A MODERN RENDITION OF AN ANCIENT MOTIF
The origin of the term "Zionism" is the biblical word "Zion", often used as a synonym for Jerusalem and the Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael). Zionism is an ideology which expresses the yearning of Jews the world over for their historical homeland - Zion, the Land of Israel.
The aspiration of returning to their homeland was first held by Jews exiled to Babylon some 2,500 years ago - a hope which subsequently became a reality. ("By the water of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion." Psalms 137:1). Thus political Zionism, which coalesced in the 19th century, invented neither the concept nor the practice of return. Rather, it appropriated an ancient idea and an ongoing active movement, and adapted them to meet the needs and spirit of the times.
The core of the Zionist idea appears in Israel's Declaration of Independence (14 May 1948), which states, inter alia, that:
"The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.After being forcible exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom."
HISTORICAL LINK BETWEEN THE JEWISH PEOPLE AND ITS LAND
The idea of Zionism is based on the long connection between the Jewish people and its land, a link which began almost 4,000 years ago when Abraham settled in Canaan, later known as the Land of Israel. About 1000 BCE, King David made Jerusalem the country's capital and some 40 years later, his son, King Solomon, built there the Temple to the One God, making Jerusalem the spiritual as well as the political center of the nation. Over 400 years of independence under the Davidic dynasty ended in 586 BCE when the country was conquered by the Babylonians, who destroyed the Temple and exiled most of the people. However, before the century was over the Jews returned, rebuilt the Temple and restored Jewish life in the Land. For the next centuries, they knew varying degrees of self-rule under Persian (538-333 BCE) and Hellenistic (322-142 BCE) overlordship, independence under the Hasmonean dynasty (142-63 BCE) and then increasingly oppressive domination by the Romans beginning in 63 BCE. When the Jews were prevented from carrying out their traditional religious way of life, they launched a series of uprisings, which climaxed in the revolt of 66 CE.
After four years of fighting, Rome put down the Jewish Revolt and burned the Temple to the ground. Many thousands of Jews were killed, sold into slavery and dispersed to countries near and far. The only remnant of the entire Temple compound was the Western Wall, which became a place of pilgrimage and worship for Jews, and remains so to the present time.
In 132 CE, another Jewish revolt, which restored Jewish sovereignty for three years, was cruelly suppressed, claiming thousands of lives. To stamp out the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, the Romans renamed the country Palaestina.
The small Jewish community which remained in the Land gradually recovered. Institutional and communal life was reconstructed to meet the new situation without the unifying framework of the state and the Temple. Priests were replaced by rabbis, and in the absence of a central place of worship, the synagogue became the nucleus of each of the scattered communities.
Between 636 and 1096, the Jewish community in the Land diminished considerable and lost some of its organizational and religious cohesiveness, mainly due to increased social and economic discrimination under Arab centuries, reinforced from time to time by Jews returning from the Diaspora, the countries of their dispersion.
Aliya (Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel) from North Africa took place in 1191-1198 and a trickle of Jewish refugees from the Spanish Inquisition came in the late 15th century. Others, fleeing pogroms in the Ukraine, came in the mid-17th century. In the same century, a messianic movement arose under Shabbatai Zevi of Izmir with some it its adherents settling in the Land. They were followed in 1700 by hundreds of Hasidic Jews who arrived from Eastern Europe. The flow of aliya in the 18th and the first part of the 19th centuries was significant enough to make the Jews of Jerusalem the largest religious community in the city by 1844. Thus the great waves of Zionist immigration, which began in 1882 and continued throughout the 20th century, were preceded over the years by many small, sporadic influxes of Jews into the country.
BASIC CONCEPTS OF ZIONISM
Central to Zionist thought is the concept of the Land of Israel as the historical birthplace of the Jewish people and the belief that Jewish life elsewhere is a life of exile. Moses Hess, in his book "Roma and Jerusalem" (1844) expresses this idea:
"Two periods of time shaped the development of Jewish civilization: the first, after the liberation from Egypt, and the second, the return from Babylon. The third shall come with the redemption from the third exile."
