𝐍𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐚𝐡𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐦. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐞. Benjamin Netanyahu stood before the UN General Assembly a few weeks ago denouncing the characterization of Zionism as a settler-colonial project, attempting to discredit it by branding it antisemitic. But the evidence is there. The historical record speaks for itself. Watch this video citing evidence from more than 120 years ago. The Zionist project, from its very inception, has exhibited the defining features of settler colonialism: • Settler-colonial: establishing a new political entity through the settlement and colonization of an inhabited land. • Exclusivist: claiming exclusive national rights and sovereignty in a land inhabited by an indigenous population. • Racist: institutionalizing discrimination and domination based on identity. • Supremacist: privileging one national group over the rights of another. • Dispossessive: uprooting the indigenous Palestinian population from its homeland. • Replacement-oriented: replacing the indigenous population, in whole or in part, with Jewish settlers to engineer a demographic majority. • Violent: employing force, expulsion and dispossession, including the commission of war crimes and genocide, to impose and sustain the project. These are not disconnected characteristics. They are interlocking dimensions of a single colonial enterprise. What else is required to establish the settler-colonial nature of the Zionist project? Netanyahu can denounce the term, but he cannot rewrite history. He can brand the indictment antisemitic, but he cannot refute the evidence. They can smear the accusers. They cannot silence the evidence—especially when it comes from the Zionist movement’s own history, more than 120 years ago. — Sami Al-Arian