Zionism

The term "Zionism" is derived from the word Zion (Hebrew: ציון, romanized: Tzi-yon) or Mount Zion, a hill in Jerusalem, widely symbolizing the Land of Israel.^[20] Mount Zion is also a term used in the Hebrew Bible.^[21][22] Throughout eastern Europe in the late 19th century, numerous grassroots groups promoted the national resettlement of the Jews in their homeland,^[23] as well as the revitalization and cultivation of the Hebrew language. These groups were collectively called the "Lovers of Zion" and were seen as countering a growing Jewish movement toward assimilation. The first use of the term is attributed to the Austrian Nathan Birnbaum, founder of the Kadimah nationalist Jewish students' movement; he used the term in 1890 in his journal Selbst-Emancipation (Self-Emancipation),^[24][25] itself named almost identically to Leon Pinsker's 1882 book Auto-Emancipation.

Fundamental to Zionism is the belief that Jews constitute a nation and have a moral and historic right and need for self-determination in Palestine.^[d] This belief developed out of the experiences of European Jewry, which the early Zionists believed demonstrated the danger inherent to their status as a minority. In contrast to the Zionist notion of nationhood, the Judaic sense of being a nation was rooted in religious beliefs of unique chosenness and divine providence, rather than in ethnicity. Daily prayers emphasized distinctiveness from other nations; a connection to Eretz Israel and the anticipation of restoration were based on messianic beliefs and religious practices, not material nationalistic conceptions.^{[27][page needed]}

The Zionist claim to Palestine was based on the notion that Jews had a historical right to the land which outweighed the rights of the Arabs, which were "of no moral or historical significance."^{[28][page needed][26][page needed]} According to Israeli historian Simha Flapan, the view expressed by the proclamation "there was no such thing as Palestinians" was a cornerstone of Zionist policy initiated by Ben-Gurion, Weizmann and continued by their successors. Flapan further writes that the non-recognition of Palestinians remains a basic tenet of Israeli policy.^{[29][page needed]} This perspective was also shared by those on the far-left of the Zionist movement, including Martin Buber and other members of Brit Shalom.^[30][e][f] British officials supporting the Zionist effort also held similar beliefs regarding Jewish and Arab rights in Palestine.^{[g][h][32][page needed][34][page needed][33][page needed]}

Unlike other forms of nationalism, the Zionist claim to Palestine was aspirational and required a mechanism by which the claim could be realized.^[35] The territorial concentration of Jews in Palestine and the subsequent goal of establishing a Jewish majority there was the main mechanism by which Zionist groups sought to realize this claim.^{[36][page needed]} By the time of the 1936 Arab Revolt, the political differences between the various Zionist groups had shrunk further, with almost all Zionist groups seeking a Jewish state in Palestine.^{[37][38][page needed]} While not every Zionist group openly called for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, every group in the Zionist mainstream was wedded to the idea of establishing a Jewish demographic majority there.^{[39][page needed]}

In order to achieve a Jewish demographic majority, the Zionist movement was faced with a problem, namely the presence of the local Arab (and primarily non-Jewish) population. The practical issue of establishing a Jewish state in a majority non-Jewish region was an issue of fundamental practical importance for the Zionist movement.^[40][41] Zionists used the term "transfer" as a euphemism for the removal, or ethnic cleansing, of the Arab Palestinian population. The concept of "transfer" had a long pedigree in Zionist thought, with moral considerations rarely entering into the discussions of what was viewed as a logical solution-opposition to transferring the Arab population outside Palestine was typically expressed on practical, rather than moral grounds.^[42][43][44] The concept of forcibly removing the non-Jewish population from Palestine was a notion that garnered support across the entire spectrum of Zionist groups, including its farthest left factions, from early on in the movement's development. "Transfer" was not only seen as desirable but also as an ideal solution by the Zionist leadership.^[45] The notion of forcible transfer was so appealing to the movement's leaders that it was considered the most attractive provision in the Peel Commission.^[46] Indeed, this sentiment was deeply ingrained to the extent that Ben Gurion's acceptance of partition was contingent upon the removal of the Palestinian population.^[47] He would go as far as to say that transfer was such an ideal solution that it "must happen some day".^[48]

From the perspective of the early Zionist thinkers, Jews living amongst non-Jews are abnormal and suffer from impediments which can only be addressed by rejecting the Jewish identity which developed while living amongst non-Jews. Accordingly, the early Zionists sought to develop a nationalist Jewish political life in a territory where Jews constitute a demographic majority.^{[27][page needed][49][page needed][i]} The early Zionist thinkers saw the integration of Jews into non-Jewish society as both unrealistic (or insufficient to address the deficiencies associated with the demographic minority status of the Jews in Europe) and undesirable, since assimilation was accompanied by the dilution of Jewish cultural distinctiveness.^{[50][page needed]} Moses Hess, a leading precursor of Zionism, commented on the perceived insufficiency of assimilation: "The German hates the Jewish race more than the religion; he objects less to the Jews' peculiar beliefs than to their peculiar noses." Prominent leaders of the Zionist movement expressed an "understanding" of antisemitism, echoing its beliefs:

Anti-Semitism is not a psychosis... nor is it a lie. Anti-Semitism is a necessary outcome of a collision between two kinds of selfhood [or 'essence']. Hate is dependent upon the amount of 'agents of fermentation' that are pushed into the general organism [i.e., the non-Jewish group], whether they are active in it and irritate it, or are neutralized in it.^{[49][page needed]}

In this sense, Zionism did not seek to challenge anti-semitism, but rather accepted it as a reality. The Zionist solution to the perceived deficiencies of diasporic life (or the "Jewish Question") was dependent on the territorial concentration of Jews in Palestine, with the longer-term goal of establishing a Jewish demographic majority there.^{[28][page needed][51][page needed][50][page needed]}

Early Zionists were the primary Jewish supporters of the idea that Jews are a race, as it "offered scientific 'proof' of the ethno-nationalist myth of common descent".^[52] According to Raphael Falk, as early as the 1870s Zionist and pre-Zionist thinkers conceived of Jews as belonging to a distinct biological group.^[53] This re-conceptualization of Jewishness cast the "volk" of the Jewish community as a nation-race, in contrast to centuries-old conceptions of the Jewish people as a religious socio-cultural grouping.^[53] The Jewish historians Heinrich Graetz and Simon Dubnow are largely credited with this creation of Zionism as a nationalist project. They drew on religious Jewish sources and non-Jewish texts in reconstructing a national identity and consciousness. This new Jewish historiography divorced from and, at times at odds with, traditional Jewish collective memory.^[44]

It was particularly important in early nation building in Israel, because Jews in Israel are ethnically diverse and the origins of Ashkenazi Jews were not known.^[54][55] Notable proponents of this racial idea included Max Nordau, Herzl's co-founder of the original Zionist Organization, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the prominent architect of early statist Zionism and the founder of what became Israel's Likud party,^[56] and Arthur Ruppin, considered the "father of Israeli sociology".^[57] Birnbaum, who is widely attributed with the first use of the term "Zionism" in reference to a political movement, viewed race as the foundation of nationality,^[58] Jabotinsky wrote that Jewish national integrity relies on "racial purity",^[56][j] and that "(t)he feeling of national self-identity is ingrained in the man's 'blood', in his physical-racial type, and only in it."^[59]

According to Hassan S. Haddad, the application of the Biblical concepts of Jews as the chosen people and the "Promised Land" in Zionism, particularly to secular Jews, requires the belief that modern Jews are the primary descendants of biblical Jews and Israelites.^[60] This is considered important to the State of Israel, because its founding narrative centers around the concept of an "Ingathering of the exiles" and the "Return to Zion", on the assumption that all modern Jews are the direct lineal descendants of the biblical Jews.^[61] The question has thus been focused on by supporters of Zionism and anti-Zionists alike,^[62] as in the absence of this biblical primacy, "the Zionist project falls prey to the pejorative categorization as 'settler colonialism' pursued under false assumptions, playing into the hands of Israel's critics and fueling the indignation of the displaced and stateless Palestinian people,"^[61] whilst right-wing Israelis look for "a way of proving the occupation is legitimate, of authenticating the ethnos as a natural fact, and of defending Zionism as a return".^[63] A Jewish "biological self-definition" has become a standard belief for many Jewish nationalists, and most Israeli population researchers have never doubted that evidence will one day be found, even though so far proof for the claim has "remained forever elusive".^[64]

With the arrival in Palestine of more ideologically motivated settlers after the turn of the century, the Zionist movement began to emphasize the importance of the productivization of Jewish society and the so-called "conquest of labor," the belief that the employment of exclusively Jewish labour was the pre-condition for the development of an independent Jewish society in Palestine.^{[28][page needed]} The Zionist movement sought to build a "pure Jewish settlement" in Palestine on the basis of "100 per cent Jewish labor" and the claim to an exclusively Jewish economy.^{[29][page needed][65][page needed]} The Zionist leadership aimed to establish a fully autonomous and independent Jewish economic sector to create a new type of Jewish society. This new society was intended to reverse the traditional economic structure seen in the Jewish Diaspora, characterized by a high number of middlemen and a scarcity of productive workers. By developing fundamental sectors such as industry, agriculture, and mining, the goal was to "normalize" Jewish life which had grown "abnormal" as a result of living amongst non-Jews.^{[29][page needed]} Most of the Zionist leadership saw it as imperative to employ strictly Jewish workers in order to ensure the Jewish character of the colonies; indeed they sought to minimize mixing with Arabs to, amongst other reasons, avoid the passing of "Arab values" into Zionist society.^{[66][page needed][65][page needed]}

The employment of exclusively Jewish labor was also intended to avoid the development of a national conflict in conjunction with a class-based conflict.^{[67][page needed]} The Zionist leadership believed that by excluding Arab workers they would stimulate class conflict only within Arab society and prevent the Jewish-Arab national conflict from attaining a class dimension.^{[68][full citation needed]} While the Zionist settlers of the first aliyah had ventured to create a "pure Jewish settlement," they did grow to rely on Arab labor due to the lack of availability of Jewish laborers during this period.^{[65][page needed]} With the arrival of the more ideologically driven settlers of the second aliyah, the idea of "avoda ivrit" would become more central. The future leaders of the Zionist movement saw an existential threat in the employment of Arab labor-the fear that the "half-wild natives" would rise up against their "Jewish masters" motivated the movement on a practical level to work towards a society based on purely Jewish labor.^{[69][page needed][66][page needed]}

Zionism rejected traditional Judaic definitions of what it means to be Jewish, but struggled to offer a new interpretation of Jewish identity independent of rabbinical tradition. Jewish religion is viewed as an essentially negative factor, even in religious Zionist ideology, and seen as responsible for the diminishing status of Jews living as a minority.^[70] Responding to the challenges of modernity, Zionism sought to replace religious and community institutions with secular-nationalistic ones, defining Judaism in "Christian terms."^{[71][page needed]} Indeed, Zionism maintained primarily the outward symbols of Jewish tradition, redefining them in a nationalistic context. It adapted traditional Jewish religious concepts, such as the devotion to the God of Israel, reverence for the biblical Land of Israel, and the belief in a future Jewish return during the messianic era, into a modern nationalist framework. To be sure, the yearning for a return to the land of Israel "was entirely quietistic" and the daily prayers of a return to Zion were all accompanied by an appeal to God, rather than a call to Jews to take it upon themselves to appropriate the land.^{[27][page needed][72]} Zionism saw itself as bringing Jews into the modern world by redefining what it means to be Jewish in terms of identification with a sovereign state, rather than Judaic faith and tradition.^{[71][page needed]}

Zionism sought to reconfigure Jewish identity and culture in nationalist and secular terms. This new identity would be based on a rejection of the life of exile. Zionism portrayed the Diaspora Jew as mentally unstable, physically frail, and prone to engaging in transient businesses like peddling or acting as intermediaries. They were seen as detached from nature, purely materialistic, and focused solely on their personal gains. In contrast, the vision for the new Jew was radically different: an individual of strong moral and aesthetic values, not shackled by religion, driven by ideals and willing to challenge degrading circumstances; a liberated, dignified person eager to defend both personal and national pride.^{[49][page needed][50][page needed]}

