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{{This|Zionism as a movement, not the [[History of Israel]]|Zion (disambiguation)}} |
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{{see also|History of Zionism|Timeline of Zionism|World Zionist Organization}} |
{{see also|History of Zionism|Timeline of Zionism|World Zionist Organization}} |
Revision as of 18:11, 22 January 2008
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Zionism is an international political movement that supports a homeland for the Jewish People in the Land of Israel.[1] Although its origins are earlier, the movement was formally established by the Hungarian journalist Theodor Herzl (Herzl Tivadar in Hungarian) in the late nineteenth century. The movement was eventually successful in establishing the State of Israel in 1948, as the world's first and only modern Jewish State. It continues primarily as support for the state and government of Israel and its continuing status as a homeland for the Jewish people.[2] Described as a "diaspora nationalism,"[3] its proponents regard it as a national liberation movement whose aim is the self-determination of the Jewish people.[4]
While Zionism is based in part upon religious tradition linking the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, where the concept of Jewish nationhood is thought to have first evolved somewhere between 1200 BCE and the late Second Temple era (i.e. up to 70 CE),[5][6] the modern movement was mainly secular, beginning largely as a response by European Jewry to antisemitism across Europe.[7] It constituted a branch of the broader phenomenon of modern nationalism.[8] At first one of several Jewish political movements offering alternative responses to the position of Jews in Europe, Zionism gradually gained more support, and after the Holocaust became the dominant Jewish political movement.
Terminology
The word "Zionism" itself is derived from the word "Zion" (Hebrew: ציון, Tzi-yon), one of the names of Jerusalem and the Land of Israel, as mentioned in the Bible. It was coined as a term for Jewish nationalism by Austrian Jewish publisher Nathan Birnbaum, founder of the first nationalist Jewish students' movement Kadimah, in his journal Selbstemanzipation (Self Emancipation) in 1890. (Birnbaum eventually turned against political Zionism and became the first secretary-general of the anti-Zionist Haredi movement Agudat Israel.)[9]
Since the founding of the State of Israel, the term "Zionism" is generally considered to mean support for Israel as a Jewish nation state. 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 immigration to Israel.
Certain individuals and groups have used the term "Zionism" as a pejorative to justify attacks on Jews. According to historians Walter Laqueur, Howard Sachar and Jack Fischel among others, in some cases, the label "Zionist" is also used as a euphemism for Jews in general by apologists for antisemitism.[10]
Zionism should be distinguished from Territorialism which was a Jewish nationalist movement calling for a Jewish homeland, but not necessarily in Palestine. During the early history of Zionism, a number of proposals were made for settling Jews outside of Europe but these all ultimately were rejected or failed. The debate over these proposals helped define the nature and focus of the Zionist movement.
History of Zionism
Since the first century CE most Jews have lived in exile, although there has been a constant presence of Jews in the Land of Israel, which was known to most non-Jews as Palestine. According to Judaism the Jews would return to Eretz Israel with the coming of the Messiah. However in the nineteenth century the current in Judaism supporting an earlier return got more support. Even before 1882, which is generally seen as the year in which practical Zionism started, some Jewish immigration into Palestine occured.
year | Jews | Arabs |
---|---|---|
1800 | 6,700 | 268,000 |
1880 | 24,000 | 525,000 |
1915 | 87,500 | 590,000 |
1931 | 174,000 | 837,000 |
1947 | 630,000 | 1,310,000 |
In 1882 immigration, called Aliyah (ascent) by Jews, started in earnest. Most immigrants came from Eastern Europe, where anti-semitism was rampant. They founded a number of agricultural settlements, or moshava, with financial support from Jewish filantropists in Western Europa. In the 1890s Theodor Herzl infused Zionism with a new and practical urgency. He brought the World Zionist Organization into being and, together with Nathan Birnbaum, planned its First Congress at Basel in 1897.[12] This current in Zionism is known as political Zionism because it aimed at reaching a political agreement with the Power ruling Palestine. Up to 1917 this was the Ottoman Empire, and then until 1948 it was Britain on behalf of the League of Nations. The WZO also supported small scale settlement in Palestine.
In 1917 Weizmann was succesfull in gaining the Balfour Declaration from the British. This declaration endorsed a Jewish Homeland in Palestine and became the basis of the Mandate the League of Nations gave to Britain. Subsequently Britain supported Jewish immigration in principle, but in reaction to Arab violence it did impose restrictions on immigration.
