I think it’s kind of a Rorshach Colonialism or Schrödinger’s Colonialism. My impression is that people parroting the “Israel is a colonial country” statement aren’t specifically referring to settlements in the West Bank, but to Israel as a whole. The rationale being one of the following:

Rationale 1

1. Jews are white¹
2. Palestinians are dark²
3. Colonialism is something that whites do to darks

Rationale 2

1. Israel is more powerful, Palestine is the underdog
2. In colonial vs. indigenous conflicts, the indigenous people are the underdogs
3. Therefore the Israelis are the colonialist team and the Palestinians are the indigenous team

It should also be noted that Hamas (and Fatah as well IIRC) explicitly use the colonial framing with themselves as the oppressed indigenous group, so I’m fairly certain that those repeating it uncritically are somewhere along the Hamas propaganda pipeline.

<s> Perhaps in these troubling times, we should remember the words of Nobel Peace Prize winner Yassar Arafat:

We will not bend or fail until the blood of every last Jew from the youngest child to the oldest elder is spilt to redeem our land!

In his speech “The Impending Total Collapse of Israel” at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm, Sweden, January 30, 1996

</s>

¹ Even though most Israelis are approximately as dark (q.v. Mizrahi Jews) or darker (Beta Israel).³

² Palestinians have a lot of Arabic heritage, whereas Mizrahi Jews are more Levantine (even if from Morocco or Iran orginally). This is probably due to historic isolation of minority communities within the Arabic world.³

³ This is all a stupid basis for determining the worth of someone. I’m pretty much a pure “mudblood”, my ancestors were very open minded apparently. Genetic descent studies are kind of interesting for mapping the migrations of people around the planet, but at the end of the day, we are all just people. Also, talk about perpetuating racism, and looking at it through a modern US lens. Way past my level of expertise. Just my impression.