The Zionist goal of reframing of Jewish identity in secular-nationalist terms meant primarily the decline of the status of religion in the Jewish community.^{[49][page needed]} Prominent Zionist thinkers frame this development as nationalism serving the same role as religion, functionally replacing it.^{[71][page needed]} Zionism sought to make Jewish ethnic-nationalism the distinctive trait of Jews rather than their commitment to Judaism.^{[50][page needed]} Zionism instead adopted a racial understanding of Jewish identity, which paradoxically mirrored anti-Semitic views by suggesting that Jewishness is an inherent, unchangeable trait found in one's "blood."^{[49][page needed]} Framed this way, Jewish identity is only secondarily a matter of tradition or culture.^{[73][page needed]} Zionist nationalism embraced pan-Germanic ideologies, which stressed the concept of das völk: people of shared ancestry should pursue separation and establish a unified state. Zionist thinkers view the movement as a "revolt against a tradition of many centuries" of living parasitically at the margins of Western society. Indeed, Zionism was uncomfortable with the term "Jewish," associating it with passivity, spirituality and the stain of "galut". Instead, Zionist thinkers preferred the term "Hebrew" to describe their identity which they associated with the healthy and modern sabra. In Zionist thought, the new Jew would be productive and work the land, in contrast to the diaspora Jew who, mirroring the anti-semitic portrayals, was depicted as lazy and parasitic on society. Zionism linked the term "Jewish" with these negative characteristics prevalent in European anti-Semitic stereotypes, which Zionists believed could be remedied only through sovereignty.^[74]

Israeli-Irish scholar Ronit Lentin has argued that the construction of Zionist identity as a militarized nationalism arose in contrast to the imputed identity of the Diaspora Jew as a "feminised" Other. She describes this as a relationship of contempt towards the previous identity of the Jewish Diaspora viewed as unable to resist antisemitism and the Holocaust. Lentin argues that Zionism's rejection of this "feminised" identity and its obsession with constructing a nation is reflected in the nature of the symbolism of the movement, which are drawn from modern sources and appropriated as Zionist, instancing the fact that the melody of the Hatikvah anthem drew on the version composed by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana.^[74]

The rejection of life in the diaspora was not limited to secular Zionism; many religious Zionists shared this opinion, but not all religious Zionism did. Abraham Isaac Kook, considered one of the most important religious Zionist thinkers, characterized the diaspora as a flawed and alienated existence marked by decline, narrowness, displacement, solitude, and frailty. He believed that the diasporan way of life is diametrically opposed to a "national renaissance," which manifests itself not only in the return to Zion but also in the return to nature and creativity, revival of heroic and aesthetic values, and the resurgence of individual and societal power.^[75]

 

The revival of the Hebrew language in Eastern Europe as a secular literary medium marked a significant cultural shift among Jews, who per Judaic tradition used Hebrew only for religious purposes.^{[citation needed]} This secularization of Hebrew, which included its use in novels, poems, and journalism, was met with resistance from rabbis who viewed it as a desecration of the sacred language. While some rabbinical authorities did support the development of Hebrew as a common vernacular, they did so on the basis of nationalistic ideas, rather than on the basis of Jewish tradition.^[27] Eliezer Ben Yehuda, a key figure in the revival, envisioned Hebrew as serving a "national spirit" and cultural renaissance in the Land of Israel.^[77] The primary motivator for establishing modern Hebrew as a national language was the sense of legitimacy it gave the movement, by suggesting a connection between the Jews of ancient Israel and the Jews of the Zionist movement.^[78] These developments are seen in Zionist historiography as a revolt against tradition, with the development of Modern Hebrew providing the basis on which a Jewish cultural renaissance might develop.^[27]

Zionists generally preferred to speak Hebrew, a Semitic language which flourished as a spoken language in the ancient Kingdoms of Israel and Judah during the period from about 1200 to 586 BCE,^[79] and continued to be used in some parts of Judea during the Second Temple period and up until 200 CE. It is the language of the Hebrew Bible and the Mishnah, central texts in Judaism. Hebrew was largely preserved throughout later history as the main liturgical language of Judaism.

Zionists worked to modernize Hebrew and adapt it for everyday use. They sometimes refused to speak Yiddish, a language they thought had developed in the context of European persecution. Once they moved to Israel, many Zionists refused to speak their (diasporic) mother tongues and adopted new, Hebrew names. Hebrew was preferred not only for ideological reasons, but also because it allowed all citizens of the new state to have a common language, thus furthering the political and cultural bonds among Zionists.^{[citation needed]}

The revival of the Hebrew language and the establishment of Modern Hebrew is most closely associated with the linguist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and the Committee of the Hebrew Language (later replaced by the Academy of the Hebrew Language).^[80]

The transformation of a religious and primarily passive connection between Jews and Palestine into an active, secular, nationalist movement arose in the context of ideological developments within modern European nations in the 19th century. The concept of the "return" remained a powerful symbol within religious Jewish belief which emphasized that their return should be determined by Divine Providence rather than human action.^[71] Leading Zionist historian Shlomo Avineri describes this connection: "Jews did not relate to the vision of the Return in a more active way than most Christians viewed the Second Coming." The religious Judaic notion of being a nation was distinct from the modern European notion of nationalism.^[50] Ultra-Orthodox Jews strongly opposed collective Jewish settlement in Palestine,^[k] viewing it as a violation of the three oaths sworn to God: not to force their way into the homeland, not to hasten the end times, and not to rebel against other nations. They believed that any attempt to achieve redemption through human actions, rather than divine intervention and the coming of the Messiah, constituted a rebellion against divine will and a dangerous heresy.^[l]

The cultural memory of Jews in the diaspora revered the Land of Israel. Religious tradition held that a future messianic age would usher in their return as a people.,^[81] a 'return to Zion' commemorated particularly at Passover and in Yom Kippur prayers. In late medieval times, there arose among the Ashkenazi an augury—"Next year in Jerusalem—which was then included in the thrice-daily Amidah (Standing prayer).^[82] The biblical prophecy of Kibbutz Galuyot, the ingathering of exiles in the Land of Israel as foretold by the Prophets, became a central idea in Zionism.^[83][84][85]

The forerunners of Zionism, rather than being causally connected to the later development of Zionism, are thinkers and activists who expressed some notion of Jewish national consciousness or advocated for the migration of Jews to Palestine. These attempts were not continuous as national movements typically are.^[86][87] The most notable precursors to Zionism were thinkers such as Judah Alkalai and Zvi Hirsch Kalischer (who were both rabbinical figures), as well as Moses Hess who is regarded as the first modern Jewish nationalist.^[88]

Hess advocated for the establishment of an independent Jewish state in pursuit of the economic and social normalization of the Jewish people.^[89] Hess believed that emancipation alone was not a sufficient solution to the problems faced by European Jewry; he perceived a shift of anti-Jewish sentiment from a religious to a racial basis. For Hess, religious conversion would not fix this anti-Jewish hostility.^[87] In contrast to Hess, Alkalai and Kalischer developed their ideas as a reinterpretation of Messianism along traditionalist lines in which human intervention would prepare (and specifically only prepare) for the final redemption. Accordingly, the Jewish immigration in this vein was intended to be selective, involving only the most devout Jews.^[88] Their idea of Jews as a collective was strongly tied to religious notions distinct from the secular movement referred to as Zionism which developed at the end of the century.^[90]

Christian restorationist ideas promoting the migration of Jews to Palestine contributed to the ideological and historical context that gave a sense of credibility to these pre-Zionist initiatives.^[87] Restorationist ideas were a prerequisite for the success of Zionism, since although it was created by Jews, from the beginning Zionism was dependent on support from Christians, although it is unclear how much Christian ideas influenced the early Zionists. Zionism was also dependent on the thinkers of the Haskalah or Jewish enlightenment, such as Peretz Smolenskin in 1872, although it often depicted it as its opponent.^[91]

The Jewish expulsion from Spain led to some Jewish refugees fleeing to Ottoman Palestine. In 1564, Joseph Nasi, with the support of the sultan of the Ottoman Empire, attempted to create a Jewish province in the Galilee, but he died in 1579 and his plans weren't completed. However, the community in Safed continued as did small-scale aliyah into the 17th century.^[92]

In the 17th century Sabbatai Zevi (1626–1676) announced himself as the Messiah and gained many Jews to his side, forming a base in Salonika. He first tried to establish a settlement in Gaza, but moved later to Smyrna. After deposing the old rabbi Aaron Lapapa in the spring of 1666, the Jewish community of Avignon, France, prepared to emigrate to the new kingdom.^{[93][94][92][95]}

Other proto-Zionist figures include the rabbis Yehuda Bibas (1789–1852), Tzvi Kalischer (1795–1874), and Judah Alkalai (1798–1878).^[96]

The idea of returning to Palestine was rejected by the conferences of rabbis held in that epoch. Individual efforts supported the emigration of groups of Jews to Palestine, pre-Zionist Aliyah, even before the First Zionist Congress in 1897, the year considered as the start of practical Zionism.^[97]

Reform Jews rejected this idea of a return to Zion. The conference of rabbis held at Frankfurt am Main over July 15–28, 1845, deleted from the ritual all prayers for a return to Zion and a restoration of a Jewish state. The Philadelphia Conference, 1869, followed the lead of the German rabbis and decreed that the Messianic hope of Israel is "the union of all the children of God in the confession of the unity of God". In 1885 the Pittsburgh Conference reiterated this interpretation of the Messianic idea of Reform Judaism, expressing in a resolution that "we consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community; and we therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning a Jewish state".^[98]

 

Jewish settlements were proposed for establishment in the upper Mississippi region by W.D. Robinson in 1819.^{[99][full citation needed]}

Moral but not practical efforts were made in Prague to organize a Jewish emigration, by Abraham Benisch and Moritz Steinschneider in 1835. In the United States, Mordecai Noah attempted to establish a Jewish refuge opposite Buffalo, New York, on Grand Isle, 1825. These early Jewish nation building efforts of Cresson, Benisch, Steinschneider and Noah failed.^{[100][page needed][101]}

Sir Moses Montefiore, famous for his intervention in favor of Jews around the world, including the attempt to rescue Edgardo Mortara, established a colony for Jews in Palestine. In 1854, his friend Judah Touro bequeathed money to fund Jewish residential settlement in Palestine. Montefiore was appointed executor of his will, and used the funds for a variety of projects, including building in 1860 the first Jewish residential settlement and almshouse outside of the old walled city of Jerusalem—today known as Hebrew: Mishkenot Sha'ananim. Laurence Oliphant failed in a like attempt to bring to Palestine the Jewish proletariat of Poland, Lithuania, Romania, and the Turkish Empire (1879 and 1882).