Over centuries in the Diaspora, the Jews maintained a strong and unique relationship with their historical homeland, and manifested their yearning for Zion through rituals and literature. In prayer, the Jewish worshipper is instructed to face east, towards the Land of Israel. In the morning service, Jews say "Bring us in peace from the four corners of the earth and lead us upright to our land." Worshippers repeatedly recite, "Blessed are You, O Lord, Who builds Jerusalem," and "Blessed are You O Lord, Who returns His presence to Zion." The grace after meals includes a blessing which ends with a prayer for the rebuilding of "Jerusalem, the Holy City, speedily and in our days." In the marriage ceremony, the bridegroom seeks to "elevate Jerusalem to the forefront of our joy." At a circumcision the following is recited from the Psalms "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand wither." On Passover, every Jew declares, "Next year in Jerusalem." At times of mourning, the bereaved are comforted with mention of the Land of Israel: "Blessed are You, O Lord, Consoler of Zion and Builder of Jerusalem." The longing of the Jewish people to return to its Land was also expressed in prose and poetry in Hebrew and in other Jewish languages, which evolved over the centuries, Yiddish in Eastern Europe and Ladino in Spain.
ANTISEMITISM AS A FACTOR IN SHAPING ZIONISM
While Zionism expresses the historical link binding the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, modern Zionism might not have arisen as an active national movement in the 19th century without contemporary antisemitism considered in a continuum of centuries of persecution.
Time and again, the Jews of Europe were persecuted and massacred, sometimes on religious grounds, sometimes for economic reasons, sometimes on social pretexts, and sometimes for national and "racial" rationales. Jews were slaughtered by the Crusaders when the latter made their way across Europe to the Holy Land (11th-12th centuries), massacred during the Black Death for allegedly poisoning wells (14th century), burned at the stake in the Spanish Inquisition (15th century) and murdered by Chmelnicki's Cossacks in the Ukraine (17th century). Hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed by the armies of Danikin and Petlura in the Russian civil war which followed World War I. The most infamous atrocity of all, the Nazi Holocaust in which some six million Jews were systematically annihilated mainly on "racial" grounds, was perpetrated by Germans, in whose country the Jews had made their most serious attempt to achieve acceptance and social assimilation.
Over the centuries, Jews were expelled from almost every European country - Germany and France, Portugal and Spain, England and Wales - a cumulative experience which had a profound impact, especially in the 19th century when Jews had abandoned hope of fundamental change in their lives. Out of this milieu came Jewish leaders who turned to Zionism as a result of the virulent antisemitism in the societies surrounding them. Thus Moses Hess, shaken by the blood libel of Damascus (1844), became the father of Zionist socialism; Leon Pinsker, shocked by the progroms (1881-1882) which followed the assassination of Czar Alexander II, assumed leadership in the Hibbat Zion movement; and Theodor Herzl, who as a journalist in Paris experienced the venomous antisemitic campaign of the Dreyfus case (1896), organized Zionism into a political movement.
The Zionist movement aimed to solve the "Jewish problem," the problem of a perennial minority, a people subjected to repeated pogroms and persecution, a homeless community whose alienism was underscored by discrimination wherever Jews settled. Zionism aspired to deal with this situation by effecting a return to the historical homeland of the Jews - Land of Israel.
In fact, most of the waves of Aliya in the modern age were in direct response to acts of murder and discrimination against Jews. The First Aliya followed pogroms in Russia in the 1880s. The Second Aliya was spurred by the Kishinev pogrom and a string of massacres in the Ukraine and Belorussia at the turn of the century. The Third Aliya occurred after the slaughter of Jews in the Russian civil war. The Fourth Aliya originated in Poland in the 1920s after the Grawski legislation infringed on Jewish economic activity. The Fifth Aliya was composed of German and Austrian Jews fleeing Nazism.
