Zionism

This article discusses Zionism as a movement, not the History of Israel. For other uses, see Zion (disambiguation).

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Poster promoting a film about Jewish settlement in Palestine, 1930s: Toward a New Life (in Romanian),The Promised Land (in Hungarian), in small (down) text is written "First Palestinian sound movie"

Zionism is a political movement and ideology that supports a homeland for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel, where the Jewish nation originated over 3,200 years ago and where Jewish kingdoms and self-governing states have existed up to the 2nd century. While Zionism is based in part upon religious tradition linking the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, the modern movement was originally secular, beginning largely as a response to rampant antisemitism in Europe and many parts of the Muslim world during the 19th Century. After a number of advances and setbacks, and after the Holocaust had destroyed Jewish society in Europe, the Zionist movement culminated in the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

Since the founding of the State of Israel, the term Zionism is generally considered to mean support for Israel. However, a variety of different, and sometimes competing, ideologies that support Israel fit under the general category of Zionism, such as Religious Zionism, Revisionist Zionism, and Labor Zionism. Thus, the term is also sometimes used to refer specifically to the programs of these ideologies, such as efforts to encourage Jewish emigration to Israel. The term Zionism is also sometimes used retroactively to describe the millennia-old Biblical connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel, which existed long before the birth of the modern Zionist movement. In some cases, the label "Zionist" is also used improperly as a euphemism for Jews in general by those wishing to whitewash anti-Semitism (as in the Polish anti-Zionist campaign).

Historical Background of the Zionist movement

The Zionist movement arose in late nineteenth-century Europe, influenced by the nationalist ferment sweeping that continent. Zionism acquired its particular focus from the ancient Jewish longing for the return to Zion and received a strong impetus from the increasingly intolerable conditions facing the large Jewish community in tsarist Russia. The movement also developed at the time of major European territorial acquisitions in Asia and Africa and benefited from the European powers' competition for influence in the shrinking Ottoman Empire.

One result of this involvement with European expansionism, however, was that the leaders of the nascent nationalist movements in the Middle East viewed Zionism as an adjunct of European colonialism. Moreover, Zionist assertions of the contemporary relevance of the Jews' historical ties to Palestine, coupled with their land purchases and immigration, alarmed the indigenous population of the Ottoman districts that Palestine comprised. The Jewish community (yishuv) rose from 6 percent of Palestine's population in 1880 to 10 percent by 1914. Although the numbers were insignificant, the settlers were outspoken enough to arouse the opposition of Arab leaders and induce them to exert counter pressure on the Ottoman regime to prohibit Jewish immigration and land buying.

As early as 1891, a group of Muslim and Christian notables cabled Istanbul, urging the government to prohibit Jewish immigration and land purchase. The resulting edicts radically curtailed land purchases in the sanjak (district) of JERUSALEM for the next decade. When a Zionist Congress resolution in 1905 called for increased colonization, the Ottoman regime suspended all land transfers to Jews in both the sanjak of Jerusalem and the wilayat (province) of Beirut.

After the coup d'etat by the Young Turks in 1908, the Palestinians used their representation in the central parliament and their access to newly opened local newspapers to press their claims and express their concerns. They were particularly vociferous in opposition to discussions that took place between the financially hard-pressed Ottoman regime and Zionist leaders in 1912-13, which would have let the world Zionist Organization purchase crown land (jiftlik) in the Baysan Valley, along the Jordan River.

The Zionists did not try to quell Palestinian fears, since their concern was to encourage colonization from Europe and to minimize the obstacles in their path. The only effort to meet to discuss their aspirations occurred in the spring of 1914. Its difficulties illustrated the incompatibility in their aspirations. The Palestinians wanted the Zionists to present them with a document that would state their precise political ambitions, their willingness to open their schools to Palestinians, and their intentions of learning Arabic and integrating with the local population. The Zionists rejected this proposal.

Zionist initiatives

While Zionism is based heavily upon religious tradition linking the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, the modern movement was originally secular, beginning largely as a response to rampant antisemitism in late 19th century Europe. It was the Jewish answer to the Eastern European, mainly Russian Pogroms.

The Zionist movement has maintained a striking continuity in its aims and methods over the past century. From the start, the movement sought to achieve a Jewish majority in Palestine and to establish a Jewish state on as much of the LAND as possible. The methods included promoting mass Jewish immigration and acquiring tracts of land that would become the inalienable property of the Jewish people. This policy inevitably prevented the indigenous Arab residents from attaining their national goals and establishing a Palestinian state. It also necessitated displacing Palestinians from their lands and jobs when their presence conflicted with Zionist interests.

In 1883, Nathan Birnbaum, nineteen years old, founded Kadimah, the first Jewish Students Association in Vienna. In 1884 the first issue of Selbstemanzipation or Self Emancipation appeared, completely made by Nathan Birnbaum himself. Kadimah was the first Jewish nationalist orientated organisation; in 1890 he coined the term Zionist and Zionism.

In 1878 the first Zionist Settlement appeared Petah Tikva, inhabited by former residents of Jerusalem hoping to escape the cramped quarters of Jerusalem's walls.

Rishon LeZion was founded on 31 July 1882 by a group of 10 members of the Zionist group Hovevei Zion from Kharkov, in modern Ukraine. Led by Zalman David Levontin, they purchased 835 acres (3.4 km²) of land south-east of present-day Tel Aviv for this purpose near an Arab village named Uyun Qara. Along with Petah Tikva, it is considered the first Zionist settlement in Israel and its founders were members of the First Aliyah. The land was owned by Tzvi Leventine and was purchased by the "Pioneers of Jewish Settlement Committee" that was formed in Jaffa, the port of arrival for many of the immigrants to the area.

