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Capsule History of ZionismIn retrospect, it is useful to divide the development of Zionism into several more or less distinct stages, influenced by the course of external events as well as changes that Zionism itself brought about.
Pre-ZionismZionism was a natural product of the culture of the Jewish people in exile. It did not spring full blown from a void with the creation of the Zionist movement in 1897. The central idea of Zionism, disputed by anti-Zionists, is that the Jews are a people, a nation tied to a specific land, and not just just a religion. It is a misconception to think that this idea was born in the 19th century. Since the Romans exiled the Jews from the land that the Jews called Judea and the Romans called Palestine, the Jews had referred to the lands outside the land of Judea or Israel as Gola meaning "exile" rather than "Diaspora (meaning dispersion) and to their condition as "Galut." Both were always terms with negative and bitter connotations. Implicitly then, there was a land from which Jews were exiled and to which they understood that they belonged. Jews had lived in "Eretz Yisrael (the land of Israel, called "Palestine" by the Romans and Greeks) since about 1200 B.C.E. The land of Israel was at a crossroads of the Middle East and the Mediterranean and was therefore conquered many times: by Egyptians, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Seleucid Greeks and Romans, as well as invading Philistines. Of these, only the Jews made the land into their national home. Jewish national culture, fused with religion, centered around the geography, seasons and history of the land and of the Jews in the land. The Jews created the Old Testament Bible- The Tanach, which described their history and the history of the land, and their connection to it. The Bible formed the backbone of Jewish culture and later was to form the backbone of Western Christian culture, so that the entire world recognized the connection between the Jews and their land. When the Romans conquered Palestine, and Jews were exiled to the Diaspora, the connection to the land was preserved in the Bible, and in prayers that daily called for the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and it was expressed in the writings of medieval poets. In the Diaspora, religion became the medium for preserving Jewish culture and Jewish ties to the ancient land land of the Jews. Jews prayed several times a day for the rebuilding of the temple, celebrated agricultural feasts and called for rain according to the seasons of ancient, sunny Eastern Mediterranean land of Israel Israel, even in the farthest frozen reaches of Russia. The ritual plants of Sukkoth were imported from the Holy Land at great expense. A Holy-Land centered tradition persisted in Diaspora thought and writing. This tradition may be called "proto-nationalist" because there was no nationalism in the modern sense in those times. It was not only religious or confined to hoping for messianic redemption, but consisted of longing for the land of Israel. It is preserved in the poetry of Yehuda Halevi, a Spanish Jewish physician, poet and philosopher, who himself immigrated to "the Holy Land" and died there in 1141. Jews had maintained a connection with Palestine, both actual and spiritual. This continued even after the Bar Kochba revolt in 135, when large numbers of Jews were exiled from Roman Palestine. The Jewish community in Palestine revived in subsequent years. Under Muslim rule, it is estimated to have numbered as many as 300,000 prior to the Crusades, about 1000 AD. The Crusaders killed most of the Jewish population of Palestine or forced them into exile, so that only about 1,000 families remained after the reconquest of Palestine by Saladin. The Jewish community in Palestine waxed and waned with the vicissitudes of conquest and economic hardship. A trickle of Jews came because of love of Israel, and were sometimes encouraged by invitations by different Turkish rulers to displaced European Jews to settle in Tiberias and Hebron. At different times there were sizeable Jewish communities in Tiberias, Safed, Hebron and Jerusalem, and numbers of Jews living in Nablus and Gaza. A few original Jews remained in the town of Peki'in, families that had lived there continuously since ancient times. From time to time, small numbers of Jews came to settle in the land of Israel in answer to rabbinical or Messianic calls, or fleeing persecution in Europe. Beginning about 1700, groups of followers led by rabbis reached Palestine from Europe and the Ottoman empire with various programs. For example, Rabbi Yehuda Hehasid and his followers settled in Jerusalem about 1700, but the rabbi died suddenly, and eventually, an Arab mob, angered over unpaid debts, destroyed the synagogue the group had built and banned all European (Ashkenazy) Jews from Jerusalem. Rabbis Luzatto and Ben-Attar led a relatively large immigration about 1740. Other groups and individuals came from Lithuania and Turkey and different countries in Eastern Europe. At no time between the Roman exile and the rise of modern Zionism was there a movement to settle the holy land that engaged the main body of European or Eastern Jews, though many were attracted to various false Messiahs such as Shabetai Tzvi, who promised to restore Jews to their land. For most Jews, the connection with the ancient homeland and with Jerusalem remained largely cultural and spiritual. Return to the homeland was a hypothetical event that would occur with the coming of the Messiah at an unknown date in the far future. European Jews lived, for the most part in ghettos. They did not get a general education, and did not, for the most part, engage in practical trades that might prepare them for living in Palestine. Most of the communities founded by these early settlers met with economic disaster, or were disbanded following earthquakes, riots or outbreaks of disease. The Jewish communities of Safed, Tiberias, Jerusalem and Hebron were typically destroyed by natural and man-made disasters and repopulated several times, never supporting more than a few thousand persons each at their height. The Jews of Palestine, numbering about 17,000 by the mid-19th century, lived primarily on charity - Halukka donations, with only a very few engaging in crafts trade or productive work. Spinoza and ZionismThe religion of the nation of Israel, Judaism, had been so completely identified with its people, that almost nothing remained of an ethnic or national consciousness. Indeed, in Europe of the Middle Ages, "nations" did not really exist, and there were few if any people who would admit to being non-religious. One of the first Jews who may be studied as a "test case" regarding the nature of Judaism was Baruch Spinoza (Baruch d'Espinoza 1632-1677). Spinoza was a refugee from the Spanish Inquisition who lived in Holland. He began to deliver himself of beliefs that the elders of the congregation felt were incompatible with the Jewish religion. Spinoza did not believe in conventional religion and prayer, and he asserted that god was in everything and everywhere. He was excommunicated from the Jewish congregation. Therefore, he was no longer a member of the Jewish religion. Yet it was clear that everyone considered him to be a Jew in some sense. Therefore, it is clear that even before the 19th century, the Jews, and the world, understood that "Jewish" is something more than a religion. Spinoza cannot be considered a Zionist, but his ethics and his approach to Jewish history and the Jewish religion served as an inspiration for many later secular Zionists. (see Yovel, Yirmiyahu, Spinoza and other Heretics, The Marrano of Reason, Princeton University Press, 1989). Emancipation and ZionismThe French revolution and the rise of Napoleon hastened the emancipation of European Jewry, who were no longer confined to the ghettos of European cities, and became citizens like everyone else. Eventually, the liberalization reached Eastern Europe and Russia as well. The enlightenment of the 18th century and the emancipation of the 19th were a great shock for Jewish culture and identity. Jews split into several groups during the nineteenth century. Ultraorthodox Jews remained faithful to the culture of the ghetto, which excluded the possibility of intermingling in modern society or gaining a modern education. A second group attempted to assimilate completely into European society, converting to Christianity and losing their Jewish identity. A third group believed that they could integrate as modern citizens, with equal rights and still maintain their Jewish faith, while renouncing any cultural or group allegiance to Judaism. In effect, their Judaism became somewhat like a section of the Protestant religion. They found various euphemisms for their identity, such as Hebrews or Germans of the Mosaic faith. This group founded the Reform Judaism movement. The assimilationist viewpoints took it on faith that once the Jews "became like everyone else" they would be accepted in society as equals, and would become Germans, Italians, Englishmen or Frenchmen. However, it became increasingly evident to many during the nineteenth century that assimilation was not necessarily desirable. Perhaps it was impossible as well, since anti-Jewish feeling did not abate. The newly coined Christians and "Germans of the Mosaic Faith" found themselves the objects of increasing anti-Jewish sentiment, which took on the title of "anti-Semitism" in 19th century Germany. The ferment and cultural chaos unleashed by the emancipation produced a confusing variety of religious, intellectual and cultural reform movements among the Jews, which also evolved in many directions. The "Haskalah" or enlightenment was a movement for modernization of Judaism. In part it was assimilationist, but some of the leaders of the Haskalah believed in Hebrew culture and some turned ultimately to nationalism and Zionism, causing a split within the movement. The first challenge of emancipation to Judaism was that while it seemed that Jews could live as equal citizens in modern society, it became obvious that if they truly integrated into modern secular democracies, Jews would stop being Jews, and therefore the idea of "equal rights for Jews" would be meaningless. See also History of anti-Zionism Jewish anti-Zionism Reform Jewish anti-Zionism Proto-Zionism
