Corrupt government, conspiracy, new world order, no future.

This is a very lengthy article and you may want to print it and read at you leisure, however the copious links would not be available in print out.

It would be hard nowadays to determine the date Britain intended to colonize the near east but the historian Philip thought that since the 16^th century England showed a special interest in colonizing the Ottoman empire for its commercial relations with India, the near and far east.

However, since the beginning of the 19^th century, the British companies in India started in 1809 organized naval trips to Sues Canal and Basra. [Bernard Lewis, “The Arab in History”, p169].

In addition, the occupation of Egypt by the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798 and his attempt to capture Syria (included Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan), military campaigns aimed at threatening the British Colonial Empire in India and expanding the sovereignty of the French Colonial Empire.

Therefore, the French campaign was regarded as a turning point that had a great effect on the British colonial policy.

After the end of the campaign, Britain began to conclude agreements with the princes and leaders of the Arab peninsula’s states (from Aden to Kuwait). It dominated the strategic and economic locations to avert any attack on India, the pearl of the British Empire.

The British forces assisted the Ottomans to evacuate the French forces from Egypt in 1801.

In 1807 the British general Frazier attempted to occupy Egypt but his attempt failed for being defeated by the Egyptian forces in Al Rasheed area and the British army was obliged to fall back to their military bases.

Some historians believed that the real purpose behind Britain’s occupation of Egypt was just a matter of reconnaissance and consolidation of the British economic strategy regarding the internal developments that occurred in Egypt. Such developments constricted the Mamluke’s leverage, Britain deemed as her alliance.

In the coeval period between the years 1831-1840, Egypt witnessed the reign of Mohammed Ali and his successor Ibrahim who aimed at establishing a great Arab state.

During that time, England evinced her avarice to usurp Egypt and tried to resist the developing Arab state which extended from Egypt to the borders of Asia Minor.

Moreover, Britain joined forces with the Ottoman state and the European Colonial states to expel the Egyptian forces from Syria.

In 1840, the British forces performed an effective role in retreating Ibrahim Al Masri forces from Syria.

The historian George Antonio indicated that Britain’s resistance and refusal of establishing an Arab state was one of the substantial factors that caused her fiasco.

He wrote:” the serious clash between Mohammed Ali and the British colonialism was inevitable because of the first British hegemony on Egypt and the Arab peninsula which are located on the most significant trade roads. at the same time, Mohammed Ali had a great evaluation of the English trade”.

On the same level, the British foreign minister Palmerton sent a letter to Britain’s ambassador to Naples 21 March 1833, writing:” Mohammed Ali’s actual aim was establishing an Arab kingdom embracing all the Arab-tongue countries. This project may contribute in dividing Turkey where there is no excuse for an Arab king to be supplanted of Turkey in controlling India’s road”. (Page 21-22).

The British Colonialism adopts the Zionists concepts before the emergence of the Zionist movement.

Nahum Solokuv, one of the Zionist movement founders, manifested the relation between the establishment of an Arab state and Britain’s adoption of a Zionist concept before the creation of any Zionist organization.

He said:” When the Zionist movement originated, it brought to existence Palestine’s question. (After the intervention of the European countries to save the Ottoman state and turning back Ibrahim’s forces to Egypt).

The idea of annexing Acre and Cyprus to the British Empire was merely prevalent among the British public opinion for Britain did occupy Acre well-fortified location”.

In addition Nahum adduced several instances concerning many British Politicians who called for the Jewish settlement in Palestine.(“The history of Zionism, the 1^st volume, p104).

For instance, in 25 Sep 1840, concerning the Syrian question, the British foreign minister Palmerton suggested the establishment of a British colony (Dominion) in Syria.

He added “The area is in need of money and work and the Jews longing for return to Syria and if there were laws that achieved equality in the area, this would eliminate the Hebrew’s doubts and push them to offer their hidden capabilities”.( The second volume p 229).

During the period between 1840 and 1876, several British writers and politicians such as the Colonel Charles Henry Churchill (1814-1877) - one of the British leaders who fought the Egyptian forces in Syria 1840 - handled the eastern question and asserted the followings:

1. The necessity of occupying the near east esp. Syria (including Palestine).

2. Using the Jews as a mean to occupy Palestine or Syria, so that Britain would impose domination on the area and protect India’s road.

Moreover, Sir Austen Henry Layered (1817-1894), a member of the English parliament, said in one of his orations concerning the eastern question:” We should be aware that if Egypt was one of the ways that leads to India, Syria would be the state controlling Euphrates and Tigris as well as tyrannizing India”. (a collection of his speeches about the Turkish or eastern question, p10, published in English in 1857).

The Colonel George Growler (1796-1869), south Australia governor, delivered a speech in 25 Jan 1853, stating:” Fate brought Syria and Egypt to be located between Britain and her trade centers in India, China, the Indian archipelago and Australia. The usurpation of both countries by any other state, would threaten Britain’s trade relations.

The above statements assured the efficiency of the colonialist motive in urging the English writers and politicians to call for expanding the British leverage on east Syria (Palestine) and settling the Jewish people in Syria as a means of grasping it.

During the same period where the colonialist concept found a great concern in the near east, several international crises took place. For instance, the attempt of Mohammed Ali and his son Ibrahim to establish an Arab state in Syria and Egypt as well as the question concerning the digging of Sues Canal and the tension created.

The British writer Harass Killen criticized this fact in his book “Zionism and the international policy”, where he wrote:” The idea of creating Israel could be real with regard to the practical policy and the religious standard (Believing in the Jew’s return to Palestine and in the resurrection of the Christ). The idea widely propagated in Britain and France among the Jewish people.

However, Killen reminded of the conflict between the French colonial policy and the British colonial policy on Palestine as a result of the “Israeli reanimation”.

According to Hongorth who wrote in 1952 in England (postscripts about the situation of the Jews in Palestine), the real aim behind the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine wasn’t human or rightful but was political”.

Several endeavors were made in order to ease the Anglo-French tension. The British historian Henry Dennett suggested the establishment of an international eastern association internationally advocated, whose mission is to grant the east an agricultural, industrial and commercial aid, esp. Palestine, in collaboration with the Israelis and affirmed by the British and French decision makers. (The history of Zionism, 2^nd volume, p2).

Henry noticed that the British enthusiasm to the Jewish settling idea lessened in the 2^nd half of the 19^th century while it renovated in the 20^th century.

Lenin, a Russian communist ruler, illustrated this phenomenon in his genius studies” Imperialism is the maximal level of materialism”.

He thought that the British bourgeoisie politicians were against colonialism.

Britain, who did colonize several areas before, wasn’t thinking during that period of occupying new areas but resuming her colonial policy that began since the 17^th century where Britain under that colonial cover would be able to protect her commercial welfares.

Solokov asserted that the colonization of the Syrian territory resulted in increasing the British trade revenue and defense forces.( The history of Zionism, 1^st volume, p 105 -106).

In addition there is another purpose behind occupying Syria that is the international balance.

It was regarded as improbable to carry out changes concerning the conditions of the Ottoman state, the thing that may grant any of the colonial states privileges more than the other.

Therefore, the international stability appeared in the two occasions that witnessed the flare up of the war between Tsarian Russia and the Ottomans.

The first occasion- known as Crimean war (1854-1856) where the Russians defeated the Ottomans at the beginning but when Britain, France, Sardinia joined the Ottomans in the battlefield and the victory of Russia turned to rout.

In addition, Paris conference was convened in 1865 to recognize the “integrity of the Ottoman Sultanate”.

In the second occasion, Tsarian Russia defeated The Ottoman state in 1876 during which Russia imposed on the Ottomans the famous treaty” San Stefano”.

Whereas Britain succeeded in enlisting several European countries and obliged Russia to be a member in Berlin’s conference and to accept all the results esp. reinstating all the occupied areas to the Ottoman Sultanate.

John Berding described in his book" A report on Syria" the Jews of Damascus as wealthy merchants and he added that most of the business establishments dealt with Britain.

Solokov thought that several political factors impelled Britain to protect the Jews from the Ottoman Sultanate during the 19^th century, a period that witnessed the spread of the Zionist colonial concept.

Dr. Edward Robinson (1797-1863) shed light on the necessities of Britain's policy throughout his book "Torah excavations in Palestine" where he wrote: "Long time ago, France was the protector of the Catholic religion (Roman Catholic)….The descendants of the Orthodox Church found in the Russians powerful advocators….But there were no partials to Britain in any part of the Ottoman Empire".

However, Britain intended to defend the Ottoman Sultanate for it targeted at dividing the latter's patrimony in the near east. In addition Britain pretended to be the defender of any sect because she's in a dire need of a cult to face Russia and France.

Several questions were raised about the lessening of the calls for reanimating Israel in the last quarter of the 19^th century.

Lenin cleared out that the period 1840-1860 was a scene of commercial rivalry and which give rise to the belief that the emancipation of the colonies (precisely settlements) is a predestined matter.

They were deemed as obstacles hampering the expansion and development of trade. Lenin added that colonial concept became imperial and the accomplishment of the world division is one of the imperial features.

For this reason, the strife of the colonial and imperial states on settlements became so aggravated. Therefore, during the last quarter of the 19^th century esp. after the opening of Sue's canal in 1869, the Imperial struggle on the Ottoman Sultanate intensified.

The conflict between Britain and France on the near east was extremely violent. The real conflict wasn't on the leverage or economic locations but on the territories themselves because when occupying a territory, the dominant state could control its potencies and markets.

Actually, Britain did concentrate her efforts to usurp Egypt and succeeded in 1882 where France succeeded in capturing Tunisia one year before.

In his book" The diplomatic history in the international advancement in Europe", David Hill partitioned the history of the international policy - practiced by Britain in 1870 - to four stages:

It's worth mentioning that during the period of unrestrained competition, Britain was in need of the idea concerning the reanimation of Israel. While at the end of the 19^th century, she was in dispense with it when being in strife with France where the challenge field was in Egypt and Africa.

The Jewish ideologist Nathan Birnnabawm was the first to use the term Zionism derived from the word Zion. The main target of Zionism is to reunite the Jewish people in Palestine.

The Jews believe that the Savoir Christ will come in the last days to return them all to the promise land and rule the world from Zion Mount. The Zionists attempted to put into effect this religious conviction into a political program and apply the heavenly slogans to earthly emblems.

However, despite the various Zionist trends (right and left, religious and atheistic, socialist and capitalist). All the Zionist trends hold the idea of The Jewish people which means that the Jewish people don’t compose a religious minority with different racial and national affiliations but a nation, distant from its real home The Promised Land, Palestine.

The Zionists believe that the Jews suffered racial discrimination and loss of Jewish identity as a result of being in Diaspora.

Therefore, they think that the only solution for the Jewish dilemma, with its social and psychological dimensions, is through settling in Palestine.

They considered that the roots of the Zionist movement – or the national Judaism as they call it – is related to Judaism itself, and the history after the shattering of their temple on the hands of the Romans, is a history of a banished nation waiting for redemption and salvation .

The Learners of Judaism are aware that the foundation of the Jewish state is rooted in Torah and according to the religious conviction, it can’t be fulfilled on the hands of any Political movement such as: the World Zionist Organization because such attempt exemplifies heresy and blasphemy.

That’s why when the Zionist Movement appeared, it was denied by all Jewish organizations, for instance, the Nattori Cartta group whose main center is located in the United States.

The Jews derived their aspirations from a lesson they had learned in the past. They construed what is stated in Torah to their own convictions and they also believed that their ancestors lost the Holy Land because of their sins and abandonment of God.

Judaism in its essence is a covenant, even if it differs from one generation to another; it remains the same because God promised them the land and a prosperous living.

But in return the Jews must cling to morality and faith, the same as the Profits of God explained in all ages.

However, the religious Zionism differs from the political one whose members decided in Basel Conference 1897 to return to the holy land and didn’t wait for any divine miracle.

Whereas the religious Zionism didn’t see a way of return in any political conference or even in the aftermath of the Holocaust or the Nazis Camps.

Pragmatically, it is hard to translate religious Zionism to an active political movement and accordingly the religious Zionists consider the creation of Israel as null because it is based on a political order and not on the fulfillment of the divine promise.

However, several sayings and stands explained the religious Orthodox point of view in the Batesburg petition in 1885 which states: we’re not a nation but religions groups and that’s why we don’t expect any return to Palestine.

Its philosophy of national Judaism springs from the priority of the moral and cultural heritage as well as Hebrew language.

Despite the importance given for reuniting the Jews in Palestine, it refused the claim of the Political Zionism on the pretext of violating and aggravating Semitism and the deteriorated political and economical circumstances that surrounded the Jews.

Instead, it realized that the great menace for the Jews’ survival till the last decade of the 19^th century lies in the internal weakness of the Jewish societies and the loss of the sense of unity as well as feigning adherence to traditional values, ideals and hopes.

Before the appearance of Herzl, a great number of Jewish thinkers such as: Moses Hess and Pirez Smolenskin asserted on the importance of the cultural factor in arousing the Jewish national spirit.

Moreover, the Zionist cultural concepts were developed by the virtue of Ahad Ha’am who used to emphasize Hebrew language and historical values as well as taking an advantage from the European countries endeavor of independence that started intellectually by Separating Languages from Latin which boosts the national feeling of the people, flourish the sense of their entity and pushed them to revolt for the sake of freedom.