Theodor Herzl (May 2 1860 – July 3 1904) was an Austrian Jewish journalist who became the founder of modern political Zionism. In 1897, he founded Die Welt of Vienna. Then he planned the first Zionist Congress in Basel, together with Nathan Birnbaum. During the congress, the following agreement was reached:

Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Eretz-Israel secured under public law. The Congress contemplates the following means to the attainment of this end:

The promotion by appropriate means of the settlement in Eretz-Israel of Jewish farmers, artisans, and manufacturers.

The organization and uniting of the whole of Jewry by means of appropriate institutions, both local and international, in accordance with the laws of each country.

The strengthening and fostering of Jewish national sentiment and national consciousness.

Preparatory steps toward obtaining the consent of governments, where necessary, in order to reach the goals of Zionism.

After the first Zionist Congress, the first four years they met every year, later they gathered every second year till the Second World War. After the war the Congress met every four years until present time.

The WZO's initial strategy was to obtain permission of the Ottoman Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid II to allow systematic Jewish settlement in Palestine. The good offices of the German Emperor, Wilhelm II, were sought, but nothing came of this. Instead the WZO pursued a strategy of building a homeland through persistent small-scale immigration, and the founding of such bodies as the Jewish National Fund in 1901 and the Anglo-Palestine Bank in 1903.

Theodor Herzl addresses the Second Zionist Congress in 1898.

Before 1917 some Zionist leaders took seriously proposals for Jewish homelands in places other than Palestine. Herzl's Der Judenstaat argued for a Jewish state in either Palestine, "our ever-memorable historic home", or Argentina, "one of the most fertile countries in the world". In 1903 British cabinet ministers suggested the British Uganda Program, land for a Jewish state in "Uganda" (actually in modern Kenya). Herzl initially rejected the idea, preferring Palestine, but after the April 1903 Kishinev pogrom Herzl introduced a controversial proposal to the Sixth Zionist Congress to investigate the offer as a temporary measure for Russian Jews in danger. Notwithstanding its emergency and temporary nature, the proposal still proved very divisive, and widespread opposition to the plan was fueled by a walkout led by the Russian Jewish delegation to the Congress. Nevertheless, a majority voted to establish a committee for the investigation of the possibility, and it was not dismissed until the 7th Zionist Congress in 1905.

In response to this, the Jewish Territorialist Organization led by Israel Zangwill split off from the main Zionist movement. The territorialists attempted to establish a Jewish homeland wherever possible, but went into decline after 1917 and were dissolved in 1925. From that time Palestine was the sole focus of Zionist aspirations. Few Jews took seriously the establishment by the Soviet Union of a Jewish Autonomous Republic in the Russian Far East.

One of the major motivations for Zionism was the belief that the Jews needed to return to their historic homeland, not just as a refuge from anti-Semitism, but also to govern themselves as an independent nation. Some Zionists, mainly socialist Zionists, believed that the Jews' centuries of being oppressed in anti-Semitic societies had reduced Jews to a meek, vulnerable, despairing existence which invited further anti-Semitism. They argued that Jews should redeem themselves from their history by becoming farmers, workers, and soldiers in a country of their own. These socialist Zionists generally rejected religion as perpetuating a "Diaspora mentality" among the Jewish people.

One such Zionist ideologue, Ber Borochov, continuing from the work of Moses Hess, proposed the creation of a socialist society that would correct the "inverted pyramid," of Jewish society. Borochov believed that Jews were forced out of normal occupations by gentile hostility and competition, explaining why there was a relative predominance of Jewish professionals, rather than workers. Jewish society would not be healthy until the inverted pyramid was righted, and the majority of Jews became workers and peasants again. This could only be accomplished by Jews in their own country. Another, A. D. Gordon, was influenced by the völkisch ideas of European romantic nationalism, and proposed establishing a society of Jewish peasants. Gordon made a religion of work. These two thinkers, and others like them, motivated the establishment of the first Jewish collective settlement, or kibbutz, Deganiah, on the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee, in 1909 (the same year that the city of Tel Aviv was established). Deganiah, and many other kibbutzim that were soon to follow, attempted to realise these thinkers' vision by creating a communal villages, where newly arrived European Jews would be taught agriculture and other manual skills.

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Degania was the first kibbutz, the unique communal villages that were a key feature of socialist Zionism. Picture from the 1930s.

Another aspect of this strategy was the revival and fostering of an "indigenous" Jewish culture and the Hebrew language. One early Zionist thinker, Asher Ginsberg, better known by his penname Ahad Ha'am ("One of the People") rejected what he regarded as the over-emphasis of political Zionism on statehood, at the expense of the revival of Hebrew culture. Ahad Ha'am recognised that the effort to achieve independence in Palestine would bring Jews into conflict with the native Palestinian Arab population, as well as with the Ottomans and European colonial powers then eying the country. Instead, he proposed that the emphasis of the Zionist movement shift to efforts to revive the Hebrew language and create a new culture, free from Diaspora influences, that would unite Jews and serve as a common denominator between diverse Jewish communities once independence was achieved.