Since the beginning of the twentieth century in Palestine the labor Zionism movement developed. Although it consisted of several parties, in 1920 these parties together founded the Histadrut. The Histadrut did a lot of things for Jewish workers, like offering a Labor Exchange and health services, improving labor and living conditions. It was also the largest employer of the Yishuv, the Jewish community in Palestine. An important task of the Histadrut was also the absorption of immigrants by offering them shelter, jobs and other necesitties. Under the leadership of David Ben-Gurion in the 1930s the dominant party of the labor movement, Mapai, also became the dominant party in the WZO.
Among Palestinian Arabs there was a lot of popular resistance against Zionism. They felt threatened by the Zionist aim to have a Jewish majority in Palestine. There were riots in 1920, 1921 and 1929, sometimes accompanied by massacres of Jews. From 1936 to 1939 a general Revolt broke out. This revolt was suppressed by the British, but in a reaction they restricted further Jewish immigration to an absolute limit of 75,000, and in principle they stuck to this limit untill the end of the Mandate.
The Zionist goal of a Jewish state in all of Palestine, as demanded at the Biltmore Conference of 1942, conflicted with the interests of the Palestinian Arabs. After WWII and the Holocaust the support for Zionism among Jews and the general public worldwide increased. The British, who were attacked in Palestine by Zionist groups because they didn’t allow further Jewish immigration, didn’t know how to solve the matter and gave it to the United Nations. In 1947 the UN decided for a two-state solution, a Jewish and an Arab state in Palestine. Since the Arabs rejected partition, saying they wanted one state with an Arab majority, a war became inevitable. During this war the Yishuv first defeated the Palestinian Arabs and their foreign auxiliaries in April and early May 1948, withstood the invasion of armies of Arab states in May and June and subsequently went on to defeat those armies and conquer 78 percent of Palestine. During the war the military offensives of the Yishuv caused an exodus of over 700,000 Palestinians.
On 14 May 1948, after the last British troops had left, the Jewish Agency, led by Ben-Gurion declared the creation of the State of Israel. After the creation of the State of Israel the WZO continued to exist as an organisation that supported Israel.
Labor Zionism
Around 1900 the chief rival to Zionism among young Jews in Eastern Europe was the socialist movement. Many Jews were abandoning Judaism in favour of Communism or supported the Bund, a Jewish socialist movement which called for Jewish autonomy in Eastern Europe and promoted Yiddish as the Jewish language.
Opposition to this led to the emergence of a new Zionist movement, the socialist Zionists, who 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 rejected religion as perpetuating a "Diaspora mentality" among the Jewish people and established rural communes in Israel called "Kibbutzim". Major theoreticians of Socialist Zionism included Moses Hess, Nahum Syrkin, Ber Borochov and Aaron David Gordon, and leading figures in the movement included David Ben-Gurion and Berl Katznelson. Socialist Zionists rejected Yiddish as a language of exile, embracing Hebrew as the common Jewish tongue.
Socialist Zionism became a dominant force in Israel. However, it caused the schism between Zionism and some groups of Orthodox Jews (such as Neturei Karta) to grow.
Religious Zionism
In the 1920s and 1930s, a small but vocal group of religious Jews began to develop the concept of Religious Zionism under such leaders as Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine) and his son Zevi Judah, and gained substantial following during the latter half of the 20th century. Kook was concerned that growing secularization of Zionism and antagonism towards it from the Orthodox Jews would lead to a schism. He therefore sought to create a brand of Judaism which would serve as a bridge between Orthodoxy and secular Jews.
Revisionist Zionism
The Revisionist Zionists were a group led by Jabotinsky who advocated pressing Britain to allow mass Jewish emigration and the formation of a Jewish Army in Palestine. The army would force the Arab population to accept mass Jewish migration and promote British interests in the region.
Revisionist Zionism was detested by the Socialist Zionist movement which saw them as being influenced by Fascism and the movement caused a great deal of concern among Arab Palestinians. After the 1929 Arab riots, the British banned Jabotinsky from entering Palestine.
Revisionism was popular in Poland but lacked large support in Palestine. In 1935 the Revisionists left the Zionist movement, rejoining in 1946.
