience of 1940–42, the German occupation of Tunisia, the farhūd (pogrom) in Iraq of June 1941—in which 179 Jews were slaughtered by pro-Nazi Muslim groups—necessitated the formation of self-defense units to guard the communities."
    • Miccoli 2015, p. 149 "With the Arab revolt in Palestine in 1936 and the radicalisation in an anti-Jewish sense of part of the Egyptian sociopolitical arena, a more significant number of Jews started to become interested in Zionism and to worry about the situation of Jews in Palestine and – because of the dramatic news that arrived and thanks to the activities of a group like the Ligue contre l'Antisémitisme Allemand – in Europe as well."
  3. ^ Gold, Dore (2011). "The Myth of Israel as a Colonialist Entity: An Instrument of Political Warfare to Delegitimize the Jewish State". Jewish Political Studies Review. 23 (3/4): 84–90. ISSN 0792-335X.
  4. ^ Troen, Ilan; Troen, Carol (2019). Indigeneity. pp. 17–32.
  5. ^ Troen, Ilan; Rabineau, Shay (2014). "Competing Concepts of Land in Eretz Israel". Israel Studies. 19 (2): 162–186. doi:10.2979/israelstudies.19.2.162. ISSN 1084-9513.
  6. ^ Feldman, Rachel Z.; McGONIGLE, Ian, eds. (2023-10-15). Settler-Indigeneity in the West Bank. McGill-Queen's University Press. doi:10.2307/jj.8085217. ISBN 978-0-2280-1953-4.
  7. ^ a b "Responding to False Claims About Israel". American Jewish Committee. 2 August 2023. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  8. ^ "Allegation: Israel is a Settler Colonialist Enterprise". Anti-Defamation League. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  9. ^ "Indigenous peoples in Palestine". International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  10. ^ "Jewish Voice for Peace's Stance on Zionism". Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  11. ^ "J Street says Jews not indigenous to Israel". Arutz Sheva. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  12. ^ "Indigeneity and colonialism not useful metaphors for Israel". New Zealand Jewish Council. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  13. ^ "NAISA Council Statement on Palestine". Native American and Indigenous Studies Association. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  14. ^ Nabulsi, Jamal (2023-04-03). "Reclaiming Palestinian Indigenous Sovereignty". Journal of Palestine Studies. 52 (2): 24–42. doi:10.1080/0377919X.2023.2203830. ISSN 0377-919X.
  15. ^ Masalha 2012, p. 88.
  16. ^ "History & Background". United Nations. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  17. ^ "The International Status of the Palestinian People". United Nations. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  18. ^ "Indigenous Israelis and Palestinians". Center for World Indigenous Studies. 27 September 2014. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  19. ^ "Scribblings: The "Indigenous" Palestinians?". AIJAC. 2 July 2024. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
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