Zionism has been described by several scholars as a form of settler colonialism in relation to the region of Palestine and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. This paradigm has been applied to Zionism by various scholars and figures, including Patrick Wolfe, Edward Said, Ilan Pappe and Noam Chomsky. Zionism founders and early leaders were aware and unapologetic about their status as colonizers, Many early leading Zionists such as Ze'ev Jabotinsky in "The Iron Wall", described Zionism as colonization.
The settler colonial framework on the conflict emerged in the 1960s during the decolonization of Africa and the Middle East, and re-emerged in Israeli academia in the 1990s led by Israeli and Palestinian scholars, particularly the New Historians, who refuted some of Israel's foundational myths and considered the Nakba to be ongoing. This perspective contends that Zionism involves processes of elimination and assimilation of Palestinians, akin to other settler colonial contexts similar to the creation of the United States and Australia.
Critics of the characterization of Zionism as settler colonialism, argue that it does not fit traditional colonial frameworks, seeing Zionism instead as the repatriation of an indigenous population and an act of self-determination. This debate is part of the broader tensions over the historical and contemporary narratives surrounding the founding of the State of Israel and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.