Ideas of Jewish cultural unity developed a specifically political expression in the 1860s as Jewish intellectuals began promoting the idea of Jewish nationalism. Zionism would be just one of several Jewish national movements which would develop, others included diaspora nationalist groups such as the Bund.^{[102][page needed]}

Zionism emerged towards the end of the "best century"^{[71][page needed]} for Jews who for the first time were allowed as equals into European society. During this time, Jews would have equality before the law and gain access to schools, universities, and professions which were previously closed to them.^{[71][page needed]} By the 1870s, Jews had achieved almost complete civic emancipation in all the states of western and central Europe.^[50] By 1914, a century after the beginnings of emancipation, Jews had moved from the margins to the forefront of European society. In the urban centers of Europe and America, Jews played an influential role in professional and intellectual life, considered in proportion to their numbers.^{[71][page needed]} During this period as Jewish assimilation was still progressing most promisingly, some Jewish intellectuals and religious traditionalists framed assimilation as a humiliating negation of Jewish cultural distinctiveness. The development of Zionism and other Jewish nationalist movements grew out of these sentiments, which began to emerge even before the appearance of modern antisemitism as a major factor.^{[50][page needed]} In this sense, Zionism can be read as a response to the Haskala and the challenges of modernity and liberalism, rather than purely a response to antisemitism.^{[71][page needed]}

Emancipation in Eastern Europe progressed more slowly,^{[103][page needed]} to the point that Deickoff writes "social conditions were such that they made the idea of individual assimilation pointless." Antisemitism, pogroms and official policies in Tsarist Russia led to the emigration of three million Jews in the years between 1882 and 1914, only 1% of which went to Palestine. Those who went to Palestine were driven primarily by ideas of self-determination and Jewish identity, rather than just in response to pogroms or economic insecurity.^[104] Zionism's emergence in the late 19th century was among assimilated Central European Jews who, despite their formal emancipation, still felt excluded from high society. Many of these Jews had moved away from traditional religious observances and were largely secular, mirroring a broader trend of secularization in Europe. Despite their efforts to integrate, the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe were frustrated by continued lack of acceptance by the local national movements which tended toward intolerance and exclusivity.^{[27][page needed]} For the early Zionists, if nationalism posed a challenge to European Jewry, it also proposed a solution.^{[105][page needed]}

In the wake of the 1881 Russian pogroms, Leo Pinsker, who was previously an assimilationist, came to the conclusion that the root of the Jewish problem was that Jews formed a distinctive element which could not be assimilated.^[50] For Pinsker, emancipation could not resolve the problems of the Jewish people.^[106] In Pinsker's analysis, Judeophobia was the cause of antisemitism and was primiarily driven by Jews' lack of a homeland. The solution Pinsker proposed in his pamphlet, Autoemancipation, was for Jews to become a "normal" nation and acquire a homeland over which Jews would have sovereignty.^{[71][page needed][106][page needed]} Pinsker primarily viewed Jewish emigration a solution for dealing with the "surplus of Jews, the inassimilable residue" from Eastern Europe who had arrived in Germany in response to the pogroms.^[65][m]

The pogroms motivated a small number of Jews to establish various groups in the Pale of Settlement and Poland aimed at supporting Jewish emigration to Palestine. The publication of Autoemancipation provided these groups with an ideological charter around which they would be confederated into Hibbat Zion in 1887 where Pinsker would take a leading role.^{[66][page needed]} The settlements established by Hibbat Zion lacked sufficient funds and were ultimately not very successful but are seen as the first of several aliyahs, or waves of settlement, that lead to the eventual establishment of the state of Israel.^{[28][page needed]} The conditions in Eastern Europe would eventually provide Zionism with a base of Jews seeking to overcome the challenges of external ostracism, from the Tsarist regime, and internal changes within the Jewish communities there.^[107] The groups which formed Hibbat Zion included the Bilu group which began its settlements in 1882. Shapira describes the Bilu as serving the role of a prototype for the settlement groups that followed.^{[69][page needed]} At the end of the 19th century, Jews remained a small minority in Palestine.^{[108][page needed]}

At this point, Zionism remained a scattered movement. In the 1890s, Theodor Herzl (the father of political Zionism) infused Zionism with a practical urgency and would work to unify the various strands of the movement.^[109] His efforts would lead to the First Zionist Congress at Basel in 1897, which created the Zionist Organization (ZO), renamed in 1960 as World Zionist Organization (WZO).^[110] The World Zionist Organization was to be the main administrative body of the movement and would go on to establish the Jewish Colonial Trust whose objectives were to encourage European Jewish emigration to Palestine and to assist with the economic development of the colonies. The first Zionist Congress would also adopt the official objective of establishing a legally recognized home for the Jewish people in Palestine.^[109]

The title of Herzl's 1896 manifesto providing the ideological basis for Zionism, Der Judenstaat, is typically translated as The Jewish State.^{[102][page needed]} Herzl sought to establish a state where Jews would be the majority and as a result, politically dominant. Ahad Ha'am, the founder of cultural Zionism criticized the lack of Jewish cultural activity and creativity in Herzl's envisioned state which Ha'am referred to as "the state of the Jews." Specifically, Ha'am points to the envisioned European and German culture of the state where Jews were simply the transmitters of imperialist culture rather than producers or creators of culture.^{[74][page needed]} Like Pinsker, Herzl saw antisemitism as a reality that could only be addressed by the territorial concentration of Jews in a Jewish state. He wrote in his diary: "I achieved a freer attitude toward anti-Semitism, which I now began to understand historically and to pardon. Above all, I recognized the emptiness and futility of trying to 'combat' anti-Semitism."^{[74][page needed]}

Herzl's project was purely secular, the selection of Palestine, after considering other locations, was motivated by the credibility the name would give to the movement.^{[109][page needed]} From early on, Herzl recognized that Zionism could not succeed without the support of a Great Power.^{[111][page needed]} His view was that this Judenstaat would serve the interests of the Great Powers, and would "form part of a defensive wall for Europe in Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism."^{[66][page needed]}

In 1902, Herzl published Altneuland, a utopian novel which portrays a Jewish state where Jews and Arabs live together. In the novel, Jewish immigration had not forced the Arabs to leave, orange exports had multiplied tenfold, and Arab landowners profited from selling land to the Jews. Walter Laqueur describes Herzl in real life as emphasizing the importance of close relationships between Jews and Muslims on several occasions.^[112] Altneuland also reflected Herzl's belief in the importance of technology and progress. The Jewish state in the novel is a highly advanced society, where scientific and technological innovation is celebrated and valued.^{[71][page needed][113]}

Before World War I, although led by Austrian and German Jews, Zionism was primarily composed of Russian Jews.^[114] Initially, Zionists were a minority, both in Russia and worldwide.^[115] Russian Zionism quickly became a major force within the movement, making up about half the delegates at Zionist Congresses.^[116]

Despite its success in attracting followers, Russian Zionism faced fierce opposition from the Russian intelligentsia across the political spectrum and socioeconomic classes. It was condemned by different groups as reactionary, messianic, and unrealistic, arguing that it would isolate Jews and exacerbate their circumstances rather than integrate them into European societies.^[116] Religious Jews such as Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum viewed in Zionism a desecration of their sacred beliefs and a Satanic plot, while others hardly thought it deserved serious attention.^[117] For them, Zionism was seen as an attempt to defy the divine order to await the coming of the Messiah.^[118] However, many of these religious Jews still believed in the Messiah coming soon. For example, Rabbi Israel Meir Kahan "was so convinced of the imminent arrival of the Messiah that he urged his students to study the laws of the priesthood so that the priests would be prepared to carry out their duties when the Temple in Jerusalem was rebuilt."^[117]

Criticism was not limited to religious Jews. Bundist socialists and liberals of the Voskhod newspaper attacked Zionism for distracting from class struggle and blocking the path to Jewish emancipation in Russia, respectively.^[116] Figures like historian Simon Dubnow saw potential value in Zionism promoting Jewish identity but fundamentally rejected a Jewish state as messianic and unfeasible.^[119] They provided alternative emancipatory solutions, such as assimilation, emigration, and Diaspora nationalism.^[120] The opposition to Zionism, rooted in the intelligentsia's rationalist worldview, weakened its appeal among potential adherents like the Jewish working class and intelligentsia.^[116] Ultimately, the Russian intelligentsia was united in the view that Zionism was an aberrant ideology that ran counter to their beliefs in Jewish assimilation.

 

 

Throughout the first decade of the Zionist movement, there were several instances where some Zionist figures, including Herzl, considered a Jewish state in places outside Palestine, such as "Uganda" (actually parts of British East Africa today in Kenya), Argentina, Cyprus, Mesopotamia, Mozambique, and the Sinai Peninsula.^[121] Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, was initially content with any Jewish self-governed state.^[122] Jewish settlement of Argentina was the project of Maurice de Hirsch.^[123] It is unclear if Herzl seriously considered this alternative plan,^[124] however he later reaffirmed that Palestine would have greater attraction because of the historic ties of Jews with that area.^[125]

A major concern and driving reason for considering other territories was the Russian pogroms, in particular the Kishinev massacre, and the resulting need for quick resettlement in a safer place.^[126] However, other Zionists emphasized the memory, emotion and tradition linking Jews to the Land of Israel.^[127] Zion became the name of the movement, after the place where King David established his kingdom, following his conquest of the Jebusite fortress there (2 Samuel 5:7, 1 Kings 8:1). The name Zion was synonymous with Jerusalem. Palestine only became Herzl's main focus after his Zionist manifesto 'Der Judenstaat' was published in 1896, but even then he was hesitant to focus efforts solely on resettlement in Palestine when speed was of the essence.^[128]

In 1903, British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain offered Herzl 5,000 square miles (13,000 km²) in the Uganda Protectorate for Jewish settlement in Great Britain's East African colonies.^[129] Herzl accepted to evaluate Joseph Chamberlain's proposal,^[130] and it was introduced the same year to the World Zionist Organization's Congress at its sixth meeting, where a fierce debate ensued. Some groups felt that accepting the scheme would make it more difficult to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, the African land was described as an "ante-chamber to the Holy Land". It was decided to send a commission to investigate the proposed land by 295 to 177 votes, with 132 abstaining. The following year, Congress sent a delegation to inspect the plateau. A temperate climate due to its high elevation, was thought to be suitable for European settlement. However, the area was populated by a large number of Maasai, who did not seem to favour an influx of Europeans. Furthermore, the delegation found it to be filled with lions and other animals.

After Herzl died in 1904, the Congress decided in July 1905 to decline the British offer and to "direct all future settlement efforts solely to Palestine."^[129][131] Israel Zangwill's Jewish Territorialist Organization aimed for a Jewish state anywhere, having been established in 1903 in response to the Uganda Scheme. It was supported by a number of the Congress's delegates. Following the vote, which had been proposed by Max Nordau, Zangwill charged Nordau that he "will be charged before the bar of history," and his supporters blamed the Russian voting bloc of Menachem Ussishkin for the outcome of the vote.^[131]

The subsequent departure of the JTO from the Zionist Organization had little impact.^{[129][132][133]} The Zionist Socialist Workers Party was also an organization that favored the idea of a Jewish territorial autonomy outside of Palestine.^[134]

According to Elaine Hagopian, in the early decades it foresaw the homeland of the Jews as extending not only over the region of Palestine, but into Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt, with its borders more or less coinciding with the major riverine and water-rich areas of the Levant.^[135]

In the early twentieth century, Zionism advanced by establishing towns, colonies, and an independent monetary system to channel Jewish capital into Palestine. Due to the unstable local economy and fluctuating currency values under Ottoman rule, Zionists created their own financial institutions, including the first locally headquartered bank and credit cooperative societies. Despite their small numbers, the Zionists instilled a fear of territorial displacement and dispossession in the local Palestinian population.^{[136][page needed]} This fear would be the main driver of antagonism from the Arabs,^{[137][page needed]} leading to physical resistance and the eventual use of military force by settlers. Initially, the impact on rural Palestinians was minimal, with only a few villages encountering Jewish colonies. However, after World War I and as Zionist land purchase increased, the rural population began to experience dramatic changes. From almost the beginning of Zionist settlement, the Palestinians viewed Zionism as an expansionist endeavor. According to Israeli historian Benny Morris, Zionism was inherently expansionist and always had the goal of turning the entirety of Palestine into a Jewish state. In addition, Morris describes the Zionists as intent on politically and physically dispossessing the Arabs.^[42] Early warnings from local leaders in the 1880s about the destabilizing effects of Jewish immigration went largely unheeded until these later developments.^{[136][page needed]} By the early 20th century, there were fourteen Zionist settlements in Palestine, established through land purchases from both local and external landowners. These were the Zionists of the First Aliyah.^{[136][page needed]}

From the outset, the Zionist leadership saw land acquisition as essential to achieving their goal of establishing a Jewish state. This acquisition was strategic, aiming to create a continuous area of Jewish land. The World Zionist Organization established the Jewish National Fund in 1901, with the stated goal "to redeem the land of Palestine as the inalienable possession of the Jewish people." The notion of land "redemption" entailed that the land could not be sold and could not be leased to a non-Jew nor should the land be worked by Arabs.^[138] The land purchased was primarily from absentee landlords, and upon purchase of the land, the tenant farmers who traditionally had rights of usufruct were often expelled.^{[139][page needed]} Herzl publicly opposed this dispossession, but wrote privately in his diary: "We must expropriate gently... We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our country... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly." Support for expulsion of the Arab population in Palestine was one of the main currents in Zionist ideology from the movement's inception.^{[66][page needed]} The fear of territorial displacement and dispossession would be the main driver of Arab antagonism to Zionism for the next several decades.

