What can you do when a coloniser declares that God has given them a land for their possession? Where it makes little difference that it has been occupied by another people for many generations. Where they claim that all they want to do is bring peace and prosperity to an undeveloped land in obedience to God.
Well, enough about the British settlement of New Zealand in the 19th century: we are supposed to be talking about Palestine.
The well-respected Anti-Defamation League (ADL) published an interesting article explaining why the settlement of Jewish people in Israel and Palestine was not an example of settler colonialism. Their primary arguments were that Israeli Jews were not sent by a colonialist power but had migrated there independently. That the Jewish people had an ancient attachment to the land and were just as indigenous as Palestinians.
One of the problems I see with this approach is that it ignores the experience of the colonised. The ADL’s objection showed a very limited understanding of how settler colonialism operates.
Few Jewish people would have emigrated to Israel with the express purpose of alienating other people from their lands. However, it is a natural consequence of the type of settlement that took place.
Albert Memmi noted the pillars of colonisation were the desire for the land of others and the usurpation of the previous order where even the poorest coloniser sees himself superior to the colonised. It is achieved through the removal of sovereignty and the denial of self-determination but is often justified through religion. The coloniser is fulfilling God’s will: to resist that enterprise is to resist God. Consequently, the colonised are portrayed as evil, rather than their resistance being a natural response to the taking of lands and the undermining of culture, leadership and tradition.
In the Protestant world, we see it in the exceptionalism of the American Puritans who considered themselves destined to set up a pure church and society. We see it in the Voortrekkers of South Africa who saw themselves as "God’s chosen people" and their leaders described as the "fathers of Israel".
In 1840s’ New Zealand, settlement of the South Island was dominated by religious movements. The Canterbury Association was sponsored by the Anglican Church which said immigrants "must be of the highest character for piety, steadiness and respectability as certified by the clergyman of their parish".
A major selling point was that English society was becoming corrupted by ideology, poverty and overcrowding and this was a chance to set up a moral and religious community as an example.
The Otago settlement was set up by the Free Church which had broken away from the Church of Scotland in 1843. The settlement of New Zealand would allow the church to practise its religion without interference by the state. They referred to Otago as the New Jerusalem where they could set up a "model Christian state", a theocracy for the "Godly" who could "subscribe to or participate in the religious and educational institutions of Otago".
In the North Island in the 1860s, Rev John Whiteley wrote to The Times of London calling on the British government to send troops to defeat Māori. In his view, God had commanded mankind to go forth and replenish the earth, including turning wilderness into productive land. He believed that Māori were disobeying God by not selling land they weren’t using to settlers who would then fulfil God’s commands.
The use of religion, the dispossession of land and the effect on the population is why Jewish settlement is settler colonialism.
Māori recognise settler colonialism when we see it, just as South Africans recognise apartheid when they see it.
Just as African Americans recognise racism when they see it, and just as Jewish people recognise anti-Semitism when they see it.
It is hoped that those trying to keep the two-state solution alive to bring peace between Israel and Palestine are given every support and encouragement.
Particularly as we must always remember that the Jewish people have learnt through painful experience that it is often not prudent to trust others to protect them.
— Dr Anaru Eketone is an associate professor in the University of Otago’s social and community work programme.