British ZionismThe idea of a Jewish restoration also took the fancy of British intellectuals for religious and practical reasons. British religious support for restoration of the Jews can be traced back to the Puritans and beyond. It was renewed in the theology of the Plymouth Brethren founded by J.N. Darby in the early 19th century. The restoration was championed in the 1840s by Lords Shaftesbury and Palmerston, who in addition to religious motivations thought that a Jewish colony in Palestine would help to stabilize and revive the country, Jewish national stirrings were also voiced by novelists and writers such as Lord Byron, Benjamin Disraeli, George Eliot and Walter Scott. ( for a detailed discussion of British Zionism click here ). Christian ZionismUS Christian Support for Restoration of the JewsPuritan support for restoration of the Jews was transferred to the United States with the arrival of the Puritans. Increase Mather and many others were early champions of restoration of the Jews in 17th century United States. This idea became assimilated into the mainstream of U.S. ideas and culture and was supported by Presidents beginning with John Adams. In more recent times, it has also become the project of fundamentalist sects, including those derived from dispensationalist doctrines. (see Christian Zionism for a detailed history)
Zionism of Sephardic JewsThrough an accident of history, European (Ashkenazy) Jews took the lead in organized Zionism for many years. However, Sephardic (Spanish) Jews and Jews in Arab lands maintained a closer practical tie with the holy land and with the Hebrew language than did Ashkenazy Jews and also influenced and participated in the the Zionist movement from its inception. Sarajevo-born Judah ben Solomon Hai Alkalai (1798-1878,) is considered one of the major precursors of modern Zionism. Alkalai believed that return to the land of lsrael was a precondition for the redemption of the Jewish people. Alkalai's ideas greatly influenced his Ashkenazy contemporary, Rabbi Tsvi Hirsch Kalischer. Alkalai was also a friend of the grandfather of Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism. Another Sephardi Jew, David Alkalai, a grand-nephew of Judah Alkalai, founded and led the Zionist movement in Serbia and Yugoslavia., and attended the first Zionist Congress in Basel (1897). Early ZionismThe modern formulation of Zionism was partly divorced from religious aspirations. The 19th century enlightenment allowed the Jews to leave the ghettos of Europe for the first time. Some converted to Christianity and assimilated to surrounding society. Others, exposed to a general education, dropped their religious beliefs, but understood that both they and others still considered them to be Jews. This suggested a conundrum. If one could be a non-believer and still be a Jew, then "Jew" must be more than just the name of a religion, a problem already raised by the case of Spinoza. German racists solved this conundrum by inventing a racial theory, which lacked any real scientific basis. Socialists cited the aberrant class structure of Jewish society and labeled Jews a "caste.". Zionists solved the conundrum by declaring that Jews are a people, a fact implicit in the Jewish biblical and cultural concept of "am Yisrael." The Jews were a people without a country however, and would remain politically powerless as long as they did not have a national home. They would be guests everywhere and at home nowhere, according to Zionist ideology. This homelessness was the cause of the "Jewish Problem," and it could not fail to be exacerbated by the rise of nationalism and nations in the 19th century. This explained why, paradoxically, anti-Jewish sentiment might become more pronounced in "enlightened" Europe than it had been in previous centuries.
Religion and ZionismJewish religious authorities took a variety of attitudes to the evolving Zionist movement. One group was unalterably opposed to Zionism, both because they understood that Zionism provided a secular alternative to their monopoly on leadership of the Jewish community, and for theological reasons. Rabbi Moses Schreiber, the Hatam Sofer (1762-1839) was the rabbi of Pressburg. He opposed any type of reform. His opposition to Zionism was based on the assertion that nobody had ever thought of it before, so it must be wrong:
Rabbi Israel Meir Ha-Cohen of Radun, the Hafez Chaim ("desirer of life") who founded the anti-Zionist Agudath Yisrael, expressed similar opinion:
A much smaller group of orthodox leaders took up the cause of settlement in the land of Israel in the late 19th century. They included Rabbi Isaac Jacob Reines, the founder of the Mizrachi movement, Rabbi Naphthali Zeev Berlin, and Rabbi Samuel Mohilever (or Mohilewer) who led the religious faction of Hovevei Tzion. They variously saw their task as one of preserving the unity of the Jewish people, of blending the Haskalah with orthodox Judaism, or of ensuring that religious Jews did not lose control of the settlement enterprise and allow unbelievers to run the Jewish community in the land of Israel, which was, after all, holy to them. Proto-Zionism and the "First Aliya"The first groups of immigrants who came to the land with the idea of turning the land into a national home for the Jews are known as the "first Aliya." "Aliya" literally means "going up" and it is term Jews have used for a long time for coming to the holy land. Beginning in the 1870s, religious and nonreligious Jews established several study groups and societies for purchasing land in Palestine and settling there. In 1870 the Alliance Israelite, an ostensibly non-Zionist organization, founded the Miqve Yisrael agricultural school near Beit Dagan. In 1882, the BILU (an acronym for "Beyt Ya'akov Lechu Venelcha" - House of Jacob let us go) and Hibbat Tziyon (love of Zion) and Hovevi Tziyon groups were established. They were inspired by the impetus of the wave of anti-Jewish violence that had swept Russia in 1881.
The settlements were characteristically vineyards and orange orchards. The settlers were mostly religious Jews, though the religious Jewish establishment frowned on Zionism. In 1882, 150 Yemenite Jews also found their way to Palestine. The first Aliya numbered about 25,000 persons, primarily from Eastern Europe. Many of them returned home defeated by disease, poverty and unemployment. Revival of Hebrew - Among the first arrivals of the first Aliya was Eliezer ben Yehuda (Perelman). Inspired by European, particularly Bulgarian nationalism, Ben Yehuda was moved to settle in Palestine. He arrived in 1881 and undertook to revive the Hebrew language. With the help of Nissim Bechar, principal of a school operated by the Alliance Israelite Universelle, Ben Yehuda began teaching Hebrew. Later he founded and published the Hatzvi newspaper and set up a linguistic council. Ben Yehuda's work was the major force in the revival of Hebrew as a modern language. Leon Pinsker and Hovevei Tziyon - Inspired by the anti-Semitic violence in Russia, Leon Pinsker formulated the modern idea of Zionism in a small pamphlet called Auto-Emancipation, published in 1882. Pinsker believed that anti-Semitism was inevitable as long as Jews were guests in every country and at home nowhere, and wrote that the Jews' only salvation lay in liberating themselves and settling in their own country. Pinsker favored Argentina or other countries as sites for the Jewish homeland. However, Western Jews who might have favored this idea rebuffed him. In his native Russia, however, his ideas were well received, but they were channeled to settlement in Palestine. In 1884, Pinsker was made head of the Hovevei Tziyon organization, which united many small and scattered groups, primarily in Russia, into a single organization. Pinsker favored "political Zionism," that is, organization of Jews in Europe and petitioning the great powers for land on which to establish a national home. However, his efforts in this direction were rebuffed by the Russian government. Instead, he directed his energies to the gradual purchase of land and settlement of small groups in Palestine.