In 1903, 'the Eretz Israel assembly' was held and chaired by Menachem Ussishkin, a committed Zionist and Russian Jew in his early forties, this assembly marked the beginning of a more formalized Zionist colonization effort. Under his leadership, both professional and political organizations were established, paving the way for a sustained Zionist presence in the region.^{[136][page needed]} Ussishkin delineated three methods for the Zionist movement to acquire land: by force and conquest, by expropriation via governmental authority, and by purchase. The only option available to the movement at the moment in his perspective was the last one, "until at some point we become rulers."^{[66][page needed]}

The second wave of Zionist settlement came with the second aliyah starting in 1904. The settlers of the Second Aliyah laid the foundational elements for the Jewish society in Palestine envisioned by the Zionist movement. They established the first two political parties, the socialist Po'alei Zion and the non-socialist Ha-Po'el Ha-Tza'ir and initiated the first collective agricultural settlements known as kibbutzim, which were fundamental in the formation of the Israeli state.^[65] They also formed the first underground military group, Ha-Shomer, which later evolved into the Haganah and eventually became the core of the Israeli army. Many leaders of the Zionist national movement, including David Ben-Gurion, Berl Katznelson, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, Moshe Sharett, Levi Eshkol, Yosef Sprinzak, Yitzhak Tabenkin, and Aharon David Gordon, were products of the Second Aliyah.^[28] The Zionists of the second aliyah were also more ideologically motivated than those of the first aliyah. In particular, they sought the "conquest of labor" which entailed the exclusion of Arabs from the labor market.^{[65][page needed]}

 

At the start of the war, the Zionist leadership initiated attempts to persuade the British government of the benefits of sponsoring a Jewish colony in Palestine. Their main initial success was in establishing a lobbying group centered around the Rothschild family, largely driven by Chaim Weizmann,^[105] with official negotiations beginning in 1916. The ensuing Balfour declaration came shortly afterwards in November 1917. In it, Britain formally declared its commitment to establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The declaration was largely motivated by war-time considerations and antisemitic preconceptions about the putative influence Jews had on the Tsarist government and in the shaping of American policy.^{[69][page needed][136][page needed]} Though his decision was also motivated by religious convictions,^[n] Balfour himself had passed the Aliens Act 1905 which aimed to keep Eastern European Jews out of Britain.^[o] More decisive were Britain's colonial and imperial geopolitical goals in the region, specifically in retaining control over the Suez Canal by establishing a pro-British state in the region.^{[69][page needed][141][page needed]} Weizmann's role in obtaining the Balfour Declaration led to his election as the Zionist movement's leader. He remained in that role until 1948, and then was elected as the first President of Israel after the nation gained independence.

 

After the war, the plan for a greater Arab kingdom under the Hashemite family was abandoned when King Feisal was expelled from Damascus by the French in 1920. In parallel, the Zionist demand for a clear British acknowledgment of the entirety of Palestine as the Jewish national home was rejected. Instead, Britain committed only to establishing a Jewish national home "in Palestine" and promised to facilitate this without prejudicing the rights of existing "non-Jewish communities". These qualifying statements aroused the concern of Zionist leaders at the time.^{[28][page needed]}

The British mandate over Palestine, established in 1922, was based on the Balfour declaration, explicitly privileging the Jewish minority over the Arab majority. In addition to declaring British support for the establishment of a "Jewish national home" in Palestine, the mandate included provisions facilitating Jewish immigration, and granting the Zionist movement the status of representing Jewish national interests.^{[28][page needed]} In particular, the Jewish Agency, the embodiment of the Zionist movement in Palestine, was made a partner of the mandatory government, acquiring international diplomatic status and representing Zionist interests before the League of Nations and other international venues.^{[142][page needed]}

The British mandate effectively established a Jewish quasi-state in Palestine, lacking only full sovereignty, which was held by the British High Commissioner. This lack of sovereignty was crucial for Zionism at this early stage, as the Jewish population was too small to defend itself against the Arabs of Palestine. The British presence provided a necessary safeguard for Jewish nationalism. To achieve political independence, Jews needed Britain's support, particularly in land purchase and immigration.^[143]

British policies supporting these efforts were pursued at the expense of the socioeconomic development of the Arab sector. For example, the taxation system imposed by the mandatory government extracted greater relative costs (as well as in absolute numbers) from the Arab population. At the same time, the main British mandatory expenditures from 1933 to 1937 were for economic development and security expenses, in support of the Jewish population. In this sense, the growth of the Jewish economic sector came at the expense of the Arab population.^[144] British policies encouraged the proletarianization of the Arab peasantry and reinforced the wage gap between Jewish and Arab laborers.^{[141][page needed]} The mandate also included an article describing self-governing institutions intended only for the Jewish population of Palestine. No similar support or recognition was provided to the Palestinian majority at any point during the time of the mandate.^{[142][page needed]}

In contrast to the Jewish population, the Arabs did not benefit from any government protections such as social security, employment benefits, trade union protection, job security and training opportunities. Arab wages were one third of their Jewish counterparts (including when paid by the same employer).^{[141][page needed]} By enabling the Zionist institutions to serve as a parallel government to the Mandate, the British facilitated the separation of the economy and legitimized their quasi-state status. Accordingly, these institutions, which purported to act in the interests of Jews everywhere, were able to funnel resources into the Jewish sector in Palestine, heavily subsidizing the dominate Jewish economy; for example, over 80% of the JNF's income came from contributions.^{[141][page needed]}

Following the Balfour declaration, Jewish immigration to Palestine would grow from 9,149 immigrants in 1921 to 33,801 in 1925—by the end of the mandate period, the Jewish population in Palestine would have nearly tripled, eventually reaching one third of the country's population.^{[141][page needed]}

The nucleus of the Jewish quasi-state was the Histadrut, established in 1920 as an independent social, political and economic institution.^{[145][page needed][p]} The Histadrut also developed a military arm, the Haganah, which evolved into a permanent underground reserve army with a command structure integrated into the Jewish community's political institutions. Although the British authorities disapproved of the Haganah, particularly its method of stealing arms from British bases, they did not disband it.^{[111][page needed]} The Histadrut operated as a completely independent entity, without interference from the British mandate authorities. Ben-Gurion saw the Histadrut's detachment from socialist ideology to be one of its key strengths; indeed it was the General Organization of Workers in Israel. In particular, the Histadrut worked towards national unity and aimed to dominate the capitalist system en route to gaining political power, not to create a socialist utopia.^{[145][page needed]}

As secretary general of the Histadrut and leader of the Zionist labor movement, Ben-Gurion adopted similar strategies and objectives as Weizmann during this period, disagreeing primarily on issues of specific tactical moves up until 1939.^{[29][page needed]} The middle class grew dramatically in size with the arrival of the fourth aliyah in 1924, motivating a political shift within the labor movement.^[146] It was during this period that the political strategy of the labor movement would solidify.^{[145][page needed]} The founding of the Mapai party unified the labor movement, making it the dominant force. The labor party saw economic control as essential to facilitating Zionist settlement and achieving political power: "the economic question is not one of class; it is a national question."^[145] Indeed, the Mapai prioritized nationalism over socialism to the extent that the "only qualification required for membership in Mapai was not ideological commitment but possession of a Histadrut membership card."^{[145][page needed]} For Ben-Gurion, the transformation from "working class to nation" was intertwined with his rejection of diaspora life, as he would declare: the "weak, unproductive, parasitical Jewish masses" must be converted "to productive labor" in service of the nation.^[147]

For the Zionist movement, economic development and policies were a mechanism by which political aims could be achieved.^[145] A new economic sector exclusively for Jews, controlled by the Labor Zionist movement, was established with support from the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and the agricultural workers' Histadrut. The JNF and Histadrut aimed to remove land and labor from the market, effectively excluding Palestinian Arabs. Despite the universalist ideals of Zionist pioneering, this new Jewish economic sector was fundamentally based on exclusionary practices.^[65] Throughout the duration of the British Mandate, the labor movement was largely driven by the goal of achieving "100 percent of Hebrew labour." This was primary driver of the territorial, economic and social separation between Jews and Arabs.^{[29][page needed]}

The Zionist economic platform was partially based on the assumption (eventually demonstrated incorrect^[148]) that economic benefits to the Arabs of Palestine would pacify opposition to the movement. For the Zionist leadership, the economic status and development of the Arabs of Palestine should be compared with Arabs of other countries, rather than with the Jews of Palestine. Accordingly, disproportionate gains in Jewish development were be acceptable as long as the status of the Arab sector did not worsen. While British support for Zionist aspirations in Palestine established the parameters within which the Arab economy could develop, Zionist policies reinforced these limitations. Most notable are the exclusion of Arab labor from Jewish enterprise and the expulsion of Arab peasants from Jewish owned land. Both of these had limited impact in scope but reinforced the structural limitations put in place by British policies.^{[141][page needed]}

With the rise to power of the Nazis in 1933, the Jewish community was increasingly persecuted and driven out. The discriminatory immigration laws of the US, UK and other countries preferable to German Jews, led to, for example, in 1935 alone more than 60,000 Jews arriving in Palestine (more than the total number of Jews in Palestine as of the establishment of the Balfour declaration in 1917). Ben-Gurion would subsequently declare that immigration at this rate would allow for the maximalist Zionist goal of a Jewish state in all of Palestine.^{[136][page needed]} The Arab community openly pressured the mandatory government to restrict Jewish immigration and land purchases.^{[141][page needed]}

Sporadic attacks in the country-side (described by Zionists and the British as "banditry") reflected widespread anger over the Zionist land purchases that displaced local peasants. Meanwhile, in urban areas, protests against British rule and the increasing influence of the Zionist movement intensified and became more militant.^[142] The British appointed a commission of inquiry in 1937 in response to the revolt which recommended the partition of the land: annexation of most of Palestine to Transjordan and the designation of a small portion of land for a future Jewish state.^{[136][page needed]}

At this point, Jews owned 5.6% of the land in Palestine; the land allocated to the Jewish state would contain 40 percent of the country's fertile land.^{[141][page needed]} The commission also recommended the expulsion (or the euphemistic "compulsory transfer") of the Palestinian population from the land designated for the Jewish state.^[142] For Ben-Gurion, the transfer proposal was the most appealing recommendation put forward by the commission; he would write in his diary:

The compulsory transfer of the Arabs from the valleys of the proposed Jewish state could give us something which we never had, even when we stood on our own during the days of the First and Second Temples.… We are being given an opportunity which we never dared to dream of in our wildest imaginings. This is more than a state, government and sovereignty—this is national consolidation in a free homeland.^{[66][page needed]}

Much of the Zionist leadership spoke in strong support of the transfer plan, including Ussishkin, Ruppin and Katznelson. In giving their support for compulsory transfer, they asserted their stance that there is nothing immoral about it.^[q] Within the Zionist movement, two perspectives developed with respect to the partition proposal; the first was a complete rejection of partition, the second was acceptance of the idea of partition on the basis that it would eventually allow for expansion to all territories within "the boundaries of Zionist aspirations.".^{[149][page needed]} The revolt was inflamed by the partition proposal and continued until 1939 when it was forcefully suppressed by the British.^{[142][page needed]}

By the time of the 1936 Arab revolt, almost all groups within the Zionist movement wanted a Jewish state in Palestine, "whether they declared their intent or preferred to camouflage it, whether or not they perceived it as a political instrument, whether they saw sovereign independence as the prime aim, or accorded priority to the task of social construction."^{[28][page needed]} The main debates within the movement at this time were concerning partition of Palestine and the nature of the relationship with the British. The dominant feeling within the movement was that Jewish considerations took precedance over those of the Arabs and the Zionist movement was in a struggle for survival. From this perspective, the leadership believed that the movement could not afford to compromise.^{[28][page needed]}

According to Zionist historian Yosef Gorny, these considerations would drive the Zionist belief in the necessity of the use of force against the Arabs whose motives "were of no moral or historical significance."^{[28][page needed]} The intensity of the revolt, Britain's ambiguous support for the movement and the increasing threat against European Jewry during this period motivated the Zionist leadership to prioritize immediate considerations. The movement ultimately favored the notion of partition, primarily out of practical considerations and partially out of a belief that establishing a Jewish state over all of Palestine would remain an option.^{[28][page needed]} At the 1937 Zionist congress, the Zionist leadership adopted the stance that the land allocated to the Jewish state by the partition plan was inadequate—effectively rejecting the partition plan which faded away in the face of both Arab and Zionist opposition.^{[111][page needed]}

