My name is Garrett Washington

Category: Decolonization

  • Masculinity and Occupation: Thinking About the Palestinian Question

    The Palestinian question is a conflict between Western imperialism and indigenous sovereignty (Ayyash 3). Visions of the future vary depending on who one believes should have control of the land. On one hand, we have a two-state solution where Palestine and Israel exist simultaneously within apartheid conditions, dispossessing the Arab populations of humanity. On the other hand, we have a unified Palestine where both Arabs and settler migrants live side by side, vote, and interact as equal humans. By viewing settler colonialism within a decolonial and feminist framework, we understand that only a one-state solution dismantles structures of Western-imposed settler colonialism and patriarchal militarism (Go 282) (douglas 12). The dismantling of the settler occupation creates the conditions for justice and shared liberation (Fanon, n.p.). To set one on the correct line, this question needs to be historically analyzed (Shrimp, n.p.). In this paper, I will explore the changing population, historicalize Jewish experience in Europe, critique the patriarchy within Zionist culture, and examine the conditions of a one-state solution and a two-state solution. 

    To conduct a political analysis in Palestine, we must have an accurate understanding of the people who live there, specifically of the historical changes in demographics. When studying demographics, we study the human population in terms of size, composition, and distribution, along with the reasons for these characteristics and the consequences that they produce (McFalls 2007: n.p.). McFalls praises demography because “the history of a place cannot be truly known without knowing who lived there.” We will start our journey during the Ottoman period. During this period, the Ottomans ruled from 1515/1516 to 1917. Palestine’s population during this period was predominantly Arab; however, due to the census-tracking policy, many groups in the area did not register, namely the Bedouin, a nomadic people throughout the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, and North Africa (McCarthy 1998). McCarthy attributes the lack of a total population count to individuals avoiding taxation. There were other issues surrounding the Ottomans’ census numbers, including (1) the borders of the Palestinian peoples’ territories have been ever-changing due to acrimonious negotiation of the ruling class (Marlowe 1959); and (2) the centrality of the Levant between Europe and Africa (Dube 2019; Marlowe 1959). The lack of accurate records hinders the precise determination of the number of migrants at the time (Mandel 1976; McCarthy 1998). However, European colonialism subjected the inhabitants of Palestine to violence in tandem with a more accepted system of counting the population. 

    After Ottoman rule, British mandate took control of Palestine. During this period, two censuses were performed; the largest groups during the mandate were Arab Christians and Muslims. Because the British did not understand the cultures of the inhabitants, who all spoke Arabic, they stratified the population by religious group rather than by way of life or culture (Tibawi 1977). However, looking back on oral traditions, the population at the time can be split into three groups: (1) Bedouin, a nomadic people; (2) Fellahein, the agricultural peasantry; and (3) Belladeen, those living in the city owning freestanding homes (Tibawi 1977). The next largest group recorded by the British was the Jews. Jews have always lived in the holy land along with Christians and Muslims. Prior to 1880, they migrated to Palestine primarily for religious and scholarly endeavors, among other push-and-pull factors (Tibawi 1977). For brevity, I will not be going into depth about the smaller minority groups, including the Druze, Baha’is, and Samaritans. From then on, all of Palestine’s population continued to drop relative to the rate of European Jewish migration. Censuses of Palestine, thus, are best understood as instruments wielded by the political elite to understand and maintain control of the land.

    The increase of European Jewish migration to Palestine in the late 19th and early 20th centuries laid the groundwork for the establishment of the Zionist state (McCarthy 1998; Lubbad 2007; Porath 1974). The Jewish migration did not appear without cause; it was a part of a broader exodus from Europe (Porath 1974; Sachar 1958). The Jewish population in their homeland experienced unprecedented feminization (Maor 2021; Imhoff 2016). The Jewish people faced being scapegoated for economic issues, the division of their labor along ethnic lines (similar to the division of labor along gendered lines), and the lack of humanity bestowed to the group (Wyrwa 2011). Zionism emerged as a masculine reaction to the Jewish question, seeking to establish the group’s humanity by asserting itself as human through colonialism (Dworkin 1978). In Europe, Jews were excluded from the land and political power, operating as a feminized, sinful population who betrayed Christ (Dworkin 1978). Zionism seeks to overturn the stereotype of the Jewish population through conquest, patriarchy, and militarism, under the guise of democracy and inclusivity.   

    In reality, the Zionists reproduce the same conditions their people once lived through for the indigenous groups in Palestine: ethnic cleansing and apartheid. The Zionist occupation utilizes “feminism” within the Israeli Occupation Force and Knesset (the regime’s apartheid bourgeois parliament) to mask the ongoing gendered domination of the Arab and Jewish population (IDF 2013). This takes many forms, from the rape of Palestinian hostages and workers crossing through apartheid walls to the rape of IOF soldiers on their own bases. Israel’s colonial project performs masculinity through domination, turning historical Jewish vulnerability into genocidal aggression when using a decolonial feminist framework.


