The Zionist project’s origins and its enduring implications reveal a complex interplay of religious, political, and imperial forces that continue to shape the Middle East region’s struggles.
The History of the Arab World’s Struggle
For many in the West, the recent history of the Arab world remains a distant or fragmented story—often told through external lenses rather than from within its own cultural and historical context. Yet, to understand today’s global dynamics, it is essential to revisit how the Arab world evolved through centuries of shifting power, resilience, and transformation.
These two videos from The Kandari Chronicles offer valuable perspectives on that journey.
The first explores the profound impact of changing world orders on Arab history—from the rise of Islam and the Caliphates to Ottoman rule, European colonialism, the Cold War, U.S. dominance, and today’s emerging multipolar world led by alliances such as BRICS. It traces how each global order brought moments of unity and fragmentation, shaping Arab struggles for sovereignty, dignity, and identity.
The second features an in-depth conversation with Eugene Rogan, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History at the University of Oxford. The discussion delves into the Nahda, or Arab Awakening, of the mid-19th century, examining how Arab history intertwines with the Ottoman Empire, the aftermath of World War I, colonial expansion, the challenges of nation-state formation, the rise and decline of Arab nationalism, and the subsequent politicization of Islam.
Together, these videos offer a deeper understanding of how Arab history continues to inform the political, cultural, and moral questions of our time.
ARABS AND THE HISTORY OF WORLD ORDER – From Unified Domination to Helpless Division
DECODING MODERN ARAB HISTORY – A Conversation with Eugene Rogan
Genocide as a Colonial Erasure
As explored in my article The Colonial Project: How History Shaped the Genocide in Gaza, the ongoing violence and displacement in Gaza are not isolated events but the culmination of a colonial vision conceived over a century ago. This vision, deeply embedded in imperial history, continues to shape the present.
In Gaza: The Genocide Ignored by Governments, I discussed how the Question of Palestine remains one of the most complex and enduring issues in modern international relations. Its roots lie in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when competing claims to land, identity, and sovereignty began to crystallize. The story traverses key turning points—from the decline of the Ottoman Empire and British colonial policies under the Mandate for Palestine to the establishment of Israel in 1948 and the mass displacement of Palestinians during the Nakba.
The historical timeline traces decades of conflict, diplomacy, and the Palestinian struggle for self-determination. From the 1947 UN partition plan to current debates over statehood, refugees, and human rights, the Question of Palestine remains central to understanding both the modern Middle East and the broader pursuit of global justice. (Read the Francesca Albanese report on October 2024: Genocide as a colonial erasure.)
At its core, this project was designed by segments of the Anglo-Evangelical and Jewish elite in Britain, who sought to redirect the migration of Eastern European Jews away from Western Europe—and particularly from Britain itself.
Palestine became the chosen focal point of this geopolitical and religious strategy, merging imperial ambitions with theological convictions.
These religious motivations dovetailed with British efforts to weaken the Ottoman Empire, forging a powerful alliance between pious evangelicals and imperial policymakers who envisioned Palestine as an extension of the Western world.
In a settler-colonial context, conduct resulting in the disconnection of an Indigenous people from their land – forced displacement, for example – should be considered significant indicators of specific intent targeting the group’s existence
“Palestine Didn’t Exist”: Unpacking the ‘Empty Land’ Myth
The “Empty Land” myth is an idea used to justify displacement and ethnic cleansing by framing Palestine as uninhabited before the 20th century. Historical records, including Ottoman and British censuses, tell a different story: Palestine was home to thriving cities such as Jaffa, Jerusalem, and Nablus, complete with markets, schools, and vibrant communities.
Through archival material, demographic evidence, and historical analysis, the Kandari Chronicles dismantles this political construct and reveals how such myths were used to erase a people’s presence. It also examines the contradiction embodied by figures like Golda Meir, who once held a Palestinian passport while denying the very existence of Palestinians.
“Jewish Romantic Nationalism”: The Political Fusion of Zionism and Judaism
Zionist pastor John Hagee at Christians United for Israel conference: Jews are a "chosen people" who are "above all the people on the face of the earth."
— Chris Menahan 🇺🇸 (@infolibnews) October 22, 2025
"That includes the United States of America," he says.
Sen. Ted Cruz spoke at this event. pic.twitter.com/Rgop7Hi3AZ
Religious Zionist David M. Friedman, Trump's former US Ambassador to Israel, says he believed he was doing "God's will" by pushing the US to move its embassy to Jerusalem.