The Ottoman government barely tolerated the settlers, especially those who retained their foreign nationality, and the government officially restricted Jewish immigration, while making somewhat frantic attempts to import Muslim settlers from other parts of the Ottoman empire, including Bosnia, Kossovo and Circassia. Settlers who adopted Ottoman nationality were liable for the Turkish draft. Disease, poverty and unemployment caused many to leave. The Bible and ZionismThe Old Testament Bible inspired not only Christian Zionists, but Jewish Zionism as well. Secular Zionists, especially David Ben Gurion, viewed the Bible as the "deed" of the Jewish people to the land of Israel and a part of both Cultural Zionism and to a lesser extent Religious Zionism was study of the bible and de-emphasis of Jewish Diaspora writings, philosophy and religious thought. Students in the Jewish Yishuv educational system memorized long passages of the Bible, and went on field trips to explore and familiarize themselves with places mentioned in the bible. For both Christians and Jews, biblical archeology became an ideological activity as well as an academic pursuit. Foundational Zionism
Theodor Herzl and the Foundation of the Zionist MovementIn the latter part of the nineteenth century, Zionism was transformed from a cultural feature of Judaism to a charitable concern to a social movement. The writings of the proto-Zionists gave it an ideology. The contribution of Theodor Herzl was to transform Zionism into a political organization.
After the first Basle Congress, Herzl wrote in his diary, “Were I to sum up the Basle Congress in a word- which I shall guard against pronouncing publicly- it would be this: ‘At Basle, I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today, I would be answered by universal laughter. If not in 5 years, certainly in 50, everyone will know it.’” In 1902, Herzl published a utopian novel to popularize the Jewish state, Altneuland, (old-new land). Set in Eretz Yisrael (Palestine), Altneuland is a pluralistic multicultural vision complete with monorails, modern industry and equality for Arabs. The novel concludes, "If you will, it is no legend." Streams in ZionismAs the Zionist movement developed, several different factions or streams emerged in the early years. The protocols of early Zionist congresses were filled with the squabbles of these groups, and in some cases the squabbles led to splits. However, it should be understood that these groups often worked together, and that the Zionist movement tended to support all efforts that bore fruit. In retrospect, it could be seen that each group had made an essential and valuable contribution. Political ZionismThose who believed, like Herzl, that the key to success lay in a political solution, were classed as advocates of Political Zionism. Herzl thought that diplomatic activity would be the main method for getting the Jewish homeland. He called for the organized transfer of Jewish communities to the new state. Of the location of the state, Herzl said, "We shall take what is given us, and what is selected by public opinion." Herzl attempted to gain a charter from the Sultan of Turkey for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, then ruled by the Ottoman Empire. To this end he met in 1898 with the German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, in Istanbul and Palestine, as well as the Sultan, but these meetings did not bear fruit. Herzl negotiated with the British regarding the possibility of settling the Jews on the island of Cyprus, the Sinai Peninsula, the El Arish region and Uganda. After the Kishinev pogroms, Herzl visited Russia in July 1903. He tried to persuade the Russian government to help the Zionists transfer Jews from Russia to Palestine. At the Sixth Zionist Congress Herzl proposed settlement in Uganda, on offer from the British, as a temporary "night refuge" (nachtasyl). The idea met with sharp opposition, especially from the same Russian Jews that Herzl had thought to help. Though the congress passed the plan as a gesture of esteem for Herzl, it was not pursued seriously, and the initiative died after the plan was withdrawn. In his quest for a political solution, Herzl met with the king of Italy, who was encouraging, and with the Pope, who expressed opposition. Territorial ZionismA small group, the Jewish Territorial Organization ("Territorial Zionism") led by Israel Zangwill, split with the Zionist movement in 1905, and attempted to establish a Jewish homeland wherever possible. The organization was dissolved in 1925. The insistence of Eastern European Jews on Palestine as the Jewish homeland, coupled with the failure of alternatives, maintained the focus of the Zionist movement on Palestine. Attempts to find a "night asylum" in places such as Cyprus and Uganda have been distorted and exploited by anti-Zionists as "proof" that Zionism was not particularly focused on Palestine as the territory of the Jewish state. However, they were never intended as a permanent state and never gained much support. They were an expression of the misery of Eastern European Jewry and of the frantic urgency with which some Zionists viewed the situation of the Jews. Cultural ZionismHerzl's political approach was attacked by Achad Haam, father of Cultural Zionism. He pointed out that the Jews were not a political force, had no chance at all of getting a declaration guaranteeing a Jewish national home from any country, and had no massive presence in Palestine that could provide a basis for their claims. Therefore, he felt that both political Zionism and Zionism based on settlement were premature and impractical. Ahad Haam wrote a penetrating criticism of Herzl and the "Volkerrechtig" national home: Jewish State, Jewish Problem, which seemed to prove that the idea was impossible to implement. As we shall discuss below, he also foresaw objections of the Arab inhabitants of the land to Zionist settlement, and believed that the tiny Jewish community would never be able to hold its own against the Arabs. Achad Ha'am believed that the new Jewish homeland should at first be primarily a cultural center for Jews of the Diaspora. He explained that revitalization of Jewish culture was needed before large numbers of Jews would come to Palestine. It was never precisely clear whether he intended that the Jewish state should house only a minority of the Jews at all times, or whether he thought that eventually it would become a physical and actual center, as well as a cultural center. Achad Haam had earlier attacked the settlement movement, claiming that it was premature and would not be able to stand up against Arab resentment, in This is not the way ("The wrong way") written in 1889. But in his eulogy for Pinsker, An Open Letter to my Brethren: Pinsker and his Pamphlet, Auto-Emancipation, Ahad Ha'am made it clear that there was no real contradiction between his approach and that of the settlers, and that he was not opposed to settlement in the land of Israel. Cultural Zionism fought a battle on two fronts. One front, as discussed, was opposition to political Zionism. The real battle of cultural Zionism however, was against the traditional Diaspora Jewish education system and religious rabbinical Judaism. Cultural Zionists attacked the traditional and backward "Cheder" education system which taught religious subjects by rote, and did not prepare its students for life in the modern world. Cultural Zionists understood that a revitalized Jewish nation and cultural life could not be viable without a modern education, and that Cheder education was driving many Jews into assimilation. They advocated and instituted reforms in the education system, as well as the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language. The Orthodox Jewish establishment was horrified by these ideas, and by the proposal that would essentially remove Jewish education from their exclusive oversight. This opposition was expressed at Zionist congresses through the religious Zionists, who gradually coalesced into a separate stream. It was their opposition, and not the opposition of a "political Zionist" faction, that prevented adoption of the cultural Zionist program they proposed. Herzl was afraid to back their demands because he believed that adoption of the program would split the Zionist movement, and we has, above all, concerned for unity of the movement. The revival of the Hebrew language, and the spread of Hebrew education in the Diaspora were the two major and lasting contributions of Cultural Zionism. In modern times, some have taken Achad Ha'am's ideas out of context, to imply that Israel should remain only a cultural center for a Jews around the world, and also to claim that Ahad Ha'am believed that settlement in Israel was impossible and undesirable due to Arab oppostion. However, that is a gross distortion of Achad Ha'am's ideas and of cultural Zionism. Alongside his advocacy of cultural Zionism, Achad Haam was an enthusiastic supporter of Zionism in the conventional sense of ingathering of the exiles. Ahad Ha'am came on Aliya and died in Tel Aviv. Practical