After the State of Israel was established (1948), mass immigrations were still linked to discrimination and oppression - Holocaust survivors from Europe, refugees from Arab countries escaping the persecution which followed the establishment of the state, the remnants of Polish Jewry who fled the country when antisemitism reignited at the time of Gomulka and Muzcar, and the Jews of Russia and other former Soviet republic who feared a new spasm of antisemitism with the breakup of the Soviet Union. The history of the waves of Aliya provides strong proof for the Zionist argument that a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, with a Jewish majority, is the only solution to the "Jewish problem."
RISE OF POLITICAL ZIONISM
Political Zionism, the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, emerged in the 19th century within the context of the liberal nationalism then sweeping through Europe. This era, which began with a movement in Greece to free itself from the yoke of Ottoman occupation and included national liberation movements in Ireland, Norway, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Italy and later on in the century, Turkey and India, also inspired Zionist leaders, as evidenced by many references to the national struggles of other peoples in the writings of the founders of Zionism. Liberal nationalism usually aspired to two basic goals: liberation from foreign rule, (as in the case of Poland, Greece and Ireland) and national unity in countries which had been partitioned into many political entities (Italy and Germany). Its motto was "A state for every nation, and the entire nation in one state."
Zionism synthesized the two goals, liberation and unity, by aiming to free the Jews from hostile and oppressive alien rule and to re-establish Jewish unity by gathering Jewish exiles from the four corners of the world to the Jewish homeland.
The rise of Zionism as a political movement was also a response to the failure of the Haskala, the Jewish Enlightenment, to solve the "Jewish problem." According to Zionist doctrine, the reason for this failure was that personal emancipation and equality were impossible without national emancipation and equality, since national problems require national solutions. The Zionist national solution was the establishment of a Jewish national state with a Jewish majority in the historical homeland, thus realizing the Jewish people's right to self-determination. Zionism did not consider the "normalization" of the Jewish condition contrary to universal aims and values. It advocated the right of every people on earth to its own home, and argued that only a sovereign and autonomous people could become an equal member of the family of nations.
ZIONISM: A PLURALISTIC MOVEMENT
Although Zionism was basically a political movement aspiring to a return to the Jewish homeland with freedom, independence, statehood and security for the Jewish people, it also promoted a reassertion of Jewish culture. An important element in this reawakening was the revival of Hebrew, long restricted to liturgy and literature, as a living national language, for use in government and the military, education and science, the market and the street.
Like any other nationalism, Zionism interrelated with other ideologies, resulting in the formation of Zionist currents and subcurrents. The combination of nationalism and liberalism gave birth to liberal Zionism; the integration of socialism gave rise to socialist Zionism; the blending of Zionism with deep religious faith resulted in religious Zionism; and the influence of European nationalism inspired a rightist-nationalism which also espouse various liberal, traditional, socialist (leftist) and conservative (rightist) leanings.
ZIONISM AND THE "ARAB PROBLEM"
Most of the founders of Zionism knew that Palestine (the Land of Israel) had an Arab population (though some spoke naively of "a land without a people for a people without a land") Still, only few regarded the Arab presence as a real obstacle to the fulfillment of Zionism. At that time in the late 19th century, Arab nationalism did not yet exist in any form, and the Arab population of Palestine was sparse and apolitical. Many Zionist leaders believed that since the local community was relatively small, friction between it and the returning Jews could be avoided; they were also convinced that the subsequent development of the country would benefit both peoples, thus earning Arab endorsement and cooperation. However, these hopes were not fulfilled.
Contrary to the declared positions and expectations of the Zionist idealogists who had aspired to achieve their aims by peaceful means and cooperation, the renewed Jewish presence in the Land met with militant Arab opposition. For some time many Zionists found it hard to understand and accept the depth and intensity of the dispute, which became in fact a clash between two peoples both regarding the country as their own - the Jews by virtue of their historical and spiritual connection, and the Arabs because of their centuries-long presence in the country.
