By Karan Singh
Both countries are indistinguishable when it comes to unashamedly protecting the fruits of annexation.
Soon after taking office for the second time in late January, President Donald Trump signed an executive action to end birthright citizenship in the United States.
This initiative seeks to reinterpret the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
In an attempt to squeeze out the country’s undocumented population, the businessman-turned-politician is now pushing for children born in the US to inherit their parents’ immigration status as he tries fulfilling the claim that he “was saved by god to make America great again.”
Meanwhile, the American-funded state of Israel continues to hand out citizenship to people scattered all over the world unless they’re native to the land on which the 76-year-old settlement was foisted. Inheritance is also a key factor in securing the right to live in the Zionist colony, except it is determined by DNA and genealogy rather than where an individual has previously resided or for how long.
Despite nominal differences in execution, the United States and Israel are joined at the hip by virtue of barefacedly denying the indigeneity that exists right in front of them. Sure enough, the “shared values” both countries have long prided themselves on have shaped who they let in and on what grounds.
It is worth noting that the majority of undocumented immigrants in the US come from Mexico — among them, most have settled in Texas, California and Arizona. All three of these states (among several others) used to be a part of Mexico before they were handed over to the United States as part of a gunpoint “peace agreement” in the aftermath of the Mexican-American war that concluded in 1848.
Exactly one hundred years after Mexico gave up 55% of its territory as a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, US President Harry S. Truman co-signed the establishment of Israel atop what was already Palestine. In a manner identical to the 19th-century divine mandate that came to be known as Manifest Destiny, the Israeli government also began pushing natives out of their homes on the basis of a god-given claim.
Fast forward to 2025 and this brand of Western imperialism is still in full motion. Today, more than 90% of what was once Palestine has been seized by Israel.
In late January, the Israeli Ministerial Committee for Legislation advanced a bill that would make it even easier for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank to purchase land. Despite the International Court Of Justice’s repeated denunciations, illegal encroachment into Palestinian territory remains unhindered. Now, more than 700,000 Israelis reside in settlements deemed unlawful by the United Nations.
A byproduct of the state’s ethno-preferential Law Of Return, any Jewish person from anywhere is granted a “birthright” in Palestine. This rule, of course, doesn’t apply to those who have actually had their homes forcefully taken from them ever since 1948. Put simply, there are people born and raised in Beverly Hills who have a more secure entitlement over a piece of land in the Middle East than those who have lived there for centuries.
It seems impossible to negotiate a productive peace process in the region when tens of thousands of Jewish people from around the globe visit it every year as part of Birthright Israel. This program allows people of said ancestry a free 10-day trip to the Zionist state, the crux of which is emphasizing that Jewish people have a default right to establish residency in a place they’ve never lived in before — what’s more concerning is the number of people who believe the Messiah’s return is contingent upon this move.
In 2023, over 27,000 people participated in the initiative. That same year, there was a significant uptick in immigration to Israel. The following year, even amid the humanitarian crisis in Gaza,more than 13,000 young adults took part in the trip and 32,800 new immigrants arrived there as the Strip was being reduced to rubble. Since it was founded in 1999, Birthright has hosted upward of 850,000 individuals from 68 countries (including every US state).
Millions of European descendants all over the world today have a “birthright” over land that was taken from Native Americans, Mexicans and Palestinians.
Ultimately, the United States and Israel stand united in their erasure of natives who have a long and active history amid the regions in question. Time and again, both have justified their actions by hiding behind gods who play favorites (remember how the almighty told George W. Bush to “end the tyranny in Iraq”?), and now, both have also conditioned their respective citizens to believe that the dispossessed are the most pressing threat to democracy.
Both countries are indistinguishable when it comes to unashamedly protecting the fruits of annexation. Forever arms in arms thanks to their shared interests, from Joe Biden to Benjamin Netanyahu to Donald Trump, the United States and Israel have made it clear that “birthright” is in fact a privilege of settler colonialism.
– Karan Singh is an Indian American journalist based in Los Angeles. He contributed this article to the Palestine Chronicle.