In 1939, a British White Paper would recommend limiting Jewish immigration and land purchase with the objective of maintaining the status quo while the threat of war loomed in Europe.^{[66][page needed][136][page needed]} This planned to allow no more than 75,000 additional Jewish migrants over a five-year period. With Nazi expansionism in Europe, the limits on immigration prompted further militarization, land takeover and illegal immigration efforts by the Zionist movement. The second world war broke out as the Zionists were developing their campaign against the White Paper—unable to accept the White Paper or to side against the British, the Zionist movement would ultimately support the British war effort while working to upend the White Paper.^{[111][page needed][r]} From the start of the second world war, the Zionists pressured the British to organize and train a Jewish "army," culminating in the establishment of a Jewish Brigade and accompanying blue and white flag.^{[66][page needed][28][page needed]} The development of this force would further train and enable the already substantial Zionist military capacity.^{[142][page needed][66][page needed][136][page needed]} The Haganah was allowed by the British to openly acquire weapons and worked with the British to prepare for a possible Axis invasion.^{[111][page needed]}

Despite the White Paper, Zionist immigration and settlement efforts continued during the war period. While immigration had previously been selective, once the details of the holocaust reached Palestine in 1942, selectivity was abandoned. The Zionist war effort focused on the survival and development of the Yishuv, with little Zionist resources being deployed in support of European Jews. Ben-Gurion in particular was primarily concerned with the impact the holocaust had on the Yishuv rather than on European Jewry.^[s] Many of those fleeing Nazi terror in Europe preferred to leave for the United States, however, strict American immigration policies and Zionist efforts led to 10% of the 3 million Jews leaving Europe to settle in Palestine.^{[136][page needed]}

In the Biltmore Program of 1942, the Zionist movement would openly declare for the first time its goal of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine.^{[66][page needed]} At this point, the United States, with its growing economy and unprecedented military force, became a focal point of Zionist political activity which engaged with the American electorate and politicians. US President Truman supported the Biltmore program for the duration of his time in office, largely motivated by humanitarian concerns and the growing influence of the Zionist lobby.^[111]

During World War II, as the horrors of the Holocaust became known, the Zionist leadership formulated the One Million Plan, a reduction from Ben-Gurion's previous target of two million immigrants. Following the end of the war, many stateless refugees, mainly Holocaust survivors, began migrating to Palestine in small boats in defiance of British rules. The Holocaust united much of the rest of world Jewry behind the Zionist project.^[151] The British either imprisoned these Jews in Cyprus or sent them to the British-controlled Allied Occupation Zones in Germany. The British, having faced Arab revolts, were now facing opposition by Zionist groups in Palestine for subsequent restrictions on Jewish immigration. In January 1946 the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, a joint British and American committee, was tasked to examine political, economic and social conditions in Mandatory Palestine and the well-being of the peoples now living there; to consult representatives of Arabs and Jews, and to make other recommendations 'as necessary' for an interim handling of these problems as well as for their eventual solution.^[152] Following the failure of the 1946–47 London Conference on Palestine, at which the United States refused to support the British leading to both the Morrison–Grady Plan and the Bevin Plan being rejected by all parties, the British decided to refer the question to the UN on February 14, 1947.^{[153][fn 1]}

Towards the end of the war, the Zionist leadership was motivated more than ever to establish a Jewish state. Since the British were no longer sponsoring its development, many Zionists considered it would be necessary to establish the state by force by upending the British position in Palestine. In this the IRA's tactics against Britain in the Irish War of Independence served as a both a model and source of inspiration.^[t] The Irgun, the military arm of the revisionist Zionists, led by Menachem Begin, and the Stern Gang, which at one point sought an alliance with the Nazis,^{[66][page needed]} would lead a series of terrorist attacks against the British starting in 1944. This included the King David Hotel bombing, British immigration and tax offices and police stations. It was only by the war's end that the Haganah joined in the sabotage against the British. The combined impact of US opinion and the attacks on British presence eventually led the British to refer the situation to the United Nations in 1947.^{[111][page needed]}

The UNSCOP found that Jews were a minority in Palestine, owning 6% of the total land. The urgency of the condition of the Jewish refugees in Europe motivated the committee to unanimously vote in favor of terminating the British mandate in Palestine. The disagreement came with regards to whether Palestine should be partitioned or if it should constitute a federal state. American lobbying efforts, pressuring UN delegates with the threat of withdrawal of US aid, eventually secured the General Assembly votes in favor of the partition of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states which was passed 29 November 1947.^[155]

Outbursts of violence slowly grew into a wider civil war between the Arabs and Zionist militias.^[156] By mid-December, the Haganah had shifted to a more "aggressive defense", abandoning notions of restraint it had espoused from 1936 to 1939. The Haganah reprisal raids were often disproportionate to the initial Arab offenses, which led to the spread of violence to previously unaffected areas. The Zionist militias, employed terror attacks against Arab civilian and militia centers. In response, Arabs planted bombs in Jewish civilian areas, particularly in Jerusalem.^{[66][page needed]}

The first expulsion of Palestinians began 12 days after the adoption of the UN resolution, and the first Palestinian village was eliminated a month later.^[157] In March 1948, Zionist forces began implementing Plan D, which warranted the expulsion of civilians and the destruction of Arab towns and villages in pursuit of eliminating potentially hostile Arab elements.^{[158][105][page needed][159][page needed]} According to Benny Morris Zionist forces committed 24 massacres of Palestinians in the ensuing war,^[160] in part as a form of psychological warfare, the most notorious of which is the Deir Yassin massacre. Between 1948 and 1949, 750,000 Palestinians would be driven out of their homes, primarily as a result of these expulsions and massacres.^{[136][page needed]}

The British left Palestine (having done little to maintain order) on May 14 as planned. The British did not facilitate a formal transfer of power;^[111] a fully functioning Jewish quasi-state had already been operating under the British for the past several decades.^[161] The same day, Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of the state of Israel.^{[111][page needed]} The Declaration of Independence of Israel described a democracy with equality of social and political rights for all citizens, and extended a peace offering to neighboring states and their Arab citizens. ^[162] Masalha notes that the declaration states equality on the basis of citizenship but not nationality.^[u]

The establishment of the State of Israel on 78% of historic Palestine, instead of the 55% outlined in the UN partition plan, resulted in the destruction of much of Palestinian society and the Arab landscape. This war, led by the Zionist Yishuv was framed by its leaders in biblical and messianic terms as a 'miraculous clearing of the land,' akin to the biblical War of Joshua. Masalha writes that it is not clear who the Yishuv was declaring independence from, as it was neither from the British colonial rule, which facilitated Jewish settlement against Palestinian wishes, nor from the land's indigenous inhabitants, who had long cultivated and owned it.^[44]

As part of the effort to consolidate its new ownership over the land it had taken over in the 1948 war, the Israeli state worked towards "erasing all traces of its former owners."^[163] The project of "Hebraization" of the map, for which the JNF Naming Committee was established,^[164] aimed to replace what remained of the Arab towns and villages with newly named Israeli settlements. These names were often based on the Arab names but with a "Hebrew pronunciation" or based on old Hebrew biblical names.^[163] This effort also sought to demonstrate continuous Jewish ownership over the land to ancient times.^[163] Moshe Dayan would later speak to the appropriation of Arab place names:

Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Hunefis; and Kefar Yehoshua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that didn’t have a former Arab population.^[164]

Prior to 1948, the Zionist movement had limited authority over the use of place names in Palestine. After 1948, the Zionist movement systematically eliminated mention of "Palestine" from the names of its organizations; for example, the Jewish Agency for Palestine, which played a critical role in the founding of the Israeli state in 1948 was renamed to the "Jewish Agency for Israel".^{[74][page needed]}

 

With the German invasion of the USSR in 1941, Stalin reversed his long-standing opposition to Zionism, and tried to mobilize worldwide Jewish support for the Soviet war effort. A Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee was set up in Moscow. Many thousands of Jewish refugees fled the Nazis and entered the Soviet Union during the war, where they reinvigorated Jewish religious activities and opened new synagogues.^[165] In May 1947 Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko told the United Nations that the USSR supported the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. The USSR formally voted that way in the UN in November 1947.^[166] However once Israel was established, Stalin reversed positions, favoured the Arabs, arrested the leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, and launched attacks on Jews in the USSR.^[167]

 

In 1947, the UN Special Committee on Palestine recommended that western Palestine should be partitioned into a Jewish state, an Arab state and a UN-controlled territory, Corpus separatum, around Jerusalem.^[168] 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 Jewish communities and protests in Arab communities throughout Palestine.^[169] Violence throughout the country, previously an Arab and Jewish insurgency against the British, Jewish-Arab communal violence, spiralled into the 1947–1949 Palestine war. According to various assessments of the UN, the conflict led to an exodus of 711,000 to 957,000 Palestinian Arabs,^[170] outside of Israel's territories. More than a quarter had already fled during the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, before the Israeli Declaration of Independence and the outbreak of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. After the 1949 Armistice Agreements, a series of laws passed by the first Israeli government prevented displaced Palestinians from claiming private property or returning on the state's territories. They and many of their descendants remain refugees supported by UNRWA.^[171][172]

 

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 Jewish migrants and refugees and, most importantly, in assisting Soviet Jews in their struggle with the authorities over the right to leave the USSR and to practice their religion in freedom, and the exodus of 850,000 Jews from the Arab world, mostly to Israel. In 1944–45, Ben-Gurion described the One Million Plan to foreign officials as being the "primary goal and top priority of the Zionist movement."^[173] The immigration restrictions of the British White Paper of 1939 meant that such a plan could not be put into large scale effect until the Israeli Declaration of Independence in May 1948. The new country's immigration policy had some opposition within the new Israeli government, such as those who argued that there was "no justification for organizing large-scale emigration among Jews whose lives were not in danger, particularly when the desire and motivation were not their own"^[174] as well as those who argued that the absorption process caused "undue hardship".^[175] However, the force of Ben-Gurion's influence and insistence ensured that his immigration policy was carried out.^[176][177]

The 1967 Six-Day War was followed by the emergence of "religious Zionism."^[178] The Israeli conquest of the West Bank, referred to by Zionists as Judea and Samaria, indicated to religious Zionists that they were living in a messianic era. For them, the war was a demonstration of the work of the Divine Hand and the "beginning of redemption." The rabbis following in this line of thought immediately began to venerate the land as sacred, making its sanctity a core principle of religious Zionism. Consequently, anyone willing to cede parts of this land was seen as a traitor to the Jewish people. This belief contributed to the religiously motivated assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, which was carried out with the approval of some Orthodox rabbis.^[105] Rabbi Kook, a main religious Zionist leader and thinker, would declare in 1967 following the Six Day War in the presence of Israeli leadership including the president, ministers, members of the Knesset, judges, chief rabbis and senior civil servants:

I tell you explicitly... that there is a prohibition in the Torah against giving up even an inch of our liberated land. There are no conquests here and we are not occupying foreign land; we are returning to our home, to the inheritance of our forefathers. There is no Arab land here, only the inheritance of our God—the more the world gets used to this thought the better it will be for it and for all of us.^[179]

For the religious Zionists, secular Zionism and secular state policies were holy: "The spirit of Israel... is so closely linked to the spirit of God that a Jewish nationalist, no matter how secularist his intention may be, is, despite himself, imbued with the divine spirit even against his own will."^{[103][full citation needed]} Religious Zionists view the settlement of the West Bank as a commandment of God, necessary for the redemption of the Jewish people.^[31]

The arrival of Zionist settlers to Palestine in the late 19th century is widely seen as the start of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.^{[180][181][182]} Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible.^[4] In response to Ben-Gurion's 1938 quote that "politically we are the aggressors and they [the Palestinians] defend themselves", Israeli historian Benny Morris says, "Ben-Gurion, of course, was right. Zionism was a colonizing and expansionist ideology and movement", and that "Zionist ideology and practice were necessarily and elementally expansionist." Morris describes the Zionist goal of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine as necessarily displacing and dispossessing the Arab population.^[108] The practical issue of establishing a Jewish state in a majority non-Jewish and Arab region was a fundamental issue for the Zionist movement.^[108] Zionists used the term "transfer" as a euphemism for the removal, or ethnic cleansing, of the Arab Palestinian population.^{[fn 2][183]} According to Benny Morris, "the idea of transferring the Arabs out... was seen as the chief means of assuring the stability of the 'Jewishness' of the proposed Jewish State".^[108]