ZionismThe new Zionist movement, despite its preference for high politics, could not and did not want to ignore the fact of settlement of the land, however tiny it was. The early settlers of the BILU and others of the first Aliya had established "facts on the ground." Those who represented them insisted that settlement of the land, rather than Quixotic political efforts, would turn the Zionist dream into reality. Their approach came to be known as Practical Zionism. In 1907, a young economist named Arthur Ruppin was sent to Palestine to study the conditions of the Yishuv. Arthur Ruppin's report and ideas formed the basis for the Zionist action program in the coming years, and shaped the second Aliya as well as the future of Zionist settlement and the character of the state. Ruppin understood that it was impossible to continue with the plantation model introduced by the first Aliya settlement program. He backed a small group of socialist settlers who wanted to found a commune at Sejera. This became Kibbutz Degania in 1909, later followed by Kinnereth, Merchavia and other kibbutzim. The arrangement, originally thought to be temporary, proved to be practical, as well as suited to the socialist ideals of the new settlers. It soon inspired several other kibbutzim (collective farms). The Kibbutz movement was to become the backbone of Labor Zionism in Palestine, and eventually provided political and military leadership. Kibbutzim provided ideal places for hiding arms from the British and recruiting and training troops, as well as for organizing local defense and guarding borders. Religious ZionismReligious Zionism is the most natural-seeming stream in Zionism for outsiders, but it is also the stream that actually came to Zionism with the greatest difficulty, it is most misunderstood stream and it changed and evolved since its inception. Contrary to the beliefs of heavy handed anti-Zionist propagandists, the religious Zionism of Rabbis Mohilever, Reines and Kook was not "Messianic." On the contrary, adoption of Zionism was a break with tradition for religious Jews. It meant that they were taking matters into their own hands and were not waiting for divine redemption. The goal was not to bring the Messiah, but to be satisfied with a less ambitious material improvement in the condition of the Jews. In 1876, Mohilever wrote: (Fishman, Rabbi J.L., ed. Sefer Shmuel, Jerusalem, 1923, p 153) Redemption would come about through self-help. This made it possible for religious thinkers to break free of the paralyzing formulations of rabbinical Zionism that had prevented religious participation in Zionism. Mohilever led the religious faction of the Hibbat Tziyon for many years. The key to his approach was unity of the Jewish people. It was difficult for some orthodox Jews to accept that this "material redemption" would come about through the agency of unbelieving Jews. Rabbi Isaac Jacob Reines carried on the battle of religious Zionism in the Zionist congresses. When the fifth Zionist Congress, in 1902, decided to implement the cultural Zionism program of Ahad Ha'am, it was perceived as a clear threat to religious education. There was no religious alternative to modernization of Jewish cultural life and education. Reines founded the Mizrachi (an acronym for "Mercaz Ruhani" - spiritual center) movement as a faction of the Zionist movement in that year. Mizrachi had in fact existed in Russia before this time, as a faction of the Hovevei Tziyon let by Rabbi Mohilever. The ideas of Mizrachi soon received the support of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, Cook was to become the first Ashkenazy Chief Rabbi of Mandatory Palestine. Like Mohilever and Reines, Kook believed in the legitimacy of secular Zionism, which was, according to him, performing a sacred mission, and he strove for reconciliation of all parts of the Zionist movement. The National Religious Party (NRP) which is the political part of Mizrachi followed a similar line until 1967 was a dovish liberal, progressive party in the traditions of German Jewish liberalism.The Second Aliyah and Socialist ZionismHerzl's political Zionism had been a movement designed for, and led by, the middle and upper classes. The Zionist congresses with their frock coated delegates could hardly be taken for workers' assemblies. This was not entirely an accident. Herzl was convinced he needed the support of rich Jewish financiers to pay the Sultan's debts and to finance immigration and land purchase in Palestine, and the support of rabbis who would bring the Jewish communities they represented with them. Many of the delegates to the congress were chosen because they were relatively relatively affluent. Russian communities often "sent" delegates who were actually already in Western Europe - students and business people. In Russia, Zionism was represented primarily by the orthodox Zionists of the Mizrachi movement. This made it easy for the anti-Zionist Bund and the communists to portray Zionism as a reactionary religious movement. Chaim Weizmann wrote to Herzl in 1903: (Luz, Ehud, Parallels Meet, N.Y, 1988 p 177) Weizmann may have exaggerated. The potential for progressive Zionism existed. There were Russian Socialist Zionists. Nahman Syrkin had formulated his ideas for non-Marxist Zionist socialism in 1888. In 1898, Syrkin published the article The Jewish Problem and the Socialist Jewish State, but by this time he was in exile in Austria. There were also Marxist Zionists, but they were part of the the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (SDLP) as it was called then, the party that later split into the Bolshevik and Menshevik parties. There was no effective socialist Zionist political organization. The only possible political organization in Czarist Russia that was in any way revolutionary had to be an underground organization, and the leaders of those organizations, like Syrkin, were frequently exiled. However, it soon became apparent that the "Political Zionism" approach was, at least in the immediate future, a failure. The Sultan would not give up Palestine, the British had nothing to offer but empty promises and the Kaiser was not really interested. Moreover, the rich financiers would not back Zionism as a mass movement. Herzl died, and at the same time a change took place in Russian society and in Russian Zionism. It became increasingly evident that the Russian communists (Russian Social Democratic Labor Party -SDLP as it was called then ) had no place or patience for the Bund or and of the other nationalist organizations. Plekhanov derided the Bund as "Zionists who get sea-sick." A Jewish member of the SDLP, Ber Borochov, split with the party and founded the Poalei Tziyon party which soon had a substantial membership. Borochov explained the Jewish problem in economic terms and produced a synthesis of Marxist socialism and Zionism that was appealing to secular Jewish socialists who had already felt the sting of anti-Semitism within the nascent communist movement. According to Borochov. the Diaspora produced aberrant social conditions that made Jews economically inferior and politically helpless. The normal organization of society was a pyramid, according to Borochov, with a large body of workers and smaller groups of intelligentsia, land owners and capitalists. The Diaspora had created an 'inverted pyramid' in Jewish society, with almost no Jewish peasant or worker class as Borochov showed in his analysis of Jewish occupations - The Economic Development of the Jewish People. Jews performed peripheral occupations which were not desirable to non-Jews for various reasons, and in which Jews had a competitive advantage. In the successive economic crises of capitalism however, the lower middle class, which included many Jews were "proletarianized" - forced into the working class, and competition for places of employment intensified. Jews would be forced out of their niche. The Jews were therefore the most vulnerable part of any society during social change, and would be pushed out of the countries of world one after the other as they industrialized (a "stychic process"). Self-liberation of the Jews would come about by proletarianization of the Jews in their homeland, and the nascent Jewish proletariat would join the socialist international. (See The National Question and the Class Struggle, Our Platform and Eretz Yisrael in our program and tactics ) The idea that the Jewish proletariat, rather than the rabbis or the rich Jews of Western Europe would lead the Zionist revolution seemed totally quixotic, since the Jews of Russia were poor and weak, and the Jewish people lacked a true working class as Borochov's analysis had shown. Nonetheless, it was precisely the Jewish proletariat and Labor Zionism in Palestine which was to form the nucleus of the Zionist movement, providing for Zionist self defense and a Zionist government and virtual state organization under the British Mandate. The Russian revolution of 1905 failed, and many young radicals fled the Tsarist police. Some came directly to Palestine, others fled to Poland and then to western Europe.