Mr. Ha’am criticized those who sought settlement in Palestine through his essay The Wrong Road published in1889 where he said: there is no hope for the success of settling in Palestine by deluding the arriving people. Instead, they must awaken the people’s patriotism and love for Zionism because this will boost their spirit to overcome all difficulties.

Ahad Ha’am launched media- warfare at Basel Conference, and accused Herzl of neglecting the cultural aspect by which Ha’am considered it’s revival as the only guarantee against the absorption of Jews in the societies. In addition, he is afraid that the diplomatic campaign may spoil things early.

After the leadership of Herzl and his political program, the practical Zionists realized that the running of the Diplomatic activity after promises and international assurances as a waste of time. So, they disagreed with Herzl and limited their efforts to develop the illegitimate settlements in Palestine and encourage immigration to impose facts on the grounds.

Nevertheless, this doesn’t deny the existence of the Pragmatic Zionism that can be seen in the activities of the Zionism Lovers Society movement.

An idiom used to differentiate between the Zionism Lovers Society which depend on the wealthy Jews and the appearance of Herzl’s political platform which transformed the concepts of Judaism to a Political agenda and created an organized movement limited in both: means and targets.

The Pioneers of Zionism esp. Pinsker who laid the foundations outset the callings that were regarded the main urge in creating Political Zionism and in 1897 it was emanated by Herzl.

In other words, Zionism was found in a world of notions, until Herzl came and turned those notions to active political movements. Herzl was aware of the benefits he’s going to acquire from the schemes of the Western Imperialism – through his attempt to colonize Palestine – regarding the break up of the Ottoman Empire and the raging strew of the imperialists to settling in Palestine.

Herzl didn’t have the chance except during the First World War when the Arabs clarify their intentions to attain unity and independence, the thing that threaten the imperial welfares. As a result, this period witnessed the making of Balfour’s declaration and the appearance of the Zionist British Imperial marriage. On the other hand, the Political Zionism influenced all the Zionist trends.

The socialist Zionists concentrated on the social and economic aspects and not on the religion. Perhaps the most important trends of the social Zionism was found in Gordon School. The School advocates the new concepts of the national Judaism.

The Pioneers of the Second Jewish Immigration started to establish socialist organizations such as: Zion Laborers, The Youth Laborer and The Young Guard. Those organizations which became later main socialist parties - composed of Zionist settlers – brought political and economic organizations such as: the Hestdrot, kibbutz, Haganah and Palmach. Such organizations formalized all the necessary means to invade Palestine.

There are other Zionist trends, did not succeed for many reasons, one of the main reasons was the domination of the Political Zionism on the advancement of the Zionist ideology that brought to reality the main goal of Zionism that is the creation of Israel. There are other various trends of this political Zionism such as: The Regional Zionism, The Revisal Zionism, The Reconciliation Zionism, Diaspora Zionism, The Radical Zionism, The General Zionism and Colonial Zionism.

The Zionist movement took from religion a reason to demand a national home for the Jews in Palestine at a time where nationalism represented the European era. Meanwhile, Zionism appeared as a contemporary example of the national state.

The creation of Israel was and still the main strategic goal of the Zionist movement in order to dominate the Middle East. The Zionist movement worked hard to encourage the immigration to Israel. The main goal of the Zionist movement was obvious from the very beginning which is expelling the Palestinian natives even by adopting any Machiavellian ways. Either by rubbing the land or through conspiring with the ruling authorities such as: the Ottomans or the British. Besides, they attempted to buy the land from Arab brokers by resorting to tricks and imposing pressures.

The movement earmarked on an enormous amount of money for the settling purpose to facilitate the immigration of the Jews to Palestine.

The Zionist movement searched for a great colonial power to adopt its goals by the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. Thus Zionism adopted two schemes: Some Zionist leaders thought that Germany would win the war, and hence they should begin negotiations to ensure Germany’s approval for Zionist covetousness in Palestine. Other Zionist leaders considered Britain as the new ally of Zionism that would strengthen them for being the greatest colonial power.

Consequently, the second idea was mostly preferable and the Zionist leaders who lived in Britain hastened to clarify the necessity of creating a Zionist state in Palestine.

This period witnessed development of many events as well as the issuing of Balfour Declaration in the 2^nd of November 1917.

The Zionist movement exploited the occasion of the First World War and stood firm by the Allies to carry out its political goals.

The first official declaration issued by the Zionist leaders, was prior to Britain’s declaration of the war on Germany.

However, when Britain declared war on Germany in 29 August 1939, Weizmann a Zionist leader assured the British Prime Minister, Chamberlain that the Jews will join Britain in the war.

Moreover, the Jewish Agency demanded an independent army to support the British army but the Mandatory Government didn’t agree at first because forming such army would strengthen the Jews’ position and hence, agitate Arabs hostility. The Agency insisted on the demand especially after the entry of Italy to the war in June 1940.

Furthermore, the alliance of ‘Al Hajj Alhusini’ with Germany brought the Jews closer to Britain and the Allies. In September 1940, a Palestinian force was composed of Arab and Jews.

Moreover, an agreement was assigned between the ‘Haganah’ and the leadership of the Middle East under which the ‘Haganah’ cooperated in the private operations, in case Germany invaded Palestine. Accordingly, the ‘Haganah’ was armed and trained on the Guerrilla-warfare. In addition a legitimacy defense description was granted to 15 thousands of Jews composing the guards of settlements. While those who were voluntarily enlisted in the British army reached 27 thousands.

On the International level, the World Zionist Movement still resuming its activities during the war and took from the United States a new political place. It was merely clear that the Zionists started to propagate their callings in the American grounds instead of the British.

The first marked evidence was choosing ‘New York’ city for holding the Biltmore conference which was called by the Extraordinary Zionist Conference from 6 may to 11May 1942.

Moreover, another conference was held in October 1942 which aimed at uniting the Jewish American Organization for sustaining Biltmore’s program.

As a result of its succession, Zionism saw herself as representing the overwhelming majority of the American Jews and it struggled in order to gain the Public American Opinion.

1. The back up of 33 American states’ Legislative Councils for the Zionist program.

2.A great number of American clergymen, deputies, scholars and senators advocated the Zionist program.

Meanwhile, a great number of petitions started to flow at the offices of the American Presidency.

The peak of this heavy activity was the memorandum presented by the Senators and the deputies in December 1942 demanding the reconstruction of the Jewish national homeland.

The Government didn’t issue any official pledge during that year, taking into consideration the Allies welfares in war, especially in the lower East and North Africa where the Arab natives stood against Zionism.

After being sure of the ultimate victory, the United States firmly and openly supported the Zionist Movement.

Concerning immigration, the American president Franklin Roosevelt declared in the 6 of March: “The American Government didn’t at all agree on the White Paper of the year 1939 and me the President so satisfied because the gates of Palestine are widely opened for the Jewish refugees.”

In the middle of the election race, Zionism succeeded to give a special support of its goals to the election programs concerning the Democratic and Republic parties.

Finally, the unanimous decision issued by the Congress in January 1945 assured the full American advocation. The decision approved the Jewish immigration to Palestine’ and the creation of a national homeland for the Jews.

On the British official level, the Zionist pressures led the standing parties to take a new move.

For instance, the real move of the liberal party was nullifying the White Paper and encouraging the immigration to Palestine. While the labor Party appealed for more. It called for Arab’s evacuation from Palestine and widening the borders of actual Palestine, the things that the Zionist Movement itself didn’t dare to demand openly.

Thus, just as soon as the Second World War ended, the Zionist Movement got a new American Balfour and this was its glorious political victory.

Moreover, the Zionist Movement accomplished most of its military preparations, including: trainings, weapons and supplies.

This was its greatest military victory that came before the Palestinian war “Nakba” 3 years or more.

Since the 2nd century A.D, the number of the Jews living in Palestine was trivial in one period and negligible in the other.

King Hadrian a Roman ruler exercised harsh measures against the Jews and the prevented them from entering Jerusalem in 135 A.D that caused their dispersion.

But wherever they dispersed or settled, they’d lived as ethnic religious groups. Undoubtedly, their economic and social conditions were contrast with respect to the place and time.

Despite the tyranny of Hadrian, a few number of Jews stayed in Palestine during his reign. They looked at the Roman rule as a nightmare threatening them but later they were liberated by the Arab Moslems. This fact was admitted by the foreign historians and Jewish intellectuals even though they mentioned it through short sentences, as stated in the Jewish Encyclopaedia:” The first stage of the Arabian conquer ( 638-1100 A.D) was a salvation for the Hebron Jews and for the others in Palestine, in the wake of the arbitrary Byzantine reign.”

While during the rule of the Ottomans, Mamlukes and Ayyobians they lived in peace. In addition, a number of Jews escaped to Palestine for being persecuted in Spain and Portugal.

The Ottoman Empire welcomed them where they became one of its citizens and under its protection. But due to the fact that the Jews of Spain (the Sephardim) outnumbered the Jews of Palestine, the new comers were able to absorb the natives and spread their Latin tongue among them.

Therefore, since the 16th and 17th centuries, the Jews of Palestine became to be known as the Sephardim.

Since his arrival to Palestine (1474-1546), the Spanish Rabbi Pirap was calling for the establishment of a Supreme Religious Authority for the Jews but his attempt failed.

Joseph Nassi, a privileged banker by the Ottoman Palace, managed in 1565 to attain a piece of land near Tiberius and settled some immigrants knitting woven fabrics.

Since the 17th century, the Sephardim elected a chief Rabbi called Richton Ltseon meaning (The First Zionist).

In 1842, the Ottoman government awarded the highest rabbi an official rank, a power to issue the judicial rules concerning the disputations between the Jews and the authority to choose his assistants from the Jewish judges. He had an official designation same as the senior leaders in Jerusalem. In addition, he represented the Jewish sect in all relations with the Christian sects. As a result, the Ottomans set him an office, close to the offices of the Christian priests.

The new Ottoman regulations had notable influence on the Jewish sect in Palestine after the issuing of the famous Hallihamayan law in 1856. The Jews of Europe (the Ashkenazim) infiltrated into Palestine, under the protection of the foreign consulates.

Their infiltration was striking to the Jews of Palestine (the Sephardim) who didn’t welcome the new comers but this caused no troubles at first because of the Sephardim’s numerous numbers. But due to the augmentation of the Ashkenazim’s numbers, troubles were great esp. that the Ottomans recognized only the senior rabbi of the Sephardim while ignored the others.

Most of the Sephardim were poor and residing particularly in cities which the Jews deemed as sacred throughout their history in Palestine, those cities were: Jerusalem, Tiberius, Safad and Hebron.

The Sephardim mainly survived on charities which were sent from abroad, the handouts of the wealthy people and almsgiving.

Sir Moses Monteviori found out that only 500 Jews lived in the area between “Tel AlKadi” northern Palestine and “Beer Shiva” at the south. Those Jews were suffering from poverty and deterioration.

It is a translation for the Hebrew term “Hovivi Tesseon”, a dub given to the Zionist societies established in Russia 1881 after the issuing of April Laws that restrained the Jewish minority in the period 1881-1883, which by turn hindered the movement of the immigrants coming from Russia, Polonius and Romania to Palestine (1st emigration 1881-1904).

The main goal of the Zion Lovers Society’s movement was fighting the Jews’ merging in the societies and “going back to Zion”. It also adopted a slogan “to Palestine” and encouraged emigration in order to buy the lands in Palestine as well as supported the Jewish settling right there.

The Zion Lovers Society’s movement linked between what is called the Pioneers of Zionism in the middle of the 19th century as well as the beginning of the political Zionism with the appearance of Theodore Herzl and the convening of the first Zionist conference in 1897.

The epoch that came before the emergance of this movement, witnessed a flow of different ideas and projects created by many characters such as: the rabbis: Calisher, Al Kley and Hess. In addition to the authors: David Gordon, Pierz and Smolenski.

This period witnessed the establishment of several Jewish associations working on settlement in Palestine.

Those associations shared the same idea that the Jews won’t be relieved unless they go back to “Zion”.

This movement widely spread among the Jewsh population in Russia, Western Europe, Romania and the United States. Even if some of its members felt afraid of suspecting their patriotism and of their ambiguous loyalty. An educational theoretical trait dominated the movement in the west and middle of Europe. On the other hand, it tried hard to strife merging laid the foundations of the Zionist political movement accompanied with the Herzl’s arrival at the forum of Zionism.

The movement tried to express its ideas specifically and give it a national peculiarity: dreaming to get rid of banishment, animating the national life, spreading the Hebrew education, returning to the land and nature, creating an economic life and putting an end to the Jewish roaming.

The Zion Lovers Society was developed on the hands of Leon Pinsker in his book “Auto emancipation” where he pointed out that the Jews aren’t only mere religious groups but an independent nation.

Their relief from persecution could be attained if they liberated themselves by themselves in order to live independently and share a liberal national life in Palestine or elsewhere.

With the appearance of Herzl as well as the establishment of the World Zionist Organization, most of the Zion Lovers Society’s associations and their activists acceded to the Zionist Movement.

The Zion Lovers Society resumed its practical activities, for instance: they established settlements in Palestine and offered aids to the Hebrew schools. In 1900 a special delegation headed by Ahad Aham, went to Palestine in order to examine the settlement conditions.

Another delegation asked the Baron Rot shield to cancel the employee’s trusteeship on the Jewish Yishuv in Palestine and to introduce some changes in the management of the settling affaires.