In fact, the concept of forcibly removing the non-Jewish population from Palestine was a notion that garnered support across the entire spectrum of Zionist groups, including its farthest left factions,^{[fn 3]} from early on in the movement's development.^[184] The concept of transfer was not only seen as desirable but also as an ideal solution by the Zionist leadership.^{[41][185][186]} The notion of forcible transfer was so appealing to this leadership that it was considered the most attractive provision in the Peel Commission. Indeed, this sentiment was deeply ingrained to the extent that Ben Gurion's acceptance of partition was contingent upon the removal of the Palestinian population. He would go as far as to say that transfer was such an ideal solution that it "must happen some day". It was the right wing of the Zionist movement that put forward the main arguments against transfer, their objections being primarily on practical rather than moral grounds.^[31][187]

According to Morris, the idea of ethnically cleansing the land of Palestine was to play a large role in Zionist ideology from the inception of the movement. He explains that "transfer" was "inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism" and that a land which was primarily Arab could not be transformed into a Jewish state without displacing the Arab population.^[188] Further, the stability of the Jewish state could not be ensured given the Arab population's fear of displacement. He explains that this would be the primary source of conflict between the Zionist movement and the Arab population.^[183]

From the turn of the century until the Arab revolt of 1936, there was room for political flexibility within the Zionist movement. Even so, the ideological framework within which the movement operated constrained the political moves made by groups within the movement. A key tenant of this framework involved seeking the support of a Great Power through which to achieve the acquiescence of the Palestinians.^[28]

As head of the World Zionist Organization, Weizmann's policies had a sustained impact on the Zionist movement, with Abba Eban describing him as the dominant figure in Jewish life during the interwar period. According to Zionist Israeli historian Simha Flapan, the essential assumptions of Weizmann's strategy were later adopted by Ben-Gurion and subsequent Zionist (and Israeli) leaders. By replacing 'Great Britain' with 'United States' and 'Arab National Movement' with 'Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,' Weizmann's strategic concepts can be seen as reflective of Israel's current foreign policy. A key aspect of this strategy is the consistent non-recognition of the national rights of the Palestinian people as a basic element of Zionist policy towards the Arab issue.^[29]

Weizmann's ultimate goal was the establishment of a Jewish state, even beyond the borders of "Greater Israel." For Weizmann, Palestine was a Jewish and not an Arab country. The state he sought would contain the east bank of the Jordan River and extend from the Litani River (in present-day Lebanon). Weizmann's strategy involved incrementally approaching this goal over a long period, establishing "facts on the ground" as "faits accomplis" in the form of settlement expansion and land acquisition.^[29] Weizmann was open to the idea of Arabs and Jews jointly running Palestine through an elected council with equal representation, but he did not view the Arabs as equal partners in negotiations about the country's future. In particular, he was steadfast in his view of the "moral superiority" of the Jewish claim to Palestine over the Arab claim and believed these negotiations should be conducted solely between Britain and the Jews.^[105]

Ze'ev Jabotinsky founded the Revisionist Party in 1925 which took on a more militant ethos and openly maximalist agenda. Jabotinsky rejected Weizmann's strategy of incremental state building, instead preferring to immediately declare sovereignty over the entire region, which extended to both the East and West bank of the Jordan river.^[105] Like Weizmann and Herzl, Jabotinsky also believed that the support of a great power was essential to the success of Zionism. From early on, Jabotinksy openly rejected the possibility of a "voluntary agreement" with the Arabs of Palestine. He instead believed in building an "iron wall" of Jewish military force to break Arab resistance to Zionism, at which point an agreement could be established. The labor Zionists promoted immigration and settlement, establishing "facts", as the main path towards statebuilding. Later, Ben-Gurion would recognize the national character of Arab rejection of Zionism and concluded that only war, not an agreement, would resolve the conflict.^[105]

In the same year Brit-Shalom was established, an ultimately marginal group which promoted Arab-Jewish cooperation.^[28]

 

In Labor Zionist thought, a revolution of the Jewish soul and society was necessary and achievable in part by Jews moving to Israel and becoming farmers, workers, and soldiers in a country of their own. Labor Zionists established rural communes in Israel called "kibbutzim"^[190] which began as a variation on a "national farm" scheme, a form of cooperative agriculture where the Jewish National Fund hired Jewish workers under trained supervision. The kibbutzim were a symbol of the Second Aliyah in that they put great emphasis on communalism and egalitarianism, representing Utopian socialism to a certain extent. Furthermore, they stressed self-sufficiency, which became an essential aspect of Labor Zionism.^[191][192]

Traditionalist Israeli historian Anita Shapira describes labor Zionism's use of violence against Palestinians for political means as essentially the same as that of radical conservative Zionist groups. For example, Shapira notes that during the 1936 Palestine revolt, the Irgun Zvai Leumi engaged in the "uninhibited use of terror", "mass indiscriminate killings of the aged, women and children", "attacks against British without any consideration of possible injuries to innocent bystanders, and the murder of British in cold blood". Shapira argues that there were only marginal differences in military behavior between the Irgun and the labor Zionist Palmah. In following with policies laid out by Ben-Gurion, the prevalent method among field squads was that if an Arab gang had used a village as a hideout, it was considered acceptable to hold the entire village collectively responsible. The lines delineating what was acceptable and unacceptable while dealing with these villagers were "vague and intentionally blurred". As Shapira suggests, these ambiguous limits practically did not differ from those of the openly terrorist group, Irgun.^[193]

Labor Zionism became the dominant force in the political and economic life of the Yishuv during the British Mandate of Palestine and was the dominant ideology of the political establishment in Israel until the 1977 election when the Israeli Labor Party was defeated. The Israeli Labor Party continues the tradition, although the most popular party in the kibbutzim is Meretz.^[194] Labor Zionism's main institution is the Histadrut (general organisation of labor unions), which began by providing strikebreakers against a Palestinian worker's strike in 1920 and until 1970s was the largest employer in Israel after the Israeli government.^[195]

 

General Zionism (or Liberal Zionism) was initially the dominant trend within the Zionist movement from the First Zionist Congress in 1897 until after the First World War. General Zionists identified with the liberal European middle class to which many Zionist leaders such as Herzl and Chaim Weizmann aspired. Liberal Zionism, although not associated with any single party in modern Israel, remains a strong trend in Israeli politics advocating free market principles, democracy and adherence to human rights. Their political arm was one of the ancestors of the modern-day Likud. Kadima, the main centrist party during the 2000s that split from Likud and is now defunct, however, did identify with many of the fundamental policies of Liberal Zionist ideology, advocating among other things the need for Palestinian statehood in order to form a more democratic society in Israel, affirming the free market, and calling for equal rights for Arab citizens of Israel. In 2013, Ari Shavit suggested that the success of the then-new Yesh Atid party (representing secular, middle-class interests) embodied the success of "the new General Zionists."^{[196][better source needed]}

Philosopher Carlo Strenger describes a modern-day version of Liberal Zionism (supporting his vision of "Knowledge-Nation Israel"), rooted in the original ideology of Herzl and Ahad Ha'am, that stands in contrast to both the romantic nationalism of the right and the Netzah Yisrael of the ultra-Orthodox. It is marked by a concern for democratic values and human rights, freedom to criticize government policies without accusations of disloyalty, and rejection of excessive religious influence in public life. "Liberal Zionism celebrates the most authentic traits of the Jewish tradition: the willingness for incisive debate; the contrarian spirit of davka; the refusal to bow to authoritarianism."^[197][198] Liberal Zionists see that "Jewish history shows that Jews need and are entitled to a nation-state of their own. But they also think that this state must be a liberal democracy, which means that there must be strict equality before the law independent of religion, ethnicity or gender."^[199]

 

Revisionist Zionists, led by Ze'ev Jabotinsky, believed that a Jewish state must expand to both sides of the Jordan River, i.e. taking Transjordan in addition to all of Palestine.^[200][201] The movement developed what became known as Nationalist Zionism, whose guiding principles were outlined in the 1923 essay Iron Wall, a term denoting the force needed to prevent Palestinian resistance against colonization.^[202] Jabotinsky wrote that

Zionism is a colonising adventure and it therefore stands or falls by the question of armed force. It is important to build, it is important to speak Hebrew, but, unfortunately, it is even more important to be able to shoot—or else I am through with playing at colonization.

— Zeev Jabotinsky^[203][204]

Historian Avi Shlaim describes Jabotinsky's perspective^[205]

Although the Jews originated in the East, they belonged to the West culturally, morally, and spiritually. Zionism was conceived by Jabotinsky not as the return of the Jews to their spiritual homeland but as an offshoot or implant of Western civilization in the East. This worldview translated into a geostrategic conception in which Zionism was to be permanently allied with European colonialism against all the Arabs in the eastern Mediterranean.

In 1935 the Revisionists left the WZO because it refused to state that the creation of a Jewish state was an objective of Zionism.^{[citation needed]} According to Israeli historian Yosef Gorny, the Revisionists remained within the ideological mainstream of the Zionist movement even after this split.^[28] The Revisionists advocated the formation of a Jewish Army in Palestine to force the Arab population to accept mass Jewish migration.

Supporters of Revisionist Zionism developed the Likud Party in Israel, which has dominated most governments since 1977. It advocates Israel's maintaining control of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and takes a hard-line approach in the Arab–Israeli conflict. In 2005, the Likud split over the issue of creation of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories. Party members advocating peace talks helped form the Kadima Party.^[206]

Religious Zionism is a variant of Zionist ideology that combines religious conservatism and secular nationalism into a theology with patriotism as its basis. In this vein, Religious Zionism reinvents the meaning of Jewish traditions in service of the nation.^[207] Before the establishment of the state of Israel, Religious Zionists were mainly observant Jews who supported Zionist efforts to build a Jewish state in the Land of Israel. One of the core ideas in Religious Zionism is the belief that the ingathering of exiles in the Land of Israel and the establishment of Israel is Atchalta De'Geulah ("the beginning of the redemption"), the initial stage of the geula.^[208]

After the Six-Day War and the capture of the West Bank, a territory referred to in Jewish terms as Judea and Samaria, right-wing components of the Religious Zionist movement integrated nationalist revindication and evolved into what is sometimes known as Neo-Zionism. Their ideology revolves around three pillars: the Land of Israel, the People of Israel and the Torah of Israel.^[209]

The French government, through Minister M. Cambon, formally committed itself to "... the renaissance of the Jewish nationality in that Land from which the people of Israel were exiled so many centuries ago."^[210]

In China, top figures of the Nationalist government, including Sun Yat-sen, expressed their sympathy with the aspirations of the Jewish people for a National Home.^[211]

Christian Zionism is primarily driven by the belief that the return of Jews to the Holy Land will either lead to their conversion to Christianity or their destruction. This belief is criticized by Gershom Gorenberg in his book "The End of Days," where he highlights the troubling aspect of this messianic scenario—the disappearance of Jews. Evangelical figures like Jerry Falwell believe the establishment of Israel is a pivotal event signaling the Second Coming of Christ and the eventual End of the World. As a result, Christian Zionists have significantly contributed politically and financially to Israeli nationalist forces, with the understanding that Israel's role is to facilitate the Second Coming of Christ and the elimination of Judaism.^[212]

Some Christians actively supported the return of Jews to Palestine even prior to the rise of Zionism, as well as subsequently. Anita Shapira, a history professor emerita at Tel Aviv University, suggests that evangelical Christian restorationists of the 1840s "passed this notion on to Jewish circles".^[213] Evangelical Christian anticipation of and political lobbying within the UK for Restorationism was widespread in the 1820s and common beforehand.^[214] It was common among the Puritans to anticipate and frequently to pray for a Jewish return to their homeland.^{[215][216][217]}

One of the principal Protestant teachers who promoted the biblical doctrine that the Jews would return to their national homeland was John Nelson Darby. His doctrine of dispensationalism is credited with promoting Zionism, following his 11 lectures on the hopes of the church, the Jew and the gentile given in Geneva in 1840.^[218] However, others like C H Spurgeon,^[219] both Horatius^[220] and Andrew Bonar, Robert Murray M'Chyene,^[221] and J C Ryle^[222] were among a number of prominent proponents of both the importance and significance of a Jewish return, who were not dispensationalist. Pro-Zionist views were embraced by many evangelicals and also affected international foreign policy.

