The history of Zion and of the Jewish people is a history of repeated persecution, oppression, colonial occupation and exile.
As Jews, irrespective of whether we are Ashkenazi, Mizrachi, Sephardi or Beta Yisrael, our history has been inexorably linked to literally thousands of years of occupation, colonialism, and persecution by various colonial powers and our corresponding yearning to return to freedom and sovereignty in the land of Israel.
Since before there was even a concept of a “White” people or of “White Supremacy,” Colonialism by respective empires and the corresponding exploitation and persecution by those empires plagued the Jewish people as well as our right to sovereignty in our indigenous homeland. From the Babylonians to the Romans to the Byzantines, and then from the Arabs to the Crusaders, to the Ayyubids, the Mamluks, the Ottomans, and lastly the British; colonial occupation of Zion by powerful foreign empires and the imposition of foreign exploitative rule and control of the holiest sites to the Jewish people prevented Jewish sovereignty and freedom in Zion, and also perpetuated the continued persecution – and often slaughter – of Jewish people living in exile, whether that exile was in Morocco, Berlin, Kiev, Tehran, or Baghdad.
In the 19th Century our nearly two millennia of longing for Zion and to return to our homeland, free of colonial rule, manifested itself in the embrace of political Zionism. A movement to take the return to Zion and the return to freedom in our indigenous land into our own hands; to live up to G-d’s expectation that he expects us to be active in our lives and to work towards making the world a better place. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has said: “being the co-author with G-d in our lives.”