The need to grapple with Arab violence towards the Jewish community and to find the appropriate response to the mounting dispute gave rise to three main approaches to the "Arab problem" within the Zionist movement: minimalism, maximalism and realism.
The minimalists held that the land belongs to both peoples; thus Zionism cannot be realized without the prior consent of the other nation. They sought a dialogue with local Arabs and rejected the Zionism establishment's approach based on negotiations with outside powers and the leaders of the Arab states. To secure a Jewish-Arab agreement, the minimalists were willing to renounce the establishment of a Jewish state and accept in its stead a binational state based on social and political parity of Jews and Arabs.
At the opposite extreme were the maximalists, who believed that the national struggle between the two peoples would have to be resolved by force. They rejected the presumption of Arab national rights in the Land of Israel, noting that the Arabs had never had a state in Palestine. They saw no need to negotiate with local Arabs, and their hope was to acquire the entire country either through diplomatic contacts with outside powers or by armed force.
The realists, who comprised the largest Zionist grouping, were dividing into liberal and socialist subgroups. The realists did not believe it possible to avert altogether a conflict with the Arabs, but thought it possible to attenuate the conflict by taking moderate positions. Like the minimalists, they favored negotiations with local Arabs and supported the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants. However, they were unwilling to compromise on Zionist goals - a Jewish majority in the Land of Israel through unrestricted Aliya, and the establishment of a Jewish state. In contrast to the maximalists, they sought a dialogue with Arabs in Palestine and abroad, and were willing to consider compromises.
The socialist realist (represented most prominently by David Ben-Gurion Israel's first prime minister) based their agenda on the belief that a Jewish economy could not develop without Jewish agriculture and industry, and that without an autonomous economy there would be neither a society nor a state. Adherents of this group also advocated respect of Arab rights, and, for many years they believed that the Jewish and Arab proletariat shared a common class interest against the Jewish bourgeoisie and Arab feudalism. However, most of them eventually reached the conclusion that the struggle was one of nationalities, not of classes.
During the year 1936-47, the struggle over the Land of Israel grew more intense. Arab opposition became more extreme with the increased growth and development of the Jewish community. At the same time, the Zionist movement felt it necessary to increase immigration and develop the country's economic infrastructure, in order to save as many Jews as possible from the Nazi inferno in Europe.
The unavoidable clash between the Jews and the Arabs brought the UN to recommend, on 29 November 1947 - the establishment of two states in the area west of the Jordan River - one Jewish and one Arab. The Jews accepted the resolution; the Arabs rejected it.
On May 14, 1948, in accordance with the UN resolution of November 1947, the State of Israel was established.
ZIONISM INTO THE 21ST CENTURY
The establishment of the State of Israel marked the realization of the Zionist goal of attaining an internationally recognized, legally secured home for the Jewish people in its historic homeland, where Jews would be free from persecution and able to develop their own lives and identity.
Since 1948, Zionism has seen its task as continuing to encourage the "ingathering of the exiles" which at times has called for extraordinary efforts to rescue endangered (physically and spiritually) Jewish communities. It also strives to preserve the unity and continuity of the Jewish people as well as to focus on the centrality of Israel in Jewish life everywhere.
Down through the centuries, the wish for the restoration of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel has been a thread binding the Jewish people together. Jews everywhere accept Zionism as a fundamental tenet of Judaism, support the State of Israel as the basic realization of Zionism and are enriched culturally, socially and spiritually by the fact of Israel - a member of the family of nations and a vibrant, creative accomplishment of the Jewish spirit.
They are also included in the following ACTS:
Why is Zionism Controversial?
Many peoples have had movements of national liberation.
Is Zionism different?
About Zionism
What is Zionism?