The most prominent follower of this idea was Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, a linguist intent on reviving Hebrew as a spoken language among Jews (see History of the Hebrew language). Most European Jews in the 19th century spoke Yiddish, a language based on mediaeval German, but as of the 1880s, Ben Yehudah and his supporters began promoting the use and teaching of a modernised form of biblical Hebrew, which had not been a living language for nearly 2,000 years. Despite Herzl's efforts to have German proclaimed the official language of the Zionist movement, the use of Hebrew was adopted as official policy by Zionist organisations in Palestine, and served as an important unifying force among the Jewish settlers, many of whom also took new Hebrew names.

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Tel Aviv, its name taken from a work by Theodor Herzl, was founded by Zionists on empty dunes north of the existing city of Jaffa. This photograph is of the auction of the first lots in 1909.

The development of the first Hebrew-speaking city (Tel Aviv), the kibbutz movement, and other Jewish economic institutions, plus the use of Hebrew, began by the 1920s to lay the foundations of a new nationality, which would come into formal existence in 1948. Meanwhile, other cultural Zionists attempted to create new Jewish artforms, including graphic arts. (Boris Schatz, a Bulgarian artist, founded the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem in 1906.) Others, such as dancer and artist Baruch Agadati, fostered popular festivals such as the Adloyada carnival on Purim.

The Zionist leaders always saw Britain as a key potential ally in the struggle for a Jewish homeland. Not only was Britain the world's greatest imperial power; it was also a country where Jews lived in peace and security, among them influential political and cultural leaders, such as Benjamin Disraeli and Walter, Lord Rothschild. There was also a peculiar streak of philo-Semitism among the classically educated British elite to which the Zionist leaders hoped to appeal, just as the Greek independence movement had appealed to British phil-Hellenism during the Greek War of Independence. Chaim Weizmann, who became the leader of the Zionist movement after Herzl's death in 1904, was a professor at a British university, and used his extensive contacts to lobby the British government for a statement in support of Zionist aspirations.

This hope was realised in 1917, when the British Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, made his famous Declaration in favour of "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people". Balfour was motivated partly by philo-Semitic sentiment, partly by a desire to weaken the Ottoman Empire (an ally of Germany during the First World War), and partly by a desire to strengthen support for the Allied cause in the United States, home to the world's most influental Jewish community. In the Declaration, however, Balfour was careful to use the word "home" rather than "state," and also to specify that its establishment must not "prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine."

Jewish reaction to Zionism

Support for the Zionist movement was not initially a mainstream position in the world Jewish community, and it was actively opposed by many Jewish organizations. While traditional Jewish belief held that Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel) was given to the ancient Israelites by God, and that therefore the right of the Jews to that land was permanent and inalienable, most Orthodox groups held that the Messiah must appear before Israel could return to Jewish control, and Reform Judaism (prior to the Holocaust) explicitly rejected Zionism. Still, return to the Land of Israel had remained a recurring theme among generations of diaspora Jews, particularly in Passover and Yom Kippur prayers which traditionally concluded with, "Next year in Jerusalem", and the thrice-daily Amidah (Standing prayer). ^[1]

Aliyah, or emigration to Israel, has always been considered by Judaism to be a praiseworthy and mandatory act for Jews according to halakha. Aliyah is included in most versions of the 613 commandments, although not in the widely used version of Maimonides. Maimonides' other writings, however, indicate that he considered return to the Land of Israel a matter of extreme importance for Jews. ^[2]

From the Middle Ages and onwards a number of prominent Jews (e.g. Nahmanides) and groups (including the students of the Vilna Gaon, and Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk and 300 of his followers) emigrated to Israel.

Many Jewish religious leaders were opposed to Zionism before the 1930s. The secular, socialist language used by many pioneer Zionists was contrary to the outlook of most religious Jewish communities, and many religious organisations opposed it, both on the grounds that it was a secular movement, and on the grounds that any attempt to re-establish Jewish rule in Israel by human agency was blasphemous, since (in their view) only the Messiah could accomplish this. There was, however, a small but vocal group of religious Jews that began to develop the concept of Religious Zionism in the 1920s and 1930s under such leaders as Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (the Chief Rabbi of Palestine) and his son Zevi Judah, and gained substantial following during the latter half of the 20th century. Only the desperate circumstances of the 1930s and 1940s converted most (though not all) of these communities to Zionism.

Secular Jewish opinion was also ambivalent in its attitudes to Zionism. Many argued that Jews should join with other progressive forces in bringing about changes which would eradicate anti-Semitism and make it possible for Jews to live in safety in the various countries where they lived. Before the 1930s, many Jews believed that socialism offered a better strategy for improving the lot of European Jews. In the United States, most Jews embraced the liberalism of their adopted country. In the United States, for example, there were only 12,000 members of Zionist organizations in 1912, out of a Jewish population of 3 million.

Still, in 1911, the Jewish Encyclopedia included the statement, "there is hardly a nook or corner of the Jewish world in which Zionistic societies are not to be found."^[3] By 1940, there were 171,000 members of Zionist organizations, and by 1942, 80% of American Jews surveyed agreed that a homeland in Palestine was required. ^[4]

The chain of events between 1881 and 1945, beginning with waves of anti-Semitic pogroms in Russia and the Russian-controlled areas of Poland, and culminating in the Holocaust, converted the great majority of surviving Jews to the belief that a Jewish homeland was an urgent necessity, particularly given the large population of disenfranchised Jewish refugees after World War II. Most also became convinced that Palestine was the only location that was both acceptable to all strands of Jewish thought and within the realms of practical possibility. This led to the great majority of Jews supporting the struggle between 1945 and 1948 to establish the State of Israel, though many did not condone violent tactics used by some Zionist groups.

