Choosing to write about “settler colonialism” as a theoretical notion and political concept is not an obvious choice for a poet and cultural critic, but Adam Kirsch’s new book is not about theory or politics. It deals instead with ideology.
Settler colonialism, Kirsch argues, is best understood “not as a historical concept but as an ideology, whose growing popularity among educated young Americans is already having significant political effects.” Their embrace of the term may be driven by idealism and good intentions, he contends, but it leads people “into morally disastrous territory.”
Choosing to write about “settler colonialism” as a theoretical notion and political concept is not an obvious choice for a poet and cultural critic, but Adam Kirsch’s new book is not about theory or politics. It deals instead with ideology.
On Settler Colonialism: Ideology, Violence, and Justice, Adam Kirsch, W.W. Norton, 160 pp., $24.99, August 2024.
Settler colonialism, Kirsch argues, is best understood “not as a historical concept but as an ideology, whose growing popularity among educated young Americans is already having significant political effects.” Their embrace of the term may be driven by idealism and good intentions, he contends, but it leads people “into morally disastrous territory.”
The case he focuses on is the war in Gaza, the current round of which started on Oct. 7, 2023, after the Hamas attack on Israel. He claims to have encountered “excitement and enthusiasm” over Hamas’s exploits, not only among Palestinians and in the Arab world, but from Ivy League campuses, the Democratic Socialists of America, and Black Lives Matter.
What was striking about these reactions, Kirsch writes, was their “frank enthusiasm for violence against Israeli civilians,” and second, “the ubiquity of the term settler colonial.” He goes on: “For many academics and activists, describing Israel as a settler colonial state was a sufficient justification for the Hamas attack.”
Kirsch’s general critique of settler colonialism as an “ideology” is merely a prelude for the real topic of the book: the Gaza war and the broader Israel/Palestine question. The book is written primarily with this issue in mind, and this is also where Kirsch’s analysis falters.
Kirsch may not be aware of it, but the reference to Zionism and Israel as settler colonial projects was introduced by the Israeli radical left movement Matzpen and the PLO research center in the mid-1960s. It was followed by a spate of publications in the 1970s and inspired comparative studies that examined Israel/Palestine, South Africa, and northern Ireland—my own work included.
But this mode of analysis had largely faded by the 1990s, following the growing acceptance of Israel internationally after its peace agreement with Egypt and the collapse of the Soviet bloc with its resolute anti-Zionist ideology. Decades later, the term was revived, in a different context, by academic and student activists.
Settler colonialism can be applied in many different settings, from Chinese policies in Tibet and Xinjiang, to Indian policies in Kashmir, Indonesian practices in Irian Jaya, the Moroccan approach to Western Sahara, and Turkish settlement in northern Cyprus. But, Kirsch argues, currently the term is mostly used to refer to the actions of Israeli Jews, who “belong to the category of illegitimate settlers, because Israel itself is a settler colonial state.”
It is also applied to the United States as “a colonial power, illegitimately occupying land that rightfully belongs to Native Americans—and always will.” Both countries are seen as “permanently illegitimate,” due to their creation against the will of Indigenous people.
These notions rely on a phrase coined by the Australian academic Patrick Wolfe:........