Shtetl Colonialism: First and Last Impressions of Indigeneity by Colonised Colonisers

We passed by an old barefoot Arab, leading a loaded camel. His ancestors for ages must have driven loaded camels and shepherded sheep, erected tents and at nights ignited f ire baked pitta bred and set around the f ire, smoking and tell ing fables into the quiet night. And I – I just arrived, hardly slept one night in Eretz Israel, hardly drank a glass of water, hardly walked a mile, and yet I saw this Arab as an alien. I was the inhabitant and he was the nomad. My sense of integrity and justice felt shame, my blood cried: this is my homeland (second Aliya poet Shlomo Blumegarten, 1915)