    There is a lack of agreement on a solution for the Israeli occupation of Palestine; however, there are two main lines of thought: the one-state and two-state solutions. Proponents of the two-state solution argue it represents pragmatic coexistence–preserving Jewish sovereignty while granting Palestinians autonomy. This solution, backed by the West and the UN, promises stability but effectively entrenches the Palestinians in bantustans. However, the one-state solution rejects this colonial partition. Rooted in anti-apartheid and decolonial thought, I call for a single democratic and secular state ensuring equality and the right of return (the right for Palestinians to return to the land and homes that many still have the keys to). This vision reframes the question from “how to divide the land” to “how to decolonize it and make everyone equal.” My decolonial feminist analysis reveals that settler colonial states cannot be reformed through partition, as the native population will never normalize living in their current condition; they must be dismantled and reimagined. The one-state solution addresses both colonial and patriarchal violence, dismantling borders that segregate and militarize life. Like South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle, liberation in Palestine demands inclusive governance grounded in shared humanity.

    Ultimately, justice requires more than coexistence – it requires a rebalancing of power. The path forward lies not in two nations divided by fear but in one polity committed to dismantling settler colonialism and patriarchal militarism alike.

    Works Cited

    Ayyash, Muhannad. “The Western imperial order on display in Gaza: Palestine as an ideological fault line in the international arena.” Third World Quarterly, vol. 1, no. 18, 2025. T and F Online, https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2025.2465522.

    douglas, carol anne. “Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women’s Liberation.” Off Our Backs, vol. 30, no. 10, 2000, pp. 12–12. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20836727. Accessed 10 Nov. 2025.

    Dworkin, Andrea. Right-wing women. (Political science). 1978. ISBN 0-399-50671-3

    Dube, Z., 2019, ‘Jesus – The immigrant Egyptian Jews in Matthew’s Sondergut: A migration perspective’, HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 75(4), a5256. https://doi.org/ 10.4102/hts.v75i4.5256

    Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Grove Press, 1963

    Go, Julian. “Thinking against empire: Anticolonial thought as social theory.” The British Journal of Sociology, vol. 74, no. 3, 2023, pp. 279–293, https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12993.

    Imhoff, Sarah, “The Myth of American Jewish Feminization,” Jewish Social Studies: History, Culture, Society 2016 n.s. 21, no. 3 (Spring/Summer 2016): 126–152 doi:10.2979/jewisoci-stud.21.3.05

    Israeli Defense Force, “IDF Leads the Way in Gender Integration.” Israeli Defense Force, 2013

    Lubbad, Ismail. 2007. Demographic Profile of Palestinian Migration. Paper Prepared for the Migration and Refugee Movements in the Middle East and North Africa, The Forced Migration & Refugee Studies Program. Cairo: The American University.

    Lucas, D. & Meyer, P. (pnyt.). 1980. Beginning Population Studies. Canberra: Australian National University.

    Maor NR, Roguin A, Roguin N. Medieval Roots of the Myth of Jewish Male Menstruation. Rambam Maimonides Med J. 2021 Oct 25;12(4):e0033. doi: 10.5041/RMMJ.10454. PMID: 34709170; PMCID: PMC8549838.

    McCarthy, J. 1998. The Population of Palestine: Population Statistics of the Late Ottoman Period and the Mandate.

    McFalls Jr., J. A. 2007. Population: A lively introduction. Population Bulletin. Jil. 62. No.1.

    Shimp, Kaleb (2009) “The Validity of Karl Marx’s Theory of Historical Materialism,” Major Themes in Economics, 11, 35-56.

    Smith, C. D. 2001. Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A History with Documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

    Wyrwa, U. (2011). Anti-semitism in Europe (1879-1914): Lines of inquiry, conception and objectives of the research seminar at the center for anti-semitism research. Annals of the University of Bucharest / Political science series, 13(1), 3-17. https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-377395

  • Return to Sender: Naming Europeans, Rejecting Empire

    Intro Note:

    This essay is a personal political reflection drawn from my lineage, my surroundings, and my engagement with anti-colonial and Marxist thought. It is not intended as an academic paper or a comprehensive historical analysis. It is a polemic, a naming, and a way of situating myself within structures of empire and colonialism. The arguments here are grounded in lived contradiction and revolutionary commitment, not liberal debate or postmodern deflection. I write this to clarify position and sharpen struggle.

