Israel: Truth, Rights, and the Refusal to Bow to a Lie

A view on the myths of colonisation, the reality of indigeneity, the record of withdrawals, and the country that would rather trade than conquer.

1. Executive Summary

You’ve been told a simple story: Israel is a colonial project, hungry for land and war. The record says the opposite. Israel is the indigenous nation of the Jews, recognised in international law a century ago and ratified by a UN partition plan in 1947. Since independence, Israel’s territory under control has not expanded in pursuit of empire. It has shrunk when peace was possible, and it has withdrawn when the price secured stability: Sinai returned in 1982, Lebanon left in 2000, Gaza evacuated in 2005. The accusation of endless expansion is a propaganda line, not a fact.

Israel’s core instinct is trade and technology. It spends the highest share of GDP on R&D in the world, outpacing the OECD by a wide margin. Its high-tech sector carries more than half of national exports. If you want the real “Zionist plan,” it is software, chips, water, medicine, and logistics. It is Iron Dome saving civilians from rockets while Israelis build tools for the world.

This paper does three things. First, it dismantles the colonisation myth with law and history: Mandate texts, UN 181, continuous Jewish presence in the land. Second, it shows the pattern of withdrawals and restraint, alongside a security doctrine that prioritises defense, not conquest. Third, it explains Israel’s economic engine and the country’s strategic preference to trade its way to peace with neighbors, not lecture them.

The blueprint is practical. Call out the lies. Anchor arguments in evidence. Expand normalisation where interests align. Back universal standards on terror and sexual violence even when the victims are Israeli. And lean into Israel’s comparative advantage: turning threats into technologies that help everyone.

2. Historical Grounding: Indigeneity, Law, Consent

Long before slogans, there were facts. Jews are indigenous to the Land of Israel, with a continuous presence through foreign empires and expulsions. Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, and Tiberias never lost their Jewish communities, even in hard centuries under Mamluk and Ottoman rule. Israel’s modern return did not invent the Jewish tie; it restored political expression for it. Government records and standard histories recognise this continuity. Government of Israel

International law acknowledged that reality a century ago. In 1920 the San Remo Conference assigned the Palestine Mandate to Britain. The Mandate’s text, confirmed by the League of Nations in 1922, charged the Mandatory to secure the “establishment of the Jewish national home” while safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all inhabitants. That is the opposite of colonial privilege. It is recognition of an indigenous people’s right to national restoration, balanced with protections for others. World War I Document Archive

In 1947, the UN General Assembly approved Resolution 181 to partition the Mandate into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, with special status for Jerusalem. The Jewish leadership accepted. Arab states rejected and launched war. That choice mattered. Consent is the boundary between dispute and catastrophe. Encyclopedia Britannica

So when you hear “settler-colonial,” test it. The Jewish nation did not arrive as a European governor ruling an overseas possession. Jews returned to their ancestral homeland and sought self-determination through a UN-endorsed partition. That is history, not spin.

3. The Record of Territory: Israel Shrinks When Peace Is Real

The accusation that Israel wants more land runs into a brick wall called the map.

In 1979, Israel signed peace with Egypt. In 1982, it completed a full withdrawal from the Sinai, evacuating towns like Yamit and returning a landmass almost three times Israel’s size. That is not expansion. That is sacrifice for peace. CIE

In 2000, Israel left southern Lebanon. The UN Secretary-General confirmed full compliance with Resolution 425. Whatever one thinks of Hezbollah today, the legal fact stands: Israel withdrew to the internationally recognised border. Digital Library

In 2005, Israel dismantled every settlement in Gaza and removed the IDF from inside the Strip. Twenty-one communities were uprooted, four more in the northern West Bank. It was unilateral. It was costly. It happened. Wikipedia

These are not footnotes. They are the central pattern. When there is a partner or a strategic rationale, Israel trades land for peace or withdraws to reduce friction. The idea of relentless expansion cannot survive contact with the record.

4. Security Reality: Defense First, Civilians First

Israel faces a ring of Iranian-backed proxies that fire rockets from behind civilians. Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hamas and PIJ in Gaza. The Houthis now threaten international shipping. In that environment, Israel built layered defense to save lives. Iron Dome is the best-known layer, with interception rates around ninety percent in intense conflicts. That system does not seize land. It protects people. Defense Security Monitor

The same logic runs through the withdrawals above and the doctrine of deterrence. Israel does not need new land to prosper. It needs security from groups that openly call for its destruction. When people claim Israel “only wants war,” ask a simple question: why build one of the world’s most advanced civil missile defenses if your goal is conquest? Because your first priority is your civilians.

