The 'Deep Colonialism' Model in Palestine: Oslo as an Example and an Extension

On Wednesday, June 14, 2023, the Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Institute of International Studies, in cooperation with the Department of Political Science, organized a digital public lecture entitled "The 'Deep Colonialism' Model in Palestine: Oslo as an Example and an Extension", presented by Dr. Khaled Al-Hroub, Professor of Contemporary Middle Eastern Politics at Northwestern University. The lecture and discussion was moderated by Dr. Lord Habash, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science. The lecture was broadcast live on Birzeit University's Facebook page.

Al-Hroub began the lecture by saying that the Zionist project in Palestine since the mid-nineteenth century represents an exceptional and unique case of modern colonial patterns, requiring Palestinians to produce a process of knowledge from personal experience. Colonialism in Palestine is exceptional in four ways. These are: first, the religious colonization of Palestine by the Christian-Zionist West, second, imperial colonialism that embodies the aspirations of the colonial powers in the Middle East, third, settler colonialism that uproots the Palestinian people from their land, and fourth and finally, indirect regional colonialism to target the periphery adjacent to the project Zionism in Palestine.

Within this context, al-Hroub pointed out that the unending Oslo phase since 30 years, embodies a new path of colonialism, in terms of turning Oslo into a formative rather than temporary phase, and the structural change it brought about in the relationship of the colonizer with the colonized, and finally the emergence of an organic link that makes separation from the occupier more intense. Difficulty, and even the dissolution of the Palestinian National Authority has become almost impossible according to the wars.