Zionism

Alison Grey

 

It is a common theory of both Zionist and anti-Zionist writers that the Zionist movement was established as a response to European anti-Semitism at the end of the nineteenth century. Jacob Katz a leading Israeli historian, first emphasized the subjective idealistic factors of Zionism but later confessed that

 

 “Without the anti-Semitic movement in the West and pogroms in the Czarist Russia it is impossible to imagine the establishment of political Zionism.”[1]

 

 The virtual depopulation of Judea began after the last great rebellion against Rome in 132-5 and the Jewish dispersion gradually extended out of the ancient world of the Mediterranean and Middle East and into practically all of Northern and Eastern Europe. The bulk of the Jews were to settle in Poland /Lithuania. However from the end of the eighteenth century Polish lands were distributed between Prussia, Austria and Germany, and this was to subject the Jewish populations in these countries to a series of increasingly violent upheavals, which is said to have continued until the final horror of 1939-45.

 

“Regulated, restricted or even totally denied were the Jews rights of residence, his occupation, his freedom of movement and public worship, even, in some countries, his right to marry and rear a family. The Jews in a word were not part of proper civil society, but set apart from it.”[2]

 

During the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, traditional legends, which had swirled about the Jews in the past were revived as “truths” for racial mysticism and instruments of political mobilisation. The accusation of ritual murder –the so-called blood libel, had medieval roots in the legends that Jews murdered Christian children and drank their blood during the feast of Passover. This myth was kept alive mainly in the underdeveloped countries of Eastern Europe and Russia and within the Russian Empire the government shrewdly exploited this belief in order to provoke the pogroms. There also existed another legend, which was to reinforce racism against the Jews, and this was the legend of the wandering Jew. This was to reinforce the idea of the Jew as an eternal foreigner, who would never learn to speak the national language properly or completely assimilate within the rest of the “natural” population. However within Central and Western Europe most Jews felt themselves to be full members of the nations in which they lived, not as a separate people but rather one of the many “people” who make up the larger nation. But the clearly intolerant and racially minded nationalism of the later nineteenth and twentieth centuries was to pave the way for unprecedented crimes against their nations Jewish populations. It was also to generate by reaction an important Jewish nationalist movement.

 

In 1882 Leo Pinsker provided in his Autoemanzipation, the first important statement of the Zionist position, asserting the need for the Jews to have a territory and state of their own. Fourteen years later Theodore Herzl in Judenstaat repeated this demand. Religious Zionists supported this in biblical terms, referring to the divine promise of the land to the tribes of Israel. Secular Zionists relied more on the argument that Palestine alone could solve the problem of Jewish dispersion and prevalent anti-Semitism. 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 were the inalienable property of the Jewish people. This necessitated displacing Palestinians from their lands when their presence conflicted with Zionist interests.

 

The Zionist movement was developing at the time of major territorial acquisitions in Asia and Africa and was to benefit from the European powers’ competition for influence in the shrinking Ottoman Empire. This was to result in the leaders of the nationalist movements in the Middle East viewing Zionism as a close part of European colonialism. The Zionist movement also agreed that its future rested with the imperial powers. It became increasingly likely that Britain would decide the future of Palestine. World War I was to emphasize the importance of the Eastern Mediterranean. The region lay on the sea route to Britain’s key imperial possessions- India, South East Asia and East Africa and was close to the Persian oilfields. It was beside Egypt and the Suez Canal. Also the French had Syria and it was necessary for Britain to secure its own local base to ensure its rival did not gain wider national influence. It had become necessary to integrate the area into the imperial plan. The man who was instrumental in getting the Zionists from all across Europe and America in agreeing to support the British policy was called Weizmann. He was adopted by the British government as “their representative” in the Zionist movement.

 

“So deep was his involvement in the British cause that Weizmann’s activities as a Zionist leader became merged with the stratagems of British diplomacy.”[3]

 

Weizmann convinced the British cabinet that the Zionist settlement in Palestine should receive an endorsement. So in 1917 the British foreign minister Lord Balfour issued a declaration stating…

 

“ His Majesty’s Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object….”

 

Following the Balfour Declaration the pace of immigration stepped up rapidly and the settler community -yishuv-was able to root itself firmly despite Palestinian opposition. Weizmann stated that he expected 70,000 to, 80,000 Jewish immigrants to arrive each year in Palestine. When they became the majority, they would form an independent government and Palestine would become “As Jewish as English is English.”[4] Between the years 1920 until the 1930s the immigration figures markedly increased. During the 1930s however, British support was to diminish but the yishuv was strong enough to withstand Palestinian opposition on its own. As well as this after World War II the Zionist movement was able to look to the United States for support and legitimisation. The Zionist leadership never considered allying with the Arab world against the Europeans. Rather, Weizmann felt that the yishuv should bolster the British Empire and guard its strategic interests in the region. It was also generally felt that European civilization was superior to Arab culture and values. The Zionists would bring enlightenment and economic development to the backward Arabs.