A.D. Gordon, inspired by 19th century romanticism, called for a Jewish return to the soil and virtually made a religion of work. These ideas fused into the ideals of "productivization" (returning the Jews, who engaged mostly in professional and mercantile trades, to productive labor) and "conquest of labor" (Kibbush Haavoda ). "Conquest of labor" later took on additional meanings. (See also Labor Zionism and Socialist Zionism The Second Aliya arrived and established itself under the most prohibitively difficult conditions. Disease, poverty and Turkish persecution reduced its numbers and tried its will. Zionists of foreign nationality, mostly Russian, were viewed by the Turks as enemy aliens and were forced to flee the land during the first world war. A wave of epidemics swept the country, killing and impoverishing many. Those who survived were extremely tough, able, pragmatic individuals, who would go on to become the backbone of the leadership of the Jewish State, including David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir Ze'ev (Valdimir) Jabotinsky and many others. The viable nucleus of a Zionist Yishuv (community) was planted in the land of Israel in this period and had taken root by 1914. A tradition of Zionsit self-defense was inaugurated with the creation of the Hashomer group. The ultraorthodox beggars of the "old yishuv" had now become a minority. Practical Zionism had become a reality, if as yet only a tenuous one. The vanguard of Zionist efforts had shifted from the philanthropic efforts of rich Jews toward the socialist revolutionaries of the Poalei Tziyon and Hapoel Hatzair. Practical settlement efforts gradually increased the Jewish population of Palestine from about 25,000 in 1882 to approximately 85,000 to 100,000 just prior to World War I, including a new Jewish city, Tel Aviv, and the first kibbutzim. Zionism and the conquest of laborThe new immigrants arrived with the ideals of socialist Zionism, but reality was not favorable to implementing those ideas. The Zionist movement attempted to find them work. but the new immigrants, who had no training in agriculture and poor physical stamina, were unable to compete with Arab peasants. Arabs certainly would not hire Jewish workers, who could not work well and could not speak Arabic. Arab labor was also preferred by the plantation and vineyard owners of the First Aliya. Arabs were experienced and hard workers, and were able to work for much lower wages because they were often members of an extended family that made its main income from sharecropping. The plantation owners had also developed a superior colonialist mentality which suited the hiring of "natives," and clashed with the egalitarian ideas and social demands of the newly arrived socialists. The socialist Zionist movements tried to force plantation owners to grant higher wages, and also began to insist that plantation owners hire only Jewish workers. This aspect of "conquest of labor" was controversial within the socialist-Zionist movements because it engendered lack of solidarity with the Arab working class and was discriminatory. One labor Zionist leader wrote:
At the same time, Conquest of Labor was a central part of Labor Zionist ideology, as a means of rebuilding the Jewish people, not a discriminatory ideology. A.D. Gordon wrote:
The boycott of Arab labor, only partly successful, was carried out reluctantly as a matter of necessity, and because the establishment of Jews as a class of colonial plantation owners seemed worse than the alternative. In 1934, David Ben-Gurion told Palestinian leader Musa Alami, “We do not want to create a situation like that which exists in South Africa, where the whites are the owners and rulers, and the blacks are the workers. If we do not do all kinds of work, easy and hard, skilled and unskilled, if we become merely landlords, then this will not be our homeland” (Shabtai Teveth, Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs: From Peace to War, London: Oxford University Press, 1985, p. 140). While it was the only way to foster Jewish labor, the "conquest of labor" program was discriminatory. It provoked bitterness among some Arabs, particularly watchmen who lost their jobs to Jews. Realistically, as the Jews were about 15% of the population of Ottoman Palestine, the program could not have had a real effect on the Arab labor market. In the main the "conquest of labor" movement was not successful before World War I. Only a few thousand Jewish workers were involved. Gershon Shafir (Land, Labor and the Origins of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 1882–1914, University of California Press, 1996) estimates that about 10,000 such workers passed through Palestine in the second Aliya, many leaving in discouragement. Other sources claim there were about 3,000 workers out of approximately 33,000 who came to Palestine in the second Aliya. Because of the wage differential and because of the expertise of Arab workers, Arab labor continued to find employment in Jewish settlements. Conquest of Labor was to become important in the late 1930s, when the Arab revolt and strikes, as well as swelling Jewish immigration cause a much more significant displacement of Arabs from Jewish industry and agriculture, especially when Arabs simply didn't show up for work. At the same time, it must be remembered that Arabs almost never hired any Jews, especially not for agricultural or industrial labor, and this discrimination was taken for granted. Zionism in WW IThe outbreak of World War I in August 1914 isolated Zionists in their respective communities in the Diaspora. The Zionist organization decided to remain officially neutral, though Zionists in each country aided their side in the war. Conditions in Ottoman Palestine, never good, deteriorated. The authorities expelled those Jews who were enemy Russian nationals. Many of the leaders fled to Egypt and to the United States. In the United States, they played an important role in strengthening the beginnings of the Zionist organization. Joseph Trumpeldor, Ze'ev Jabotinsky and others helped to form first the Zion Mule Corps and then the Jewish Legion, which fought on the side of the British at Gallipoli. The official leadership in Palestine however, cooperated with the Turks, and Jews having Turkish citizenship served in the army or aided the war effort. The Zionist Yishuv was anxious not to provoke further Turkish oppression of the Jews, but a clandestine group, the NILI, organized by Aaron Aaronsohn, communicated with British ships and aided the British assault. Most of the NILI group were arrested and executed, but Aaronsohn escaped to Egypt and gave General Allenby's forces vital information about water sources in the Negev desert that aided in the capture of Beersheba. During the war, the Jewish population was greatly depleted by emigration and by successive epidemics of typhus and influenza.Mandatory Zionism
The British Mandate - The first achievement of Political Zionism
Zionism in AmericaZionist sentiment in the United States was primarily kindled among early Christian groups, and motivated initial missionary work in the land of Israel. The same time, the project of Mordecai Manuel Noah to form a Jewish "state" as a temporary on Grand Island in New York, remained for many years the lone symbol of American proto-Zionism. The cause however, was taken up by American Jewish poet Emma Lazarus and others toward the end of the 19th century. Another very important American Zionist was Henrietta Szold, who in 1912 initiated the foundation of the Hadassah organization. Initially a medical relief effort, Hadassah went on to become the largest women's Jewish organization in the United States, underpinning much of the educational and charitable work of the Zionist organization in the US and around the world, and marrying Zionism to progressive causes and women's rights in the United States. During World War I, both chief Justice Brandeis and Justice Frankfurter became supporters of the Zionist cause, using political influence to help garner support for the Balfour declaration and the British mandate for Palestine. Jewish refugees from Palestine who found temporary refuge in the United States also built support for Zionism and recruited for the Jewish Legion. However, American Zionism in the United states remained a low key organization for many years. American Jews were satisfied with their new home. If they supported Zionism, it was only mostly as a movement to build a refuge for unfortunate European Jews. American Jewish interest in Zionism was