You have consistently described Israel as a settler-colonial state. You have also said that while you support Israel’s existence, you cannot support it as a Jewish state, only as “a state with equal rights for all its citizens.” You have further argued that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be arrested if he comes to New York.

I am struck that the history and legitimacy of Israel have become issues for the mayor of New York. Yet because you have made them central to your public life, they deserve to be examined seriously.

I do not dispute that early Zionists described their project in colonial terms. Nor do I dispute that Benjamin Netanyahu should be held accountable for alleged war crimes. Nevertheless, I would like to ask how your framework accounts for several historical facts that are difficult to reconcile with reducing Israel’s origins to settler colonialism.

Taken together, your public positions suggest a coherent view of Israel, not as a nation-state with a legitimate claim to Jewish self-determination, but as a settler-colonial project whose legitimacy lies in its transformation into a single democratic state. It is that framework I want to examine.

How does it account for the Jews fleeing the destruction of European Jewry? Many found refuge wherever they could. Palestine was one of those places, often because so much of the world refused to take them. For many, however, it was not simply a refuge. It was the land to which Jewish........

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