 

By operating within the limits of British concerns in the Middle East, Zionism was able to win itself land and a military and economic base. This however, did not mean that Zionism aligned itself with imperial interests in every sphere. As the movement became stronger tensions were to develop in the relationship with Britain. The tensions stemmed from the Zionist desire to establish an independent state and the British desire to protect her interests in the Middle East. By the mid 1940s these tensions dominated relations between the two. Richard Crossman who was appointed in 1946 to seek a solution to the problem said of Zionist affairs in Palestine

 

“(it is) really a state within a state, with its own budget, sevret cabinet, army and above all, intelligence service. It is the most effective dynamic and toughest organisation and it is not afraid of us [the British]”[5]

 

One reason fro the shift in policy towards Britain is that it was understood that huge changes had taken place in the balance for world power. On a global level Britain was no longer in the dominant position it had once occupied. American influence was now growing. Not just British but other European Imperialisms were also on the way out. As the European powers were stepping out in the region the US was stepping in. The main American concern was the vast amounts of oil available in nearby Saudi Arabia. But it was not just oil that influenced American interest in the region. Since the 1980s the US had become the destination of choice for persecuted Jews in Russia and Eastern Europe.  During the mid 1930s Zionists began to exercise influence in US politics forming lobby organisations which aimed at securing US backing for the movements aim in Palestine. A breakthrough foe the Zionist movement came in 1944 when Congress declared that

“ (The US) make its good offices and take appropriate measures to the end that the doors of Palestine shall be opened for the free entry of Jews into that country, and that there shall be full opportunity for colonisation, so that the Jewish people may ultimately reconstitute Palestine as a free and democratic Jewish commonwealth.”[6]

This was a huge breakthrough for Zionism. Now the moves towards an independent state were considerably strengthened and conflicts with the indigenous population were to become exacerbated.  Although the US didn’t want to strain it s relations with the Arab states in the region, the Holocaust was to provide the impetuous for full and complete backing of a Jewish state. Also with post war rivalries between Russia and the US, the US was keen to keep a presence in the oil-rich Middle East. President Truman of the United States began to campaign vigorously for a UN vote to recognise the partition of Palestine that would establish a Jewish state. The US even threatened to withdraw Marshall Aid from those who did not cooperate. And so in 1947 the UN approved the partition.

Throughout 1947 and early 1948 clashes between the Arab and Jewish groups in Palestine were increased. It was however an unequal battle  The Zionist army took control of the territory allocated to them under the UN plan and sought to unite the routes to isolated areas of Jewish settlement in Arab areas. They quickly achieved their goals. On the 14 of May 1948 Ben Gurion proclaimed a state of Israel under Zionist control and just eleven minutes later President Truman recognized the new state.[7]

 

To conclude the land and people of Palestine were transformed during the years of British rule. The systematic colonization undertaken by the Zionist movement enabled the Jewish community to establish separate and virtually autonomous political, economic, social and military institutions. A state within a state was already in place by the time the time the movement was launched for its drive towards independence.

The drive for statehood however ignored the calls for a Palestinian national state. Territorial partition was seen as the way to gain statehood while at the same time conferring certain national rights to the Palestinian population. These approaches while leading to an independent Israel have fostered long term conflict with the Arab world and what the Zionist movement was ultimately searching for- security, is still out of reach for the Jewish population living in Israel.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

 

 

Vital, David, The Origins of Zionism, (1975), Oxford University Press, Oxford.

 

Kuzar, Ron, Hebrew and Zionism: A Discourse Analytical Cultural Study, (2001), Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin and New York.

 

Mosse, George L., Toward the Final Solution: A History of European Racism, (1978) J.M Dent and Sons Ltd, Melbourne, London and Toronto.

 

Marshall, Phill, Intifada: Zionism, Imperialism and Palestinian Resistance, (1989), Bookmarks, England.

 

Said, E., Hitchens, C., (ed.s), Blaming the Victims,(1988), Verso, London, New York.

 

Mc Dowall, David, Palestine and Israel, (1989), I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd, London.

 

Lesch Ann M., Zionism and its Impact, 13-Aug-2001,

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