speaking of floods

A major geopolitical feature of modern world history is how the European countries (especially Portugal, Spain, Britain, France, Holland, Belgium, and Italy), upon gaining trans-oceanic navigation capabilities after the fifteenth century, conquered, colonized, subjugated, and exploited countries all over the world.

During the period 1450–1950 European people and power flooded the world. Starting with the American Revolution, most of the colonies eventually threw off the imperial yoke.

The Portuguese started disrupting the lifeways of African tribal peoples under the maritime fleets of Henry the Navigator during the 15th century. Outposts of European civilization got established worldwide over succeeding centuries. After America became such during the 18th century the Anglo-European imperial powers established dominance worldwide.

Europeanization. Think of what that looked like to the indigenous peoples of other cultures who got overrun.

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One of the last settler-colonial encroachments was that of the Zionists flooding in to Palestine under the auspices of the British during the twentieth century.

Until 1900 the Middle East had, for centuries, been dominated by the miserable empire of the Ottoman Turks. The miserable European imperialists were more powerful and they took over from the Ottomans after WWI. The British and the French carved up the Middle East. Europeanization.

The British took over Palestine in 1920.

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Circa 1600–1800 British people had flooded in to America and overrun the indigens. In the case of Palestine the British encouraged another European group of people to flood in.

There was a codependency between the British and the Zionists. The interest of the former was to establish a new outpost of European civilization. The interest of the Zionists was to establish a nation-state for the Jewish people.

The 19th century was a period of nation-state consolidation. The Jews were persecuted in many of the Christian countries, so some of them (the Zionists) desired to have a nation-state of their own. The Jews had a cultural affinity for Palestine. The Zionists decided to try to establish a Jewish nation-state there.

The Jews had been the dominant residential group in the Levant long ago. But for hundreds of years prior to 1900 the dominant residential group was Muslim Arabs. They and their forebears had lived in villages for many, many generations. There was no nation-state there … it was just an area referred to as Palestine. Among the Muslim Arabs lived some tiny remnants of the old Jewish population (and some Christians, also). The Jewish population was about 3% during most of that time. It was 3% as late as 1880.

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Think of this from the perspective of the indigens:

In the span of one lifetime (1880–1950) . . . Zionists flooded in and their population percentage rose from 3% to 35%. After WWI the British took over. After WWII a European-dominated institution (the United Nations) handed 55% of the land to the Zionists.

In 1947 a European-dominated institution handed 55% of the land to a group which had constituted 3% of the population in 1880, 10% in 1920, and 35% in 1947. Resentment simmered. During the span of just one lifetime the Muslim Arabs were encroached upon and overrun by a flood of Europeans. It was a manifestation of a pattern that was disrupting lifeways all over the world. Put yourself in their shoes.

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https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/10/20/the-british-roots-of-the-conflict-in-palestine/