Of course in Palestine, the settlers are still in the early phase of their aggression and openly admit to their status as invaders. For some settlers there is the ideology of manifest destiny, whereby the land is there for the taking, and they prove by their colonial efforts that they are the ones who deserve to be there. In Palestine we see something different: a cod-historical claim as flimsy as the English crown’s assertion that an English Pope had authorised the invasion of Ireland. Macdara has written elsewhere about the absurdity whereby a claim based on scripture is used opportunistically in an act of late modern imperialism, as well as the unacted-upon corollary to the zionist claim on the land, which is that all zionists and Palestinians be tested for the purity of their descent from ancient stock—insanity of course, but the logical next step when the absurdity of zionism has been admitted.

Perhaps however cod-history is a minor weapon in the settler arsenal. In truth their sole motivation is their status as settlers. After all, settlers know they are settlers. In Ireland they are proud of the fact even after a couple of centuries as uninvited and unwelcome guests in our country. Settlers need Natives, since they define themselves in relation to them. They wish to obliterate them, as it is only in so doing that they can perfect their status as settlers, but they also wish to steal from them continuously, to take everything they create. They thrive on the constant pleasure of the violence that they mete out to the Natives: misery is the settler diet. The misery of others, of course. It hardly has to be pointed out that they need the natives for this. Thus settlement is a continuing process, a constant becoming that reminds the settler subject of their incomplete status.