Zionism and the Arab Muslims and Arab Christians

The Jews who already lived in the region of Palestine had a long and complex history of interaction with their Muslim neighbours and rulers, which was complicated by the relationship between Islam and Judaism.

Outside of Jerusalem, Safed, and Tiberias, Arabs and/or Muslims constituted the overwhelming majority of the population. The early Zionists were well aware of this, but claimed that the inhabitants could only benefit from Jewish immigration. They also were inclined to settle in uninhabited areas, such as the coastal plain and the Jezreel Valley, thus avoiding conflict with the Arabs. Within Zionist literature, the Arab presence was largely ignored, as in the famous slogan "A land without a people for a people without a land." This slogan is often attributed to Israel Zangwill, but its original form, "A country without a nation for a nation without a country," was penned by Lord Shaftesbury.^[5] Generally such statements were propaganda invented by leaders who did not foresee the subsequent conflict with the Arabs and thought of them as allies against the big empires whom they viewed as the main obstacle. Agreements with the Ottoman authorities, or with Arab rulers outside Palestine were their main concern and concerns of the local Arabs were overlooked. ^[6]

One of the earlier Zionists to warn against these ideas was Ahad Ha'am, who warned in his 1891 essay "Truth from Eretz Israel" that in Palestine "it is hard to find tillable land that is not already tilled", and moreover,

From abroad we are accustomed to believing that the Arabs are all desert savages, like donkeys, who neither see nor understand what goes on around them. But this is a big mistake... The Arabs, and especially those in the cities, understand our deeds and our desires in Eretz Israel, but they keep quiet and pretend not to understand, since they do not see our present activities as a threat to their future... However, if the time comes when the life of our people in Eretz Israel develops to the point of encroaching upon the native population, they will not easily yield their place.

Though there had already been Arab protests to the Ottoman authorities in the 1880s against land sales to foreign Jews, the most serious opposition began in the 1890s after the full scope of the Zionist enterprise became known. This opposition did not arise out of Palestinian nationalism, which was in its infancy at the time, but out of a sense of threat to the livelihood of the Arabs. This sense was heightened in the early years of the 20th century by the Zionist attempts to develop an economy in which Arabs were largely redundant, such as the "Hebrew labor" movement that campaigned against the employment of Arabs. The severing of Palestine from the rest of the Arab world in 1918 and the Balfour Declaration were seen by the Arabs as proof that their fears were coming to fruition.

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Zeev Jabotinsky

A wide range of opinion could be found among Zionist leaders after 1920. However, the division between these camps did not match the main threads in Zionist politics so cleanly as is often portrayed. To take an example, the leader of the Revisionist Zionists, Vladimir Jabotinsky, is often presented as having had an extreme pro-expulsion view but the proofs offered for this are rather thin. According to Jabotinsky's Iron Wall (1923), an agreement with the Arabs was impossible, since they

look upon Palestine with the same instinctive love and true fervor that any Aztec looked upon his Mexico or any Sioux looked upon his prairie. To think that the Arabs will voluntarily consent to the realization of Zionism in return for the cultural and economic benefits we can bestow on them is infantile.

The solution, according to Jabotinsky, was not expulsion (which he was "prepared to swear, for us and our descendants, that we will never [do]") but to impose the Jewish presence on the Arabs by force of arms until eventually they came to accept it. Only late in his life did Jabotinsky speak of the desirability of Arab emigration though still without unequivocally advocating an expulsion policy. After the World Zionist Organization rejected Jabotinsky's proposals, he resigned from the organization and founded the New Zionist Organization in 1933 to promote his views and work independently for immigration and the establishment of a state. The NZO rejoined the WZO in 1951.

The situation with socialist Zionists such as David Ben-Gurion was also ambiguous. In public Ben-Gurion upheld the official position of his party that denied the necessity of force in achieving Zionist goals. The argument was based on the denial of a unique Palestinian identity coupled with the belief that eventually the Arabs would realise that Zionism was to their advantage. Privately, however, Ben-Gurion believed that the Arab opposition amounted to a total rejection of Zionism grounded in fundamental principle, and that a confrontation was unavoidable.^{[citation needed]} The British plan was soon shelved, but the idea of a Jewish state with a minimal population of Arabs remained an important thread in Labour Zionist thought throughout the remaining period until the creation of Israel.

The attitude of the Zionist leaders towards the Arab population of Palestine in the lead-up to the 1948 conflict is one of the most hotly debated issues in Zionist history. This article does not cover it; see The Great Arab Revolt of 1936 - 1939, Israel-Palestinian conflict, and the Palestinian exodus for more information on this.

The struggle for Palestine

With the defeat and dismantlement of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, and the establishment of the British Mandate over Palestine by the League of Nations in 1922, the Zionist movement entered a new phase of activity. Its priorities were the escalation of Jewish settlement in Palestine, the building of the institutional foundations of a Jewish state, raising funds for these purposes, and persuading — or forcing — the British authorities not to take any steps which would lead to Palestine moving towards independence as an Arab-majority state. The 1920s did see a steady growth in the Jewish population and the construction of state-like Jewish institutions, but also saw the emergence of Palestinian Arab nationalism and growing resistance to Jewish immigration.

International Jewish opinion remained divided on the merits of the Zionist project. While many Jews in Europe and the United States argued that a Jewish homeland was not needed because Jews were able to live in the democratic countries of the West as equal citizens, others supported Zionism.