The Society offered many contributions to the situated settlements and encouraged the establishing of more.

In August 1882 many were constructed such as: Rishon Litseon, Roshbena, Jasod Hamalah to the west of Al Hula lake northern Palestine and Zmarine which was known later as Zcaron Jacob for immortalizing the memory of the Baron’s father after he pledged to accord a monetary aid to the settlement. The Zion Lovers Society association spent 87 thousand sterling pounds on the construction of settlements in Palestine till the end of the 1st emigration in 1903.

Herzl’s efforts succeeded in convening the first Zionist conference in Basle city-Switzerland 29/8/1897. The conference accomplished two resolutions:

-The establishment of the World Zionist Organization to implement “the aim of Zionism is creating a national homeland for the Jews in Palestine guaranteed by the General Law.”

The organization established in 1901 the Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemet) and set up the Zionist Bank known as “The Jewish Colonial Trust” with several branches to finance the activities and projects of Zionism.

At the end of the World War I, the World Zionist Organization was reorganized and completed the establishment of Keren Hayesod (the principal financial institution) specialized in financing emigration and settlement activities.

The out breakage of the World War II in 1939 caused the undermining of the Zionist Organization’s conditions. Furthermore, it succeeded in executing its programs effectively and increased the number of the Jews in Palestine from 80 thousand (equals 11% of the native’s total number in 1922) to 650 thousand (equals 33.3% of the native’s total number in 1948) by the virtue of the American and British uphold, despite the Palestinians strives.

After the year 1947 many political developments took place in the United Nations and Palestine. The Zionist Organization established a national council as a parliament of the coming Zionist state as well as a national administration as the government of the state.

It was founded in 1891 as a philanthropic association whose main goal was” working on the development of the immigration concerning the poverty-stricken Jews from Europe because of being vanquished and deprived of their own political rights, to any other place where they could enjoy their human rights.

The association was established by the initiative of the Baron” Morris de Hirsh”, a Jewish business man and a banker of a German nationality who lived in France, mingling with the colonial and monopolistic medias supporting the Zionist projects.

In 1893 as a joint-stock company, the association listed its 1st capital of 2 millions SP in London which increased to 8 millions.

Its administration council, headed by the Baron Hirsh, was composed of Jewish personalities correlating with the capital monopolies in Britain, Belgium, France and Germany.

One of the council’s prominent figures was Baron Edmund De Rot Shield who became the supervisor of the Jewish settlement’s affaires in Palestine and set up a special service for this purpose under his control in Hebron city (1886-1890).

At the beginning, the Association intended to settle the Russian and Eastern European Jews, in agricultural settlements in the North and South America esp. Argentina, where it got 750 thousand hectares to house about 3500 Jewish families who emigrated from Western Europe. The number of its members ranged between 35 and 40 thousand.

The activity of the Jewish colonial association began since 1896 when it replaced Rot shield’s administration in supervising the Jewish settlements built in Palestine then. For this purpose, a fund was established under the influence of De Hirsh, including 15 millions francs as a capital.

The association offered aids in the form of loans to the settlements. In addition, it started to buy lands in order to construct new Jewish settlements in Palestine since 1900 and established se4veral settlements in the eastern Lower Galilee area as well as Tiberius.

Its activities last till the year 1923, for it started working under the title of “The Jewish Colonial Association in Palestine-Peeka” and classified its efforts in the settling field, in cooperation with the Jewish Agencies institutions and the World Zionist Organization. However, it turned to work independently in 1929.

Since the creation of Israel, the Jewish Colonial Association concentrated its efforts in sharing both the Israeli Government and the Jewish agency the settlement’s affaires as well as contributed in the establishment of 41 settlements till the year 1968.

Moreover, it offered a contribution to encourage the agricultural researches in the Hebrew University and Weitzman’s Academy for Science. It also aimed at improving the agrarian trainings at Israel Macavi School.

The association participated in the labors of the Jewish American associations “Hayes” and “Joint” which helped the Jews who were refrained from emigrating to Israel esp. helping the Jews of the Soviet Union entering the United States.

This term was used by the Zionist historians to name a certain trend whose members were enthusiastic young men came to Palestine during the 2nd immigration (1904-1914) to work as farmers at the Zionist settlements.

Zionist sources say the majority were part of the Russian revolutionary groups affected by the socialist and radical thoughts which were familiar among the different political organizations in Russia.

It is said that the real motives behind forming this trend was the result of the calamities that took place in Russia in1905, disturbances against the Jews and the disappointment in working out the Jewish problem in the overseas.

The Zionist historians supposed that the Pioneer did have adventurous characteristics. The first is self-sacrifice; he is able to deprive himself and to live as an ascetic. This wasn’t for the sake of deprivation itself but as duty for the group. The second represented in his deep concern of the agrarian labors and handicraft in general. The third was his attempt in reviving both the Hebrew language and education and concentrating on the effective contribution in the aspects of the social life and its activities. This mixture of different designations shaped the dynamic parts of the pioneers’ image.

The Halotseem called for rejecting the life of Diaspora or the Jews merging in their authentic societies. The main goals of the Halotseem were concise in three matters:

Developing the Hebrew language, work and land. Thus, a call for occupying the land and practicing the Hebrew labors, both became conspicuous during the second immigration period.

The Halotseem took part in the emergence of the auto-guarding concept concerning the Zionist settlements in Palestine.

The idea of establishing the kibbutz farms was the core of the Zionist military regulations established in Palestine, starting with Hasho-meer organization in 1921 and other military organization from which the Israeli army emanated in 1948.

It is known as the Jewish National Fund. The Jewish Math Scholar Herman Shabera (1884) suggested its establishment at the 1st Zionist conference (1847) but he didn’t get any approval until the sixth Zionist conference (1903).

Its establishment decision stipulated that its financial activities must be limited to the ownership lands for the purpose of settling the Jews in the areas including: Palestine, Syria, Asian Turkey and Siena peninsula. Those countries were considered as the Jews perpetual possessions and it was illegal to buy the lands. The only possible way was renting them.

At first, the fund was centered in Vienna and many branches were established in different parts of the world. Later it took Colin city (Germany) as its centre.

In 1907, the fund was registered as a British company and due to the eruption of the 1st world war; its location was transferred to Hugo city-Poland. In 1922 the main office was transferred to Jerusalem city.

At the end of the year 1947, its activities were seizing 933,000 dunums from an area of 1,734,000 dunums owned by the Jews then and estimated as 6.6% of Palestine’s total area (26,305,000 dunums).

At the beginning of 1954, the Knesset reformulated the location of the fund. It decided to enclose it in the lands under the control of the Israeli government.

Moreover, the funds missions were modified and the missions were directed toward the reclamation of lands, tree-planting and giving more aid for the new immigrants by offering jobs and health services for them.

In August 1961, an agreement was made in order to organize the relation between the Jewish National Fund and the Israeli government to specify the missions and financial sources concerning the donations of the Jews and the revenues of the rented estates.

It is the basic fund whose establishment was approved during the Zionist conference convened in London July 1920 for the purpose of colonizing Palestine.

A preparative fund was created immediately after Balfour’s declaration in 02/11/1917 and which accumulated 130,000 sterling pounds in 2 years. Actually the basic fund was established after the convening of the World Zionist conference in London.

The goal of its establishment was collecting funds to finance immigration and the settlement’s affaires because they were the fundamental means to develop and colonize the country to create a national homeland for the Jews.

Accordingly, the donations were regarded as an annual compulsory tax paid by the Jews. The official election of the fund’s administration associated with the World Zionist Organization and later with the Jewish Agency.

The fund transferred the money to the Histadrut and in the Jewish Agency. However, the actual raising of money began since the end of the year 1921 and the project was known as “The Saving Fund” which collected 760 thousand Pounds. This fund was also called the Jewish Unified Levy.

Since the 2nd World War, this fund served in the construction of 203 agrarian settlements on an area of 661 thousand dunums, settling 77,000 Jews.

It served in the establishment of the Regional Water Companies and the Distilled Water Company “Mokrot”. It also contributed in the development of Tel Aviv harbor, the Navigation Company” Tseem”, Aviron airline- known later as El Al airline- the Power Plant and the Potash Company.

Beside, financing the educational, health and social labors in the settlements by means of the Jewish Agency. The Keren Hayesod was regarded as the greatest Jewish association for fund-raising in the world. The following numbers show importance and major activities before and after the creation of Israel. It collected till the year 1948 about 26,716,000 pounds. While after the creation of Israel, the sum increased to 1,620,000,000 US$ (92% of the total amount collected since its foundation).

Known as the National Committee, it’s the council which supported the Zionist existence in Palestine in the period between the date of its establishment in 10/01/1920 and the creation of the interim government of Israel in May 1948.

Despite the fact that the National Council was elected in 1920 by the yishuv association as its official representative, due to a letter sent by the first British high Commissioner Herbert Samuel.

But still the council didn’t get any formal legal position until 01/01/1928 when the Israeli Knesset was legally established under the decree of organizing the religious groups, in 1926.

The council cooperated firmly with the Jewish Agency responsible for drawing the general policy of emigration, the settlement colonialism, the economic development and the military affaires.

The National Council represented the Zionist settlers in their relationships with the Mandatory Authority and the Jews of Palestine at the Mandatory Committee, observed by the League of Nation, a number of an investigation Committees as well as Fact-finding’s (UN Committee) sent to Palestine which suggested dividing the country in 1947. The council was assigned to deal with the internal issues by the Jewish Agency.

The historical significance of the Council was revealed in specifying the features of the Zionist aim to establish a state in Palestine, by means of military, economic and political programs supervised by the Jewish Agency.

It was established in Palestine in 1922 on the basis of the 4th article quoted from the deed of the British Mandate which was merged with Balfour’s Declaration for establishing a national homeland for the Jews.

The above article stipulated that a suitable Jewish Agency would be recognized as a consultative assembly to run the affaires in Palestine as well as cooperating with her in the economic and social issues which may lead to the creation of a Jewish a national homeland the protection of the Jewish citizen’s welfares in Palestine.

The goals of the Jewish Agency were defined during the 16th Zionist conference as the followings:

Boosting the development of the Jewish emigration. The lands bought were considered as a general Jewish property.

Encouraging the agricultural settling based on the Jewish labor. The Jewish Agency was more like a government protected by the British Mandate.

After the creation of Israel in 1948, most of the jurisdictions practiced by the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organization were transformed to the Israeli government.

The difference between the goals of the Organization and the Agency was sanctified in the law issued by the Knesset in 1952, aiming to “Developing and absorbing the immigrants through cooperating with the Jewish Agency that is active in such domains”.

-Hasho-meer ... In Hebrew, it means “the guard” and it was placed in the priority as a Zionist organization specialized in the defense of laborers and watching the settlements as well as the Jewish properties.

It was established in 1909 by Jewish immigrants who were members in “the Pargiora” ( Jewish Private association founded by Isaac Bin Zevi, Alexander Zed and Israel Shohet in 1907 for guarding purposes).

Since its establishment, Hasho-meer took care of the guarding duties but later it changed to an organized fighting force whose mission at first was protecting the Zionist settlements in Galilee and different parts of Palestine, in addition, it was responsible for constructing some settlements: “Merhabia” which was the 1st settlement located in “Bissan”, followed by “Tel Hedshim” and “Kefir Jlaadi” near Almattleh in Galilee.

During the First World War, Hasho-meer was pursued by the Turkish, esp. after the arresting of Lisanski, a member in the Zionist spying group “Nelly” and his denouncement of Hasho-meer’s private plans. However this caused the arresting of 12 members of the group.

During the British Mandate, Hasho-meer preceded its military missions against the Arabs as well as the British. It also took part in repelling the attacks committed against the Zionist settlements in Jerusalem and Tel Hay in Galilee.

At the beginning of the 1920’s, there was a great need for establishing a fighting force. Therefore, Hasho-meer decided to break up and declared the formation of the Haganah.

Several numbers of extremists refused to join the Haganah and they formed a small fighting group known as the labor’s battalions. While after, they joined the Haganah because of the blood shedding incidents that took place during the 1929th revolution.

-The Haganah ... In Hebrew, it means “the defense”. It was a Zionist settling military Organization established in Jerusalem in 1921. It headed the battle of creating Israel since 1921 till 1948 where it cooperated with similar Zionist military organizations to compose The Israeli Defense Army.

During the World War II, the Haganah sent a great number of its members to different European countries occupied by the Nazist forces to support the Jewish resistance movements and help the Jews immigrate to Palestine.

When the moment of declaring the state of Israel in 15/15/1948 the Haganah reached an extent in planning, armament and preparation and later become “The Israeli Defense Army”.

-The Irgon ... Its full Hebrew name was “Irgon Tessfi Leomi Parts in Israel”, the National Military Organization in Israel.

This private organization was established in 1931 participating with an armed group that belonged to Petar’s terrorist movement and the Haganah to protest The Haganah’s defending policy.

The Irgon became under the authority of Vladimir Jabotinski and its slogan was a symbol of a hand carrying a rifle, written down on it “Just like that”.

In 1943 Menachem Begin headed the Irgon which escalated its terrorist attacks against the Arabs, of these attacks were blowing up King David Inn in Jerusalem 22/7/1946 and the brutal attack on Dir Yassin village in 9/4/1948.