The Russian Orthodox ideologue Hippolytus Lutostansky, also known as the author of multiple antisemitic tracts, insisted in 1911 that Russian Jews should be "helped" to move to Palestine "as their rightful place is in their former kingdom of Palestine".^[223]

Notable early supporters of Zionism include British Prime Ministers David Lloyd George and Arthur Balfour, American President Woodrow Wilson and British Major-General Orde Wingate, whose activities in support of Zionism led the British Army to ban him from ever serving in Palestine. According to Charles Merkley of Carleton University, Christian Zionism strengthened significantly after the Six-Day War of 1967, and many dispensationalist and non-dispensationalist evangelical Christians, especially Christians in the United States, now strongly support Zionism.^{[citation needed]}

In the last years of his life, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, Joseph Smith, declared, "the time for Jews to return to the land of Israel is now." In 1842, Smith sent Orson Hyde, an Apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, to Jerusalem to dedicate the land for the return of the Jews.^[224]

Some Arab Christians publicly supporting Israel include US author Nonie Darwish, and former Muslim Magdi Allam, author of Viva Israele,^[225] both born in Egypt. Brigitte Gabriel, a Lebanese-born Christian US journalist and founder of the American Congress for Truth, urges Americans to "fearlessly speak out in defense of America, Israel and Western civilization".^[226]

The largest Zionist organisation is Christians United for Israel, which has 10 million members and is led by John Hagee.^{[227][228][229]}

 

Muslims who have publicly defended Zionism include Tawfik Hamid, Islamic thinker and reformer^[231] and former member of al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, an Islamist militant group that is designated as a terrorist organization by the European Union^[232] and United Kingdom,^[233] Sheikh Prof. Abdul Hadi Palazzi, Director of the Cultural Institute of the Italian Islamic Community^[234] and Tashbih Sayyed, a Pakistani-American scholar, journalist, and author.^[235]

While most Israeli Druze identify as ethnically Arab,^[236] today, tens of thousands of Israeli Druze belong to "Druze Zionist" movements.^[230]

During the Palestine Mandate era, As'ad Shukeiri, a Muslim scholar ('alim) of the Acre area, and the father of PLO founder Ahmad Shukeiri, rejected the values of the Palestinian Arab national movement and was opposed to the anti-Zionist movement.^[237] He met routinely with Zionist officials and had a part in every pro-Zionist Arab organization from the beginning of the British Mandate, publicly rejecting Mohammad Amin al-Husayni's use of Islam to attack Zionism.^[238]

After Israel's creation in 1948, the Indian National Congress government opposed Zionism. Some writers have claimed that this was done in order to get more Muslim votes in India (where Muslims numbered over 30 million at the time).^[239] Zionism, seen as a national liberation movement for the repatriation of the Jewish people to their homeland then under British colonial rule, appealed to many Hindu nationalists, who viewed their struggle for independence from British rule and the Partition of India as national liberation for long-oppressed Hindus.^{[citation needed]}

An international opinion survey has shown that India is the most pro-Israel country in the world.^[240] In more current times, conservative Indian parties and organizations tend to support Zionism.^[241] This has invited attacks on the Hindutva movement by parts of the Indian left opposed to Zionism, and allegations that Hindus are conspiring with the "Jewish Lobby."^[242]

 

Zionism has been opposed by a wide variety of organizations and individuals. In 1919, the US-based King–Crane Commission found that the subjection of Palestinians to Zionist rule was a violation of the principle of self-determination. The report stated that "The initial claim, often submitted by Zionist representatives, that they have a 'right' to Palestine based on occupation of two thousand years ago, can barely be seriously considered."^[244][245]

Today, opponents include Palestinian nationalists, several states of the Arab League and in the Muslim world, some secular, Satmar and Neturei Karta Jews.^{[246][247][248][249]} Reasons for opposing Zionism have been varied, and they include: fundamental disagreement that foreign born Jews have rights of resettlement, the perception that land confiscations are unfair; expulsions of Palestinians; violence against Palestinians; and alleged racism.^{[250][251][252]} Arab states in particular have historically strongly opposed Zionism.^[253] The preamble of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, which has been ratified by 53 African countries as of 2014^[update], includes an undertaking to eliminate Zionism together with other practices including colonialism, neo-colonialism, apartheid, "aggressive foreign military bases" and all forms of discrimination.^[254][255]

In 1945 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt met with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia. Ibn Saud pointed out that it was Germany who had committed crimes against the Jews and so Germany should be punished. Palestinian Arabs had done no harm to European Jews and did not deserve to be punished by losing their land. Roosevelt on return to the US concluded that Israel "could only be established and maintained by force."^[256]

Shortly after the First Zionist Congress, the semi-official Vatican periodical (edited by the Jesuits) Civiltà Cattolica gave its biblical-theological judgement on political Zionism: "1827 years have passed since the prediction of Jesus of Nazareth was fulfilled ... that [after the destruction of Jerusalem] the Jews would be led away to be slaves among all the nations and that they would remain in the dispersion [diaspora, galut] until the end of the world."^[257] The Jews should not be permitted to return to Palestine with sovereignty: "According to the Sacred Scriptures, the Jewish people must always live dispersed and vagabondo [vagrant, wandering] among the other nations, so that they may render witness to Christ not only by the Scriptures ... but by their very existence".^[257]

Nonetheless, Theodor Herzl travelled to Rome in late January 1904, after the sixth Zionist Congress (August 1903) and six months before his death, looking for support. On January 22, Herzl first met the Papal Secretary of State, Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val. According to Herzl's private diary notes, the Cardinal's interpretation of the history of Israel was the same as that of the Catholic Church, but he also asked for the conversion of the Jews to Catholicism. Three days later, Herzl met Pope Pius X, who replied to his request of support for a Jewish return to Israel in the same terms, saying that "we are unable to favor this movement. We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem, but we could never sanction it ... The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people." In 1922, the same periodical published a piece by its Viennese correspondent, "anti-Semitism is nothing but the absolutely necessary and natural reaction to the Jews' arrogance... Catholic anti-Semitism—while never going beyond the moral law—adopts all necessary means to emancipate the Christian people from the abuse they suffer from their sworn enemy".^[258] This initial attitude changed over the next 50 years, until 1997, when at the Vatican symposium of that year, Pope John Paul II rejected the Christian roots of antisemitism, stating that "... the wrong and unjust interpretations of the New Testament relating to the Jewish people and their supposed guilt [in Christ's death] circulated for too long, engendering sentiments of hostility toward this people."^[259]

 

Zionism is often considered to be an example of a colonial^[13] or racist^[14] movement. According to historian Avi Shlaim, throughout its history up to present day, Zionism "is replete with manifestations of deep hostility and contempt towards the indigenous population." Shlaim balances this by pointing out that there have always been individuals within the Zionist movement that have criticized such attitudes. He cites the example of Ahad Ha'am, who after visiting Palestine in 1891, published a series of articles criticizing the aggressive behaviour and political ethnocentrism of Zionist settlers. Ha'am reportedly wrote that the Yishuv "behave towards the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, trespass unjustly upon their boundaries, beat them shamefully without reason and even brag about it, and nobody stands to check this contemptible and dangerous tendency" and that they believed that "the only language that the Arabs understand is that of force."^[260] Some criticisms of Zionism claim that Judaism's notion of the "chosen people" is the source of racism in Zionism,^[261] despite, according to Gustavo Perednik, that being a religious concept unrelated to Zionism.^[262] This characterization of Zionism as a colonialism has been made by, among others, Gershon Shafir, Michael Prior, Ilan Pappe, and Baruch Kimmerling.^[13] Noam Chomsky, John P. Quigly, Nur Masalha, and Cheryl Rubenberg have criticized Zionism, saying that it unfairly confiscates land and expels Palestinians.^[263] Isaac Deutscher has called Israelis the 'Prussians of the Middle East', who have achieved a 'totsieg', a 'victorious rush into the grave' as a result of dispossessing 1.5 million Palestinians. Israel had become the 'last remaining colonial power' of the twentieth century.^[264] Saleh Abdel Jawad, Nur Masalha, Michael Prior, Ian Lustick, and John Rose have criticized Zionism for having been responsible for violence against Palestinians, such as the Deir Yassin massacre, Sabra and Shatila massacre, and Cave of the Patriarchs massacre.^[265]

Edward Said and Michael Prior claim that the notion of expelling the Palestinians was an early component of Zionism, citing Herzl's diary from 1895 which states "we shall endeavour to expel the poor population across the border unnoticed—the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly."^[266] Derek Penslar says that Herzl may have been considering either South America or Palestine when he wrote the diary entry about expropriation.^[267] According to Walter Laqueur, although many Zionists proposed transfer, it was never official Zionist policy and in 1918 Ben-Gurion "emphatically rejected" it.^[268]

The exodus of the Arab Palestinians during the 1947–1949 war has been controversially described as having involved ethnic cleansing.^[269][270] According to a growing consensus between 'new historians' in Israel and Palestinian historians, expulsion and destruction of villages played a major role in creating the Palestinian refugee problem.^[271][272] While some traditionalist scholars such as Efraim Karsh state that most of the Arabs who fled left of their own accord or were pressured to leave by their fellow Arabs (and that Israel attempted to convince them to stay),^[273][274] the scholarly consensus now dismisses this claim,^[275] and as such, Benny Morris concurs that Arab instigation was not the major cause of the refugees' flight,^[276] and state that the major cause of Palestinian flight was instead military actions by the Israeli Defence Force and fear of them and that Arab instigation can only explain a small part of the exodus and not a large part of it.^[277] Ilan Pappe said that Zionism resulted in ethnic cleansing.^[278] This view diverges from other New Historians, such as Benny Morris, who place the Palestinian exodus in the context of war, not ethnic cleansing.^[279] When Benny Morris was asked about the Expulsion of Palestinians from Lydda and Ramle, he responded "There are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing. I know that this term is completely negative in the discourse of the 21st century, but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide—the annihilation of your people—I prefer ethnic cleansing."^[280]

In 1938, Mahatma Gandhi said in the letter "The Jews", that the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine must be performed by non-violence against the Arabs, comparing it to the Partition of India into Hindu and Muslim countries. He proposed to the Jews to "offer themselves to be shot or thrown into the Dead Sea without raising a little finger against them".^[281] He expressed his "sympathy" for the Jewish aspirations, but said: "The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?"^{[282][better source needed]} and warned them against violence: "It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs ... Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home ... They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart".^[283] Gandhi later told American journalist Louis Fischer in 1946 that "Jews have a good case in Palestine. If the Arabs have a claim to Palestine, the Jews have a prior claim".^[284] He expressed himself again in 1946, nuancing his views: "Hitherto I have refrained practically from saying anything in public regarding the Jew-Arab controversy. I have done so for good reasons. That does not mean any want of interest in the question, but it does mean that I do not consider myself sufficiently equipped with knowledge for the purpose". He concluded: "If they were to adopt the matchless weapon of non-violence ... their case would be the world's and I have no doubt that among the many things that the Jews have given to the world, this would be the best and the brightest".^{[285][better source needed]}

In December 1973, the UN passed a series of resolutions condemning South Africa and included a reference to an "unholy alliance between Portuguese colonialism, Apartheid and Zionism."^[286] At the time there was little cooperation between Israel and South Africa,^[287] although the two countries would develop a close relationship during the 1970s.^[288] Parallels have also been drawn between aspects of South Africa's apartheid regime and certain Israeli policies toward the Palestinians, which are seen as manifestations of racism in Zionist thinking.^[289]

In 1975 the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 3379, which said "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination". According to the resolution, "any doctrine of racial differentiation of superiority is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust, and dangerous." The resolution named the occupied territory of Palestine, Zimbabwe, and South Africa as examples of racist regimes. Resolution 3379 was pioneered by the Soviet Union and passed with numerical support from Arab and African states amidst accusations that Israel was supportive of the apartheid regime in South Africa.^[290] In 1991 the resolution was repealed with UN General Assembly Resolution 46/86,^{[291][better source needed]} after Israel declared that it would only participate in the Madrid Conference of 1991 if the resolution were revoked.^[292]