Anti-Zionism and post-Zionism
There are a number of critics of Zionism, ranging from Jewish anti-Zionists to pro-Palestinian activists. Some of the most vocal critics of Zionism have tended to be Palestinians and other Arabs,[citation needed] many of whom view Israel as wrongfully occupying what they view as the Arab land of Palestine.[13][14] Such critics generally opposed Israel's creation in 1948, and continue to criticize the Zionist movement which underlies it. These critics view the changes in demographic balance which accompanied the creation of Israel, including the displacement of some 700,000 Arab refugees,[15], the displacement of 600,000 Jewish refugees from Arab lands [16], and the accompanying violence, as negative but inevitable consequences of Zionism and the concept of a Jewish State. Critics of Zionism, such as Joseph Massad of Columbia University have asserted that Zionism is a form of racism,[17] both in its support of Israel as a Jewish State, and in its continuing policies such as the Law of Return.
While most Jewish groups are pro-Zionist, some liberal and Haredi Jewish communities (most vocally the Satmar Hasidim and the Neturei Karta group), oppose Zionism on religious grounds.[18] Other non-Zionist Israeli movements, such as the Canaanite movement led by poet Yonatan Ratosh in the 1930s and 1940s, have argued that "Israeli" should be a new pan-ethnic nationality. A related modern movement is known as post-Zionism, which asserts that Israel should abandon the concept of a "state of the Jewish people" and instead strive to be a state of all its citizens.[2] Another opinion favors a binational state in which Arabs and Jews live together while enjoying some type of autonomy, as in Belgium.
In defense of criticism, Zionists reject the charges that Zionism is racist, insisting it is no different than any other national liberation movement of oppressed peoples, and argue that since criticism of both the state of Israel and Zionism is often disproportionate in degree and unique in kind, much of it can be attributed to antisemitism.[19][20]
Non-Jewish Zionism
Marcus Garvey and "Black Zionism"
Zionist success in winning British support for formation of a "Jewish National Home" in Palestine helped inspire the African-American Nationalist Marcus Garvey to form a movement dedicated to returning Americans of African origin to Africa. During a speech in Harlem in 1920 Garvey stated that
other races were engaged in seeing their cause through---the Jews through their Zionist movement and the Irish through their Irish movement---and I decided that, cost what it might, I would make this a favorable time to see the Negro's interest through.[21]
Garvey established a shipping company, the Black Star Line, to ship Black Americans to Africa, but for various reasons failed in his endeavour. His ideas helped inspire the Rastafarian movement in Jamaica, the Black Jews [22] and the Black Hebrews who initially moved to Liberia before settling in Israel.
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 Zionism.
Throughout the entire 19th century and early 20th century, the return of the Jews to the Holy Land was widely supported by such eminent figures as Queen Victoria, King Edward VII, John Adams, the second President of the United States, General Smuts of South Africa, President Masaryk of Czechoslovakia, British Prime Ministers Lloyd George and Arthur Balfour, President Woodrow Wilson, Benedetto Croce, Italian philosopher and historian, Henry Dunant, founder of the Red Cross and author of the Geneva Conventions, Fridtjof Nansen, Norwegian scientist and humanitarian. The French government through Minister M. Cambon formally committed itself to “the renaissance of the Jewish nationality in that Land from which the people of Israel were exiled so many centuries ago". In China, Wang, Minister of Foreign Affairs, declared that "the Nationalist government is in full sympathy with the Jewish people in their desire to establish a country for themselves."[23]
Footnotes
- ^ Zionism On The Web, "Definitions of Zionism", a compiled collection, Accessed January 22, 2007.
- ^ "An international movement originally for the establishment of a Jewish national or religious community in Palestine and later for the support of modern Israel." ("Zionism," Webster's 11th Collegiate Dictionary). See also "Zionism", Encyclopedia Britannica, which describes it as a "Jewish nationalist movement that has had as its goal the creation and support of a Jewish national state in Palestine, the ancient homeland of the Jews (Hebrew: Eretz Yisra'el, “the Land of Israel”),"s and The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, which defines it as "A Jewish movement that arose in the late 19th century in response to growing anti-Semitism and sought to reestablish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Modern Zionism is concerned with the support and development of the state of Israel."
- ^ Ernest Gellner, 1983. Nations and Nationalism (First edition), p 107-108.
- ^ A national liberation movement:
- "Zionism is a modern national liberation movement whose roots go far back to Biblical times." (Rockaway, Robert. Zionism: The National Liberation Movement of The Jewish People, World Zionist Organization, January 21, 1975, accessed August 17, 2006).