After the death of Jabotinski in 1940, a certain split took place in the Irgon organization. Thus, Abraham Shtirn left it and formed a gang known as “Levi Herot Israel” meaning “The fighters for the sake of Israel’s liberty”.

In collaboration with the Zionist gangs, Levi carried out wide terrorist and ransacking operations against the Arab people and the British camps, for example, blowing up the Jaffa’s government houses in November 1947.

In 1948, Levi’s forces joined the Israeli army and after the Israeli government admitted that the military service in the Levi’s line was a service subjected to retirement.

Consequently, it discharged its members but the government paid them their pension and awarded them the state’s warrior medals.

By the outbreak of the Second World War, the Zionist movement adopted a new method to accomplish its goal that is creating a state of its own in Palestine.

Zionism’s political, diplomatic and monetary powers did play a significant role during the World War I. The military power became an essential mean to impose the entity of Zionism in Palestine and to create a political structure. The Zionist efforts were concentrated on the establishment of a military power esp. after the convening of the 21^st Zionist conference.

Weitzman went to London and suggested on the British Governor placing all the human forces and the Zionist technical capacities under the control of the British government.

In order to put this proposal into action, the Jewish Agency established an office for registering the Jewish volunteers. The Agency called for the Jews of Palestine to join the British forces in the War. Later, Zionism concentrated its efforts on establishing independent combating Jewish unities.

In March 1940, Weitzman and Ben Gorion requested the British governor the formation of two military forces, composed of both, the Jews of Palestine and those living abroad. The British government preferred to postpone it a little while for it aimed at establishing brigades of infantry soldiers to serve in the Middle East.

The Zionist leaders weren’t satisfied for they wanted to establish several unities having a wide experience in the warlike operations.

Zionism doubled its efforts and imposed more pressures on the British government, till it attained the latter’s recognition of the Jewish Brigade.

The Jewish Brigade consisted of three Jewish regiments which were parts of the British force in Palestine and each regime was made up of five government houses.

Moreover, it was composed of five thousand men who exercised in Egypt and turned to Italy to resume their trainings.

The Brigade fought with the British forces in Europe and participated in the battle of Northern Italy as well as in Holland and Belgium.

After the end of World War II, the British government dismantled the Jewish Brigade. Most of its members returned to Palestine and joined the Haganah and other organizations.

It had two bi-Hebrew spellings: Blogot Mahatoz meaning the storming soldiers.

The Palmach is a military organization established in 19/5/1941, at a time where the axial forces were approaching Palestine. It consisted of few unities whose members were specialized in the blowing up and ransacking labors as well as in the method of carrying abrupt attacks.

For having a solid relationship with the British Mandatory, the Palmach could be supplied with up-to-date weapons and gain more fast moves. Besides, leading the Haganah gave the Palmach special significance.

The Palmach’s forces were martial striking forces regarding their ability to carry out mere offensive missions. In addition, the Palmach’s members were characterized by a high political education which emphasized on the principals of the World Zionism.

A Definition of Zionism
Anti-Zionism Among Jews
Are Jews a Nation or a Religion?
Autonomism
The Biltmore Conference
BILU
Chicago: Incubator of American Zionism
Christian Zionism
Could the Zionists Have Chosen Another Country Besides Palestine?
Dreyfus Affair
Essential Texts Concerning Zionism
Excerpts From Herzl's The Jewish State
General Zionism
Hibbat Zion
Hovevei Zion
Jewish Colonial Trust
Keren Hayesod
The Last Days of the Zionist Youth Movement in Germany
Lord Balfour’s Introduction to the History of Zionism 1600-1919
Louis Brandeis and American Zionism
Orthodox Anti-Zionism
Neturei Karta
“New Historians”
Political Zionism
Practical Zionism
Quotations Regarding Zionism
Radical Messianic Zionism
Religious Zionism
The Return to Zion
Revisionist Zionism
Socialist Zionism
Spiritual Zionism
Synthetic Zionism
Territorialism
The Uganda Proposal
U.S. Withdraws from World Conference Against Racism
Youth Movements
Zionism Is Not Colonialism
Zionism Is Not Racism
Vice President Dan Quayle in the Ghanaian Press Regarding Zionsim, U.S Embassy Cable (12/13/89) [pdf]
Zionist Congresses
Zionist Organization Statement on Palestine
Zionist Shekel
World Zionist Organization

A Definition of Zionism

Zionism, the national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel, advocated, from its inception, tangible as well as spiritual aims. Jews of all persuasions, left and right, religious and secular, joined to form the Zionist movement and worked together toward these goals. Disagreements led to rifts, but ultimately, the common goal of a Jewish state in its ancient homeland was attained. The term "Zionism" was coined in 1890 by Nathan Birnbaum.

Anti-Zionism Among Jews

Jews who criticize or oppose Zionism are usually Orthodox and maintain that Israel can only be regained miraculously. They view the present state as a blasphemous human attempt to usurp Gd's role, and they work to dismantle Israel. However, unlike many gentile antiZionists, they firmly believe in the Jewish right to Israel, but only at that future time of redemption. The bestknown of the religious antiZionists are the Neturei Karta.

Two common religious grounds are typically given for antiZionism. One is that today's Zionism is a secular Zionism, packed with nonJewish influences, and lacking key features like Moshiach and the rebuilt Temple. Adherents to this position are more on the nonZionist rather than antiZionist side. The other reason is that the Talmud (Meseches Kesuvos, 111a), as part of a discussion of certain Torah verses mentioning oaths, states that when Israel went into the second exile, there were three vows between Heaven and Earth:

The religious counterreply to the above is that secular Zionism is a preliminary stage of religious Zionism, and that the vows no longer apply since the gentiles violated their part (by such actions as the Roman persecutions, the Spanish Inquisition and the Nazi Holocaust). The Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the United Nations partition vote of 1947 are also regarded as having given permission to the Jews to reestablish the state by the nonJewish rulers of the area. Once this permission was granted it could not be revoked. It should also be noted that the oaths cited above are only mentioned as a side point in one place in a discussion in the Gemara, and as the viewpoint of an individual. Many people feel that they do not apply in any case.

Some Religious Zionist Jews see the formation of the secular state as accelerating the process of redemption, with themselves playing a major role in doing Gd's will by serving the state, whose creation is often seen as miraculous.

Socalled "nonZionist" Jews are pleased that Israel exists from a practical standpoint-as a haven for oppressed Jews and as a land imbued with holiness wellsuited for Torah study. But they don't generally assign religious significance to the formation of the modern state, and often decry aspects of its secular culture.

Autonomism

Jewish Autonomism, a non-Zionist ideology first enunciated in the early twentieth century by Simon Dubnow, crystallized in Eastern Europe. It believed in the future viability of Jewish life in the Diaspora as long as Jewry continues to maintain self-rule in community organizations; to sustain its educational and mutual-assistance institutions; and to develop its "spiritual nationhood."

The Autonomism ideology served as a conceptual foundation for the People's Party (Volkspartei) that operated mainly in Poland and Lithuania, and it appeared in various versions in the platforms of Socialist Jewish parties such as the Bund and the Sejmists. Some of the Zionist parties favored Jewish self-rule in the Diaspora as long as the Diaspora existed, but did not consider it a solution to the problem of the Jewish people.

The Holocaust put an end to the foundation of autonomism; today it has no practical impact on Jewish life and philosophy.

The Biltmore Conference

(May 6-11, 1942)

The Biltmore Conference was called by the Extraordinary Zionist Conference, and was held from May 6 to May 11, 1942 in New York. Due to the war, no Zionist Congress could be held that year. The Extraordinary Zionist Conference was thus called to serve a similar purpose of forming Zionist policy.

Participants from a wide variety of Zionist organizations were represented at the Conference. The joint statement issued at the end of the session was known as the Biltmore Program. The Program reiterated Zionist demands for unrestricted Jewish immigration to Palestine and that Palestine should serve as a Jewish Commonwealth. This statement was the first in which non-Zionist organizations joined with their Zionist counterparts to publicly advocate the establishment of such a Jewish Commonwealth.

BILU

The year the pogroms began in Russia, 1881, is the year Russian Jews started emigrating in large numbers to the United States. A smaller number of them, however, turned their eyes toward Zion; in 1882, several thousand Russian Jews emigrated to Palestine. Prior to this, most Jews who made aliyah to Israel did so for religious reasons; it was considered meritorious, for example, to die in the Holy Land. Living in Palestine, however, was considerably harder. It was an impoverished land, many — if not most — of whose Jewish inhabitants depended on worldwide Jewish charitable contributions.

In 1882 also, a new Jewish organization was founded that had a very different scenario in mind for Jewish life in Israel. The group was called BILU, an acronym based on a verse from Isaiah (2:5), "Beit Ya'akov Lekhu Ve-nelkha/Let the house of Jacob go!" BILU's founders believed that the time had come for Jews not only to live in Israel, but to make their living there as well.

The Bilu'im were influenced by Marx as well as the Bible, and hoped to establish farming cooperatives in Palestine. For the fourteen ex-university students who comprised the first group of Bilu'im, farming represented a complete change of lifestyle. (Because Jews had been forbidden to own land in Russia, the country had almost no Jewish farmers.) Arriving in Palestine with enormous "funds" of good will and energy, but with little money and experience, the Bilu'im found life very difficult. Two Palestinian Jews who had already raised money to buy land gave the group a tract to set up a farm in the settlement of Rishon Le-Zion. Within a few months, the Bilu'im faced starvation, and most had to leave.

A few years later, the eight members of the group who had remained in Palestine were offered land in G'dera. Here they struggled against both difficult farming conditions — meals eventually consisted only of radishes and potatoes — and Arab marauders. "They violated our boundaries," one of the Bilu'im recorded in his diaries, "and dispossessed us of whole tracts of our land — and we were helpless." Ironically, the G'dera outpost was eventually saved through the philanthropic efforts of one of the archcapitalists of the Jewish world, Baron Edmund de Rothschild of France. The dispirited, and by now demoralized, Bilu'im soon left the settlement. Some went to other parts of Palestine, others returned to Europe.

Although the BILU movement, failed completely its vision of Jewish cooperative farms was carried out very successfully a few decades later by the kibbutz and moshav movements. Ever since, the BILU dream of Jews living and supporting themselves in their own homeland has been regarded as one of the important forerunners of the international Zionist movement which Theodor Herzl organized fifteen years later.

Source: Joseph Telushkin. Jewish Literacy. NY: William Morrow and Co., 1991. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Chicago: Incubator of American Zionism

Historians of the Chicago Jewish community claim that the Windy City was the first in America to have a Zionist organization, the Chicago Zion Society, formed in the mid-1890s. While historians of New York and Boston Jewry might quibble, it is clear that Chicago did generate one of the earliest Zionist movements in the United States. Encouraged by a Protestant evangelical, powered by Eastern European immigrants, opposed by Chicago’s Reform rabbinate and, ultimately, embraced by Reform’s elder statesman, Chicago Zionism’s development encompassed many of the factions and elements that have propelled American Zionism from its very origins, and which remain active today.

Chicago Zionism’s first champion was William Eugene Blackstone, an evangelical layman and successful real estate entrepreneur who was convinced that the restoration of the Jews to Palestine was a critical forerunner to the return of the Christian Messiah. In 1888, Blackstone traveled with his daughter to Palestine. It confirmed his belief that he Jews were "a people chosen by God to manifest His power and His love to … a world steeped in deepest idolatry."

In 1891, Blackstone drew up a petition calling for the creation of a national homeland in Palestine for the 2 million oppressed Jews of Russia. "According to God’s distribution of nations," Blackstone’s petition read, "[Palestine] is their home – an inalienable possession from which they were expelled by force. … Let us now restore them to the land of which they were so cruelly despoiled by our Roman ancestors." More than 400 prominent individuals signed Blackstone’s appeal, including the publisher of the Chicago Tribune and Melville W. Fuller, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. The petition was submitted to President Benjamin Harrison. In May of 1916, Blackstone sponsored another petition, this one to President Woodrow Wilson asking him to advocate for a Jewish homeland when World War I ended. This later petition was signed by Andrew D. White, president of Cornell University, retail magnate John Wanamaker and Rabbi Judah L. Magnes, chairman of the Kehillah of New York City.

Russian, Lithuanian and Polish Jewish immigrants who came to Chicago to escape the pogroms of Europe joined Blackstone in his Zionist agitation. Settling in the tenements of the city’s West Side, more than 100,000 Yiddish speaking immigrants came to Chicago in the 1880s and 1890s, worked hard in home factories and sweatshops, or peddled goods from pushcarts on Maxwell Street and other crowded thoroughfares. Some were secular, radical socialists and atheists, while others retained their Orthodox practices. Particularly for the secularists, Zionism seemed to offer hope for revitalization of Jewish nationhood, not so much from a religious but from a cultural and social justice standpoint.

Chicago’s Eastern European Jewish Zionists produced a leaders such as Bernard and Harris Horwich, brothers who emigrated to Chicago from Lithuania and Leon Zolotkoff, editor of the Chicago Courier. These men founded the Chicago Hebrew Literary Society, where members could learn to read and speak Hebrew (as opposed to Yiddish) and debate the Jewish issues of the day. These men then formed the Knights of Zion, which raised funds for the purchase of land for Jewish settlers willing to go to Palestine. Zolotkoff would later become a delegate to several World Zionist Congresses.