Arab countries sought to associate Zionism with racism in connection with a 2001 UN conference on racism, which took place in Durban, South Africa,^[293] which caused the United States and Israel to walk away from the conference as a response. The final text of the conference did not connect Zionism with racism. A human rights forum arranged in connection with the conference, on the other hand, did equate Zionism with racism and censured Israel for what it called "racist crimes, including acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing".^[294]

Haredi Jews number some 2,100,000 world-wide, constituting 14% of the total Jewish population in the world.^[295] Most accept the secular Israeli state.^[296] A small number of Orthodox organizations among these Haredi reject Zionism as they view it as a secular movement and reject nationalism as a doctrine. in Jerusalem, certain Hasidic groups, most famously the Satmar Hasidim, as well as the larger movement they are part of, the Edah HaChareidis, are opposed to its ideology for religious reasons. Despite having his life saved by a leader of the Zionist movement in 1944, one of the best known Hasidic opponents of political Zionism was Hungarian rebbe and Talmudic scholar Joel Teitelbaum.^[297] Although this group of ultra-observant Jews do not support or identify with Zionism as a movement or ideology, in a poll taken in February 2024, 83% said they have a "very strong emotional connection" to Israel, only a small percentage less than the 87% of Modern Orthodox Jews who reported having those same feelings.^[298]

 

The Neturei Karta, a tiny Orthodox Haredi sect, is considered "the most radical of the Extreme Orthodox groups", which overall have a membership in Israel of 10,000 to 12,000 individuals.^[299] Some of its members have said that Israel is a "racist regime",^[300] compared Zionists to Nazis,^[301] claimed that Zionism is contrary to the teachings of the Torah,^[302] or accused it of promoting antisemitism.^[303] According to the Jewish Chronicle, their approximately 5,000 members worldwide make up about 0.03 percent of the world's Jewish population.^[304]

Critics of anti-Zionism have argued that opposition to Zionism can be hard to distinguish from antisemitism,^[305][306] and that criticism of Israel may be used as an excuse to express viewpoints that might otherwise be considered antisemitic.^[307][308] In discussion of the relationship between antisemitism and anti-Zionism, "one theory holds that anti-Zionism is no more than veiled anti-Semitism". This is contrasted with the theory "that criticism of Israeli politics has been discredited as anti-Zionism, and thus linked with anti-Semitism, in order to prevent such criticism".^[309]

According to Thomas Mitchell, the terms Jewish and Zionist are at times used interchangeably by some Arab leadership, a perspective that has been influenced by the introduction of European antisemitism into the Arab world in the 1930s and 1940s by the Axis powers. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has always positioned itself as being anti-Zionist rather than antisemitic, although its leadership have in a few instances used the terms interchangeably.^[310]

Anti-Zionist writers such as Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Michael Marder, and Tariq Ali have argued that the characterization of anti-Zionism as antisemitic obscures legitimate criticism of Israel's policies and actions, and that it is used as a political ploy in order to stifle legitimate criticism of Israel.

• Jewish American linguist Noam Chomsky argues: "There have long been efforts to identify anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in an effort to exploit anti-racist sentiment for political ends; 'one of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all,' Israeli diplomat Abba Eban argued, in a typical expression of this intellectually and morally disreputable position (Eban, Congress Bi-Weekly, March 30, 1973). But that no longer suffices. It is now necessary to identify criticism of Israeli policies as anti-Semitism—or in the case of Jews, as 'self-hatred,' so that all possible cases are covered." – Chomsky, 1989 "Necessary Illusions
• Philosopher Michael Marder argues: "To deconstruct Zionism is ... to demand justice for its victims—not only for the Palestinians, who are suffering from it, but also for the anti-Zionist Jews, 'erased' from the officially consecrated account of Zionist history. By deconstructing its ideology, we shed light on the context it strives to repress and on the violence it legitimises with a mix of theological or metaphysical reasoning and affective appeals to historical guilt for the undeniably horrific persecution of Jewish people in Europe and elsewhere."^[311]
• Jewish American political scientist Norman Finkelstein argues that anti-Zionism and often just criticism of Israeli policies have been conflated with antisemitism, sometimes called new antisemitism for political gain: "Whenever Israel faces a public relations débâcle such as the Intifada or international pressure to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict, American Jewish organizations orchestrate this extravaganza called the 'new anti-Semitism.' The purpose is several-fold. First, it is to discredit any charges by claiming the person is an anti-Semite. It's to turn Jews into the victims, so that the victims are not the Palestinians any longer. As people like Abraham Foxman of the ADL put it, the Jews are being threatened by a new holocaust. It's a role reversal—the Jews are now the victims, not the Palestinians. So it serves the function of discrediting the people leveling the charge. It's no longer Israel that needs to leave the Occupied Territories; it's the Arabs who need to free themselves of the anti-Semitism."^[312]

According to Joseph Massad, Zionism was connected with European colonial thought from early on in its development. Massad describes anti-semitism and a shared interest in the colonial project as the basis of the collaboration between Jewish and non-Jewish Zionists during the beginning of the movement's development. He argues that the collaboration between the Zionist movement and European imperialism was essential to the movement's development.^{[v][313][page needed]} In this vein, Gershon Shafir describes the use of violence by a colonial metropole as essential to settler colonization. Shafir defines settler-colonialism as the creation of a permanent home in which settlers benefit from privileges withheld from the indigenous population. He describes colonization, the establishment of settlements against the wishes of the indigenous people, as the distinctive characteristic of settler colonialism.^{[314][page needed]}

Shafir distinguishes between the pre-1948 era and the post-1967 era in the sense that after 1967, the Israeli state became the sponsor of the Zionist movement's colonial efforts, a role which had previously been played by the British.^{[314][page needed]} For Shafir, Jerome Slater and Shlomo Ben-Ami, after the Israeli conquest of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967, the Zionist movement more closely resembled other colonial movements.^{[314][page needed][315][page needed][31][page needed]} Similarly, Avi Shlaim describes 1967 as a milestone in the development of the "Zionist colonial project" rather than as a qualitative shift in its nature.^{[316][page needed]} Ze'ev Sternhell agrees that Zionism was a movement of "conquest" from the outset, but disagrees that Jews arriving in Palestine had a colonial mindset.^[w] The conquest of 1967 was, for Sternhell, the first time the Zionist movement created a "colonial situation."^{[317][page needed]} Israeli historian Yitzhak Sternberg cites Sivan, Halamish and Efrat as similarly describing 1967 as a turning point in which Zionism became involved in colonial efforts.^{[318][page needed]}

Shafir and Morris both further distinguish between Zionist colonialism during the First Aliyah and following the arrival of the Second Aliyah. Shafir describes the First Aliyah as following the ethnic plantation colony model, exploiting low wage Palestinian workers.^{[314][page needed]} Morris describes this relationship:

These Jews were not colonists in the usual sense of sons or agents of an imperial mother country, projecting its power beyond the seas and exploiting Third World natural resources. But the settlements of the First Aliyah were still colonial, with white Europeans living amid and employing a mass of relatively impoverished natives.^{[66][page needed]}

The "pure settlement colonies" of the Second Aliyah and its exclusion of Palestinian labor, Shafir says "did not originate from opposition to colonialism," but instead out of a desire to secure employment for Jewish settlers.^[314] Similarly, Morris and traditionalist historian Anita Shapira describe the labor Zionist rejection of the ethnic plantation model as motivated by practical as well as moral justifications, stemming from their socialist outlook.^{[319][320][x]} For Shapira, studying Zionism as a colonial movement is "both legitimate and desirable," comparable to colonialism in North America and Australia. She argues that the settler-colonial framing may help "clarify the relations between the settling nation and the native one."^{[319][page needed]}

Sternberg argues that it is important to clearly distinguish between colonization and colonialism as concepts.^{[318][page needed]} For Shafir, "colonization, namely territorial dispossession and the settlement of immigrant populations," cannot happen without colonialism and "the means of violence of a colonial metropole." In contrast, Sternberg considers classical definitions of colonization as broad enough to include cases which did not require the dispossession of the native population.^{[314][page needed]}

Tuvia Friling depicts the Zionist movement as operating differently from colonial movements in terms of land acquisition. Specifically, the Zionist movement acquired land in the early years by purchasing it.^{[321][page needed]} Sternberg in contrast explains that it was not unique for colonial movements to purchase land as part of land acquisition, pointing to similarities in North American colonialism.^{[318][page needed]} Friling argues that in contrast to European colonial projects, the early Zionist leadership was dominated by the labor movement with a socialist ethos.^{[321][page needed]} Shafir points to ideological drives in American and Rhodesian settler colonies which developed in service of the colonial project. Similarly, Shafir says, the Zionist labor movement used socialist ideals largely in service of the national movement.^{[314][page needed]}

Sternhell rejects the depiction of the Zionist settlers arriving in Palestine as colonialists. In response to the argument that Zionism could not be a colonial project, but should instead be described as a project of immigration, Shafir quotes Veracini "behind the persecuted, the migrant, even the refugee... behind his labor and hardship." Shafir goes on to characterize Zionism as not unique, in the sense that "[t]he ruthless ethnic cleanser is commonly hidden behind the peaceful settler who arrived in an 'empty land' to start a new life."^{[314][page needed]}

Alan Dowty describes the debate over the relationship between Zionism and colonialism as essentially a discussion of "semantics." He defines colonialism as the imposition of control by a "mother country" on another people, for economic gain or for the spreading of culture or religion. Dowty argues that Zionism does not fit this definition on the basis that "there was... no mother country" and that Zionism did not consider the local population in its plans.^{[322][page needed][323]} Efraim Karsh adopts a similar definition and similarly concludes that Zionism is not colonialism.^{[324][page needed]} Dowty elaborates that Zionism did not control the local population since it ultimately failed to remove the native people from Palestine.^{[322][page needed]} In his assessment of whether Zionism is colonialism, Penslar works with a broader definition of colonialism than Dowty, which allows for the country sponsoring the colonial enterprise to be different from the country of origin of the settlers.^[325]

Zionism has also been framed as national liberation movement. Masalha cites the Zionist relationship with the British in arguing that Zionism could not be understood in terms of national liberation. Specifically, he says that despite the tensions between the Zionists and the British, "the State of Israel owes its very existence to the British colonial power in Palestine."^[179] Shapira and Ben-Ami emphasize the importance of the Zionist ethos, describing Zionism as a national liberation movement that was "destined" or "forced" to use colonial methods.^{[319][page needed][31][page needed]}

In his work on Zionism, Edward Said described the movement as following the European colonial model. According to Said, Zionism's alliances with the Great Powers and its patronizing attitude toward the native Palestinian population, whom it regarded as backward, were consistent with other colonial projects. For Said, Zionists dismissed native resistance as either driven by primitive emotions or manipulated by elite figures, inherently refusing to recognize Palestinians as a people with their own desires and rights.^[326] In a similar vein, Penslar, who considers Zionism within the settler-colonial frame, writes that the clearest connection between Zionism and colonialism is in the perception of the Palestinians and the Zionist movement's practices towards them.^[327] He also describes the Zionists as perceiving Palestinians as backward and primitive, seeing themselves as forming a "rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism."^[328]

Beyond characterizing it as a colonial movement, Zionism has been more recently described as a form of settler colonialism, with proponents of this paradigm including Edward Said, Rashid Khalidi, Noam Chomsky, Ilan Pappe, Fayez Sayegh, Maxime Rodinson, George Jabbour, Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, Baha Abu-Laban, Jamil Hilal, and Rosemary Sayigh.^[329][330]

The settler colonial framework on the conflict emerged in the 1960s during the decolonization of Africa and the Middle East, and re-emerged in Israeli academia in the 1990s led by Israeli and Palestinian scholars, particularly the New Historians, who refuted some of Israel's foundational myths.^[331][y] It built on the work of Patrick Wolfe, an influential theorist of settler colonial studies who has defined settler colonialism as an ongoing "structure, not an event" aimed at replacing a native population rather than exploiting it.^{[332][333][334]}

Rachel Busbridge says the framework's subsequent popularity is inseparable from frustration at the stagnation of that process and resulting Western left-wing sympathy for Palestinian nationalism. Busbridge writes that while a settler colonial analysis "offers a far more accurate portrayal of the conflict than...has conventionally been painted", Wolfe's zero-sum approach is limited in practical application because almost all Israeli Jews naturally reject it, as a form of antisemitism that denies their long-standing history in the land of Israel and aspirations for self-determination.^[335][336]