they are. israelis are European colonials whose claim to the Levant is tied to a diasporatic exodus during the late roman empire. Palestinians are indigenous to the Levant, just like the israeli colonists’ ancestors from 1200 years ago. however, the Jews that spent their time in Europe, the Ashkenazi, that dominate israeli settler politics have been disconnected from the Levant for so long and integrated into European society so deeply as a means of survival that their claims to be the rightful heirs to the Levant no longer make sense without needing to erase the history of the Palestinians, many of whom themselves maintain Jewish cultural traditions the Ashkenazi lost.

so they erase the Palestinians and their stories, just like the Europeans they’ve been around for the last couple millennia did to them. if you truly believe that israelis are from the near east, plain and simple, then there are significant chunks of your understanding of history that are either missing or are outright russian/German/israeli fabrications. i suggest you spend some time reading about the history of my people over the last 200 years to understand that Zionism and the current israeli state are a reactionary response to antisemitic violence in Europe in the late 1800s, and that Zionism is not a universal approach to Jewish identity with the other response to that violence being a philosophy known as doikayt. while you’re reading, too, focus on non European perspectives on what Palestinians call the Nakba, or tragedy. It’s the loss of their ancestral homelands that they’ve been on for 20k years to Europeans claiming to be from there.

but if you don’t, then please take the following truth with you: the Likud is a white supremecist European colonial project, just like the united states and manifest destiny, or russia’s subjugation of minority peoples across their Asian territory.