Religious Zionism
Main article: Religious Zionism
In the 1920s and 1930s Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine) and his son Rabbi Zevi Judah Kook saw great religious and traditional value in many of Zionism's ideals, while rejecting its anti-religious undertones. They taught that Orthodox (Torah) Judaism embraces and mandates Zionism's positive ideals, such as the ingathering of exiles, and political activity to create and maintain a Jewish political entity in the Land of Israel. In this way, Zionism serves as a bridge between Orthodox and secular Jews.
Nationalist Zionism
Main article: Revisionist Zionism
Nationalist Zionism originated from the Revisionist Zionists led by Jabotinsky. The Revisionists left the World Zionist Organization in 1935 because it refused to state that the creation of a Jewish state was an objective of Zionism. The revisionists advocated the formation of a Jewish Army in Palestine to force the Arab population to accept mass Jewish migration. Revisionist Zionism evolved into the Likud Party in Israel, which has dominated most governments since 1977. It advocates Israel maintaining control of the West-Bank and East Jerusalem and takes a hard-line approach in the Israeli-Arab conflict. In 2005 the Likud split over the issue of creation of a Palestinian state on the occupied territories and party members advocating peace talks helped form the Kadima party.
[edit]Religious Zionism
Main article: Religious Zionism
In the 1920s and 1930s Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine) and his son Rabbi Zevi Judah Kook saw great religious and traditional value in many of Zionism's ideals, while rejecting its anti-religious undertones. They taught that Orthodox (Torah) Judaism embraces and mandates Zionism's positive ideals, such as the ingathering of exiles, and political activity to create and maintain a Jewish political entity in the Land of Israel. In this way, Zionism serves as a bridge between Orthodox and secular Jews.
While other Zionist groups have tended to moderate their nationalism over time, the gains from the Six-Day War have led religious Zionism to play a significant role in Israeli political life. Now associated with the National Religious Party and Gush Emunim, religious Zionists have been at the forefront of Jewish settlement in the West Bank and efforts to assert Jewish control over the Old City of Jerusalem.
[edit]Zionism and Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Judaism
See also: Haredim and Zionism
Haredi Orthodox organizations do not belong to the Zionist movement; they view Zionism as secular, reject nationalism as a doctrine and consider Judaism to be first and foremost a religion.
Some Haredi rabbis do not consider Israel to be a halachic Jewish state because it is secular. However, they generally consider themselves responsible for ensuring that Jews maintain religious ideals and since most Israeli citizens are Jews they pursue this agenda within Israel. Others reject any possibility of a Jewish state, since according to them a Jewish state is completely forbidden by Jewish law, and a Jewish state is considered an oxymoron.
Two Haredi parties run in Israeli elections. They are sometimes associated with views which could be regarded as nationalist or Zionist and have shown a preference for coalitions with more nationalist Zionist parties, probably because these are more interested in enhancing the Jewish nature of the Israeli state.
The Sephardi-Orthodox party Shas rejects association with the Zionist movement. However, its voters generally regard themselves as Zionist and Knesset members frequently pursue what others might consider a Zionist agenda. Shas has supported territorial compromise with the Arabs and Palestinians but generally opposes compromise over Jewish holy sites.
The Ashkenazi Agudat Israel/UTJ party has always avoided association with the Zionist movement and usually avoids voting on or discussing issues related to peace because its members do not serve in the army. The party does work towards ensuring that Israel and Israeli law are in tune with the halacha, on issues such as Shabbat rest.
Many other Hasidic groups, most famously the Satmar Hasidim as well as the larger movement they are part of in Jerusalem, the Edah HaChareidis, are strongly anti-Zionist. Other groups included in the Edah HaChareidis include Dushinsky, Toldos Aharon, Toldos Avrohom Yitzchok, Spinka, and others, numbering tens of thousands in Jerusalem, and hundreds of thousands worldwide.
The Neturei Karta movement is a smaller, strongly anti-Zionist Haredi group.
The Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement has traditionally not identified itself as Zionist, although in recent years it has adopted an ultra-nationalist agenda and opposed any territorial compromise.
[edit]Particularities of Zionist beliefs
Main articles: Return to Zion, Aliyah, Racial antisemitism, New antisemitism, Religious antisemitism, and Revival of the Hebrew language
See also: Yiddish, Ladino language, and Hebraization of surnames
Zionism was established on the basis of the association between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. Aliyah (migration, literally "ascent") to the Land of Israel is a recurring theme in Jewish prayers. Zionists consider Jews outside of Israel as living in exile.[12] Rejection of life in the Diaspora is a central assumption in Zionism.[13] Underlying this attitude is the feeling that the Diaspora restricts the full growth of Jewish individual and national life.
Zionists generally preferred to speak Hebrew, a Semitic language that developed under conditions of freedom in ancient Judah, modernizing and adapting it for everyday use. Zionists sometimes refused to speak Yiddish, a language they considered affected by Christian persecution. Once they moved to Israel, many Zionists refused to speak their (diasporic) mother tongues and gave themselves new, Hebrew names.
Major aspects of the Zionist idea are represented in the Israeli Declaration of Independence:
The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.
After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom.
Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland. In recent decades they returned in their masses.[14]
Zionism is dedicated to fighting antisemitism. Some Zionists believe antisemitism will never disappear (and that Jews must conduct themselves with this in mind),[15] while others perceive Zionism as a vehicle with which to end antisemitism.
[edit]History
Main articles: History of Zionism and History of Israel
Population of Palestine by religions[16]
year Muslims Jews Christians Others
1922 486,177 83,790 71,464 7,617
1931 493,147 174,606 88,907 10,101
1941 906,551 474,102 125,413 12,881
1946 1,076,783 608,225 145,063 15,488
Theodor Herzl
The delegates at the First Zionist Congress, held in Basel, Switzerland (1897).
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 (Eretz Israel). According to Judaism, Eretz Israel, or Zion, is a land promised to the Jews by God according to the Bible. After the 1st century Great Revolt and the 2nd century Bar Kokhba revolt, the Romans expelled the Jews from Judea, changing the name from "Provincia Judea" to "Provincia Palestina", and thus forming the Jewish diaspora.[citation needed]
In the 19th century, a current in Judaism supporting a return to Zion grew in popularity,[17] particularly in Europe, where anti-semitism and hostility towards Jews were also growing. Jews began to emigrate to Palestine, pre-Zionist Aliyah, even before 1897, the year considered as the start of practical Zionism.[18]
Jewish immigration to Palestine started in earnest in 1882. Most immigrants came from Russia, escaping the frequent pogroms and state-led persecution. They founded a number of agricultural settlements with financial support from Jewish philanthropists in Western Europe. Further Aliyahs followed the Russian Revolution and Nazi persecution.
In the 1890s, Theodor Herzl infused Zionism with a new ideology and practical urgency, leading to the First Zionist Congress at Basel in 1897, which created the World Zionist Organization (WZO).[19] Herzl's aim was to initiate necessary preparatory steps for the attainment of a Jewish state. Herzl’s attempts to reach a political agreement with the Ottoman rulers of Palestine were unsuccessful and other governmental support was sought. The WZO supported small-scale settlement in Palestine and focused on strengthening Jewish feeling and consciousness and on building a worldwide federation.
The Russian Empire, with its long record of state organized genocide and ethnic cleansing ("pogroms") was widely regarded as the historic enemy of the Jewish people. As much of its leadership were German speakers, the Zionist movement's headquarters were located in Berlin. At the start of World War I, most Jews (and Zionists) supported Germany in its war with Russia.
Lobbying by a Russian Jewish immigrant, Chaim Weizmann and fear that American Jews would encourage the USA to support Germany culminated in the Balfour Declaration of 1917 by the British government (the Zionist congress had decided already by 1903 to decline an offer by the British to establish a homeland in Uganda). This endorsed the creation of a Jewish Homeland in Palestine. In addition, a Zionist military corps led by Jabotinsky were recruited to fight on behalf of Britain in Palestine.