Albert Einstein was one of the prominent supporters of zionism, and was active in the establishment of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which published in 1930 a volume titled About Zionism: Speeches and Lectures by Professor Albert Einstein, and to which Einstein bequeathed his papers. However, he opposed nationalism and expressed skepticism about whether a Jewish nation-state was the best solution. He said: "I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain, especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks."

Many Jews who embraced socialism and proletarian internationalism opposed Zionism as a form of bourgeois nationalism. The General Jewish Labor Union (Bund), which represented socialist Jews in eastern Europe, was anti-Zionist. Some Jewish factions tried to blend Jewish Autonomism with Zionism, favoring Jewish self-rule in the diaspora until diaspora Jews make aliyah.

The Communist parties, which attracted substantial Jewish support during the 1920s and 1930s, were even more virulently internationalist and therefore anti-Zionist, if one defines Zionism as the advocacy of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. During this time the Soviet OZET/Komzet actively promoted an alternative Jewish homeland — the Jewish Autonomous Oblast with its capital in Birobidzhan set up in the Russian Far East.

At the other extreme, some American Jews went so far as to say that the United States was Zion, and the successful absorption of two million Jewish immigrants in the 30 years before World War I lent force to this argument. Some American Jewish socialists supported the Birobidzhan experiment, and a few even migrated there during the Great Depression.

The rise to power of Adolf Hitler in Germany in 1933 produced a powerful new impetus for Zionism. Not only did it create a flood of Jewish refugees but it undermined the faith of Jews that they could live in security as minorities in non-Jewish societies. Some Zionists allegedly supported the rise of the Nazi party, recognising that it would increase the possibility of a Jewish state. It is claimed by Marxist author Lenni Brenner that The Zionist Federation of Germany even sent Hitler a letter calling for collaboration in 1933; however the strongly anti-Semitic Nazis rejected the offer and later abolished the organisation in 1938. Jewish opinion began to shift in favour of Zionism, and pressure for more Jewish immigration to Palestine increased. But the more Jews settled in Palestine, the more aroused Palestinian Arab opinion became, and the more difficult the situation became in Palestine. In 1936 serious Arab rioting broke out, and in response the British authorities held the unsuccessful St. James Conference and issued the MacDonald White Paper of 1939, severely restricting further Jewish immigration.

The Jewish community in Palestine responded by organising armed forces, based on smaller units developed to defend remote agricultural settlements. Two military movements were founded, the Labor-dominated Haganah and the Revisionist Irgun. The latter group did not hesitate to take military action against the Arab population. With the advent of World War II, both groups decided that defeating Hitler took priority over the fight against the British. However, attacks against British targets were recommenced in 1940 by a splinter group of the Irgun, later known as Lehi, and in 1944 by the Irgun itself.

The revelation of the fate of six million European Jews murdered during the Holocaust had several consequences. Firstly, it left hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees (or displaced persons) in camps in Europe, unable or unwilling to return to homes in countries which they felt had betrayed them to the Nazis. Not all of these refugees wanted to go to Palestine, and in fact many of them eventually went to other countries, but large numbers of them did, and they resorted to increasingly desperate measures to get there; over 250,000 were smuggled out of Europe by an organization called Berihah.

Secondly, it evoked a world-wide feeling of sympathy with the Jewish people, mingled with guilt that more had not been done to deter Hitler's aggressions before the war, or to help Jews escape from Europe during its course. This was particularly the case in the United States, whose federal government had halted Jewish immigration during the war. Among those who became strong supporters of the Zionist ideal was President Harry S. Truman, who overrode considerable opposition in his State Department and used the great power of his position to mobilise support at the United Nations for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, although he expressed very negative views of Jews in his diaries, and had, in a letter written years before he entered the White House, referred to New York City as "kike town".^[7]^[8] Since Britain was desperate to withdraw from Palestine, Truman's efforts were the crucial factor in the creation of Israel. This also corresponded with the Soviet effort to establish their influence in the Middle East. During the 1947 UN Partition Plan debate on May 14, 1947, the Soviet ambassador Gromyko announced:

"As we know, the aspirations of a considerable part of the Jewish people are linked with the problem of Palestine and of its future administration. This fact scarcely requires proof... During the last war, the Jewish people underwent exceptional sorrow and suffering... The United Nations cannot and must not regard this situation with indifference, since this would be incompatible with the high principles proclaimed in its Charter... The fact that no Western European State has been able to ensure the defence of the elementary rights of the Jewish people and to safeguard it against the violence of the fascist executioners explains the aspirations of the Jews to establish their own State. It would be unjust not to take this into consideration and to deny the right of the Jewish people to realize this aspiration."^[9]

Thirdly, it swung world Jewish opinion almost unanimously behind the project of a Jewish state in Palestine, and within Palestine it led to a greater resolution to use force to achieve that objective. American Reform Judaism was among the elements of Jewish thought which changed their opinions about Zionism after the Holocaust. The proposition that Jews could live in peace and security in non-Jewish societies was certainly a difficult one to defend in 1945, although it is one of the ironies of Zionist history that in the decades since World War II anti-Semitism has greatly declined as a serious political force in most western countries, though it increased greatly in Middle Eastern countries.