cooled by the anti-Zionist stance of the large Reform Judaism movement. This opposition began to change as the tragic events in Germany disproved assimilationist ideologies and demonstrated the unity of the Jewish people. It was not until 1937, however, that Reform Judaism officially reversed its historic antipathy to Zionism in the Columbus Platform. Thereafter, American Jews increasingly came to play a critical role in support for Zionism and the Jewish state, replacing European Jewry that was destroyed in the Holocaust, and becoming the largest Diaspora community of Jews. American Zionists are responsible for most of the charitable donations to the Palestinian Jewish community and to Israel, for financing the creation of Jewish military capabilities, for organizing the campaign to bring about creation of a Jewish State, and for ongoing political efforts to secure support for Israel in the United States. The split in ZionismDuring the 1920s, a split occurred in the Zionist movement, owing to disagreements over cooperation with the British and Jewish self defense. British policy in London at first favored Zionism in Palestine, but Palestine was still under military rule in 1920. The British military had little use for either Jews or Zionism. In 1920, and again in 1921 Arab riots broke out in Palestine, apparently with the encouragement of the British, and led by Hajj Amin Al Husseini and Aref el Aref. In 1920, the Arabs had rioted in Jerusalem during the Nebi Musa holiday at Easter time. They screamed "Palestine is our land and the Jews are our dogs ("Filasteen Arduna wa'al yahud kilabuna"). Ze'ev Jabotinsky and other veterans of the Jewish Legion had formed a tiny clandestine defense force armed with pistols, the beginnings of the Haganah. They were arrested following the riots. The riots and the British reaction demonstrated the urgent need for a Jewish self-defense force, since the British would not protect the Jews from the Arabs. The Haganah was established as a clandestine force, and Jewish and Arab gunrunning was a matter of concern for the British administration, who exaggerated its extent. Some veterans of the Jewish Legion insisted that there must be a legal and open defense force and some British officials were sympathetic ( see John Evelyn Shuckburgh, Colonial Office Memo on Jewish Gun-Running in Palestine) but the British administration was opposed. If they granted a Jewish force, they reasoned that they would need to grant an Arab force as well. The Zionists did not press the point. In 1923, Jabotinsky published the Iron Wall, Though clothed in apocalyptic bombast, the Iron Wall was not a call for a modern national army, but only for legalization of a small force of Jewish police who would carry rifles.
A nucleus of radicalized crystallized around Jabotinsky. They were bitter over the loss of the greater part of Palestine, and Jewish defenselessness in the face of Arab attacks. Most of them were out of step with the leaders of the Jewish yishuv, who were predominantly socialist. In 1925, Jabotinsky founded the revisionist Zionist movement as an alternative to official Zionism. The main tenet of Revisionism was the claim to both sides of the Jordan river. Jewish Immigration under the MandateThe creation of the Mandate seemingly opened up a huge new opportunity for the Zionist organization, but the promise was only partially fulfilled. Only tiny sums of money could be raised in Europe and the United States to purchase lands and settle immigrants in Palestine. Russian Jews, once the hope of the Zionist movement, were now confined to the USSR following the Russian revolution, and Zionist activity there was soon forbidden. In Britain, attitudes to Zionism hardened owing to opposition of Arabs and of foreign office personnel to the Zionist program. Some Zionists foresaw an urgent need for resettling the Jews of Europe and predicted a looming catastrophe, though none envisioned the Holocaust that was to take place. However, it was impossible to get even small sums to finance Zionist work from European Jewry, who would eventually be forced by the Nazis to pay many times the 4 million pounds sterling that the Zionists required. All these factors, plus sporadic Arab violence and initially poor conditions in Palestine, forced the Zionist movement to proceed cautiously and slowly, cooperating with British authorities in setting modest limits to the yearly immigration quotas as well as restrictive financial requirements for immigrants. Jewish immigration after the British entered Palestine is somewhat arbitrarily divided into three further Aliyoth (plural of Aliya): The third Aliya - The third aliya consisted mostly of Eastern European and Russian Jews, including some who had left or been expelled by the Turks during the war. This immigration began about 1919 when Palestine was still under British military rule and is considered to have ended about 1923. Perhaps 35,000- 40,000 Jews came to Palestine in this period (see Third Aliya). The fourth Aliya - After the institution of the mandate, immigration quotas were established, and applicants had to prove that they had some capital with which to begin life in Palestine. The fourth Aliya lasted from 1924 to 1929 or 1932 and consisted in large part of Polish Jews who were motivated to come to Palestine by the anti-Semitic regime and the new immigration quotas imposed in the United States. The fourth Aliya is generally considered to have ended in 1929, after Arab riots in Jerusalem seemed to show that settlement in Palestine was not a safe solution for Jews, or in 1932, after which immigrants began coming from Nazi Germany in large numbers. About 60,000-70,000 Jewish immigrants came to Palestine in this period (see Fourth Aliya). The fifth Aliya - The fifth Aliya lasted from 1929 or 1933 to 1939, when the British White Paper closed the gates of Palestine to Jewish immigration due to the Arab revolt and international Arab pressure on Great Britain. About 200,000- 250,000 Jews arrived in this period; 174,000 of them came between 1933 and 1936, when severe quotas were first introduced. Many of them were German Jews fleeing Nazism. The Germans allowed the Jews to leave in part because of the "hesder" or "ha'avara" agreement under which the property Jews took with them was treated as "export goods" in return for a ransom paid to the Reich (see Fifth Aliya ). The Jewish AgencyThe Jewish Agency was set up formally in 1929 through the efforts of Chaim Weizmann and others, in accordance with the stipulation of the League of Nations Mandate that an "agency" comprised of representatives of world Jewry assist in the establishment of the Jewish National Home. The agency was the official interlocutor for the Jews of Palestine and the Zionist endeavor with the British Mandate and the League of Nations. The Jewish Agency was not a Zionist organization, however, since it was set up by the World Zionist Organization and non-Zionist groups and leaders, including Leon Blum, Felix Warburg and Louis Marshall. Zionism and the ArabsWhen Jews began thinking about return to Israel in the early 19th century, there were about 200,000 Arabs living in all of the land, mostly concentrated in the countryside of the West Bank and Galilee, and mostly lacking in national sentiment. Palestine was, in Western eyes, a country without a nation, as Lord Shaftesbury wrote. Early proto-Zionists did not trouble themselves at all about the existing inhabitants. Many were heavy influenced by utopianism. In the best 19th century tradition, they were creating a Jewish utopia, where an ancient people would be revived. They envisioned a land without strife, where all national and economic problems would be solved by good will, enlightened and progressive policies and technological know-how. Herzl's Altneuland was in in fact just such a utopia. Jewish population grew, but Arab population grew more rapidly. By 1914, there were over 500,000 Arabs in Palestine. At the same time, Zionist pronouncements and outlook were often frankly colonialist, especially when addressing leaders of foreign powers. The plantations sponsored by Baron Rothschild were modeled on plantation settlement in Algeria and other colonies. Colonialism was fashionable and "progressive" in Europe, and early Zionist leaders saw nothing wrong in assimilating this idea to Zionism along with other "modern" ideas such as socialism, utopianism and nationalism. This changed as socialist Zionists came to dominate the Zionist movement. Later Zionists were heavily influenced by socialism and embarrassed at the colonialist aspects of the Zionist project. They were also aware, of course, that Palestine was already occupied by Arabs. Many however, including the young David Ben--Gurion, who headed the Executive Committee of the Zionist Yishuv (Jewish community) in Palestine and was later the first Prime Minister of Israel, initially thought that the Arabs could only benefit from Jewish immigration and would welcome it. Others, such as Eliezer ben Yehuda, frankly envisioned removal of the Arabs from Palestine. One of the earliest warnings about the Arab problem came from the cultural Zionist writer Achad Haam (Asher Ginsberg), who wrote 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