5. Startup Nation: The Real “Zionist Plan”

Israel spends more of its economy on research and development than any other country. The latest comparisons place Israel’s R&D at roughly 5.6 percent of GDP in 2022, with 2023 estimates even higher, beating the OECD by a wide margin. World Bank Open Data

That investment shows up in trade. High-tech is now over half of Israel’s exports according to the Innovation Authority and recent reporting. Waze was built in Israel and sold to Google for $1.3 billion. Mobileye grew from an Israeli lab to a world leader in advanced driver-assistance systems, acquired by Intel for about $15.3 billion and relisted later. The point is not bragging rights. It is the strategic truth: Israel’s strength is ideas. It would rather sell you software and sensors than seize your land. iTrade

Water tech is a good example. Israel turned scarcity into an export. Five large seawater plants now supply roughly half of Israel’s potable water, with advanced reverse-osmosis methods at Sorek and elsewhere. That knowledge feeds agriculture and cities abroad. Drip irrigation, pioneered and commercialised by Netafim in the 1960s, lifted yields across Asia and Africa and still evolves. This is how Israel prefers to make peace: trade, build, share. The Jerusalem Post

Yes, the tech sector has its cycles. Investment slows, then returns. Headlines fret about incorporation abroad. But the underlying engine remains: R&D intensity, human capital, and export mix that rewards stability over war. Recent data still show tech at about 20 percent of GDP and roughly half of exports. The incentives are obvious. War disrupts your own supply chain. Peace and normalisation expand your markets. Reuters

6. The Hypocrisy and the Lie

Colonisation. Apartheid. Genocide. Words now used as cudgels, not arguments. They erase context, deny indigeneity, and invert cause and effect.

Start with colonisation. The legal and historical trail is clear: San Remo, the Mandate, UN 181, Jewish acceptance, Arab rejection. Add continuous Jewish presence in the land through long centuries. The accusation relies on pretending those documents and facts do not exist. Government of Israel

Move to the idea that Israel “only wants war.” The withdrawals and defense investments contradict it. Sinai returned. Lebanon exited. Gaza dismantled. Iron Dome saves Israeli and Palestinian lives by reducing escalation incentives. These are the actions of a state forced to fight, not eager to. Defense Security Monitor

Then look at the selective empathy. Sexual violence on Israelis took weeks to penetrate the statements of some UN bodies. Famine headlines thundered for Gaza while Sudan starved in near silence. Israel is treated as the unique offender when the record of withdrawals and tech-first strategy argues the reverse. The effect is to punish a country that would rather trade than conquer. It is perverse.

7. Israel Since October 7th

On October 7th, 2023, Hamas launched the single worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. More than 1,200 people were slaughtered in southern Israel, families in their homes, festival-goers at a music event, elderly, women, and children. Entire kibbutzim were wiped out in hours. Over 250 were taken hostage into Gaza. Sexual violence was systematic. The intent was not military victory but terror and humiliation.

The world saw the footage. Yet within days, narratives shifted. Instead of outrage at the massacre, headlines recycled old accusations: “cycle of violence,” “proportionality,” “occupation.” The grotesque speed of moral inversion revealed the prejudice at work. Hamas had committed atrocities worthy of Nuremberg. But Israel was placed on trial.

Israel responded by mobilising 360,000 reservists, the largest call-up in its history. The IDF entered Gaza to dismantle Hamas’ military and political apparatus. Civilian harm, tragic and real, became the focus of international coverage. The massacre that started it was relegated to a preamble. By 2025, as the war ground on, famine declarations and “genocide” accusations were hurled at Israel in the UN, while Iran’s proxies in Sudan, Yemen, and Syria drew muted attention.

October 7th was not just an Israeli tragedy. It was a test of whether the West still recognised barbarism. Too many failed that test.

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8. The IDF: Innovation and Morality

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are not perfect, but they are unique. They operate under constant existential threat while embedding ethical constraints unknown to most armies.

Doctrine of Purity of Arms

From its founding, the IDF embraced Tohar HaNeshek—the “purity of arms.” Soldiers are trained to use force only for legitimate objectives, to avoid harm to non-combatants where possible. This is not rhetoric. It is built into rules of engagement, operational planning, and after-action reviews.