Zionism in the State of Israel

When the State of Israel came into existence, it included a mainly Arab minority, now about one million people. Historically Zionism has never recognised any 'national minority' within the nation, the status of (for instance) the Frisians within the modern Dutch nation. For Zionists, the Jewish people is the Jewish nation: Zionism is a mono-ethnic nationalism comparable to Irish nationalism. The present State of Israel generally has the constitutional structure of a secular nation state. It has conceded citizenship to the 'Israeli Arabs', although many will identify themselves as 'Palestinians'. However there is no tradition in Zionism which sees this group ('Arabs' or 'Palestinians') as a constituent minority of the Jewish people. Although many Zionists claimed the territory where Yasir Arafat lived, no Zionist ever saw him as a Jew. There is also no nationalist movement to establish a bi-national state on the former mandate territory of Palestine. Zionism is not such a movement, and the State of Israel does not claim to be a bi-national state. In this respect, Zionism is comparable to Czech nationalism or Slovak nationalism - not to Czechoslovak nationalism.. No Zionists call themselves Palestino-Jews or Judaeo-Palestinians. The State is called Israel, not Filastino-Israel or Israelo-Filastina

Within this framework, which includes contradictory ideas about Israeli citizenship, the four racist characteristics can be identified.

Firstly, the Zionist movement historically made a claim to territory on behalf of 'the Jewish people', an exclusive geopolitical claim. It claimed that individual Jews had a right to residence in that territory, which did not apply to randomly selected non-Jews outside that territory. None of the early Zionists advocated the ethnic cleansing, which in fact preceded the establishment of the Sate of Israel in 1948 - but none of them believed that non-Jews had a right to the Jewish homeland either. Zionists attribute a superior quality to Jews, namely the exclusive right to the Jewish national territory. The State of Israel, by definition, claims Israeli territory for Israeli's. It attributes a superior quality to Israeli's, although paradoxically that includes the Arab minority with Israeli citizenship. However, the State of Israel is not 'Israelist' - in the sense of consistently presenting these claims for both its Jewish and Arab citizens. In official pronouncements, such as its defensive speech to the Durban anti-racism conference, Israel continues to claim state legitimacy as the national homeland for the 'Jewish people'. It is therefore not correct to say, that in Israel Jewish diaspora nationalism has been succeeded by Israeli nationalism. The legitimising ideology of Israel is still largely Zionism, and not 'Israelism'.

Secondly, Zionism attributes an inferior status to members of non-Jewish ethno-national groups: that they lack the absolute right to residence in the Jewish homeland, and to citizenship of a Jewish nation state. The State of Israel confers no right of residence or citizenship on persons born outside Israel, unless they have specific links to Israel, to the Jewish people, or to Judaism. That excludes about 99% of the world population. The only exception to the general pattern of nationalist exclusion is, that the State of Israel extends citizenship to the historically resident Arab minority. However, some groups in Israel dispute even their right to residence, and propose their expulsion as part of a 'peace settlement' - together with the expulsion of Palestinians from all or part of the occupied territories. According to a 2003 opinion poll in Israel (Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies), 31% now support the expulsion of the Arab minority, and 46% support clearance of the territories.

The most obvious exclusion, which was not foreseen by the early Zionists, is the status of the Palestinians in the occupied territories. Theodor Herzl never imagined that a Jewish state would be an occupying power, and therefore the de facto government, for a large non-Jewish population. In addition, about three million people belong to the clearly identifiable 'Palestinian-refugee' minorities, in other Arab countries, although most were born in their present country of residence. The State of Israel clearly attributes an inferior status to this population: namely that they do not possess the right to Israeli citizenship. This population is generally equivalent to the 'Palestinian people' in the occupied territories, although it includes small non-Jewish, non-Arab minorities. The members of this population, (primarily Palestinian), can not vote, for instance, and if they did all vote in Israeli elections, it would mean the end of the State of Israel. Again it is true that all nation states operate this exclusion, and none of them extend citizenship to everyone, certainly not to hostile populations. That does not make such policies any less racist, since the exclusions are by definition on ethnic or national grounds.

That would not matter so much, if Israeli borders were open to all immigrants: but they are not, and this is the third racist characteristic of Zionism. Israel has one of the highest immigration rates in history, but immigration policy has always been restrictive. Although Israel grants citizenship to the resident Arab minority, it does not permit Arab immigration, even by former residents of its territory. Only those who stayed in their villages in 1948 got Israeli citizenship: those who crossed the front line to the Arab side can not get back - not as a citizen, and probably not as a visitor. Other Arabs, who have no connection with Palestine, can not simply migrate to Israel, nor can most of the world's population. Israeli immigration is essentially for Jews only, and this is the most obviously racist policy of present Zionism. In this case, the State of Israel has a formal and explicit policy of Jewish immigration, which is clearly Zionist. It is the logical consequence of the original Zionist demand for a Jewish state formed by migration, meaning migration of Jews.

In one respect Israeli policy differs from most national immigration policies: citizenship can be indirectly acquired on religious grounds. A person who converts to Judaism can be a Jew in the sense of the Israeli Law of Return, if the conversion is accepted as valid by religious authorities in Israel. The convert can then go to Israel (entry can not be legally refused), and can claim Israeli nationality and citizenship. Sometimes this is quoted by Israel's supporters, to show Israel is not racist. In theory, all the inhabitants of the Palestinian territories can sincerely convert to Judaism tomorrow, and on acceptance of their conversion move to Israel. - where they will all presumably live as good and prosperous Israeli citizens. In practice this is absurdly unlikely. And the question is: why should they have to convert to Judaism, when native-born atheist or Buddhist Israelis can still be part of the Jewish people?

