@BenRossTransit i won’t speak for Philippe, but one answer is that “ethnic cleansings” sort and segregate while colonizations mix. often the “cleansing” is a consequence of the colonization — the mixture is unstable or unsupportable — but they are nevertheless distinct. the mid 20th C abjured colonization but embraced ethnic cleansing settle hostilities resulting from past mixing. Israel’s founding was out of phase, as is its clear desire to “cleanse” now.

@BenRossTransit i think Philippe’s piece is, whatever else you want to say about it, refreshingly nonnormative. he is — correctly in my view — neither sympathetic nor unsympathetic to either party, but traces a theory about how they arrive at the pickle they are in, under which both parties’ behavior is pretty understandable.