Zionism is the political movement that is implementing the national liberation of the Jewish people. It is based on the assertion that the Jewish people, like any other people, has the right to self-determination; Jews have a right to a national home in their historic homeland. Zionism has made a reality of the "impossible" project of restoration of the Jewish people to our homeland, after nearly 2,000 years of exile. The work of Zionism is far from complete, however.
Zionism has always been a part of Judaism
The ideological and cultural foundations of Zionism have always been present in Jewish tradition. Jews always thought of themselves as a nation or people. The concept of "am Yisrael" - the "people of Israel" or "nation of Israel," has been inherent in Jewish culture from ancient times. Jewish cultural and religious life always centered around the land of Israel. This did not change during two millennia of dispersion.
History of Zionism
The modern ideological expression of Zionism began to take shape in the nineteenth century. Jews freed from the ghetto found that they could not, or did not want to, assimilate and lose their Jewishness, while at the same time, they could be part of a medieval religion whose time had passed. They came to the understanding that Jews are a people as well as a religion, and made explicit what had been implicit in Jewish culture. Various thinkers such as Moses Hess and Leon Pinsker wrote the first real Zionist ideological manifestos, and the Chovevei Tzion and BILU groups organized Zionist immigration to the land of Israel on a small scale.
Zionism becomes a political movement
Zionism became a political movement with the first Zionist congress in 1897, organized by Theodor Herzl. The conference turned an intellectual "movement," scattered around Europe, into a political force, and provided a clear goal: the achievement of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine, guaranteed by international law. Beyond this symbolic step, the conference was in reality a rather modest milestone. Without the support of the Jewish masses and rich financiers, it was hard for Zionism to show great concrete achievements. Without such achievements, it was hard for Zionism to win the support of the Jewish masses for a project that seemed hopeless and Quixotic. Tenacity, gradualism, pragmatism, courage and daring leveraged the tiny, gradually accumulated achievements of Zionism from a few people in a conference hall to a movement, from a movement in Europe to Jewish settlement in the land of Israel, from a few settlements to the British mandate, from the mandate to a Jewish state.
Zionism achieves a first goal
The first stage on the way to attaining a Jewish national home was the Balfour Declaration, secured for the Zionist organization through the efforts of Chaim Weizmann and others. In it, the British government promised to support the creation of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. When the Balfour declaration was incorporated in the League of Nations mandate for Palestine in 1922, it became international law. The United Nations inherited the obligations of the League of nations. Therefore, the state of Israel is the result of a promise backed by international law, and not an "illegal entity" as anti-Zionists claim.
Zionism creates the State of Israel
An important tenet of Zionism was the understanding that the Jews of Europe were in danger, that Anti-Semitism would continue to rise and become increasingly virulent. Therefore, Zionists understood that there was some urgency about their work. Most of the world, and most of the Jews of the world, did not understand the urgency until after the rise of Nazism, when it was too late. Not even the Zionists could imagine the horrors of the Holocaust however.
The Arabs of Palestine, led by the Nazi Grand Mufti Hajj Amin Al Husseini, agitated against Jewish immigration and began a revolt in 1936. The revolt was evidently funded and supported by the axis powers in order to fight the British. The British reneged on their promise to create a national home for the Jews in Palestine, and shut the gates of Palestine to Jewish immigration in 1939 with the White Paper. The Zionist leadership despaired of the British and in 1942, when they thought it was still possible to save some of the Jews of Europe, they adopted the Biltmore Program, calling for an independent Jewish state.
After World War II, it was discovered that the Nazis had murdered six million Jews, virtually all the Jews of Europe. A tiny remnant remained and wanted to immigrate to Palestine, but the British would not allow it. The Jews turned against the British and using guerilla warfare, forced them to relinquish their hold on Palestine, which was partitioned by UN General Assembly Resolution 181 into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Arabs did not accept the decision of the UN. Open warfare broke out. After the Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel on May 15, 1948, neighboring Arab countries invaded the new state. 600,000 Jews fought off the armies of four Arab states, backed by others who had declared war, but did not send troops, in the Israel War of Independence. The creation of the state did not end the mission of Zionism, since the new Jewish state was surrounded by enemies and since most Jews still did not live in Israel.