— Chris Menahan 🇺🇸 (@infolibnews) October 23, 2025
(This is how policy is actually set in America.) pic.twitter.com/ztnhtgXAYw
In his 1917 memorandum, Edwin Montagu, the only Jewish member of the British Cabinet, issued one of the earliest and most profound warnings about the political dangers of Zionism. Describing it as “a mischievous political creed, untenable by any patriotic citizen of the United Kingdom,” Montagu foresaw that transforming a faith into a nationalist project would have grave consequences—not only for Palestinians, but for humanity as a whole.
Montagu believed Judaism was a religion rooted in ethical and spiritual principles, not a political identity to be imposed through territorial claims. He cautioned that the creation of a Jewish nation-state in Palestine would inevitably lead to dispossession, exclusion, and moral distortion. In his memorandum, he predicted that elevating one group’s divine claim above universal human rights would breed lawlessness disguised as legitimacy, and oppression presented as self-defense.
His words remain strikingly prescient today, as Israel continues to claim democratic values while systematically denying the rights of millions under occupation. Montagu warned of exactly this outcome—a state that would present itself as a beacon of democracy while acting with impunity, eroding the very principles it professed to uphold.
In his memorandum, he wrote:
“I assume that it means that Mohammedans and Christians are to make way for the Jews… Turks and other Mohammedans in Palestine will be regarded as foreigners, just in the same way as Jews will hereafter be treated as foreigners in every country but Palestine. Perhaps also citizenship must be granted only as a result of a religious test.”
Montagu’s foresight exposed a truth that still reverberates more than a century later: a political project built on exclusion and divine entitlement endangers not only those it displaces but the moral fabric of the world that tolerates it.
His words anticipated what international bodies, such as the International Court of Justice (ICJ), now define as “unlawful occupation” in the region.
“Israel Is the Only Democracy in the Middle East”: The Myth Behind an Unlawful Occupation and the Use of Violence as “Self-Defence”
A true democracy rests on equality—legal, moral, and civic. There can be no second-class citizens. Yet in Israel, equality is undermined by the legal distinction between citizenship and nationality.
While both Jewish and Arab Israelis hold citizenship, nationality in Israel legally refers to being Jewish. Many key rights, benefits, and privileges derive not from citizenship itself but from this Jewish nationality status—creating a two-tiered system that excludes non-Jews by design.
This inequality is codified in law. Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, has documented dozens of discriminatory statutes that privilege Jews over Palestinian citizens. The Law of Return grants automatic citizenship to Jews worldwide, while the Absentees’ Property Law confiscates land from Palestinians displaced in 1948. These are not bureaucratic oversights but deliberate instruments of demographic and territorial control.
Israel’s Supreme Court has ruled that establishing a civic identity not based on ethnicity would “endanger the Jewish character of the state.” This legal stance confirms Israel’s ethnocratic nature—where Jewish identity forms the foundation of statehood and policy.
Discrimination extends deeply into land ownership. Roughly 13 percent of Israel’s territory is controlled by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), which is mandated to lease land only to Jews. Palestinian citizens, though formally Israeli, are excluded from accessing or leasing this land. The Israeli Land Authority, which manages JNF property, enforces this segregation—making the state an active participant in ethnic discrimination.
Political geographer Oren Yiftachel defines Israel as an ethnocracy: a regime that “promotes the expansion of the dominant group in contested territory while maintaining a democratic façade.” This view is echoed by B’Tselem, Israel’s largest human rights organization, which officially designated Israel as an apartheid state.
Ultimately, even if one insists on calling Israel a democracy, its record shows that democracies are fully capable of committing grave injustices. Throughout history, states claiming democratic values have engaged in colonialism, repression, and genocide. Israel’s actions toward the Palestinian people exemplify this enduring contradiction. (Read more here…)
We can't Play Ignorance
History is not some distant lesson—it is screamingly present in Gaza and the occupied territories. The patterns are familiar: systemic discrimination, forced displacement, and denial of basic rights. What is unfolding is not a tragic accident but a deliberate design, and the consequences are profound.
First, by enshrining inequality and ethnic privilege, Israel normalizes structural violence, turning discrimination into the very foundation of daily life. This is not merely unfair—it is a warning that societies built on exclusion inevitably fracture and breed further conflict.
Second, international indifference allows this cruelty to continue with impunity. When the world tolerates the dispossession and oppression of a people, it emboldens those in power to escalate violence, confident that they will not be held accountable.
Finally, the implications ripple far beyond Gaza. A state that claims democracy while codifying ethnocracy sets a dangerous precedent. It becomes a model for other regimes, a justification for ethnic nationalism elsewhere, and a catalyst for regional and global instability.
To ignore this is to repeat history: the same patterns that led to colonial atrocities, apartheid, and genocide are playing out again, right before our eyes.