In 1922, the League of Nations adopted the declaration in the Mandate it gave to Britain:
The Mandatory (…) will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion.
—[20]
Weizmann's role in obtaining the Balfour Declaration led to his election as the movement's leader. He remained in that role until 1948 and then became the first President of Israel.
Jewish migration to Palestine and widespread Jewish land purchases from feudal landlords led to landlessness and fueled unrest which was often led by the same landlords who sold the land. There were riots in 1920, 1921 and 1929, sometimes accompanied by massacres of Jews [21] The victims were usually from the non-Zionist Haredi Jewish communities in the Four Holy Cities. Britain supported Jewish immigration in principle, but in reaction to Arab violence imposed restrictions on Jewish immigration.
In 1933, Hitler came to power in Germany, and in 1935 the Nuremberg Laws made German Jews (and later Austrian and Czech Jews) stateless refugees. Similar rules were applied by the many Nazi allies in Europe. The subsequent growth in Jewish migration and impact of Nazi propaganda aimed at the Arab world led to the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. Britain established the Peel Commission to investigate the situation. The commission did not consider the situation of Jews in Europe but called for a two-state solution and compulsory transfer of populations. But Britain rejected this solution and instead implemented White Paper of 1939. This planned to end Jewish immigration by 1944 and to allow no more than 75,000 further Jewish migrants. The British maintained this policy until the end of the Mandate.
Growth of the Jewish community in Palestine and devastation of European Jewish life sidelined the World Zionist Organization. The Jewish Agency for Palestine under the leadership of David Ben-Gurion increasingly dictated policy with support from American Zionists who provided funding and influence in Washington, D.C. including via the highly effective American Palestine Committee.
After World War II and the Holocaust, a massive wave of stateless Jews, mainly Holocaust survivors, began migrating to Palestine in small boats in defiance of British rules. The British either imprisoned these Jews in Cyprus (including many orphaned children) or sent them to the British-controlled Allied Occupation Zones in Germany. This resulted in universal Jewish support for Zionism and the refusal of the U.S. Congress to grant economic aid to Britain. In addition, Zionist groups attacked the British in Palestine and, with its empire facing bankruptcy, Britain was forced to refer the issue to the newly created United Nations.
In 1947, the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) recommended that western Palestine should be partitioned into a Jewish state, an Arab state and a UN-controlled territory (Corpus separatum) around Jerusalem.[22] This partition plan was adopted on November 29, 1947 with UN GA Resolution 181, 33 votes in favor, 13 against, and 10 abstentions. The vote led to celebrations in the streets of Jewish cities.[23] However, the Palestinian Arabs and the Arab states rejected the UN decision, demanding a single state and removal of Jewish migrants, leading to the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
David Ben-Gurion proclaiming Israel's independence beneath a large portrait of Theodor Herzl.
On 14 May 1948, at the end of the British mandate, the Jewish Agency, led by David Ben-Gurion, declared the creation of the State of Israel, and the same day the armies of seven Arab countries invaded Israel. The conflict led to an exodus of about 711,000 Arab Palestinians[24] and the exodus of 850,000 Jews from the Arab world, mostly to Israel.
Since the creation of the State of Israel, the World Zionist Organization has functioned mainly as an organization dedicated to assisting and encouraging Jews to migrate to Israel. It has provided political support for Israel in other countries but plays little role in internal Israeli politics. The movement's major success since 1948 was in providing logistical support for migrating Jews and, most importantly, in assiing Soviet Jews in their struggle with the authorities over the right to leave the USSR and to practice their religion in freedom.
Opposition to and criticism of Zionism
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Main articles: Anti-Zionism, Non-Zionism, Post-Zionism, Neo-Zionism, and New Antisemitism
Zionism has been opposed by a wide variety of organizations and individuals. Arab states continue to reject the Zionist philosophy which underwrote the creation of Israel and in particular allege that the displacement of some 700,000 Arab refugees in the 1948 Palestinian exodus[25] and the subsequent conflict is the inevitable consequence of the re-establishment of the Jewish State.