The Knights of Zion, William Blackstone and other Zionist idealists met resistance from most of Chicago’s leading Reform rabbis. Emil G. Hirsch of Sinai Congregation proclaimed that, "We modern Jews do not wish to be restored to Palestine … the country wherein we live is our Palestine … We will not go back to form a nationality of our own." Hirsch asked, "What will [Jewish settlers] do in Palestine? Few of them have the physical strength requisite" to farming. He declared the idea "a fool’s errand."

Hirsch was concerned in part that support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine would open American Jewry to charges of dual loyalty, or worse. Rabbi David Philipson, writing in the American Israelite, further illuminated this view when he defined Judaism as a religion and not a nationality: "There is no longer a Jewish nation; there is a Jewish religious community … the Jews in America are to be distinguished by naught else but their religious life." In every other way, Philipson implied, they were fully Americans, not Israelis in waiting.

One major Chicago Reform rabbi spoke in favor of Zionism, and his voice carried great authority. Bernard Felsenthal, German-speaking rabbi of _______________, was the only Reform rabbi to support the formation of the Hebrew Literary Society and to mingle easily with the Eastern European immigrants. In 1891, reading Hirsch’s attack on Zionism in the press, Felsenthal wrote to Hirsch:

History, of course, has sided with Felsenthal, the Horwiches, Blackstone and the advocates of a Jewish national homeland. While the founding of Israel did not come soon enough to help the victims of Russian pogroms in the 1880s and 1890s, a later generation of Russian Jews has found safety and freedom in the homeland envisioned by Chicago’s leading Protestant evangelical, its West Side Jewish immigrants and the dean of its German-Jewish Reform establishment.

Christian Zionism

Christian Zionism can be defined as Christian support for the Zionist cause — the return of the Jewish people to its biblical homeland in Israel. It is a belief among some Christians that the return of Jews to Israel is in line with a biblical prophecy, and is necessary for Jesus to return to Earth as its king. These Christians are partly motivated by the writings of the Bible and the words of the prophets. However, they are also driven to support Israel because they wish to “repay the debt of gratitude to the Jewish people for providing Christ and the other fundamentals of their faith,” and to support a political ally, according to David Brog, author Standing With Israel: Why Christians Support the Jewish State.

Christian Zionists interpret both the Torah and the New Testament as prophetic texts that describe future events of how the world will one day end with the return of Jesus from Heaven to rule on Earth. Israel and its people are central to their vision. They interpret passages from the books of Ezekiel, Daniel, and Isaiah as foreshadowing the coming Christian era. The New Testament Book of Revelation is read by many Christians as a prophetic text of how the world will be in the End Times.

Christian support for Israel is not a recent development. Its politcal roots reach as far back to the 1880s, when a man named William Hechler formed a committee of Christian Zionists to help move Russian Jewish refugees to Palestine after a series of pogroms. In 1884, Hechler wrote a pamphlet called “The Restoration of Jews to Palestine According to the Prophets.” A few years later, he befriended Theodor Herzl after reading Herzl’s book The Jewish State, and joined Herzl to drum up support for Zionism. Hechler even arranged a meeting between Herzl and Kaiser Wilhelm II to discuss Herzl’s proposal to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. The two men remained close friends up until Herzl’s death in 1904.

An important milestone in the history of Christian Zionism occurred in 1979, almost a century after William Hechler approached Herzl and offered to mobilize Christian support for a Jewish state: the founding of the Moral Majority. Founded by Rev. Jerry Falwell, the Moral Majority was an organization made up of conservative Christian political action committees that succeeded in mobilizing like-minded individuals to register and vote for conservative candidates. With nearly six million members, it became a powerful voting bloc during the 1980s and was credited for giving Ronald Reagan the winning edge in the 1980 elections. One of the Moral Majority’s four founding principles was “support for Israel and Jewish people everywhere.”

In 1980, Falwell, who ran a television ministry that reached millions of viewers, said of Israel: “I firmly believe God has blessed America because America has blessed the Jew. If this nation wants her fields to remain white with grain, her scientific achievements to remain notable, and her freedom to remain intact, America must continue to stand with Israel.” Falwell disbanded the Moral Majority in 1989, but conservative Christians have remained vocal supporters of Israel though they lacked a strong formal structure for pro-Israel political action.

Christian Zionists, through their volunteer work, political support, and financial assistance to Israel and Jewish causes, have shown that they are stalwart friends of Israel. They have donated large sums of money to support Israel, including to charities that pay the costs of bringing Jews from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia to Israel. For example, Pastor John Hagee has raised more than $4.7 million for the United Jewish Communities. Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to help poor Jews across the world move to Israel.

When Israel’s tourism industry was at a low point between 2000 and 2003 due to the Palestinian War and terrorism, Christian tourists visited Israel in numbers that were sometimes greater than that of the Jewish community. Televangelists such as Pat Robertson and Benny Hinn visited Israel during this period and used their broadcasts to tell their millions of viewers it was safe to visit Israel. Another pro-Israel group, the Christians’ Israel Public Action Campaign, sponsored four missions to Israel. Christians also helped the Israeli tourism industry and economy from home by attending “Shop Israel” days where Israeli merchants would come to America and sell their products.

Despite their support for Israel, many Jews however, are uncomfortable with Christian Zionists. This discomfort is fed by Christian anti-Semitism, Christian replacement theology, evangelical proselytizing, and and disagreements over domestic and political issues.

Dispensationalist Christianity, an interpretive or narrative framework for understanding the overall flow of the Bible, teaches that Christianity did not replace Judaism, but that it restored lost elements of it. The dispensationalist view of the Bible is that the Old Testament is foreshadowing for what will occur in the New Testament and, at the end, Jesus returns to reign on Earth after an epic battle between good and evil. Israel plays a central role in the dispensationalist view of the end of the world. The establishment of Israel in 1948 was seen as a milestone to many dispensationalists on the path toward Jesus’ return. In their minds, now that the Jews again had regained their homeland, all Jews were able to return to Israel, just as had been prophesied in the Bible. As described in the Book of Revelation, there is an epic battle that will take place in Israel after it is reestablished — Armaggedon — in which it is prophesied that good will finally triumph over evil. However, in the process, two-thirds of the Jews in Israel die and the other third are converted to Christianity. Jesus then returns to Earth to rule for 1,000 years as king.

Although these Christians do hope for a Messianic age, the majority of them do not wish for the deaths of thousands of Jews during Armageddon. Dispensationalist Christians believe that the Jewish people, not Christians, are the ones who were promised Israel in the Bible. In their view, Christianity did not come into existence to replace Judaism, but to restore it. This view has surpassed replacement theology as the dominant form of Christian thought regarding Israel in America today. Jews who are suspicious of Christian Zionist motives are usually unaware that many Christian supporters of Israel have abandoned replacement theology.

Aside from anti-Semitism and Christian replacement theology, many Jews are wary of the fact that many evangelical Christians simply want to convert them to Christianity or speed up the Second Coming of Christ. David Brog refutes this claim:

Christian Zionists say Jews have no reason to distrust their motives for supporting Israel because they do not believe they can speed up the Second Coming of Christ. In the Gospel of Matthew, it is written that Jesus said about his return, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.”

Pastor John Hagee, a longtime supporter of Israel, based at the Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, heads Christians United for Israel (CUFI), a pro-Israel group established in 2006. Hagee has denounced replacement theology, and says of Israel: “We believe in the promise of Genesis 12:3 regarding the Jewish people and the nation of Israel. We believe that this is an eternal covenant between God and the seed of Abraham to which God is faithful.” Evangelical leader Pat Robertson echoed this statement while on his tour of Israel during the Israel-Hizbullah war, saying, “The Jews are God’s chosen people. Israel is a special nation that has a special place in God’s heart. He will defend this nation. So Evangelical Christians stand with Israel. That is one of the reasons I am here.”

Pastor Hagee claims that he and other Christian Zionists support Israel because they owe a debt of gratitude to the Jewish people, and not because they want Jews to convert to Christianity. The Jewish people gave the world Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the prophets, of whom there were “not a Baptist in the bunch...The Jewish people do not need Christianity to explain their existence. But Christians cannot explain our existence without Judaism. The roots of Christianity are Jewish.”

Jews are also uncomfortable with Christian Zionists because most have few other common political interests besides their support for Israel. The majority of American Jews are politically and socially liberal. Christian Zionists are on the whole politically conservative Republicans who, for example, oppose abortion and gay marriage, and support prayer in public schools. Most Jews are particularly concerned over what they see as the Christian Right’s efforts to weaken the separation between church and state. The Anti-Defamation League’s director, Abe Foxman, has been particularly outspoken and has said that if the domestic agenda of the Christian Right ever materializes, it will turn American Jews into “second-class citizens in our own country.”

Christian Zionists are also more conservative on Israel than many Jews. They favor Israel maintaining all of its settlements in the West Bank, and were opposed to the Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip. Some prominent Christian Zionists have been highly critical of Israeli government policy of giving over parts of Israel to the Palestinian people. Christian Zionists, like followers of the Israeli Right, believe that Israel should never cede any section of Israel to the Palestinians because Israel was given to the Jews by God. After former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon implemented the disengagement plan from the Gaza Strip and then fell ill a few months later, Pat Robertson claimed that his illness was divine retribution for giving up part of biblical Israel. When asked about Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s convergence plan to evacuate settlements in the West Bank, Robertson said, “It’s an absolute disaster...I don't think the holy God is going to be happy about someone giving up his land.”

Conservative Christians, in general, are viewed as particularly influential with the Bush Administration and Republican Congress, and Christian Zionists are consequently viewed as also having greater access to decisionmakers. It is not clear, however, that pro-Israel Christians have exerted decisive influence on any significant decisions and their clout is expected to decline if Democrats regain the White House and/or the majority in Congress.

Sources: Brog, David. Standing With Israel: Why Christians Support the Jewish State. FL: Frontline, 2006.; Wikipedia; David Brog; International Fellowship of Christians and Jews; Christians United for Israel; JTA; Q and A with Kathryn Jean Lopez, “Jews And Evangelicals Together: Why some Christians are pro-Israel,” National Review Online, (May 22, 2006); Tovah Lazaroff, “‘Evangelicals the world over are praying for Israel,’” The Jerusalem Post, (August 9, 2006).

Could the Zionists Have Chosen Another Country Besides Palestine?

by Mitchell Bard

In the late 19th century, the rise of religious and racist anti-Semitism led to a resurgence of pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe, shattering promises of equality and tolerance. This stimulated Jewish immigration to Palestine from Europe.

Simultaneously, a wave of Jews immigrated to Palestine from Yemen, Morocco, Iraq and Turkey. These Jews were unaware of Theodor Herzl's political Zionism or of European pogroms. They were motivated by the centuries-old dream of the “Return to Zion” and a fear of intolerance. Upon hearing that the gates of Palestine were open, they braved the hardships of travel and went to the “Land of Israel.”

The Zionist ideal of a return to Israel has profound religious roots. Many Jewish prayers speak of Jerusalem, Zion and the Land of Israel. The injunction not to forget Jerusalem, the site of the Temple, is a major tenet of Judaism. The Hebrew language, the Torah, laws in the Talmud, the Jewish calendar and Jewish holidays and festivals such as Shavuot all originated in Israel and revolve around its seasons and conditions. Jews pray toward Jerusalem and recite the words “next year in Jerusalem” every Passover. Jewish religion, culture and history make clear that it is only in the land of Israel that the Jewish commonwealth can be built.

In 1897, Jewish leaders formally organized the Zionist movement, calling for the restoration of the Jewish national home in Palestine, where Jews could find sanctuary and self-determination, and work for the renascence of their civilization and culture.

Alfred Dreyfus and “The Affair”

The Dreyfus case underscored and intensified bitter divisions within French politics and society. The fact that it followed other scandals — the Boulanger affair, the Wilson case, and the bribery of government officials and journalists that was associated with the financing of the Panama Canal — suggested that the young French Republic was in danger of collapse. The controversy involved critical institutions and issues, including monarchists and republicans, the political parties, the Catholic Church, the army, and strong anti-Semitic sentiment.

Alfred Dreyfus, an obscure captain in the French army, came from a Jewish family that had left its native Alsace for Paris when Germany annexed that province in 1871. In 1894 papers discovered in a wastebasket in the office of a German military attaché made it appear that a French military officer was providing secret information to the German government. Dreyfus came under suspicion, probably because he was a Jew and also because he had access to the type of information that had been supplied to the German agent. The army authorities declared that Dreyfus’ handwriting was similar to that on the papers. Despite his protestations of innocence he was found guilty of treason in a secret military court-martial, during which he was denied the right to examine the evidence against him. The army stripped him of his rank in a humiliating ceremony and shipped him off to [life imprisonment on] Devil’s Island, a penal colony located off the coast of South America. The political right, whose strength was steadily increasing, cited Dreyfus’ alleged espionage as further evidence of the failures of the Republic. Édouard Drumont’s right-wing newspaper La Libre Parole intensified its attacks on the Jews, portraying this incident as further evidence of Jewish treachery.