- "The aim of Zionism was principally the liberation and self-determination of the Jewish people...", Shlomo Avineri. (Zionism as a Movement of National Liberation, Hagshama department of the World Zionist Organization, December 12, 2003, accessed August 17, 2006).
- "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." (Neuberger, Binyamin. Zionism - an Introduction, Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, August 20, 2001, accessed August 17, 2006).
- "The vicious diatribes on Zionism voiced here by Arab delegates may give this Assembly the wrong impression that while the rest of the world supported the Jewish national liberation movement the Arab world was always hostile to Zionism." (Chaim Herzog, Statement in the General Assembly by Ambassador Herzog on the item "Elimination of all forms of racial discrimination", 10 November 1975., Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, November 11, 1975, accessed August 17, 2006).
- Zionism: one of the earliest examples of a national liberation movement, written submission by the World Union for Progressive Judaism to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, Sixtieth session, Item 5 and 9 of the provisional agenda, January 27, 2004, accessed August 17, 2006.
- "Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people and the state of Israel is its political expression." (Avi Shlaim, A debate : Is Zionism today the real enemy of the Jews?, International Herald Tribune, February 4, 2005, accessed August 17, 2006.
- "But Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people." (Philips, Melanie. Zionism today is the real enemy of the Jews’: opposed by Melanie Phillips, www.melaniephilips.com, accessed August 17, 2006.
- "Zionism, the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, brought about the establishment of the State of Israel, and views a Jewish, Zionist, democratic and secure State of Israel to be the expression of the common responsibility of the Jewish people for its continuity and future." (What is Zionism (The Jerusalem Program), Hadassah, accessed August 17, 2006.
- "Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people." (Harris, Rob. Ireland's Zionist slurs like Iran, says Israel, Jewish Telegraph, December 16, 2005, accessed August 17, 2006.
- ^ "...from Zion, where King David fashioned the first Jewish nation" (Friedland, Roger and Hecht, Richard To Rule Jerusalem, p. 27).
- ^ "By the late Second Temple times, when widely held Messianic beliefs were so politically powerful in their implications and repercussions, and when the significance of political authority, territorial sovereignty, and religious belief for the fate of the Jews as a people was so widely and vehemently contested, it seems clear that Jewish nationhood was a social and cultural reality". (Roshwald, Aviel. "Jewish Identity and the Paradox of Nationalism", in Berkowitz, Michael (ed.). Nationalism, Zionism and Ethnic Mobilization of the Jews in 1900 and Beyond, p. 15).
- ^ Largely a response to anti-Semitism:
- "A Jewish movement that arose in the late 19th century in response to growing anti-Semitism and sought to reestablish a Jewish homeland in Palestine." ("Zionism", The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition).
- "The Political Zionists conceived of Zionism as the Jewish response to anti-Semitism. They believed that Jews must have an independent state as soon as possible, in order to have a place of refuge for endangered Jewish communities." (Wylen, Stephen M. Settings of Silver: An Introduction to Judaism, Second Edition, Paulist Press, 2000, p. 392).
- "Zionism, the national movement to return Jews to their homeland in Israel, was founded as a response to anti-Semitism in Western Europe and to violent persecution of Jews in Eastern Europe." (Calaprice, Alice. The Einstein Almanac, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004, p. xvi).
- "The major response to anti-semitism was the emergence of Zionism under the leadership of Theodor Herzl in the late nineteenth century." (Matustik, Martin J. and Westphal, Merold. Kierkegaard in Post/Modernity, Indiana University Press, 1995, p. 178).
- "Zionism was founded as a response to anti-Semitism, principally in Russia, but took off when the worst nightmare of the Jews transpired in Western Europe under Nazism." (Hollis, Rosemary. Template:PDFlink, International Affairs 80, 2 (2004), p. 198)
- ^ A.R. Taylor, 'Vision and intent in Zionist Thought', in 'The transformation of Palestine', ed. by I. Abu-Lughod, 1971, ISBN 0-8101-0345-1, p. 10
- ^ De Lange, Nicholas, An Introduction to Judaism, Cambridge University Press (2000), p. 30. ISBN 0-521-46624-5.