Haredi Jewish communities are non-Zionist but willing to participate in Israeli coalitions. A minority, (the Satmar Hasidim and the small Neturei Karta group) are strongly anti-Zionist.
During the last quarter of 20th century, classic nationalism in Israel declined. This led to the rise of two antagonistic movements: neo-Zionism and post-Zionism. Both movements mark the Israeli version of a worldwide phenomenon:
the emergence of globalization, a market society and liberal culture
a local backlash.[26]
Neo-Zionism and post-Zionism share traits with "classical" Zionism but differ by accentuating antagonist and diametrically opposed poles already present in Zionism. "Neo Zionism accentuates the messianic and particularistic dimensions of Zionist nationalism, while post-Zionism accentuates its normalising and universalistic dimensions".[27] post-Zionism asserts that Israel should abandon the concept of a "state of the Jewish people" and strive to be a state of all its citizens,[28] or a binational state in which Arabs and Jews live together while enjoying some type of autonomy.
[edit]Anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism
See also: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Contemporary imprints of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and Soviet Union and the Arab–Israeli conflict
Opposition to Zionism and Anti-Semitism at the more extreme fringes, may be hard to separate.[29]
Anti-semites alleged that Zionism was part of a Jewish plot to take control of the world.[30] One particular version of these allegations, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" (subtitle "Protocols extracted from the secret archives of the central chancery of Zion") achieved global notability and was extensively quoted by the Nazis. The protocols are fictional minutes of an imaginary meeting by Jewish leaders of this plot. The Russian author alleged they were presented to the founder of Zionism, by Herzl (the "Prince of Exile") at the first Zionist congress. A 1920 German version renamed them "The Zionist Protocols".[31] The "protocols were extensively used by the Nazis and remain widely distributed in the Arab world. They are referred to in the 1988 Hamas charter (article 32):
The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"...
There are examples of anti-Zionists using accusations, slanders, imagery and tactics previously associated with anti-semites. On October 21, 1973, then-Soviet ambassador to the United Nations Yakov Malik declared: "The Zionists have come forth with the theory of the Chosen People, an absurd ideology." Chosenness, a basic doctrine of Judaism, has no role in Zionism. Similarly, an exhibit about Zionism and Israel in the Museum of Religion and Atheism in Leningrad designates the following as Soviet Zionist material: Jewish prayer shawls, tefillin and Passover Hagaddahs,[32] even though these are all religious items used by Jews for thousands of years.[33]
The Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses was closely followed by the Arab Boycott which began in 1945 and its adherents in Europe sometimes had Nazi backgrounds[34]
[edit]The Zionism-racism resolution
See also: Israel, Palestinians, and the United Nations and Israel and the apartheid analogy
In the late 1960s and early 1970s a large number of Muslim and Arab states in Africa and the Middle East gained independence, giving the Arab world the ability to dictate discussions in various international bodies. The peak of Arab influence came during the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo, during which the Organisation of African Unity and the Non-Aligned Movement passed resolutions condemning Zionism and equating it with racism and apartheid. The United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 3151 72 to 36, with 32 abstentions, in December 1973, stating that there was an "unholy alliance between South African racism and Zionism." [35] Resolution 3379, stating in its conclusion that "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination", passed in November 1975, with many Arab, African, South Asian, Latin American and Soviet bloc states voting in favor of it.[36][37] The resolution was opposed by most of the Western world.
As the war in Iraq began and the South African apartheid government and the Soviet Union collapsed, the resolution was repealed, in 1991, with Resolution 4686, after Israel declared that it would only participate in the Madrid Conference of 1991 if the resolution were revoked.[35] [38][39]
At the session revoking the motion, U.S. President George H. W. Bush declared that Resolution 3379 mocked the founding principles of the United Nations and its charter's pledge "to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbors."[40] The revocation motion was co-sponsored by 90 nations and supported by 111, and opposed by 26.[35]