Dreyfus seemed destined to die in disgrace. He had few defenders, and anti-Semitism was rampant in the French army. An unlikely defender came to his rescue, motivated not by sympathy for Dreyfus but by the evidence that he had been “railroaded” and that the officer who had actually committed espionage remained in position to do further damage. Lieutenant Colonel Georges Picquart, an unapologetic anti-Semite, was appointed chief of army intelligence two years after Dreyfus was convicted. Picquart, after examining the evidence and investigating the affair in greater detail, concluded that the guilty officer was a Major named Walsin Esterhazy. Picquart soon discovered, however, that the army was more concerned about preserving its image than rectifying its error, and when he persisted in attempting to reopen the case the army transferred him to Tunisia. A military court then acquitted Esterhazy, ignoring the convincing evidence of his guilt.

“The Affair” might have ended then but for the determined intervention of the novelist Émile Zola, who published his denunciation (“J’accuse!”) of the army cover-up in a daily newspaper. [Note: Zola was found guilty of libeling the army and was sentenced to imprisonment. He fled to England, where he remained until being granted amnesty.] At this point public passion became more aroused than ever, as the political right and the leadership of the Catholic Church — both of which were openly hostile to the Republic — declared the Dreyfus case to be a conspiracy of Jews and Freemasons designed to damage the prestige of the army and thereby destroy France.

Sometime later another military officer discovered that additional documents had been added to the Dreyfus file. He determined that a lieutenant colonel (Hubert Henry) had forged the documents — which seemed to strengthen the case against Dreyfus — in anticipation that Dreyfus would be given a new trial. Immediately after an interrogation the lieutenant colonel committed suicide. In 1899 the army did in fact conduct a new court-martial which again found Dreyfus guilty and condenmed him to 10 years detention, although it observed that there were “extenuating circumstances.”

In September 1899, the president of France pardoned Dreyfus, thereby making it possible for him to return to Paris, but he had to wait until 1906 — twelve years after the case had begun — to be exonerated of the charges, after which he was restored to his former military rank.

“The Affair” had inspired moderate republicans, Radicals, and socialists to work together, and the ultimate exoneration of Dreyfus strengthened the Republic, in no small part because of the conduct of its enemies, most notably the army and the Catholic hierarchy. In 1905 the Radical party, emphasizing the role of the Catholic leadership in the Dreyfus case, succeeded in passing legislation separating church and state.

Essential Texts Concerning Zionism

Excerpts From Herzl’s The Jewish State

The idea I have developed in this pamphlet is an ancient one: It is the restoration of the Jewish State. . . The decisive factor is our propelling force. And what is that force? The plight of the Jews. . . I am profoundly convinced that I am right, though I doubt whether I shall live to see myself proved so. Those who today inaugurate this movement are unlikely to live to see its glorious culmination. But the very inauguration is enough to inspire in them a high pride and the joy of an inner liberation of their existence. . .

The plan would seem mad enough if a single individual were to undertake it; but if many Jews simultaneously agree on it, it is entirely reasonable, and its achievement presents no difficulties worth mentioning. The idea depends only on the number of its adherents. Perhaps our ambitious young men, to whom every road of advancement is now closed, and for whom the Jewish state throws open a bright prospect of freedom, happiness, and honor perhaps they will see to it that this idea is spread. . .

It depends on the Jews themselves whether this political document remains for the present a political romance. If this generation is too dull to understand it rightly, a future, finer, more advanced generation will arise to comprehend it. The Jews who will try it shall achieve their State; and they will deserve it. . .

I consider the Jewish question neither a social nor a religious one, even though it sometimes takes these and other forms. It is a national question, and to solve it we must first of all establish it as an international political problem to be discussed and settled by the civilized nations of the world in council.

We have sincerely tried everywhere to merge with the national communities in which we live, seeking only to preserve the faith of our fathers. It is not permitted us. In vain are we loyal patriots, sometimes superloyal; in vain do we make the same sacrifices of life and property as our fellow citizens; in vain do we strive to enhance the fame of our native lands in the arts and sciences, or her wealth by trade and commerce. In our native lands where we have lived for centuries we are still decried as aliens, often by men whose ancestors had not yet come at a time when Jewish sighs had long been heard in the country. . .

Oppression and persecution cannot exterminate us. No nation on earth has endured such struggles and sufferings as we have. Jew-baiting has merely winnowed out our weaklings; the strong among us defiantly return to their own whenever persecution breaks out. . . Wherever we remain politically secure for any length of time, we assimilate. I think this is not praiseworthy. . .

Palestine is our unforgettable historic homeland. . . Let me repeat once more my opening words: The Jews who will it shall achieve their State. We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and in our own homes peacefully die. The world will be liberated by our freedom, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our greatness. And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind.

General Zionism

General Zionism was initially the term used for the beliefs of all members of the Zionist Organization [ZO] who had not joined a specific faction or party belonging to their countrywide Zionist organizations only. Over the years, the General Zionists, too, created ideological institutions and joined the Organization of General Zionists, established in 1922 as a centrist party in the ZO. The precepts of the General Zionists included Basle-style Zionism free of ideological embellishments and the primacy of Zionism over any class, party, or personal interest. This party, in its many metamorphoses, championed causes such as the encouragement of private initiative and protection of middle-class rights. In 1931, the General Zionists split into Factions A and B as a result of disagreements over issues of concern in Palestine: social affairs, economic matters, the attitude toward the General Federation of Jewish Labor (the Histadrut), etc. In 1945, the factions reunited.

Most of Israel's Liberal movements and parties were formed under the inspiration of the General Zionists and reflect mergers in and secessions from this movement.

Hibbat Zion

Hibbat Zion was a pre-Zionist movement, beginning in the 1880s, advocating revival of Jewish life in the Land. Its adherents worked toward the physical development of the Land, and founded agricultural settlements in Palestine. By the time the First Zionist Congress met in 1897, they had already begun to transform the face of the Land. Herzl, though, saw the aim of the Zionist movement as a charter for a Jewish national entity in the Land of Israel rather than its development through piecemeal settlement.

Hovevei Zion

The first Hovevei Zion ("Lovers of Zion") organizations had been established in 18811882 with the aim of furthering Jewish settlement, particularly agricultural settlement in Eretz-Israel. The groups varied not only in size but in their activity. Some were interested in philanthropic work while others were intent on immigration to Eretz-Israel.

From its inception, the Hovevei Zion groups in Russia sought to erect a countrywide legally recognized framework. After arduous negotiations, in which the authorities demanded that the society be set up as a charitable body, its establishment was approved, early in 1890, as "The Society for the Support of Jewish Farmers and Artisans in Syria and Eretz-Israel," which came to be known as "The Odessa Committee."

In 1892, the organization had approximately 14,000 sympathizers in Russia. Among its leaders were Rabbi Samuel Mohilever (18241898), Moshe Leib Lilienblum (18431910) and Leon Pinsker (18211891).

Following the publication of Herzl's Der Judenstaat in 1896 and the establishment of the World Zionist Organization, most of the branches of Hovevei Zion aligned themselves with the new movement.

Jewish Colonial Trust

The first Zionist bank, it was founded at the Second Zionist Congress and incorporated in London in 1899. The JCT was intended to be the financial instrument of the Zionist Organization, and was to obtain capital and credit to help attain a charter for Palestine.

It quickly became clear that the amount of capital raised by the JCT was far from sufficient to attain this goal; the sum raised was only £395,000 of the £8 million target.

The JCT's main activities in Palestine were carried out by the Anglo-Palestine Bank, formed as a subsidiary in 1902. Its seed capital was only £40,000. The bank opened its first branch in Jaffa in 1903 under the management of Zalman David Levontin, and quickly made a name for itself as a reliable and trustworthy institution, which did not consider business transactions and profitability its only goals. In its early years, the bank conducted transactions in support of the Zionist enterprise: land purchase, imports, obtaining of concessions and so on. Branches were opened in Jerusalem, Beirut (then the region's main commercial center), Hebron, Safed, Haifa, Tiberias and Gaza.

The Anglo-Palestine Bank established a network of credit unions in the moshavot and gave farmers long-term loans. It also helped with the construction of the first 60 houses in Tel Aviv. During World War I, when the Zionist enterprise faced severe difficulties, the bank managed to keep its funds intact, transferring them to safe locations. The Turkish government, considering the bank an enemy institution because it was registered in Britain, ordered its branches shut and its cash confiscated. The liquidation of the bank's branches proceeded very slowly and business continued surreptitiously. After the war, the operations of the bank expanded, and other banks were founded in Palestine. In 1932, the main office of the Anglo-Palestine Bank was moved from Jaffa to Jerusalem.

In 1934, the JCT terminated its banking activity and became a holding company for Anglo-Palestine Bank shares only.

During World War II, the Anglo-Palestine Bank was able to use the large reserves it had built up to finance the developing industries that supplied provisions to the British army. When the State of Israel was established, the bank was given the concession to issue new banknotes and became the government's banker and financial agent. In 1950, the bank's registration was transferred from Britain to Israel, and it was renamed Bank Leumi Le-Israel (National Bank of Israel). When the Bank of Israel was founded as Israel's central bank (1954), Bank Leumi became a commercial bank.

In 1955, the Jewish Colonial Trust became an Israeli company, and in the late 1980s it was sold to private investors.

Keren Hayesod

The main institution for financing the Zionist Organization's activities in Eretz Israel, it was founded in London in 1920 and officially registered in Britain a year later. In 1926, the headquarters of Keren Hayesod were moved to Jerusalem. Keren Hayesod is headed by a board of trustees, appointed by the Zionist Executive and the Jewish Agency. In addition to financing the activities of the Jewish Agency, Keren Hayesod undertook to support the yishuv economically and to provide financial assistance for development and settlement. Most revenues come from fundraising and are distributed by the institutions of the Zionist movement. Keren Hayesod collects donations in almost all countries with a Jewish community, either directly or through volunteers.

Until the establishment of the state, Keren Hayesod financed activities of the yishuv relating to immigration and absorption, settlement, defense, development of water resources and public works. It aided major economic enterprises such as the Palestine Electric Company and the Palestine Potash Company at the Dead Sea. When the country gained its independence, many functions that had been handled by Keren Hayesod were transferred to the Jewish Agency, and Keren Hayesod concentrated on the financing of immigration, absorption and settlement.

The Last Days of the Zionist Youth Movement in Germany

(March 1942)

Even though we do not know whether, in fact, this letter will ever reach you, we will write it in the hope that at least one of us will remain alive and hand it over to you when the day comes.

It is already a few weeks since our troop discussed the approaching Scouts’ Day. Shall we be able to celebrate it in the accustomed manner this year, too? For we are living in very difficult times. Many of our members are no longer with us. They have already been taken to Poland, a place where an unknown fate awaits them. But the Jewish Scout is told never to despair, and we are therefore determined that, despite everything, we shall meet this year, to honor this special day. We therefore met on that Wednesday afternoon in one of the classrooms of the school in Wilsnacker Street. Despite the danger involved almost all came in their white shirts (under jackets), and there was an atmosphere of high spirits and joy in the room. We had gathered together all the Jewish scouts who still remained in Berlin, boys and girls, about 50 altogether, from all circles. As guests of honor we had Herbert Growald and Fanny Bergas, from the Hakhshara [training] Kibbutz at Neuendorf, and also Alfred Selbiger, a member of the Movement’s leadership. We sat in a big circle, and the room echoed to the sound of our singing "Be Prepared..." and all the other songs. The candles flickered gaily and the members looked into the flames.

After that one of our members, Mary Simon, read us a story about trees and plants in our Jewish Homeland which made us forget the dangers and the sorrows. After that we sang again, and several poems were read... We stood to attention to sing the anthem of the Movement. When we unfolded the flag after that – which we had kept with us despite all the danger – we gave the Scouts’ salute and sang the song of the flag: "Carry it to Zion, the Banner and the Flag"...then one of our members, Erwin Tichauer, stepped forward – at first we had no idea what he was about to do – and read to his group the names of all those who had been taken from us during the past months, since the deportations had begun, and as he read each name the members replied as one: "Here," that is to say, that even those who were missing were with us on this occasion, for we are always with them in our thoughts, just as they are surely with us in their thoughts....

At this difficult time we send our good wishes to all of you, outside. Do not forget us, just as we will not forget you – those already living in the Land of Israel and building our future, and those who are living a free life in other countries. We will all be united in spirit until the day comes when we can once more all be together. We send our good wishes and send you Shalom! Be of good courage!

Y. Schwersenz, Mahteret Halutzim be-Germanya Hanazit ("Pioneer Underground in Nazi Germany"), Tel Aviv, 1969, pp. 55-57.

Lord Balfour’s Introduction to the History of Zionism 1600-1919

by Nahum Sokolow Longmans, Green and Co., London

(1919)

Whether it be helpful for one who is not a Jew, either by race or religion, to say even the briefest word by way of introduction to a book on Zionism is, in my own opinion, doubtful. But my friend, M. Nahum Sokolow, tells me that I long ago gave him reason to expect that, when the time came, I would render him this small measure of assistance; and if he attaches value to it, I cannot allow my personal doubts as to its value to stand in his way.

The only qualification I possess is that I have always been greatly interested in the Jewish question, and that in the early years of this century, when anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe was in an active stage, I did my best to support a scheme devised by Mr. Chamberlain, then Colonial Secretary, for creating a Jewish settlement in East Africa, under the British flag. There it was hoped that Jews fleeing from persecution might found a community where, in harmony with their own religion, development on traditional lines might (we thought) peacefully proceed without external interruption, and free from any fears of violence.