For a detailed history of Zionism, see History of Zionism
Achievements of Zionism - Zionism is the ideological success story of the twentieth century, overcoming seemingly insuperable obstacles to realize an impossible dream. The story of Zionism challenges the imagination. Zionism revived a dying people and brought them back to their land. Zionism changed the image of the land and of the people.
Zionism in Israel - Zionism brought water to a thirsty country. The Israel national water carrier pumps more water in a day than was consumed in all of Palestine in 1948. Thanks to Zionism, glass and steel towers rose from sand dunes; the forgotten and disease ridden armpit of the Ottoman Empire became the most technologically advanced society in the Middle East, where both Arabs and Jews enjoy a higher standard of living than anywhere else in the Middle East, except the petroleum sheikhdoms, the highest literacy rates in the Middle East, and the lowest infant mortality. Zionism benefited Jews and Arabs. The average Israeli Arab enjoys a higher standard of living than the average citizen of oil-rich Saudi Arabia.
Zionist Revolution - Zionism was more than a political movement to obtain a homeland for the Jewish people. Zionism proposed, and carried out, a revolution within Jewish thought and culture. Zionism gave a new life to the ancient Hebrew language. Zionism changed the image of the Jewish people. Thanks to Zionism, merchants and students and peddlers came out of the ghetto to become Jewish mechanics, Jewish farmers, Jewish engineers and Jewish soldiers. Zionism made the "impossible" into reality. Zionism ended "the longest occupation in history" - the occupation of the land of Israel.
Benefits of Zionism - Zionism benefited Diaspora Jews as well as those living in Israel, Zionists and anti-Zionists, because it gave a different meaning to the reviled word "Jew." Zionism helped to save people and salvage the vestiges of the dignity and honor of the Jewish people in the Holocaust, bringing boatloads of immigrants to Mandate Palestine in the "illegal" immigration, sending parachutists behind enemy lines to save Jews and help the allied war effort, and leading ghetto revolts and partisan groups. By creating and defending the state of Israel, Zionism ended the 2,000 year nightmare during which Jews were despised and persecuted by almost every nation in the world, through no fault of our own.
Anti- Zionism
What is anti-Zionism?
The basic premise of Zionism is that Jews have the same rights to nationhood as any other people. Anti-Zionism is based on the racist thesis that Jews are somehow different.
Zionism is opposed by a variety of groups:
Jewish anti-Zionism
Jewish religious anti-Zionism arose out of fear that a secular ideology would supplant religion as the mainstay of Judaism and a phobia of change. Jews had "always" lived in ghettos in the Diaspora, and therefore Jews must continue the tradition, according to religious anti-Zionists. Anti-Zionist ultra-orthodox Jews like the Neturei Karta regularly meet with and praise anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers like Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, agreeing with him that the Holocaust was exaggerated, and lending "legitimacy" to anti-Semitic myths. In practise, anti-Zionist Jews tend toward paradoxical Anti-Semitism. Assimilationist Jews were afraid that Zionism, with its insistence on Jewish nationhood, would hinder acceptance of Jews as equals in European nation-states. Marxist Jews and non-Jews opposed Zionism as a "reactionary" nationalist tendency, but later, paradoxically, came to support every "national liberation movement" except Zionism.
Anti-Semitism, Marxism and anti-Zionism
The largest recruiting base for Anti-Zionism is simple racist anti-Semitism. Neo-Marxist radicals denounce Zionism as racism, starting from the premise that Zionism was a colonialist movement, and that all colonialism is racism. The notion that Zionism is racism was probably spawned by the Soviet doctrine of "Zionology," an anti-Semitic ideological invention that was aimed as much at bolstering state-sponsored anti-Semitism as it was intended to support the anti-Israel policies of the Soviet government.