This is the fourth racist characteristic, equally present in the state policies of Israel and present Zionist belief. It was not very relevant for the early Zionists, who were too far from a Jewish state to think about its future citizenship policy. Nevertheless, it was predictable even at the time Herzl wrote, on the basis of the general characteristics of European nation states (and of the Austro-Hungarian empire where he lived). The child of an Israeli citizen mother and and Israeli citizen father is an Israeli citizen. (I am not sure if this applies to the children of Israeli Arabs, born in the occupied territories). The child acquires this privilege without effort: no application under the Law of Return, no conversion to Judaism, no other qualification for citizenship. The child simply acquires the rights (and duties) of an Israeli citizen through unconscious biological process. The child without this biological advantage (birth, or parentage, or genetic material) does not automatically acquire citizenship. Life in Israel is not always pleasant, and many western Jews hesitate to emigrate there, but within the region an Israeli-born child has the advantage. The child born to Israeli settlers in central Hebron will statistically live longer, be better educated, and have a higher standard of living, then the Palestinian child born in an adjoining house. This advantage is part of the general advantage of being born in a rich country, which about one-fifth of the world's population share.

In citizenship and immigration issues, biology determines fate. Not inevitably, but because nation states are structured that way. There is no inherent moral reason why states should limit immigration, or residence, or citizenship, simply on grounds of birth. In fact, it is hard to think of any moral justification for it. It is clearly racist in the general sense of the word, and its derivation from the ideology of nationalism indicates the racist origins of that ideology. The nationalism underlying the nation state Israel, which is accurately called Zionism, is no different in this respect. Here too, Zionism is racist.

Anti-Zionism and post-Zionism

More than 50 years after the founding of the State of Israel, and after more than 80 years of Arab-Jewish conflict over Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, some groups have misgivings about current Israeli policies. The overwhelming majority of Jewish organizations and denominations are strongly pro-Zionist. Some liberal or socialist Jews, as well as some Orthodox Jewish communities (the most vocal and visible Neturei Karta group, estimates of whose membership range between 1000 and 5000), oppose Zionism as a matter of religious belief. Well-known Jewish scholars and statesmen who have opposed Zionism include Bruno Kreisky, Hans Fromm, and Michael Selzer. In the United States, a small number of Jewish intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein oppose modern Zionism. Chomsky says he supports a Jewish homeland, but not a Jewish state, and claims that this view is consistent with the original meaning of Zionism.^{[citation needed]}

Some elements within Orthodox Judaism remain strongly anti-Zionist, while other mainstream Orthodox groups, such as the Agudat Israel, have changed their positions since 1948 and have reached a modus vivendi with the State of Israel. Others have often assumed right-wing stances regarding important political questions such as the peace process.

Among the important minority threads within Zionism is one that holds Israelis to be a new nationality, not merely the representatives of world Jewry. The "Canaanite" or "Hebrew Renaissance" movement led by poet Yonatan Ratosh in the 1930s and 1940s was built on this idea. A modern movement based partly on the same idea is known as post-Zionism. There is no agreement as to how this movement should be defined, nor even of who belongs to it, but the most common idea is that Israel should leave behind the concept of a "state of the Jewish people" and instead strive to be a state of all its citizens according to pluralistic democratic values. Many Israeli historians hold "Caananism" or "Pan-Semitism" as an aberration outside the bounds of Zionism. Self-identified post-Zionists differ on many important details, such as the status of the Law of Return. Critics tend to associate post-Zionism with anti-Zionism or postmodernism, both of which claims are strenuously denied by proponents.

Another opinion favors a binational state in which Arabs and Jews live together while enjoying some type of autonomy. Variants of the idea were proposed by Chaim Weizmann in the 1930s and by the Ichud (Unity) group in the 1940s, which included such prominent figures as Judah Magnes (first dean of The Hebrew University) and Martin Buber. The emergence of Israel as a Jewish state with a small Arab minority made the idea irrelevant, but it was revived after the 1967 war left Israel in control of a large Arab population. Never more than the opinion of a small minority, the idea is nevertheless supported by a few prominent intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky, the late Edward Said, Meron Benvenisti (since 2003), and Tony Judt. Opponents of a binational state argue that since Arabs, whose population growth rates are much higher than among Jews, would form the majority of the population in such a state, the Jewish character on which the state was founded would be lost and the Jewish population's existence threatened, as it was threatened under other Turkish and Arab regimes in the past. They also suggest that such a state is unlikely to remain a democracy for long, as all Arab countries today have either autocratic or theocratic governments.

Critics of Zionism see the changes in demographic balance which created a Jewish state and displaced over 700,000 Arab refugees,^[10] and the methods used to cause this, as an inevitable consequence of Zionism. Critics also point to current inequities between Jews and Arabs in Israel, similarly viewing them as attributable to Zionist beliefs and ideologies. Some consider this ethnic and cultural discrimination to be a form of racism.

