Students, faculty and community members filled Kresge Auditorium last Thursday afternoon to hear Ali Abunimah speak in the latest of a series of teach-ins organized by Amnesty Bowdoin. Abunimah is a Palestinian-American journalist, as well as the co-founder and executive director of “The Electronic Intifada,” an independent online publication focusing on Palestine. Associate Professor of History Salar Mohandesi joined Abunimah in talking about the past, present and future of Palestine.

This was Abunimah’s second visit to Bowdoin, 13 years after he had been invited by Zohran Mamdani ’14, who was a student leader of Bowdoin Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the time. Abunimah began the talk by explaining that Zionism was not conceived as a Jewish-led movement.

“In fact, before any Jews adopted Zionism, the idea of establishing a political entity or having European Jews settle in Palestine … was supported, first and foremost, by Protestant Christians in Britain and in Germany, as well as other countries, who had an explicitly antisemitic motivation…. It solved the so-called ‘Jewish problem,’ which is that they didn’t want Jews in Europe, and so removing them to another country was the perfect solution,” Abunimah said. “And this was fiercely resisted by the vast majority of Jewish people in Europe until very late.”

The Zionist project closely mirrored European colonialism at the time, using many of the same frameworks used in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and other settler colonies, according to Abunimah.

“The Zionist movement, though focused on Palestine, was basically a project to replace the Indigenous people with European Jewish settlers who, in the mold of settler colonialism of the time and of the previous period, were portrayed as bringing civilization to a backward land,” Abunimah said.

However, Abunimah argued that Israel has been unable to “finish the job” of colonialism, like most other  settler colonies where the Indigenous population has remained the majority. Noting that other settler colonies that faced this predicament had failed, Abunimah explained that Israel’s genocide in Gaza is part of a predictable trajectory.

“That’s an acknowledgement that you can either have democracy and equality or you can have this ethno-supremacist state because Palestinians are the demographic majority within historic Palestine…, [so] the ongoing genocide in Gaza was not a spontaneous reaction to October 7,” Abunimah said. “[Israeli demographer Arnon Soffer] said, ‘If we don’t do something, the Palestinians will be the absolute majority, and we’ll lose the state.’”

Abunimah and Mohandesi also touched on the expansion of the U.S. and Israel’s attacks on countries like Lebanon, Iran and Syria.

“Every single one of those countries has been targeted for regime change, one after the other. And why is that? Because to maintain Israel as this racist apartheid settler colony, you have to destroy all resistance, internally and externally,” Abunimah said. “And all of this has to be packaged and labeled as ‘terror.’ That’s the legitimating language, ‘terrorism.’ But in fact, Indigenous people have a right to resist. They have a right to take up arms, to liberate their land, to defend themselves, to fight an occupying army and they have a right to receive support for that.”

Abunimah and Mohandesi returned to the question of Palestine’s future throughout the talk. Abunimah criticized a two-state solution, likening a potential Palestinian state to apartheid South Africa’s Bantustans, 13 “independent states” that the apartheid regime set up for the Black African majority with no real independence.

“The illusory Palestinian state being recognized by Western countries is simply a Palestinian Bantustan,” Abunimah said. “It’s gerrymandering…. It’s like redistricting, but using guns…. Aside from the inherent unjustness of  ‘Why should Palestinians only live on a tiny fraction of their homeland?’

But even if you leave that aside, the idea [of Bantustans] was to create a state with no real sovereignty, no independence, no control over its borders, no control over its economy.”

Abunimah instead advocated for a democratic and equal one-state solution, as he wrote 20 years ago. However, he noted that the plight of the Palestinian people has worsened significantly since then.

“[Israel] chose genocide. So it’s very hard for me to look at that and say, ‘Oh, well, we can put it all back together and everyone [can] live together,’” Abunimah said. “We’re trying to get there from a much more difficult position, and one where I think there has to be real accountability…. But anything is possible, and I still want to believe that such a future is possible for those who want it.”

Ending the talk, Abunimah introduced his publication, “The Electronic Intifada,” which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year.

“I look forward to the day when we’re no longer necessary, but in the meantime, we’re here.… We have many young writers in Gaza … [and they are] trying to record this history and make sure it’s not lost,” Abunimah said.

Jules Messitte ’26, one of the co-founders of Amnesty Bowdoin alongside Caleb Packard ’26, talked about what he hopes the audience will take away from these teach-ins.

“I’m hopeful that after events like this, [it will] have resparked a discourse that’s been really lacking on campus since the encampment last year, and that hopefully Bowdoin can go back to a time when there’s active student groups pushing the envelope and talking about things that are important,” Messite said.