Let us call this what it is: a complete lie, a myth, a political weapon dressed in fabricated ancient religious stories to serve a racist political and colonial ideology. Thousands of people from a remote corner of India are being told they belong to a "lost biblical tribe” and their ancestors were exiled from Palestine over 2700 years ago. And now, "Israel” is bringing them to the occupied Palestinian land as if they are finally "returning home." That’s what happened last month when Israel brought another group of 250 Indian Jews of the so-called "Bnei Menashe” community to Israel, celebrating them as homecoming, while planning to bring all of the community by 2030.

This is not a "homecoming." It is colonialism, dressed in religious costume. There is no evidence, no DNA proof, no historical records, no common language, nothing. Just a controversial belief that is based on a fictional myth. And on this basis, the Israeli government is moving thousands of people to a land that is not theirs, while the real indigenous people, the Palestinians, are being pushed out, killed and erased.

Bringing Jews from India is not the first case. Israel previously did it with a Jewish community in Ethiopia and with others from different parts of the world, who were also brought under the same claim to illegally settle on occupied Palestine, with which they have nothing in common, except for a myth that they are returning after 3,000 years in exile.

What an absurdity

Think about this carefully. People who have lived in India for centuries, who speak Indian languages, who eat Indian food, who have Indian culture, are being told they have more right to live in Palestine than the Palestinians who have been there for generations and for centuries. Why? Because of a delusional myth. Not history. Not science.

One member of the group told media outlets: "We have faith in the Torah.” He did not say "we have proof.” He said faith. That is it. And on that basis alone, Israel is bringing them to occupied land, building settlements and stealing more Palestinian homes.

Now imagine if any other group tried this. Imagine if Greeks demanded to take over Türkiye because of Byzantine history. Imagine if Italians claimed Tunisia or Algeria because of the Roman Empire’s conquests 2,000 years ago. Imagine if the descendants of the Mongols demanded to reclaim the vast territories their empire once conquered, from China to Persia to Eastern Europe, based solely on events from 800 years ago. The world would call that pure insanity and would reject it immediately. But when Israel does it, the world indulges in silence. As no reaction or comment has been taken by any legal entity on the shipment of an entire community to a land that is not theirs.

The truth is simple: those people have no connection to Palestine. None. Zero. They have never lived there. Their ancestors never lived there. There is no evidence, not a single piece, that links them to that land. They are being used as a tool for a settler-colonial project. They are being used to serve a political project called Zionism, which has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with land theft and colonialism.

Claims exposed

Zionism, which defines the Israeli expansionist government, has a long history of inventing connections. The case of Bnei Menashe is not the first, and it will not be the last. Look at what happened with Ethiopian Jews and how they were treated. Their living conditions in Israel describe that they are used as fuel for keeping a colonial machine functional. Zionism uses anyone for its colonial project.

Ethiopian Jews were not accepted as Jewish by Israeli religious authorities until the 1970s. Their practices were different. Their ancestry was questioned. But Israel brought tens of thousands of them in airlifts anyway. Why? Not because of a genuine belief that they were "lost brothers." Because Israel needed more settlers. It needed more Jewish bodies to maintain a demographic majority on stolen Palestinian land.

And what happened when they arrived? Racism and being treated as an inferior class. They were thrown away, and their children were sent to separate schools. They were placed in poor towns and neglected areas. They were brought to serve a colonial project, but they were never treated as equals. Today, Ethiopian Israelis still protest against police brutality and discrimination. They are forced to remind Israel, "their presupposed country," that they are human beings, not tools.

The "Indian Jews” or "Bnei Menashe” will likely face the same fate. They are not being welcomed because Israel or Zionists love them. They are being used. They are colonial soldiers without uniforms. Every time one of them arrives, another Palestinian family is pushed out or a piece of Palestinian land is taken away. Every new settler strengthens the occupation, whereas many of those Indian Jews reside in settlements across the occupied West Bank.

This is not an exaggeration. This is the reality of settler colonialism. Bring people from anywhere, tell them a story, even if it is still unbelievable, give them a house on stolen land, and call it a "return.” It is the exact formula of the Zionist project on the land of Palestine.

Defending rationality

This entire operation is an insult to rationality, to law, to history and to basic human decency. You cannot claim a land based on a story from 3,000 years ago while the people living there now are being murdered and displaced. You cannot call yourself a normal state while importing strangers as settlers to maintain an apartheid system. You cannot claim "homecoming” when you are destroying someone else’s home.

The Bnei Menashe might be living in difficult conditions, where they are used to living in India for centuries, as they say, but their suffering in India does not give them the right to participate in the suffering of Palestinians or strengthen the Zionist colonial project. They are committing a double historical mistake: one to the Palestinians and the other to themselves, as they agreed to detach themselves from their original place, culture and environment.

This is yet more proof that Israel is not only above the law but an imperialist project that imports entire communities to reshape demographics and manufacture new facts on the ground, then demands the world accept its myths as reality. The international community must stop accepting this myth and react in the proper way against it. Israel and Zionism must be stopped from exploiting faith and religion to transfer entire communities to others’ land based on invented fairy tales.

And finally, the truth is crystal clear, simple and cannot be manipulated: Indian Jews immigrating or brought to occupied Palestine, like the Ethiopian Jews or any other Jewish groups from any part of the world, are not coming home. They are colonials.