    Lineage as Weaponry: Racialization Begins with Erasure

    I am both European and Afrikan in lineage, Irish and Jewish settlers on my mother’s side, and while my father’s side descends from the peoples of West and Central Africa — Yoruba, Igbo, Mande, Akan, Ewe, and Western Bantu — whose histories stretch from the Mali Empire to the Benin Kingdom. The violence of the transatlantic slave trade carried my paternal ancestors into the Americas, but my political alignment remains grounded in the experiences of those of the African homelands and the diaspora. For myself, only one side of my family is categorized by their geographical lineage and skin color. Only one side of my family is subject to ongoing genocidal policies, through housing, policing, and healthcare policies embedded in the settler-colonial state apparatuses at home on Turtle Island and in the homeland. Only my father’s side is asked to explain its presence, anger, and existence on Turtle Island. The other side was just “American and white.” Not Irish. Not Jewish. Just white/American. Just normal. Just Human. Just the most significant part of the global petite bourgeoisie.

    I asked myself why I have an entire story for my settler side of the family. From this point forward, this history will be known as a mythology. I started by analyzing the origins of each side of my family. I saw that half of my lineage is from Europe and defines themselves as white and American. Leading me to question what it means to be American for a white person. I thought of the dreams that I would hear in the community growing up. Dreams where the nuclear family can one day have their own farm/business, or a job that provides them with the excess means to enjoy all the modern luxuries, such as cars, boats, homes, vacations, and new technology. But never once did these people who described themselves as white Americans take a look at where these luxuries come from or who allows them to possess such luxuries. Examining the historical context helped me find my answer. Being white and American is political. It is built on the super profits of the oppressed nations at home and abroad. These dreams of being petite bourgeois must be stomped out by correctly naming these people. Naming roughly 60% of the United States population as settlers is an act to precede the revolution. It reattaches them to geography, to history, and to the systems they built, spread, and enforce.

    Naming Is Political: Whiteness Was Built to Mask Europe

    Whiteness is not ancestral. It is not cultural. It is not a person. It is a tool that the European bourgeoisie created to consolidate capital among people who resemble themselves.
    Initially, many of the people we now call “white” weren’t white at all. The Irish, the Jews, the Slavs—they were disposable and genocided. Poor Europeans were thrown into industrial machines and colonial armies in the United States and other colonial powers as wage laborers. With the dream instilled in them to one day operate their own business. While the dream they have created inside themselves is built on the land of slaughter, indigenous peoples and their workers are colonial subjects of a different color. Today, these black and brown individuals are paid extremely low wages, not to be compared to “white man” wages. Not all who came over originally were able to achieve this dream, causing them to create tactical unity between the wage laborers and the peasantry in the United States. However, recorded American history reveals that while these groups were tactically united, they employed very different strategies. Rather than letting the masses of the proletariat take control of the land, the bourgeois extended their profits in the form of whiteness. So slowly, violently, strategically, and deceitfully they integrated into whiteness. The Irish became cops who beat them previously. The Jews became the genociders who once killed 6 million of their own.

    Whiteness, ie, settlers, grew. And these people never took a chance to examine what their livelihoods were built upon.

    Today, many Irish and Jewish Americans use their history of oppression as insulation—invoking the pain of the past to avoid accountability in the present. But being marginalized once does not mean you are not complicit now. If you live on stolen land, benefit deeply from colonial economies, and are never racialized the way others are, while not engaging in preparation for the revolution, you are upholding white supremacy. And white supremacy is rooted in European colonial capitalism.

    Reclaiming Racial Consciousness: To Racialize/Radicalize the Colonized, You Must Racialize the Colonizer

    Politically, Black people—those who are colonized, enslaved, genocided, and dispossessed—are everywhere. From the Congo to Chiapas, from Turtle Island to Palestine, the global South’s people are marked, surveilled, and violated. Meanwhile, Europeans travel the world unmarked, unchallenged, and unquestioned—because of their proximity to capital.
    Calling them “Europeans and settlers” disrupts that. It shatters the illusion of neutrality. It reminds us that these people came from somewhere, and what they did when they arrived.
    Europeans are not raceless. They are not native to the Americas, Australia, Africa, or the Middle East, specifically Palestine. They are not born of this soil—they were sent to dominate it. And when we call them what they are, we return the racial gaze. We locate the colonizer. We find the problem at its root: not in the colonies, but in the imperial core.

    Colonial Legacy and Settler Myths: Settlers Are Not Natives. They’re Europeans.


