On a massive scale ongoingly for thousands of years? Yes. Let's bring to light the many attempts at colonizing the Middle East by western powers, ie the crusades or Mandatory Palestine. These attempts were all money and land inspired and respectively very short and unsuccessful. There is no doubt in my mind that Western colonialism has wreaked havoc in the middle East for far too long. But to land those motivations on Jews and Palestinians (those who by birthright the land belongs to) doesn't sit right with me. Let's settle on the fact that Western intervention has been the real catalyst for power struggles there, while the violent puppets that play out the wars on the world's stage are only being made into scapegoats in order to justify the greed and power grabs of outside interests.