Arab opposition to Zionism grew after 1900. The birth of Arab nationalism and Arab political aspirations in the Ottoman empire coincided with the arrival of a fairly sizeable number of Zionists with the announced program of settling the land and turning it into a Jewish national home. In his book, Reveil de la Nation Arab in 1905, Najib Azouri stated that the Jews wanted to establish a state stretching from Mt. Hermon to the Arabian Desert and the Suez Canal. Azoury wrote:
Arabs recognized that the Jews had a historic claim to the land, and that is precisely what frightened them. The mayor of Jerusalem, Zia al Khalidi, wrote to Tsadok Khan, chief rabbi of France:
But he asserted that the brutal force of reality prevented resettlement of Palestine by Jews. Khalidi concluded:
Arab nationalism was not recognized by the early Zionists because it did not exist. The Arabs, along with the West, recognized that Palestine had belonged to the Jews, and that the Ottoman Empire and the Arabs were colonialist occupiers, asserting their claim based on might rather than justice. This perception would soon change. Local Arab opposition to Zionism and Zionist settlement was not initially based on national sentiment, but on specific conflicts arising from land purchases and on racism and prejudice and against Jews. Rashid Khalidi (Palestinian Identity, Columbia, 1997) notes that beginning about 1908 Palestinian newspapers offer extensive evidence of anti-Zionist agitation. Actual conflicts flared up because the Zionists purchased large tracts from landowners and subsequently evicted the tenant farmers. The former tenants, though they had received compensation, continued to insist that the land was theirs under time honored traditions, and tried to take it back by force. A notable case was Al-Fula, where Zionists had purchased a large tract of land from the Sursuq family of Beirut. Local officials took the side of the Arab peasants against the Zionists and against the Ottoman government, which upheld the legality of the sale. One hundred and fifty Palestinian notables cabled the Ottoman government to protest land sales to Jews in March 1911. Azmi Bey, Turkish governor of Jerusalem responded:
This was an Ottoman Turkish national claim, not an Arab one. However, national claims were soon mixed with economic grievances. It was not clear which was the actual motivation, and which was the issue used as an excuse to advance the issue. Likewise, the Kibbush Haavoda "conquest of labor" movement displaced some Arab watchmen and led to violence. While the actual number of persons displaced or dispossessed may have been small, and may have been offset by real economic benefits and increased employment provided by Zionist investment, the feeling grew among the Arabs that the Zionists had arrived to dispossess them. A Nazareth group complained that the Zionists were "a cause of great political and economic injury... The Zionists nourish the intention of expropriating our properties. For us these intentions are a question of life and death." (Morris, loc cit.) As the conflict intensified, the Zionists formed a guard association, Hashomer, to guard the settlements in place of Arab guards. The attempts to retake land and disputes with Jewish guards led to increased violence beginning in the second half of 1911. Many Zionists however, believed at least initially that conflict was not inevitable, and certainly most Zionist thinkers did not contemplate expulsion of the Arabs. Ber Borochov, the founder of socialist Zionism, said in his last speech: Many point out the obstacles which we encounter in our colonization work. Some say that the Turkish law hinders our work, others contend that Palestine is insignificantly small, and still others charge us with the odious crime of wishing to oppress and expel the Arabs from Palestine... When the waste lands are prepared for colonization, when modern technique is introduced, and when the other obstacles are removed, there will be sufficient land to accommodate both the Jews and the Arabs. Normal relations between the Jews and Arabs will and must prevail. (Ber Borochov - Eretz Yisrael in our program and tactics - Kiev, September 1917) The Zionists were well aware of Arab nationalism by the start of World War I, and Chaim Weizmann took care to meet with the Emir Feisal. Weizmann wanted the Zionist and Arab national struggles to be seen as causes with a common interest. Feisal did not go quite so far perhaps, but he was willing to acquiesce in Zionist control of Palestine, provided that the British fulfilled their promises to the Arabs. (see Feisal-Weizmann Agreement and Feisal-Frankfurter Correspondence ) That support evaporated when France was given a mandate for Syria, and the Arabs believed the British had betrayed their promises. The Arabs of Palestine were appalled at the prospect of living in a country dominated by a Jewish majority and feared that they would be dispossessed. By 1919, representatives of the Jaffa Muslim-Christian council were saying Arab opposition to Zionism was not based only on economic and social issues. It was colored by the traditional Muslim vision of the Jews as second class citizens. They announced:
Anti-Jewish rioting and violence broke out in 1920 and 1921. By the 1920s, it was also motivated by a strong admixture of Western anti-Semitism. In March of 1921, Musa Kazim El Husseini, deposed as Mayor of Jerusalem because of his part in riots earlier that year, told Winston Churchill:
It is not clear how Churchill received this unwitting testimonial to the aid supposedly proffered to his country's war effort by the Jews, or what Husseini thought to accomplish by it. Aref Dajani had earlier voiced similar sentiments to the King- Crane Commission:
By this time, Zionist leaders could no longer ignore the conflict with the Arabs. David Ben Gurion told members of the Va'ad Yishuv (the temporary governing body of the Jewish community in Palestine) in June 1919:
While Palestinian Arabs now viewed themselves as a small group of helpless victims of powerful British and Jewish "interests," the Zionists saw the opposite side of the coin. The militant Zionist leader, Ze'ev Vladimir Jabotinsky, asked in 1918:
In his Iron Wall article of 1923, Jabotinsky answered his own question. He argued that agreement with the Arabs was not possible, because they
Jabotinsky was at least initially against expulsion of the Arabs, which he was "prepared to swear, for us and our descendants, that we will never [do]". Rather in The Iron Wall, he argued that the Jewish presence should be imposed by forming a strong defense that would demonstrate to the Arabs that the Jews could not be forced out of Palestine. However, while The Iron Wall expressed a comprehensive philosophy, its practical background and intent were much more limited. Jabotinsky wanted the British authorities to allow the Jews to form a separate defensive force under British supervision, to combat attacks such as the riots that had occurred in 1920 and 1921. The British refused. The Zionist organization resigned themselves to the British decision, but Jabotinsky wanted to continue with the formation of such a force. Though the Haganah defensive underground was founded in 1920 by Jabotinsky, it didn't become a major project of the Zionist movement until after the riots of 1930. Meanwhile the Arab and Jewish communities grew progressively apart. Arabs refused to participate in a Palestinian local government which gave equal representation to the Jewish minority. The British, nearly bankrupt after WW I, insisted that the mandate should be self-sufficient. Mandate services were paid for from taxes paid by the Jewish and Arab inhabitants of Palestine. Additional services were funded by philanthropists from abroad and from membership dues in various organizations. Zionist philanthropy and organization far-outstripped what Palestinian Arabs could provide. By 1936, each Jewish worker in Palestine was earning on average four times as much as each Arab, and paying four times as much taxes. The Jews had set up an approximation of a modern industrial economy, while most of the Arabs languished in feudalism, and their leaders did nothing to help them. Neither Arabs nor Jews wanted integrated schools. Zionist groups funded religious, secular and labor-Zionist educational networks for Jewish children in Hebrew, but few comparable schools were set up for Arabs. The Zionists founded the Histadrut Labor federation to encompass Jewish workers, providing Hebrew education, medical care, worker-owned enterprises and cultural facilities as well as representation of labor rights. No comparable association was created by the more numerous Arabs of Palestine, though the Histadruth made some efforts to organize Arab labor beginning in 1927, and the Palestine Communist party attempted to represent both Jewish and Arab labor. Zionism, the Arab Revolt and the Conflict With Britain