Defenders of Zionism disagree with the identification of Zionism with racism on a number of grounds; they state that the basis of the charge is too vague, as the views of Zionist groups differ widely from each other (see Types of Zionism). They also disagree on the basis that Palestinians and Jews are not racially distinct from each other, and that Israeli Jews themselves are racially "mixed" (nearly half of Israel's Jews come from Arab countries, and there are also almost 100,000 black Jews from Ethiopia); thus even if Zionism discriminates against Arabs, such discrimination cannot accurately be termed racist, but rather ethnic and/or cultural. They also argue that discrimination based on culture or ethnicity is a fact in almost all countries in the world, and that any discrimination in Israel, including discrimination between Jewish groups, is similarly based on such differences, and is not an inevitable consequence of Zionism. They also point at the fact that, unlike the situation in neighboring Arab countries, Arab citizens of Israel can vote in free elections, are represented in the Israeli parliament and enjoy a much higher standard of living than Arabs in Arab countries, and that most differences in income between Israeli Jews and Arabs have more to do with a difference in educational background than with actual discrimination, either by the government or by private actors. They also point out that while perhaps 700,000 Muslims either fled or were forced out of Israel upon the creation of the State, almost a million Jews were forced out of Muslim controlled lands and fled to Israel. They would also point out that Muslims are free to vote in Israel, and have their own MK's, while Jews are forbidden citizenshp in many Muslim coutries, including Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

Non-Jewish Zionism

International support of Zionism

Both the League of Nations' 1922 Palestine Mandate and the 1947 UN Partition Plan endorsed the aim of Zionism. The latter was a rare instance of concurrence between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Christian Zionism

In addition to Jewish Zionism, there was always a small number of Christian Zionists that existed from the early days of the Zionist movement. According to Charles Merkley of Carleton University, Christian Zionism strengthened significantly after the 1967 Six-Day War, and many dispensationalist Christians, especially in the United States, now strongly support Jewish Zionism.

Secular left-wing Zionism

Zionism was also supported by the political left at various times both before and after Israel's formation, in part due to sympathy for the Jews as an oppressed people and in part due to the strong socialist roots of Labor Zionism. Since the Six-Day War of 1967, however, the Palestinians have been gathering more sympathy as a dispersed and stateless people, and Israel has been moving away from the limited socialist policies it had originally adopted. This has led to a loss of support for Zionism among the political left, especially in Europe.

References

^ "Sound the great shofar for our freedom, raise the banner to gather our exiles and gather us together from the four corners of the earth (Isaiah 11:12) Blessed are you, O Lord, Who gathers in the dispersed of His people Israel."
^ In Hilchos Melachim 5:12 Maimonides says "whoever lives in the Land of Israel remains without sin". In Hilchos Avadim 8:9 he says that if a Jewish slave wishes to move to the Land of Israel, his master must move with him, or sell him to someone who will move to the Land of Israel. In Hilchos Avadim 8:10 he states that if a slave flees to the Land of Israel, the Jewish court frees him, and the Talmud (Kesubos 110) lists the reason as being the commandment to settle in the Land of Israel.
^ Zionism article (section Wide Spread of Zionism) by Richard Gottheil in the Jewish Encyclopedia, 1911
^ Stork and Rose, 1974
^ British Support for Jewish Restoration (mideastweb.org)
^ British Empire blamed for modern conflicts Jack Straw said serious mistakes had been made (BBC) 5 November, 2002
^ A newly discovered diary of Harry S Truman
^ Harry Truman's Forgotten Diary. 1947 Writings Offer Fresh Insight on the President By Rebecca Dana and Peter Carlson. Washington Post. July 11, 2003. Page A01
^ UN Debate Regarding the Special Committee on Palestine: Gromyko Statement. 14 May 1947 77th Plenary Meeting Document A/2/PV.77
^ The U.N.'s final estimate of the total number of Palestinian Refugees was 711,000 according to the General Progress Report and Supplementary Report of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine, Covering the Period from 11 December 1949 to 23 October 1950, published by the United Nations Conciliation Commission, October 23, 1950. (U.N. General Assembly Official Records, 5th Session, Supplement No. 18, Document A/1367/Rev.1)

External links

Jewish denominations' view of Zionism

[1] "Sound the great shofar for our freedom, raise the banner to gather our exiles and gather us together from the four corners of the earth (Isaiah 11:12) Blessed are you, O Lord, Who gathers in the dispersed of His people Israel."

[2] In Hilchos Melachim 5:12 Maimonides says "whoever lives in the Land of Israel remains without sin". In Hilchos Avadim 8:9 he says that if a Jewish slave wishes to move to the Land of Israel, his master must move with him, or sell him to someone who will move to the Land of Israel. In Hilchos Avadim 8:10 he states that if a slave flees to the Land of Israel, the Jewish court frees him, and the Talmud (Kesubos 110) lists the reason as being the commandment to settle in the Land of Israel.

[3] Zionism article (section Wide Spread of Zionism) by Richard Gottheil in the Jewish Encyclopedia, 1911

[4] Stork and Rose, 1974

[5] British Support for Jewish Restoration (mideastweb.org)

[6] British Empire blamed for modern conflicts Jack Straw said serious mistakes had been made (BBC) 5 November, 2002

[7] A newly discovered diary of Harry S Truman

[8] Harry Truman's Forgotten Diary. 1947 Writings Offer Fresh Insight on the President By Rebecca Dana and Peter Carlson. Washington Post. July 11, 2003. Page A01

[9] UN Debate Regarding the Special Committee on Palestine: Gromyko Statement. 14 May 1947 77th Plenary Meeting Document A/2/PV.77

[10] The U.N.'s final estimate of the total number of Palestinian Refugees was 711,000 according to the General Progress Report and Supplementary Report of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine, Covering the Period from 11 December 1949 to 23 October 1950, published by the United Nations Conciliation Commission, October 23, 1950. (U.N. General Assembly Official Records, 5th Session, Supplement No. 18, Document A/1367/Rev.1)

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