How 'decolonization' became the latest flashpoint

(JTA) — Attend or watch footage of a campus pro-Palestinian demonstration these days and you are likely to see someone carrying a sign reading “Decolonization is not a metaphor.” Almost immediately after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, George Washington University Students for Justice in Palestine put out a statement praising the terrorists, declaring “Decolonization is NOT a metaphor.”

As a political slogan, it may not pack the same punch as “Free Palestine” or “From the river to the sea.” But to activists on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide, the charge that Israel is a “set...