The Passfield White Paper was quietly withdrawn under pressure from Zionists, from British public opinion and from the League of Nations. However, Palestine did not remain quiet. The Mufti allied himself with Fascist Italy and Germany, and probably was funded by the Italian government beginning about 1936. These policies turned the once-friendly British into antagonists of the Zionist movement. Labor Zionists and the Zionist Executive were in favor of moderate policies that would try to work around the British opposition to Zionism. A faction led by Ze'ev Jabotinsky believed in confronting the British and the Arabs, and if necessary, using force. In 1925, Jabotinsky split from the main Zionist movement and formed the Revisionist movement. In 1936, in response to the large Jewish immigration from Europe, open Arab Revolt broke out. Three years of bloody riots instigated by the Grand Mufti Hajj Amin Al Husseini and his allies resulted in hundreds of Jewish casualties and an estimated 4,500 Arabs were killed, the majority by the Mufti's gangs. The rioting forced the British to take draconian measures. The Mufti fled to Iraq in 1937 and then to Nazi Germany in 1941 after instigating a pro-Axis Coup in Iraq. In 1937, the British proposed tentatively to partition Palestine in the Peel report. This caused additional divisions in the Zionist movement. Some believed in a bi-national Jewish Arab state and objected to the idea, contained in the Peel recommendations, of transferring Arabs "voluntarily" out of the territory to be allotted to the Jewish state. The revisionists and religious Zionists, on the other hand, objected to giving up any part of the territory of Palestine. Subsequently the British issued the White Paper of 1939, severely limiting Jewish immigration. The Revisionists formed the Irgun underground army, which attacked British soldiers and administrators and perpetrated terror attacks against Arabs in retaliation for Arab attacks on Jews. Zionism during the HolocaustThe murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime in the Holocaust has become inevitably and inextricably bound up to the history of Zionism. The relation of the Holocaust to Zionism has provoked controversy and resentment, particularly among anti-Zionists. Zionists have been accused of indifference to the plight of European Jews. To an an extent it was true at first. Initially, the reports of Nazi persecution did not seem to be any worse than persecution of Jews that had occurred in Europe for hundreds of years - confiscation of businesses, discriminatory legislation and expulsion. The Yishuv was struggling with an Arab revolt and trying to build a Jewish society. The tiny, more or less powerless and poor Israeli Yishuv and the Zionist movement that supported it, could do very little to aid the Jews of Europe in any case. Nonetheless, the Zionist organization and the Yishuv ransomed Jews from Nazi Germany in return for economic concessions. The Zionists managed to save over 200,000 European Jews before World War II. When the British responded to Arab pressure and ended Jewish immigration to Palestine, the Zionists, attempting to rescue Jews from the Nazis, organized illegal immigration through the "Institution for Illegal Immigration" (Hamossad L'aliya Beth). Illegal immigration (Aliya Bet) was organized by the Jewish Agency between 1939 and 1942, when a tightened British blockade and stricter controls in occupied Europe made it impractical, and again between 1945 and 1948. Rickety boats full of refugees tried to reach Palestine. Additionally, there were private initiatives, an initiative by the Nazis to deport Jews and an initiative by the US to save European Jews. Many of the ships sank or were caught by the British or the Nazis and turned back, or shipped to Mauritius or other destinations for internment. The Patria (also called "Patra") contained immigrants offloaded from three other ships, for transshipment to the island of Mauritius. To prevent transshipment, the Haganah placed a small explosive charge on the ship on November 25, 1940. They thought the charge would damage the engines. Instead, the ship sank, and over 250 lives were lost. A few weeks later, the SS Bulgaria docked in Haifa with 350 Jewish refugees and was ordered to return to Bulgaria. The Bulgaria capsized in the Turkish straits, killing 280. The Struma, a vessel that had left Constanta in Rumania with about 769 refugees, got to Istanbul on December 16, 1941. There, it was forced to undergo repairs of its engine and leaking hull. The Turks would not grant the refugees sanctuary. The British would not approve transshipment to Mauritius or entry to Palestine. On February 24, 1942, the Turks ordered the Struma out of the harbor. It sank with the loss of 428 men, 269 women and 70 children. It had been torpedoed by a Soviet submarine, either because it was mistaken for a Nazi ship, or more likely, because the Soviets had agreed to collaborate with the British in barring Jewish immigration. Illegal immigration continued until late in the war, apparently without the participation of the Mossad l'aliya Bet. Despite the many setbacks, tens of thousands of Jews were saved by the illegal immigration.To circumvent British regulations against creating new settlements, the Zionists initiated the "stockade and tower" ("homa umigdal") program, that allowed overnight creation of a new "settlement," consisting of a wall and watch tower. Under the law, the British could not destroy such an 'established' settlement. The Zionists wanted to fight Fascism and rescue European Jews, but they could not do so except as permitted by the British government. The British recruited soldiers in Palestine. About 26,000 Jews out of a population of perhaps 500,000 and 6,000 Arabs out of a population of over a million, volunteered to fight in the British army. The Zionists pleaded for combat duty in Europe in a special Jewish Brigade. For the most part, however, they were employed in the Middle East. Eventually a Jewish Brigade was formed. The Jewish Agency proposed a scheme to send hundreds of Jewish commandos into occupied Europe to liaison with partisan groups and rescue Jews. Over a year passed before the British finally approved of a limited version of this plan. About 110 Zionist Parachutists were trained of the 250 who volunteered, but less than 40 reached Europe. Reports of Nazi atrocities became increasingly frequent and vivid. Despite the desperate need to find a haven for refugees, the doors of Palestine remained shut to Jewish immigration. The Zionist leadership met in the Biltmore Hotel in New York City in 1942 and declared that it supported the establishment of Palestine as a "Jewish Commonwealth." This was not si |
Meanwhile,
the British were having second thoughts about the Jewish national home, which provoked opposition from the Arabs.
The British split the large
area of Transjordan from the Palestine Mandate (see map at right). This was part of the basis for an eventual split in
the Zionist movement. The revisionists refused to accept the loss of Transjordan and eventually left the Zionist
movement over that and other issues. In 1923 the British also split off the Golan heights, a small portion of northern
Palestine, northeast of the sea of Galilee, and gave it to French mandated Syria. The Zionist movement, led by Weizmann,
accepted the loss of these lands and counseled cooperation with the British. Jabotinsky and a few followers resigned
from the Zionist movement in protest. 