Jews are indigenous to Israel and have the right to self-determination.

If Zionism was a movement of indigenous self-determination, why did its own founders call it colonization? Early Zionist leaders like Theodor Herzl described Zionism as "something colonial," Vladimir Jabotinsky called it "a colonization adventure," and early Zionist institutions bore names such as the Jewish Colonial Trust and the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association.

Zionism increasingly shifted from the colonial language its founders had openly embraced to the language of indigeneity and self-determination, as colonialism lost international legitimacy in the post-World War II era of anti-colonial struggle. The project did not change. Only the narrative used to justify it in a decolonizing world did.

Historically, Jewish communities were diverse in their languages, cultures, and political identities. In Palestine, they lived as Palestinian Jews alongside Muslim and Christian Palestinians, sharing a common language, culture, history, and society. It was Zionism that recast Jewish identity as a homogenized national identity and then weaponized that identity to legitimize the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine through settler colonization. Today, millions of Jews reject Zionism and the settler-colonial project carried out in their name.

A state built on the erasure of another people and the denial of their right to self-determination carries no legitimacy under any framework. The Zionist project was implemented through the ethnic cleansing of around 800,000 Palestinians, the destruction of 531 villages, the confiscation of Palestinian land, and the denial of Palestinian refugees' right of return. The Nakba did not end in 1948. It continues today through military occupation, apartheid, and genocide.

The global alliances tell the story. Palestinians have consistently found solidarity among Indigenous peoples and anti-colonial movements worldwide, from South Africa to Turtle Island. Israel has consistently depended on the political, military, and diplomatic support of colonial and imperial powers. These alliances are not accidental. They reflect who is the colonial power and who are the indigenous people fighting for liberation.