This experience as a teenager was my introduction to the concept of settler colonialism and made me a supporter of Palestinian self-determination and right of return. Their support for Israel was emblematic, I came to understand later, of the seductive mythology that settler-colonial states cultivate and depend on. Although there are stark differences and time frames for the establishment of settler colonialism, there is a common thread that defines the process. Though the apt term “settler colonialism” wasn’t invented until rather recently, the practice of settler colonialism dates back many centuries. After its founding, the new United States used the same settler-colonial tools to seize the rest of the continent within a century.