Arab anti-Zionism
Most Arabs oppose Zionism because they believe that the entire Middle East belongs to them, and they encouraged the development of an opposing Palestinian (Arab) national identity. The creation of a Jewish national home and later, of the state of Israel, was increasingly opposed by the Arab states, and by the Arabs of Palestine.
Muslim and Islamist anti-Zionism
Most Muslims oppose Zionism and the existence of Israel, for different reasons. Some believe that all land that was once part of the Muslim territory (Dar al-Islam) must remain Muslim. For that reason, those opposed to Zionism sometimes also want to retake al Andalus (Spain). Some associate Zionism with the Christian Crusades, which conquered Palestine briefly and were viewed as an intrusion and an insult. Many Muslim leaders are afraid of Western ideas of progress and human rights, such as equality for women and homosexuals, that are transmitted through Zionism, as well as scientific doctrines that they view as pernicious such as evolution.
Anti-Zionism today
Current attitudes to Zionism, and the current image of Zionism, are influenced by the Israeli occupation of lands conquered in the Six day War, including the Golan Heights and the West Bank (Judea and Samaria). Anti-Zionism often insists that Zionism is identical with "Greater Israel" and "Likud" ideology, though Israel has repeatedly offered to withdraw from conquered territories in return for peace, and most Zionists support a two state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Some advocates of the Arab cause insist that the conflict began in 1967. However, Arab opposition to Jewish presence and settlement in Palestine began long before the creation of the Jewish State in 1948, and violent attacks on Israel are still initiated from Gaza, though Israel, under Likud party leadership, withdrew from Gaza.
False claims of anti-Zionism
Contrary to the claims of anti-Zionists, Zionism did not seek to set up a "Jewish exclusivist" state in the land of Israel, or plot to expel the Arabs of Palestine, nor was Zionism ever a militaristic, fascist type movement, though there were militaristic Zionists. Zionism was a non-militaristic movement in its foundation, rather pacifist in orientation. Early Zionists ignored the claims of Arab nationalism, because there was no Arab nationalism evident in the land of Israel, and because of their own ignorance of actual conditions in the land. Beginning about 1905, Zionists took cognizance of Arab nationalism, but usually assumed that Zionism and Arab nationalism could work together, and that Zionism could benefit the Arabs of Palestine. Theodor Herzl's utopia, Altneuland, described the future Jewish state as a multipluralistic democracy where Jews and Arabs lived as equals.
The enemies of Zionism tend to identify "Zionism" with the worst and most unfortunate acts of misguided extremists. They insist that Zionism is racism, and accuse Zionism of crimes ranging to deliberately planning to expel the Arabs to instigating the French Revolution. They often paint all Zionists as religious fanatics from Brooklyn intent on rebuilding the third temple, murdering or expelling the Arabs of Palestine and creating a "Jewish exclusivist" state that encompasses huge areas of the Middle East. They depict Zionism as a "pernicious plot" that controls European and American governments, just as anti-Semites depicted Jews as plotting to subvert governments and achieve world domination. They insist, nonetheless, that they are not anti-Semitic, though they deny the right of the Jews to self-determination.
The Zionism Controversy
When did Zionism begin? Is Zionism "Messianic?" Is Zionism expansionist? Is Zionism imperialistic? Is Zionism racism? Did Zionism plot to dispossess Arabs? Does Zionism run the American government? Is Zionism right wing? Is Zionism the source of all problems in the Middle East? Is Zionism colonialist and evil? Is Zionism fascist?
Some answers: History of Zionism and Israel Zionism and its Impact What Is Zionism?-Definitions of Zionism Zionism and Israel-FAQ Zionism and Israel - and anti-Zionism Zionism Encyclopedic Dictionary of Israel and Zionism