- ^ Misuse of the term "Zionism":
- "... behind the cover of "anti-Zionism" lurks a variety of motives that ought to be called by their true name. When, in the 1950s under Stalin, the Jews of the Soviet Union came under severe attack and scores were executed, it was under the banner of anti-Zionism rather than anti-Semitism, which had been given a bad name by Adolf Hitler. When in later years the policy of Israeli governments was attacked as racist or colonialist in various parts of the world, the basis of the criticism was quite often the belief that Israel had no right to exist in the first place, not opposition to specific policies of the Israeli government. Traditional anti-Semitism has gone out of fashion in the West except on the extreme right. But something we might call post-anti-Semitism has taken its place. It is less violent in its aims, but still very real. By and large it has not been too difficult to differentiate between genuine and bogus anti-Zionism. The test is twofold. It is almost always clear whether the attacks are directed against a specific policy carried out by an Israeli government (for instance, as an occupying power) or against the existence of Israel. Secondly, there is the test of selectivity. If from all the evils besetting the world, the misdeeds, real or imaginary, of Zionism are singled out and given constant and relentless publicity, it can be taken for granted that the true motive is not anti-Zionism but something different and more sweeping." (Laqueur, Walter: Dying for Jerusalem: The Past, Present and Future of the Holiest City (Sourcebooks, Inc., 2006) ISBN 1-4022-0632-1. p. 55)
- "In late July 1967, Moscow launched an unprecedented propaganda campaign against Zionism as a "world threat." Defeat was attributed not to tiny Israel alone, but to an "all-powerful international force." ... In its flagrant vulgarity, the new propaganda assault soon achieved Nazi-era characteristics. The Soviet public was saturated with racist canards. Extracts from Trofim Kichko's notorious 1963 volume, Judaism Without Embellishment, were extensively republished in the Soviet media. Yuri Ivanov's Beware: Zionism, a book essentially replicated The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, was given nationwide coverage." (Howard Sachar: A History of the Jews in the Modern World (Knopf, NY. 2005) p.722
- See also Rootless cosmopolitan, Doctors' Plot, Zionology, Polish 1968 political crisis
- ^ Y. Gorny, 1987, 'Zionism and the Arabs, 1882-1948', p. 5 (italics from original)
- ^ Zionism & The British In Palestine, by Sethi,Arjun (University of Maryland) January 2007, accessed May 20, 2007.
- ^ El-Nawawy, Mohammed (2002). The Israeli-Egyptian Peace Process in the reporting of western Journalists. Ablex/Greenwood, pg. 19 ISBN 1567505449 "It is a barrier that has been created by years and years of antagonism with Israelis; a barrier that was strengthened by the Egyptian and Arab news media at large which have enforced the Arabs' stereotypes about the Israelis as invaders of Arab land."
- ^ Khalidi, Rashid (2006). The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood. Beacon Press, pg. 19.
- ^ 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)
- ^ http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_independence_refugees_jews_why.php
- ^ Massad, Joseph (2003). "The legacy of Jean-Paul Sartre". Al-Ahram Weekly. Retrieved 2006-09-20.
{{cite web}}
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ignored (help); Unknown parameter|month=
ignored (help) - ^ Neturei Karta, Satmar and various left wing anti-Zionist groups make up a tiny fraction of the Jewish population and do not represent main stream thinking, Again Zionists Not Jews, Anti-Zionist Resource Center, Zionism On The Web.
- ^ Taguieff, Pierre-André. Rising From the Muck: The New Anti-Semitism in Europe. Ivan R. Dee, 2004.
- ^ Rosenbaum, Ron. Those who forget the past. Random House, 2004.
- ^ Negro World 6, March 1920 cited in http://www.international.ucla.edu/africa/mgpp/lifeintr.asp (accessed 29/11/2007).
- ^ http://www.blackjews.org/RabbiBios/RabbiFord.html
- ^ Palestine: The Original Sin , Meir Abelson [1]
References
- Taylor, A.R., 1971, 'Vision and intent in Zionist Thought', in 'The transformation of Palestine', ed. by I. Abu-Lughod, ISBN 0-8101-0345-1, Northwestern university press, Evanston, USA
- David Hazony, Yoram Hazony, and Michael B. Oren, eds., "New Essays on Zionism," Shalem Press, 2007.
See also
Types of Zionism
- Christian Zionism
- Cultural Zionism
- General Zionists
- Labor Zionism
- Reform Zionism
- Religious Zionism
- Revisionist Zionism
Zionist institutions and organizations
History of Zionism and Israel
- History of Zionism
- History of Israel
- History of Palestine
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- List of Zionist figures
- Timeline of Zionism
Other
Other resources
- For other resources and external links, see Zionism and anti-Zionism (resources)