The scheme was certainly well-intentioned, and had, I think, many merits. But it had one serious defect. It was not Zionism. It attempted to find a home for men of Jewish religion and Jewish race in a region far removed from the country where that race was nurtured and that religion came into being. Conversations I held with Mr. Weizmann in January, 1906, convinced me that history could not thus be ignored, and that if a home was to be found for the Jewish people, homeless now for nearly nineteen hundred years, it was vain to seek it anywhere but in Palestine.

But why, it may be asked, is local sentiment to be more considered in the case of the Jew than (say) in that of the Christian or the Buddhist? All historic religions rouse feelings which cluster round the places made memorable by the words and deeds, the lives and deaths, of those who brought them into being.

Doubtless these feelings should always be treated with respect; but no one suggests that the regions where these venerable sites are to be found should, of set purpose and with much anxious contrivance, be colonized by the spiritual descendants of those who originally made them famous. If the centuries have brought no change of ownership or occupancy we are well content. But if it be otherwise, we make no effort to reverse the course of history. None suggest that we should plant Buddhist colonies in India, the ancient home of Buddhism, or renew in favor of Christendom the crusading adventures of our medieval ancestors. Yet, if this be wisdom when we are dealing with Buddhism and Christianity, why, it may be asked, is it not also wisdom when we are dealing with Judaism and the Jews?

The answer is, that the cases are not parallel. The position of the Jews is unique. For them race, religion and country are inter- related, as they are inter-related in the case of no other race, no other religion, and no other country on earth. In no other case are the believers in one of the greatest religions of the world to be found (speaking broadly) only among the members of a single small people; in the case of no other religion is its past development so intimately bound up with the long political history of a petty territory wedged in between States more powerful far than it could ever be; in the case of no other religion are its aspirations and hopes expressed in language and imagery so utterly dependent for their meaning on the conviction that only from this one land, only through this one history, only by this one people, is full religious knowledge to spread through all the world. By a strange and most unhappy fate it is this people of all others which, retaining the full its racial self-consciousness, has been severed from its home, has wandered into all lands, and has nowhere been able to create for itself an organized social commonwealth. Only Zionism, so at least Zionists believe, can provide some mitigation of this great tragedy.

Doubtless there are difficulties, doubtless there are objections -- great difficulties, very real objections. And it is, I suspect, among the Jews themselves that these are most acutely felt. Yet no one can reasonably doubt that if, as I believe, Zionism can be developed into a working scheme, the benefit it would bring to the Jewish people, especially perhaps to that section of it which most deserves our pity, would be great and lasting. It is not merely that large numbers of them would thus find a refuge from religious and social persecution; but that they would bear corporate responsibilities, and enjoy corporate opportunities of a kind which, from the nature of the case, they can never possess as citizens of any non-Jewish state. It is charged against them by their critics that they now employ their great gifts to exploit for personal ends a civilization which they have not created, in communities they do little to maintain. The accusation thus formulated is manifestly false. But it is no doubt true that in large parts of Europe their loyalty to the State in which they dwell is (to put it mildly) feeble compared with their loyalty to their religion and their race. How indeed could it be otherwise? In none of the regions of which I speak have they been given the advantage of equal citizenship, in some they have been given no right of citizenship at all. Great suffering is the inevitable result; but not suffering alone. Other evils follow which aggravate the original mischief. Constant oppression with occasional outbursts of violent persecution, are apt either to crush their victims, or to develop in them self-protecting qualities which do not always assume an attractive shape. The Jews have never been crushed. Neither cruelty nor contempt, neither unequal laws nor illegal oppression, have ever broken their spirit, or shattered their unconquerable hopes. But it may well be true that, where they have been compelled to live among their neighbors as if these were their enemies, they have obtain obtained, and sometimes deserved, the reputation of being undesirable citizens. Nor is this surprising. If you oblige many men to be money-lenders, some will assuredly be usurers. If you treat an important section of the community as outcasts, they will hardly shine as patriots. Thus does intolerance blindly labor to create the justification for its own excesses.

It seems evident that, for these and other reasons, Zionism will mitigate the lot and elevate the status of no negligible fraction of the Jewish race. Those who go to Palestine will not be like those who now migrate to London or New York. They will not be animated merely by the desire to lead in happier surroundings the kind of life they formerly led in Eastern Europe. They will go in order to join a civil community which completely harmonizes with their historical and religious sentiments; a community bound to be land it inhabits by something deeper even than custom; a community, whose members will suffer from no divided loyalty, nor any temptation to hate the laws under which they are forced to live. To them the material gain should be great; but surely the spiritual gain will be greater still.

But these, it will be said, are not the only Jews whose welfare we have to consider. Granting, if only for argument’s sake, that Zionism will confer a benefit on them, will it not inflict an injury upon others who, though Jews by descent, and often by religion, desire wholly to identify themselves with the life of the country wherein they have made their home. Among these are to be found some of the most gifted members of a gifted race. Their ranks contain (at least, so I think) more than their proportionate share of the world’s supply of men distinguished in science and philosophy, literature and art, medicine, politics and laws. (Of finance and business I need say nothing.)

Now there is no doubt that many of this class look with a certain measure of suspicion and even dislike upon the Zionist movement. They fear that it will adversely affect their position in the country of their adoption. The great majority of them have no desire to settle in Palestine. Even supposing a Zionist community were established, they would not join it. But they seem to think (if I understand them rightly) that so soon as such a community came into being, men of Jewish blood, still more men of Jewish religion, would be regarded by unkindly critics as out of place elsewhere. Their ancient hoe having been restored to them, they would be expected to reside there.

I cannot share these fears. I do not deny that, in some countries where legal equality is firmly established, Jews may still be regarded with a certain measure of prejudice. But this prejudice, where it exists, is not due to Zionism, nor will Zionism embitter it. The tendency should surely be the other way. Everything which assimilates the national and international status of the Jews to that of other races ought to mitigate what remains of ancient antipathies; and evidently this assimilation would be promoted by giving them that which all other nations possess: a local habitation and a national home.

On this aspect of the subject I need perhaps say no more. The future of Zionism depends on deeper causes than these. That it will settle the “Jewish questions” I dare not hope. But that it will tend to promote that mutual sympathy and comprehension which is the only sure basis of toleration I firmly believe. Few, I think, of M. Sokolow’s readers, be they Jew or be they Christian, will rise from the perusal of the impressive story which he has told so fully and so well, without feeling that Zionism differs in kind from ordinary philanthropic efforts and that it appeals to different motives. If it succeeds, it will do a great spiritual and material work for the Jews, but not for them alone. For as I read its meaning it is, among other things, a serious endeavor to mitigate the age-long miseries created for Western civilization by the presence in its midst of a body which it too long regarded as alien and even hostile, but which it was equally unable to expel or to absorb. Surely, for this if for no other reason, it should receive our support

Orthodox Anti-Zionism

Until the Nazi Holocaust, much of the Orthodoxy was antagonistic to the Zionist aspiration of establishing a national home for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel. In large measure this opposition was less to Zionism itself than to the Zionists, for most of the Zionist activists were secularists who rejected the traditional authority of the Rabbis in favour of "foreign" ideologies such as socialism and nationalism.

Zionism constituted a serious threat to the traditional religious power structure. The issue was felt more urgently in Palestine itself, where the "old Yishuv" (settlement)

lived unproductively off the donations of Diaspora Jews, whereas the Zionist settlers were calling for the Jews to be self-supporting and to involve themselves in economically productive manual labor.

As a theological justification for their position, they cite various Rabbinic traditions that forbid the hastening of the Redemption.

The most intransigent and extreme of the Orthodox anti-Zionist parties is the Naturei Karta movement, a small but vocal organization that broke off from Aguddat Israel in 1935 because of their insistence on total separation from the Zionist Jewish community in Jerusalem.

The name Naturei Karta, Aramaic for "guardians of the city," was first used in 1938, and alludes to a Talmudic statement that religious scholars, not soldiers, are the true guardians of a city.

Naturei Karta have tried as much as possible to avoid using the facilities of the Israeli government, including courts, identity cards, schools, currency and public utilities. They have been outspoken in propagandizing against the legitimacy of the Jewish state. They have gone so far as to negotiate privately with hostile Arab states and leaders.

The movement is a tiny one, dominated by the Satmar Hasidic sect whose leader Rabbi Amram Blau was its best-known spokesman.

Neturei Karta

Neturei Karta (Aramaic: "Guardians of the City") is a group of Orthodox Jews which rejects Zionism and the establishment of the State of Israel. They believe that the true Israel can only be reestablished with the coming of the Messiah. They number some 5,000 and are concentrated in Jerusalem. Other, larger groups associated with Neturei Karta but not members of the group, can be found in Israel, London, New York City, and upstate New York state.

For the most part, the members of Neturei Karta are descended from Hungarian Jews that settled in Jerusalem's Old City in the early nineteenth century. They were tradesmen and craftsmen, who devoted most of their time to studying the Talmud and other sacred texts. Most of their livelihood was based on the halukah, or distribution of charitable donations from wealthy Jews in the Diaspora. In the late nineteenth century, they participated in the creation of new neighborhoods outside the city walls to alleviate overcrowding in the Old City, and most are now concentrated in the neighborhood of Batei Ungarin and the larger Meah Shearim neighborhood.

At the time, they were vocal opponents to the new political ideology of Zionism that was attempting to assert Jewish sovereignty in Ottoman-controlled Palestine. They resented the new arrivals, who were predominantly secular, and claimed that Jewish redemption could only be brought about by the Messiah. Among the proofs they brought for this argument was a talmudic Midrash (legend) that God, the Jewish People, and the nations of the world made a divine pact, when the Jews were sent into exile by the Roman Empire. One provision of the pact was that the Jews would not rebel against the non-Jewish world that gave them sanctuary; a second was that they would not immigrate en masse to the Land of Israel. In return, the legend states, the Gentile nations promised not persecute the Jews too harshly. By rebelling against this pact, they argued, the Jewish People were engaging in open rebellion against God.

In fact, this position was adopted by the bulk of the Orthodox world (with the exception of a small faction of Orthodox Zionists, led by Chief Rabbi Abraham Kook and his followers) well up until the United Nations voted to partition Palestine on November 29, 1947. Representatives of another Orthodox party, Agudat Israel, actually asked the General Assembly to vote against partition. Tensions were at their highest between the Zionist and non-Zionist Jewish communities in Palestine in the 1920s, following the assassination of Jakob de Haan, a Dutch poet, former Zionist, and spokesman for Agudat Israel against the creation of a Jewish State.

Nevertheless, Agudat Israel reevaluated its position upon the establishment of Israel and has been a participant in most governments since that time (though it still will not accept a ministerial portfolio as a result).

This switch of allegiance by Agudat Israel caused a radical shift in the ideology of Neturei Karta, which felt betrayed by their Orthodox Allies. Their attacks against Israel and Zionism became all the more extreme, especially under the leadership of Rabbi Amram Blau and his wife, a convert and former member of the French Resistance, who had rescued Blau during the Holocaust. The community became more insular, while forming alliances with other sects that rejected the pragmatic support given by Agudat Israel to Israel's secular government after independence. Among their allies were the large and affluent Hasidic group Satmar, under the leadership of Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, formerly of Hungary and later of New York City, as well as other hassidic groups, some in Israel and others in the Diaspora. With their help, Neturei Karta was able to withstand paying taxes to the state that they did not recognize and conversely, to avoid obtaining any benefits from that state by revitalizing the halukah distribution of funds that characterized earlier generations. As such they became a self-contained community within Israel with few formal ties to the surrounding political infrastructure.

While many in Neturei Karta chose to simply ignore the State of Israel, a fringe element took proactive steps to condemn it and bring about its eventual dismantling until the coming of the Messiah. Chief among these is Rabbi Moshe Hirsch, Neturei Karta's self-proclaimed "Foreign Minister," who serves in Yasser Arafat's cabinet as Minister for Jewish Affairs.

Hirsch and his followers oppose Israel on religious grounds. Devoutly committed to their faith, they reject Jews who do not share their level of observance as heretics. Nevertheless, they also maintain that an Orthodox community of Jews can and should be a viable minority in an Arab-dominated Palestinian state. According to their ideology, the Jews were first sent into exile for their sins, so that a secular Jewish presence in Israel could be grounds for further expulsions and exile. At their most extreme, they claim that the Holocaust was divine punishment for the sins of secular Jews, but at the same time they also believe that the time will come when all Jews will repent or be lost and the Messiah will come to redeem them. Their website claims that the Zionists deliberately condemned thousands of Jews to die in Nazi gas chambers, rather than allow them to emigrate to destinations other than Palestine, in order for the Zionists to claim a Zionist State.

They also claim that the mass media deliberately downplays their viewpoint and makes them out to be just a few, while there are a large number of Jews with the same beliefs.

“New Historians”

“New Historians” are a group of Israeli historians who have declared their goal to be reexamining the history of Israel and Zionism. Leading scholars in this school include Benny Morris, Ilan Pappé, and Avi Shlaim. They base their research on Israeli government documents that have become public since the late 1980s.

Although the New Historians' publications include a variety of views, they may be generalized to present the Zionist movement as aimed in such a way that Jewish statehood could only come combined with the displacement of at least some Palestinian Arabs. Therefore, according to the New Historians, Israel has its own share of responsibility for the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian plight. In particular they claim that at least a part of the Palestinan refugees were driven away from their homes, rather than fled out of their own decision. Some of the methods of their historical work have come under criticism; the movement is highly controversial, both among Israeli and Western scholars.

