Since war broke out between Israel and Hamas, the anti-Israel trope of “settler-colonialism”—or foreign Jews displacing indigenous Palestinians has reemerged.
In the case of Israel, this term is no more accurate than such demonization of the Jewish state as an “apartheid” regime or saying that it is committing “genocide.” The refutation of a Jewish connection to the land of their ancestors or the denial of a permanent Jewish presence in Israel stems either from ignorance or malevolence.
The irony is that real “settler-colonialism” in the Middle East is practiced and supported by some of Israel’s most ardent critics—Iran, Turkey, and Qatar.
These countries have intentionally altered the demographics in war-torn Syria and Iraq to strengthen their geopolitical positions.
The worst offender is Iran, which has manipulated sectarian strife to form a Shia corridor from its borders to Lebanon to supply its main proxy, Hezbollah.
In Syria, Iran has settled Shia families from Iraq and Lebanon in strategic Sunni areas between Damascus and the Lebanese border. Tehran has found a partner in the Alawite Islamic sect, which dominates the Syrian regime. President Bashar Al-Assad and other members of the Alawite minority oppress the Sunni-majority that was largely behind the Arab Spring revolution in 2011. As a result, Syria has helped facilitate the export of Iran’s Twelver Shia Islam—a branch practiced by the Iranian regime—to areas under Damascus’s control. Assad has allowed Twelver foreign clerics to occupy senior religious positions and relaxed visa restrictions for Iranians and Iraqis, leading to an influx of Shiites.
A similar story has taken place in Iraq. Following the U.S. removal of Saddam Hussein, Iraq fell into religious sectarianism, allowing Iran to quickly become the patron of the much of the ruling Shia majority. Under the pretext of war against terrorism and the Islamic State, Tehran began systemically changing the demographics to solidify its corridor to Lebanon. Iranian-backed militias were at the forefront of sectarian cleansing of Sunnis in areas like Tel Afar, Mosul and Fallujah.
Read the rest at Newsweek.
Joseph Epstein is a Fellow at Yorktown Institute.
