On December 14 every year, and pursuant to resolution number A/Res/80/106, the United Nations (UN) observes the International Day against Colonialism in All Its Forms and Manifestations. Interestingly enough, ‘all forms and manifestations’ does not seem to include what is termed as ‘settler colonialism’. A case in point is Israel and the role many member states of the UN played in bestowing membership on it in 1948.On December 5, 2025, the UN general assembly adopted, by 146 in favour, 13 against and 17 abstentions, a resolution on “Israeli settlements in Occupied Palestinian Territory including East Jerusalem in the occupied Syrian Golan.” Its operative part said “Israeli settlements in these territories are illegal and an obstacle to peace and economic and social development.”We have here to consider three concepts and their interlinkages here: colonialism, settler-colonialism and zionism.Colonialism has been described, at its simplest, as colonisers moving to a new setting in which they establish their ascendancy over the native population. This can serve many purposed, including resource extraction and regional influence. However, in this case, the native population is not replaced by the colonists.The colonists may establish themselves as direct rulers, or use local proxies, enabling specific native groups to rule on their behalf. While colonialism can be accompanied by exploitation, oppression and other immoral actions, its primary goal is not to completely remove the native population, but rather to make them serve the colonial power.Settler colonialism, on the other hand, is a system of oppression based on genocide and colonialism, that aims to displace a population from its land, oftentimes an indigenous community, and replace it with a new settler population. It is based on a system of power perpetuated by settlers that represses indigenous people’s rights and cultures by erasing them and replacing them with those of their own. It is based on the theft and appropriation of lands and resources belonging to indigenous people.A detailed analysis of the concept and its implications was published by the historian Patrick Wolfe in 2006 in the Journal of Genetic Research. In a paper entitled “Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native,” he observed that “the question of genocide is never far from discussions of settler colonialism and that settler colonialism destroys to replace.”Zionism originated as a modern political and nationalist movement in late 19th-century Europe. It developed in response to surging antisemitism, pogroms in the Russian empire and Eastern Europe and the failure Jewish emancipation in Europe. It sought to establish a sovereign Jewish homeland in the historic land of Israel (Palestine).The Viennese writer Nathan Birnbaum first used the term “zionism” in 1890 to describe the movement for Jewish national resurgence and the creation and support of a Jewish national movement. In 1923, right-wing zionist thinker Ze’ev Jabotinsky wrote:“If you wish to colonise a land in which people are already living, you must find a garrison for the land or find a benefactor who will provide a garrison on your behalf….Zionism is a colonising venture and, therefore, it stands or falls on the question of armed forces.”Years later, in 1969, Moshe Dayan, while addressing an audience of Israeli students said:“We came to this country which was already populated by the Arabs and we are establishing a Hebrew, that is Jewish, state here. In considerable areas of the country, we brought land from the Arabs. Jewish villages were built in place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages. There is not a single community in the country that did not have former Arab population.”More recently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that “there will be no Palestinian state. This place is ours.” His defence minister Bezalel Smotrich went further and said, “Our goal is to bury the idea of a Palestinian state… because there will be nothing to recognise and no one to recognise.”Unlike traditional colonialism, which focuses mainly on extracting resources or ruling over a local population, settler colonialism aims to replace the original group with a new permanent society. Its main features are (a) land takeover (b) removal of natives or their reduction to subordinate status (c) culture erasure through use of laws and text books (d) new legal and administrative structures.Ilan Pappé, a new-generation Israeli historian, has described in his book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006) how over 400 Palestinian villages were destroyed and a million people expelled during Israel’s formation between 1947 and 1949. This process continues to this day. In other writings, he has opined that “zionism is not a national movement. It is a settler colonialist movement.”Referring to contemporary happenings, Pappé observed at a conference at the National Press Club in Washington on March 24, 2017:“This is the importance of analysing what is happening in Israel as settler colonialism that can sometimes resort to genocide, sometimes resorts to ethnic cleaning and quite often resorts to a charade of peace that provides it a shield of immunity from any genuine rebuke and condemnation in the global community.”Reflecting on some political opinions within Israel, Pappé noted, “Many of us still sleep with the two-state solution, but you are sleeping with a corpse.”What is, then, the link between zionism and settler colonialism? While such a link may not inherently exist in concept, in practice, it has emerged in the pronouncements of Israeli leaders and their statements about the territorial dimensions of the Israeli state.World War I resulted in an Allied victory and the creation of a system of mandates to administer the external territories of the defeated Central Powers. Pursuant to it, the responsibility for the former Ottoman territory of Palestine was entrusted to the British government, which in turn proceeded to implement its commitment under the Balfour Declaration of November 1917.The declaration reflected the “conclusion of European zionists that the solution to the ‘Jewish problem’ in Europe was to be found elsewhere on the globe.” That, in the words of Paul Johnson’s A History of Jews,was the key piece “without which the Jewish state could never have come into existence.”At the start of the mandate, Arab Palestinians amounted to more than 90% of the total population. According to historian Arnold Toynbee, the later demographic change was “imposed on the Palestinian Arabs by the British military power.”The UN general assembly resolution number 111, of November 29, 1947, ended the British mandate and recommended the partition of Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states. Thus, Israel came into existence on May 14, 1948, and received control of nearly 56.88% of the mandated territory. An estimated 656,000 Arab inhabitants were forced to flee the area during this period.Israel existed within the 1948 borders till the 1967 war. That conflict resulted in Israel occupying additional territories belonging to neighbouring Arab states. It did not comply the UN security council resolution number 242 and withdraw from the occupied territories. Till date, Israel does not have settled borders, except with Egypt and Jordon.A BBC program on October 11, 2023, titled “Israel’s borders explained in maps,” depicts these territorial changes in graphic detail.The conclusion is inescapable: whatever may the ideological nuances be, settler-colonialism, in all its manifestations, has been and remains an essential ingredient of Israeli state practice.Hamid Ansari is former Vice President of India.