Operational Warnings and Evacuations

Israel is the only military in the world that routinely phones, texts, and leaflet-drops civilians before strikes. “Knock on the roof” tactics, dropping low-yield munitions as warnings—are costly militarily but chosen to minimise civilian deaths. Critics scoff, but even U.S. generals have acknowledged the IDF’s standard of precaution exceeds NATO’s in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Innovation Under Fire

• Iron Dome: real-time AI-driven missile defense with >90% interception rates, saving not only Israelis but also Palestinians by limiting escalation.

• Trophy System: the world’s first operational active protection system for tanks, neutralising incoming RPGs and missiles.

• Cyber & Signals: advanced monitoring of tunnels and communications, identifying Hamas command centres hidden under hospitals.

• Medical Evacuation: IDF field hospitals deploy with speed unmatched in the region, often treating Palestinians and Syrians.

Accountability

Israeli courts, including the Supreme Court, review military conduct in real time. Cases of misconduct are investigated, prosecuted, and punished. No Arab army, and few Western ones, subject their own to this level of scrutiny while fighting.

Reality in Context

Gaza is one of the most urban, dense, tunnel-riddled battlefields on Earth. Hamas hides under schools, hospitals, and mosques. The IDF fights inside that environment under the glare of global media. Civilian casualties are inevitable, but the morality is in the methods. And the methods are more restrained than those of any other state fighting equivalent enemies.

9. A Blueprint That Matches Israel’s Interests and the Region’s Needs

• Kill the lie with evidence. Quote Mandate texts. Show UN maps. Publish withdrawal records.

• Expand prosperity pipelines. Abraham Accords proved the model: trade brings stability. Extend it to Saudi Arabia.

• Universal standards. Terror is terror whether against Tel Aviv, London, or Nairobi. Sexual violence is crime whether the victim is Israeli or Sudanese.

• Trade to peace. Invest in joint ventures in water, food, energy, cyber. Build visible dividends for publics.

• Celebrate contribution. Push Israel’s innovations as public goods: medicine, water, cyber defense.

10. The Merlow View

I think the argument is simpler than the noise. Israel is not a coloniser. It is the world’s experiment in making an indigenous people whole after exile. It is also the world’s experiment in beating terror with defense and prosperity, not with empire.

You can dislike Israeli governments. You can push for a better day. But you cannot pretend the record is the opposite of what it is. Israel shrank when peace demanded it. It built when war would have paid politically. It pushes code and water, not borders.

Its fights are not parochial. They are everyone’s fights: against rockets at cities, against drones at shipping, against the idea that civilians are bargaining chips. If Israel loses those fights, every free city loses a layer of safety. If Israel wins with defense and trade, everyone learns.

11. Call to Awareness

Reject the slogans. Ask for the documents. When someone says coloniser, ask for San Remo and the Mandate text. When they say expansion, ask for Sinai, Lebanon, and Gaza. When they say warmonger, ask why a warmonger spends billions on missile shields that save lives and de-escalate wars.

Then act on what you know. Back normalisation. Fund joint projects. Demand universal standards on terror and on sexual violence. Treat Israeli victims as human. Treat Palestinian civilians as human. Refuse the lie that empathy must be rationed.

Israel is not asking the world to choose myths. It is asking the world to choose truth, trade, and the hard work of peace.

Notes and sources

Mandate and legal foundations: San Remo assignment of the Mandate (1920) and League of Nations Mandate text confirming the Jewish national home while safeguarding rights. UNGA 181 partition accepted by Jews, rejected by Arab states. World War I Document Archive

Continuous Jewish presence in the land over centuries; majority in Jerusalem by the 19th century. Government of Israel

Withdrawals: full return of Sinai to Egypt completed April 1982; Yamit evacuation; UN-confirmed withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000; unilateral disengagement from Gaza in 2005. Wikipedia

Defense and Iron Dome performance in high-intensity conflicts. Defense Security Monitor

Water and agriculture technology: seawater desalination provides about half of Israel’s potable water; Sorek RO process; drip irrigation pioneered and commercialised by Netafim in the 1960s with ongoing global impact. The Jerusalem Post Research+3

Startup nation: R&D share of GDP leads the world; high-tech around 20 percent of GDP and roughly half of exports; Waze acquisition; Mobileye acquisition and scale. Axios