    There are no Americans. There are no Canadians. There are no Australians. There are no Israelis. These are not ethnic identities—all of these identities are built around settler myths.
    Europeans left Europe in search of land, wealth, and power. They brought smallpox, guns, schools, churches, and flags. They built borders and drew property lines. They raped, pillaged, forcibly displaced, and murdered the people who were already here, and ask the oppressed to communicate through civil dialogue rather than revolution. And then, the Europeans dared to call themselves civilized and the stewards of the land, while labeling the indigenous people backward, primitive, and in need of guidance. Remember, these people would not have survived in foreign lands without the compassion of the indigenous and the enslavement of African slaves.
    Being born in a stolen house doesn’t make you the owner. It makes you the beneficiary of a crime. Beneficiaries of this crime must be treated as part of the settler class unless they actively work under the leadership of the oppressed nations to dismantle the colonial order.
    Those materially incorporated into whiteness outside of Europe are settlers. Naming them Europeans cuts through the myth of natural belonging and restores geography to history.

    Clarifying Misunderstandings: Liberal Confusion Is a Feature of Empire

    a) For White Liberals: Erasure Isn’t Innocence
    You may say: “But I’m not European—I’m just American.”
    That’s the point. You’ve erased your origin. You’ve dislocated yourself from the very continent that gave you everything. Being “American” doesn’t undo where your power came from. It just masks it.

    You may say: “That’s reductive.”

    So is being called Black, Brown, Asian, Indigenous, or “ethnic.” The difference is I apply the reduction upward—toward the people who built the machine, not those crushed by it.
    This is not about “sending you back.” It’s about making you recognize your role in the material relations of exploitation and act accordingly—under the leadership of the colonized proletariat. If going back is the solution, so be it.

    You may say: “I am working class.”

    There are stages to the working class and settlers, as you are occupying 77% of the middle class. You are paid while your iPhone is mined in Sudan and the Congo by slaves or “superexploited labor.” So, yes, you are wage laborers, and life is rough. You are no slave or colonial subject.
    There is no single, undivided proletariat in the United States. There is a settler proletariat whose wages, living standards, and political stability are built on the superprofits stolen from oppressed nations, and there is an oppressed-nation proletariat that suffers both exploitation and colonial domination. Unity between them can only exist when settlers break from their own bloc, reject the privileges of empire, and work under the leadership of the colonized proletariat.

    b) For People of Color: Your Struggles Are European in Origin

    You may wonder: “Why focus on Europeans when our own communities are in crisis?”

    Because every one of those crises can be traced back to Europe. Borders. Languages. Debt. Police. Prisons. Hunger. Substance Abuse. Each one is a European export. Each one is a colonial residue designed to keep us from uniting. Naming the colonizer is not a distraction—it’s the beginning of strategy.
    You don’t fight an empire by ignoring its architects.

    c) For Mixed People: Proximity Demands Choosing Sides, Not Balance

    You may ask: “But I’m mixed—where do I fit in this?”

    Mixedness does not exempt us. It entangles us. We are the inheritors of contradiction. Our existence proves that race and class are political. But if we do not interrogate the side of us that colonized the other, we become bridges for violence, not liberation. By choosing to uplift and humanize the people who dehumanize black people around the world.
    I am both European and African. That does not make me neutral. It makes me responsible and a beneficiary of colorism. In addition, mixed individuals who possess a support system that stems from a European parent can provide opportunities such as nepotism, credit access, etc. Mixed individuals should counteract the upholding of European supremacy by participating in and strengthening revolutionary organizations led by the colonized proletariat, rather than using their identity to mediate between oppressor and oppressed.

    Naming for Liberation: Revolution Requires Geographic Accuracy

    This is not about guilt. This is about geography, power, and repair. When I call white people “Europeans,” I am not insulting them—I am locating them. I am putting them back into history. I am pointing out that they were not born here. They came here. And they came with guns.

    In the U.S. today, the principal contradiction is between the settler-colonial bourgeoisie and the entire settler bloc that materially aligns with it and the oppressed nations inside and outside its borders. Secondary contradictions exist: between poor settlers and their own ruling class, between rival imperialist powers, and between comprador leadership and the revolutionary masses within oppressed nations. Revolutionary discipline requires that these secondary contradictions be utilized to weaken the enemy, while never losing sight of the primary task: defeating the settler-colonial state under the leadership of the oppressed nations.

    Revolution is not a metaphor. It will not be polite. The end of occupation requires the forcible dismantling of the settler-colonial state apparatus. The future will not be decided by moral appeals. It will be decided by what people are willing to name—and what they are willing to destroy.

    Europe named the world to suit itself. They called theft discovery. They called genocide salvation. They called settlers civilized and natives savages. And it continues to do all of this now.

    We must name it back. Not to create postmodernist deflections, but to end the denial of settlers that they are working to end imperialism.

    There are no neutral ‘white people.’

    There is a settler European formation whose function is to uphold capitalism and empire.

    Revolution requires dismantling this formation under the leadership of the oppressed nations.

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