Why did early Zionists often name their communal enterprises in Palestine colonial 1 ?
During the early days of Zionism, Zionists often named their communal enterprises (yes, communal-like enterprises such as banks and land purchasing companies (as we will see below) "colonial" because that was fashionable at the time in the West. To "colonize the native people" meant to "civilize" them, which oddly often ended in genocide. Edward Said exposed this phenomenon in his book Orientalism.
On the other hand, post-World War II, the meaning flipped, and since then Zionists have been cleansing settler colonialism from their publications and changing them to something more fashionable, "indigenous." Yes, ladies and gentlemen, European Jews are now indigenous to Palestine more than those who have populated the land for thousands of years. Let us hope DNA tests can be done one day to settle this once and for all with no violence. Sorry, I forgot that such tests are not fully available in Israel. It seems that some people are willing to go the extra mile to make facts: Antisemitic.
Here is a shortlist of Zionists enterprises that named themselves "colonial". If I missed any, please let me know in the comment section:
Here is page 29 from Keren Hayesod's own publications in 1925, which you can read it on for free on Google; just search for colonization and you will see how common this was; which continued way after Nakba:
Here is a news clip from The Australian Jewish News on Sept 7th, 1945:
INTENSIVE COLONISATION of Palestine,- published by German Zionist by Soskin in 1922:
The below image is from Edwin Black's The Transfer Agreement, p. 258-9, pay attention to the end of page 258: