What Happens When You Apply “Decolonial” Theory to Arab History in Palestine? (Video)

I recently read an academic paper in Critical Education called “Decolonial Praxis: Confronting Genocide in Gaza with TribalCrit and Human Rights Education.” Its author, Sean Corrigan, argues that Tribal Critical Race Theory, a framework developed to analyze the experiences of Native Americans under colonialism, has “analytical potential” when transferred to Palestinians and Israelis. He combines it with Human Rights Education to teach students about Israeli “colonialism,” “white supremacy,” and “genocide,” explicitly with the goal of encouraging activism among students.

I thought this was a great idea. I just couldn’t understand why the analysis should start in the 20th century.

So I made a video called “Muslim Supremacy in Palestine, 638–2026: A TribalCrit / Human Rights Education Analysis.”

It is partly a spoof of contemporary academic jargon. But the history it teaches isn’t a spoof at all.

Because it is far easier to prove Muslim supremacy in the area of Palestine than Jewish supremacy.

Corrigan quotes the first principle of TribalCrit: “Colonization is endemic to society.” The framework asks us to look at conquest, political domination, unequal status, indigenous sovereignty and the way dominant societies normalize their own power.

OK, but the region has seen plenty of conquests.

Arab Muslim armies conquered Byzantine Palestine in the seventh century. Jerusalem came under Muslim sovereignty in 638 and again with Saladin.

Jews, who had been badly treated under Byzantine Christian rule, at times even excluded from Jerusalem, actually benefited in some ways from the Muslim conquest. They were again permitted to live in their ancient city. But they were not equals.

Jews and Christians became dhimmis: protected communities living under Muslim rule. Protection came with explicitly inferior political and legal status, special taxation and, depending on the period, restrictions on worship, public religious expression, dress and other aspects of life.

Even under the most benevolent Muslim rules, Jews and Christians still had fewer human rights than Muslims. The structure stayed the same.

If a society today divided its citizens by religion, gave one religion superior legal status, imposed special disabilities on the others and conditioned their protection on acknowledging the supremacy of the dominant group, any progressive would call this “apartheid.”