Only About 31% of Israeli Jews Are European—So Why Is Israel Called a European Settler-Colonial State?

Dispelling myths about European colonisation, this article reveals Israel’s ancient Jewish roots, the diverse origins of its population, and why comparisons to apartheid South Africa require a closer look.

Sephardic, Ashkenazic, Mizrahi and Ethiopian Jews

One of the most widely repeated claims today is that Israel is a European settler-colonial state. The accusation is that European Jews came after the Holocaust, took over Palestinian land, and established a colonial entity in the Middle East, displacing the indigenous population. This argument sounds powerful, especially when framed in post-colonial language, but it falls apart under honest historical analysis.

Jews are not outsiders to the land of Israel. They are not Europeans who showed up to conquer or control a foreign region. The Jewish people originate from the land historically known as Judea and Israel. Their presence in the region dates back over 3,000 years, with continuous ties to cities like Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, and Tiberias. Even after the Roman conquest and the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Jewish communities never entirely left the land. Small numbers remained throughout the Byzantine, Islamic, Crusader, Ottoman, and British periods. The idea of returning to Zion has been central to Jewish identity for centuries.

When Jews began returning in larger numbers during the late 1800s, it was not a colonial conquest. They legally purchased land, established agricultural communities, and sought to rebuild what had been lost. This process was not imposed by a foreign empire but driven by a people with historic and spiritual ties to the land. Their return was motivated by both longing and persecution. The Russian pogroms, European antisemitism, and eventually the Holocaust drove many Jews to seek refuge in the only place they ever called home.

The claim that Jews in Israel are mostly European is also false. Jewish identity is not limited to one race or geographic origin. It is an ethnoreligious identity that has adapted to local cultures but retained its core continuity across centuries. Today, Israel is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the region.

A 2019 study estimated that 44.9 percent of Israeli Jews identify as Mizrahi, meaning Jews from Middle Eastern and North African countries like Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Morocco, and Iran. Other research puts the number with full or partial Mizrahi ancestry as high as 61 percent. These Jews are not European. They were indigenous to the Middle East long before the rise of Islam or the Arab identity. Between 1948 and the 1970s, over 800,000 Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries due to persecution, violence, and antisemitic laws following the creation of the State of Israel.

These Mizrahi Jews arrived in Israel with nothing, having had their assets seized and their communities erased. They were absorbed into Israeli society and played a foundational role in building the state. Calling them colonisers erases their suffering and distorts their history.

Ashkenazi Jews, often cited as “white Europeans,” were also fleeing centuries of oppression. From the Spanish Inquisition to the pogroms of Eastern Europe and eventually the Holocaust, European Jews were consistently treated as outsiders. Even in countries where they lived for generations, they were barred from land ownership, excluded from universities, and subjected to blood libels and forced conversions. Their arrival in Israel was not part of a colonial project. It was an act of survival.

Critics often point to apartheid South Africa to draw a comparison. But if you actually look closely and reverse the roles, the opposite is true. In South Africa, the black indigenous population was oppressed by a white European minority who controlled land, government, and resources. Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress fought to dismantle that system and restore rights to the indigenous majority.

In the case of Israel, the Jewish people are the indigenous group. They were exiled, persecuted, and denied basic rights for centuries, both in Europe and across the Middle East. The return of Jews to their ancestral land is more comparable to black South Africans reclaiming their homeland than it is to Europeans imposing themselves on Africa. In fact, if you swapped the lens of skin color for one of ethnicity, you would see that the Jewish people, including brown-skinned Mizrahim and Sephardim, were treated as second-class citizens in both Europe and the Arab world.

The term apartheid, when applied to Israel, ignores basic facts. Arab citizens of Israel vote, serve in parliament, become judges, work as doctors and lawyers, and enjoy full legal rights. The situation in the West Bank is complex and disputed, but it is not based on race. It is based on conflicting national claims, security concerns, and a still-unresolved territorial conflict. That is not the definition of apartheid as practiced in South Africa, where the system was based on race and enforced through every layer of law and governance.

It is ironic that many who admire Nelson Mandela now accuse Israel of apartheid without recognising that Mandela himself sought good relations with Israel and acknowledged the Jewish role in the anti-apartheid struggle. Many South African Jews, including white Ashkenazim, fought alongside Mandela and the ANC. Mandela also acknowledged Israel’s right to exist within secure borders.

To call Israel a European colonial project is to ignore the stories of Jews who walked from Persia, who fled Baghdad, who escaped from Yemen on Operation Magic Carpet, who were driven out of Egypt, or who emerged from the ashes of Auschwitz. It is to reduce a complex, indigenous, and persecuted people to a simplistic label based on how they look.

Would we say African Americans returning to Africa were colonisers? Of course not. They were people seeking to reconnect with their ancestral land after centuries of slavery. The Jewish return to Israel is no different. Whether they came from Warsaw or Fez, Tehran or Kiev, Jews returned not to conquer, but to survive and rebuild.

In conclusion, Israel is not a white colonial outpost. It is the national home of an ancient, multiethnic people with deep and legitimate roots in the land. The attempt to frame it as a European invention erases half its population, distorts Jewish history, and undermines the real meaning of anti-colonialism. If you truly support indigenous rights, you should support the right of the Jewish people to live in their ancestral homeland, just as you would support the rights of black South Africans, Native Americans, or any other displaced people.

This is not about skin color. It is about truth, history, and the right to exist.