FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
ASHKELON – “I do not believe that a Jewish state is possible until the Messiah comes, I am against his conference in our city,” the chief rabbi of Berlin replied to Theodor Herzl. He, who is considered the founding leader of modern Zionism, bowed his head without much discussion and moved to Basel. Switzerland was already a country of exile for socialists and anarchists, and there would have been no problems even for the Zionists.
It was 1897: Herzl (1860-1904), a Hungarian Jew who worked as a journalist in Vienna. He was the typical assimilated individual with little or no knowledge of his religious tradition who sought a solution to anti-Semitism in the wake of the Dreyfus Affair in France and in response to the ongoing bloody pogroms against communities in Eastern Europe. The year before, he had written a pamphlet entitled “The State of the Jews,” in which he argued that they were not just a religion but a distinct national group waiting to meet their fate realize. It differed from the impulses of small messianic groups of the past, which over the centuries had promoted the need to rebuild the Kingdom of Israel. Rather, his ideas were the result of European secular national movements and the growing problems for Jews, who, having benefited from the decline of traditional Christian anti-Judaism in an increasingly secularized continent, now suffered from racist anti-Semitism. Whereas previously one could convert in order to be accepted, Jews were now excluded forever in the name of the Blood Law: a ruthless logic that Nazism would lead to its extreme consequences with the “Final Solution” less than half a century later.
So here is Zionism’s answer: the Jews had to defend themselves, have an army and achieve the status of a nation among nations. But the internal conflicts were tough from the start. One constant: the number of legal disputes remains high to this day. Was it more important to redeem the land of the ancient kingdoms of Israel or to save the Jewish people from persecution in the Diaspora by establishing their own state as quickly as possible wherever possible? (In those early stages there were some who suggested the creation of a Jewish enclave in Argentina or Madagascar). Could agricultural settlements be founded without the blessing of the rabbis? And what to do with the Arab population: integrate, pay and create incentives to leave or, if necessary, forcibly expel them? Early Zionism often glossed over this point. After the Basel Congress, the Rabbinical Council of Vienna sent a delegation to Palestine to see what the local population thought. They answered succinctly: “The bride is great, but married to another man.”
– Late 1930s: a kibbutz
Thousands of texts have been written about the history of Zionism. One way to summarize them is to remember the two major schools of thought. For the Labor left, what mattered was the quality of the population: it would be better to have a smaller country, but with a clear Jewish majority. David Ben Gurion (1886-1973), the state’s founder in 1948, was willing to make many compromises, including accepting the partition plan for Palestine proposed by the United Nations in 1947, in order to gain international legitimacy. The revisionist right, more clinging to religious tradition, instead considered it essential to return to the boundaries of two millennia ago. It was the land that determined the degree of Jewishness. Ze’ev Jabotinsky (1880-1940), its charismatic leader, who was at times inspired by Italian fascism, opposed partition in every way: in his opinion, only violence would have created a fait accompli. In a famous 1923 article, he wrote that the Arabs would “defend themselves in every way against the Jewish presence until they had any hope of driving us out” and that an “iron wall” was therefore necessary.
– November 1947, vote on partition at the United Nations
Meanwhile, the phenomenon of alyia, the “rise,” of immigration, had begun. The first wave took place between 1882 and 1902, about 30,000 Jews, almost all Eastern Europeans, reached Ottoman Palestine. But it was the Second Aliyah, some 40,000 people from 1904 to 1914, that formed the cornerstone of what the Yshuv, the Jewish community before the birth of the state, was to be: cohesive, determined, founders of kibbutzim, military units and institutions that then from 1947 to 1949 it would be possible to win the War of Independence. They were the ones who came up with the idea of the “new Jew.” They were inspired by the myth of the Canaanites; Through agricultural work they “married” themselves to the country, they Judaized it, and they overturned the social pyramid of the diaspora. In the European shtetls they were money changers, bankers, shopkeepers, teachers, clerks; Here they became farmers, workers, soldiers. When British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour delivered the famous declaration to Lord Rothschild on November 2, 1917, which spoke for the first time of a “Jewish homeland” in Palestine, the Yshuv numbered around 56,000 people (plus a few). Thousands of Orthodox between Jerusalem and Zfat, who see the pioneers as the devil) against over 600,000 Arabs.
– May 14, 1948: David Ben Gurion reads Israel’s Declaration of Independence
The new colonies are concentrated in the Galilee, in the northern part of the Jordan Valley, around Haifa and then in the coastal plain of Jaffa, where Tel Aviv is emerging. But now there is international recognition, the Zionist leaders are seeking English and American support, they are visiting European capitals. After the First World War, immigration increased. The first major Arab uprisings took place between Jerusalem and Jaffa in 1920. The English issue the first “White Papers” to limit immigration. The serious pogrom of Hebron in 1929 was a prelude to the great anti-Jewish riots of 1936, when the British Parliament sent the Peel Commission, which stated: “The two peoples cannot coexist, two states must be created.” World War II freezes the conflict. But in 1945, the abyss of the Holocaust restored legitimacy and recognition of the need for a state for the Jews. The guerrilla war begins. The British decide to abandon the region by spring 1948. The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon attack alongside the Palestinian guerrillas and are defeated. Before the war, the number of Jews in Mandatory Palestine was 630,000 and the number of Arabs was 1,350,000. Israel was born on May 14th and today 720,000 Jews and 156,000 Arabs live on its territory. (1/Next)