Here's one point of view from a group that I personally don't know much about ...

Written in the form of a historical memoir, [Massoud] Hayoun, who identifies himself as a Jewish Arab, traces his family history before and after World War II to illustrate how Jewish Arabs were maliciously separated from their societies and how their identities were used in a game of colonial domination. He argues that Jewish Arabs lived and worked alongside their Muslim and Christian Arab neighbors in relative peace until colonialism, white supremacy and Zionism disrupted Arab society and fractured it into various groups, which, among other things, separated the identity of Arab from Jew.

... He shows how French and British colonial schools impacted Jewish children by teaching them to identify with the colonizer rather than their immediate communities. He also discusses the Universal Israelite Alliance headquartered in France, whose mission was to “civilize” Jewish Arabs by removing their Arabness. The Israelite Alliance perceived Jewish Arabs as primitive and, horrifyingly to them, indistinguishable from the Muslims. Thus, the Alliance schools sought to Europeanize their students, emphasizing how the Jewish Arab community was beneficial to their colonizing mission. Because Jewish Arabs had “Oriental physiognomies,” they naturally possessed a “talent for assimilation,” which could be used to colonize their Muslim counterparts across North Africa.

... One of the most interesting aspects of When We Were Arabs is to follow the generational shifts in ethnic identity that Hayoun traces within his family over time. From their ancient origins in North Africa, including the connection between North African Jewry and the indigenous Amazigh (often referred to as Berbers), Hayoun traces the generational shifts in identity that occurred as colonial institutions became more intrusive and entrenched, and then how these identities shifted again in exile.

From a political science perspective, Hayoun’s family history corroborates important findings in contemporary research on ethnic identity, such as David Laitin’s argument in his 2007 Nations, States, and Violence that identities are not primordial, but rather constructed. While the constructed nature of identities is not an original point, Laitin goes further by outlining the process through which identities shift. He argues that ethnic identity emerges as a result of group dynamics: As certain groups find that it is in their best interest to speak a specific language, engage in a different economy and become absorbed by particular institutions, people may begin to make the linguistic switch, and identify with another culture or identity. When a critical mass of people make this choice, then ethnic identities at the group level begin to shift as well.

Colonials gonna colonize ... I guess, before we presume to know something, we should take a closer look at how we got here!