Seeking the indigenization of settlers, the Law of Return codified the principle that the Jewish people have an “a priori right . . . to settle in this land.”99 Ben Gurion insisted that Jewish citizenship, as opposed to that of non-Jews (predominantly, but not only, Palestinians), is beyond the law. For him, it was not the law that created the right of Jews to citizenship; the law ought simply to formalize what is a natural right. In his words: “This law determines that it is not the State that grants diaspora Jews the right to settle in the State [of Israel]. This right is intrinsic by the virtue of being Jewish, if he only wishes to partake in settling the land [of Israel].”100 The right of Jews to citizenship, therefore, has been based on primordial biblical mythologies that produce settlers as an indigenous population returning to its ancestral lands. Ben Gurion narrated settlement and colonization as a miraculous revival of a nation. Presenting the law to the Knesset, Ben Gurion remarked: On May 14, 1948, a new state was not formed ex nihilo but rather signaled the return of ancient glory, 1,813 years after the independence of Israel had been seemingly destroyed forever in the days of Bar Kokhva and Rabbi Akiva . . . And just as it was clear [in the Declaration of Independence] that the renewal of the state of Israel did not signal a beginning but rather a continuation of ancient times, so it was understood that this is not an end but rather another step on the lengthy road to Israel’s total redemption . . . The Law of Return is one of the foundational laws of the State of Israel. It denotes the central purpose of our State, the mission of the ingathering of exiles.101 The Law of Return demonstrates that settler indigenization entails not only the transformation of settlers into natives but also the indigenization of the space as Jewish. It reflects a biospatial politics, a term coined by Cohen and Gordon, in which the “space is constituted as racialized or in racialized terms.”102 The production of racial subjects and space is entwined in complex ways. The Law of Return effectively indigenizes all Jews—regardless of whether or not they reside in Israel. As Ayelet Shachar observes, it “reflects a perception of membership in the state which is not territorially bound or defined.”103 At the same time, the Law of Return was consciously designed to create and strengthen the bond between Jewish settlers and the territory as Jewish. Interestingly, the Law of Return governed the citizenship of both Jewish European settlers and native Palestinian Jews who had lived in Palestine for centuries.104 The 28 Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3533490