Political Zionism

Political Zionism stressed the importance of political action and deemed the attainment of political rights in Palestine a prerequisite for the fulfillment of the Zionist enterprise. Political Zionism is linked to the name of Theodor Herzl, who considered the Jewish problem a political one that should be solved by overt action in the international arena. His aim was to obtain a charter, recognized by the world leadership, granting the Jews sovereignty in a Jewishowned territory. The Basle Program, drawn up in accordance with these principles, states that Zionism aims to establish “a secure haven, under public law, for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel.” Organizational and economic mechanisms (the Zionist Organization [ZO], the Jewish National Fund [Keren Kayemet L'Israel], the Jewish Colonial Trust and so on) were established to carry out this program.

Practical Zionism

Practical Zionism emphasized practical means of attaining Zionist goals, such as aliyah (immigration), rural settlement and educational institutions, despite inadequate political conditions. This approach originated in the Hibbat Zion movement in the 1880s, well before Political Zionism. After Theodor Herzl's death (1904), as hopes of obtaining a charter in Palestine were dashed, and after the Uganda Program controversy (1905), Practical Zionism, calling for the intensification of rural settlement in Palestine, gained strength. The champions of this doctrine were the members of the Second Aliyah, who settled in Palestine at this time. They founded rural settlements, some along cooperative principles; built modern towns; and established the first industrial enterprises. The 1907 decision to establish the Palestine office of the Zionist movement in Jaffa, headed by Dr. Arthur Ruppin, further reinforced this approach.

Quotations Regarding Zionism

Radical Messianic Zionism

Until 1967 religious Zionists in Israel were marginalized both by the secular majority, and by the more visibly religious groups that seemed to offer a more authentic, uncompromising brand of religion.

The Six-Day War of June 1967 resulted in the the capture of East Jerusalem and other territories of the Biblical Land of Israel.

The long-range fate of these territories, and their Arab inhabitants, became a major controversy of Israeli policy makers. From a purely secular perspective, the choice was between the military security that was offered by the expanded borders and the relative demographic stability that would be achieved by excluding their large Arab population from the domain of a Jewish state.

A religious claim provided strong justification for those who wished to hold on to the occupied territories: If the State of Israel was viewed as the unfolding of a Messianic scenario, then the miraculous victory of the Six-Day War was an essential stage in that process. The territories belong to the Jewish people (i.e., the State of Israel) by Divine decree and they may not be handed over to foreign hands.

The issue of territories, viewed in an eschatological context, became the defining feature for broad segments of religious Zionism in the post-1967 era.

Under the spiritual leadership of Rabbi Kook's son Zvi Yehudah Kook, with its centre in the yeshivah founded by the elder Kook, Jerusalem's "Merkaz Harav," thousands of modern young religious Jews campaigned actively against any territorial compromise, and established numerous settlements throughout Judea and Samaria. Many of these settlements, though originally founded illegally, were subsequently granted official recognition by the Israeli government, especially under right-wing regimes.

The most powerful political voice of the movement against territorial compromise became "Gush Emunim" (the Bloc of the Faithful).

However the fundamental policies of Gush Emunim filtered down to the mainstream, particularly to religious educational networks, in which a land-centered nationalism was presented as the highest form of religious virtue, and the histories of Zionism and the State of Israel were viewed as irreversible steps in the unfolding Messianic fulfillment.

The aspirations of Gush Emunim were widely respected by the Jewish public, especially as long as Arab intransigence made the return of the territories a far-off theoretical possibility.

When peace agreements with Egypt (1977) and the Palestine Liberation Organization (1993) put the return of occupied lands onto the actual political agenda, Gush Emunim found itself in active opposition to the policies and laws of the State of Israel.

In the '90's mainstream Rabbis were ordering religious Jews to disobey military commands to evacuate occupied lands, and branding Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin a "traitor" to the higher Jewish cause. A follower of these views assassinated Rabin in November 1995.

The Gush Emunim movement, like the secular right-wing parties, was generally vague or ambivalent about the status of the non-Jewish residents of the occupied territories. A more extreme position was taken by Meir Kahane, whose banned racist party "Kach" scorned democracy as an un-Jewish import, and advocated laws that would prohibit sexual and social contact with Arabs, actively calling for the eviction of Arabs from territories that belonged by rights to the Jews.

Religious Zionism

Religious Zionism can be traced to the "augurers of Zion" (Mevasrei Zion, precursors of Hibbat Zion), including Rabbis Yehudah Alkalai, Zvi Kalischer, Shmuel Mohilever, and Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin. Based on a fusion of Jewish religion and nationhood, it aims to restore not only Jewish political freedom but also Jewish religion in the light of the Torah and its commandments. For Religious Zionism, Judaism based on the commandments is a sine qua non for Jewish national life in the homeland.

In 1902, in response to the decision of the Fifth Zionist Congress to consider cultural activity as part of the Zionist program, Rabbis Reines and Ze'ev Yavetz established the Mizrachi organization (mizrachi being the Hebrew abbreviation of merkaz ruhani-"spiritual center"). Mizrachi held its first world convention in 1904 and composed the movement's platform, which concerned itself principally with observance of the commandments and return to Zion. In Palestine, Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook gave Religious Zionism his personal and spiritual endorsement, regarding settlement in the Land of Israel as the beginning of Redemption.

Religious Zionism has pledged much of its efforts and resources to constructing a national-religious education system. Hapoel Hamizrahi branched away from the main movement (1922) to focus on Orthodox rural settlement in Palestine under the slogan "Torah va'Avodah" (Torah and Labor). In 1956, the two movements, Mizrachi and Hapoel Hamizrahi, united under the umbrella of the National Religious Party, active in Israeli politics today.

The Return to Zion

In the late 19th century, the rise of religious and racist antiSemitism led to a resurgence of pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe, shattering promises of equality and tolerance. This stimulated Jewish immigration to Palestine from Europe.

Simultaneously, a wave of Jews immigrated to Palestine from Yemen, Morocco, Iraq and Turkey. These Jews were unaware of Theodor Herzl's political Zionism or of European pogroms. They were motivated by the centuriesold dream of the "Return to Zion" and a fear of intolerance. Upon hearing that the gates of Palestine were open, they braved the hardships of travel and went to the "Land of Israel."

The Zionist ideal of a return to Israel has profound religious roots. Many Jewish prayers speak of Jerusalem, Zion and the Land of Israel. The injunction not to forget Jerusalem, the site of the Temple, is a major tenet of Judaism. The Hebrew language, the Torah, laws in the Talmud, the Jewish calendar and Jewish holidays and festivals such as Shavuot all originated in Israel and revolve around its seasons and conditions. Jews pray toward Jerusalem and recite the words "next year in Jerusalem" every Passover. Jewish religion, culture and history make clear that it is only in the land of Israel that the Jewish commonwealth can be built.

In 1897, Jewish leaders formally organized the Zionist movement, calling for the restoration of the Jewish national home in Palestine, where Jews could find sanctuary and selfdetermination, and work for the renascence of their civilization and culture.

Revisionist Zionism

Revisionist Zionism is an outgrowth of Herzl's Political Zionism, augmented by the ideas of Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky. In 1925, Jabotinsky established the Revisionist Zionist Alliance, which advocated a revision, i.e., reexamination, of the principles of Political Zionism. The party's principal aim was to change Chaim Weizmann's moderate policies toward the British Mandatory regime.

The declared goals of Revisionist ideology included relentless pressure on Great Britain, including petitions and mass demonstrations, for Jewish statehood on both banks of the Jordan River; a Jewish majority in Palestine; a reestablishment of the Jewish regiments; and military training for youth.

The Revisionists waged a heated debate in the Zionist Organization [ZO] concerning the immediate and public stipulation of the final aim of Zionism. When their approach was rejected, they seceded from the ZO (1935) and established the New Zionist Organization. They returned to the ZO in 1946, explaining that this became possible after the Biltmore Program had proclaimed the establishment of a Jewish commonwealth in Palestine as the goal of Zionism.

The National Military Organization (Etzel [the Irgun]) and some members of the Jewish Freedom Fighters (Lehi) came from the ranks of the Revisionists. After the State of Israel was established, the Revisionist Zionist Organization merged with the Etzel-founded Herut movement to form the Herut party, a component of the Likud, one of Israel's two main political parties.

Socialist Zionism

Socialist Zionism strove to achieve Jewish national and social redemption by fusing Zionism with Socialism. Its founder was Nachman Syrkin, who promulgated this view shortly before the third Zionist Congress (1899).

Its philosophy was based on the assumption that the problem of Diaspora Jewry would remain unsolved even after the Socialist revolution, and that the solution to the anomaly of Jewish existence was the emigration of Jews to, and their concentration in, a territorial base. Dov Ber Borochov, a prominent advocate of Socialist Zionism, argued that the development of capitalism would inevitably prompt Jews to immigrate to Palestine, and that only there could the economic structure of the Jewish people be reconstituted as a base for the class struggle of the Jewish proletariat. Zionism, he asserted, is a historic-economic necessity for the Jewish people and the historic role of spearheading the Jewish national liberation process is reserved for the Jewish proletariat.

Disagreements about the conceptual and philosophical foundations of Socialist Zionism, the methods to use in achieving it in Palestine and relations with Socialist organizations and parties in other countries, led to the formation of many and sundry Socialist Zionist parties. Some of these entities eschewed Marxist terminology and refrained from explicitly terming themselves Socialist. Others, considering themselves more Socialist and less Zionist, forswore membership in the Zionist Organization at various times.

The Socialist Zionist idea gave rise to many pioneering youth movements, such as Hashomer Hatz'air and Hehalutz. The leaders of Socialist Zionist parties were among the most prominent in the pre-independence Palestine community and the State of Israel; David Ben-Gurion, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and Berl Katznelson are but three examples. Socialist Zionism is the progenitor of most of Israel's settlement movements and the Israel Labor Party, one of Israel's two main political parties.

Spiritual Zionism

Spiritual Zionism — a trend in Jewish nationalist thinking and Zionist ideology, was most prominently championed by Ahad Ha'am (Asher Zvi Ginsberg), one of the leaders of Hibbat Zion, a predecessor of Zionism.

In contrast to the views of Theodore Herzl and Political Zionism, in which Jewish statehood was advocated as a solution to the question of the Jews, Ahad Ha'am saw the crux of the problem in the question of Judaism, which, he believed, had lost its spiritual assets — its sources of creative and national might.

Because Ahad Ha'am did not believe that Palestine could accommodate all of Jewry, a Jewish state there, in his estimation, would not solve the problem of the Jews' social and economic status. Efforts should concentrate on establishing a national spiritual center, a hub of highquality life in Palestine, that would radiate to all Diaspora communities.

The correct course of action, Ahad Ha'am argued, is extensive and continuing educational activity among Jews and moderate settlement activity in Palestine.

Synthetic Zionism

"Synthetic Zionism" is a doctrine that coalesced at the eighth Zionist Congress (1907). Chaim Weizmann (who later became the first President of Israel) was its principal champion. A merger of Political and Practical Zionism, "Synthetic Zionism" advocated concurrent action on both tracks: political activity coupled with practical endeavor in Palestine. It also stressed Zionist activity in the Diaspora, such as modernized education, collecting money for the Jewish National Fund and active participation, on separate Jewish tickets, in national and local elections.

"Synthetic Zionism," with its guidelines-political realism, flexibility and the quest for a common denominator among the partners in the Zionist idea-dominated the Zionist movement from the Tenth Congress (1911) onward.

Territorialism

Territorialism preached the formation of a Jewish collective in Palestine, or anywhere else, on the basis of self-rule. The territorialist outlook coalesced in the debate over the Uganda Program. In July 1905, after the Zionist Congress rejected this plan, the Territorialist Jewish Organization was established in Basle under the leadership of the writer Israel Zangwill. It attempted to locate territory suitable for Jewish settlement in various parts of Africa, Asia, and Australia, but with little success. The Balfour Declaration and the resulting Zionist awakening negated the movement and led to its dissolution in 1925.

Other territorialist attempts, meant as counterweights to Zionism, were undertaken in the Soviet Union between the two world wars. The first was in the southern Ukraine and the northern Crimea, where four noncontiguous "national districts" (raiony) were established in the early 1920s and obliterated when the Nazis invaded. The second was in Birobidjan, where a "Jewish Autonomous Region" was proclaimed in 1934. This venture also failed, leaving a small Jewish minority in the region. In 1935, in response to the Nazi accession to power in Germany, Isaac Nachman Steinberg established the Freeland League in the United States. This organization attempted, unsuccessfully, to pursue Jewish autonomy by obtaining a large piece of territory in sparsely populated areas in Ecuador, Australia, or Surinam.

The Uganda Proposal

Theodor Herzl sought support from the great powers for the creation of a Jewish homeland. He turned to Great Britain, and met with Joseph Chamberlain, the British colonial secretary and others. The British agreed, in principle, to Jewish settlement in East Africa "on conditions which will enable members to observe their national customs."

At the Sixth Zionist Congress at Basel on August 26, 1903, Herzl proposed the British Uganda Program as a temporary refuge for Jews in Russia in immediate danger. By a vote of 295-178 it was decided to send an expedition ("investigatory commission") to examine the territory proposed.

While Herzl made it clear that this program would not affect the ultimate aim of Zionism, a Jewish entity in the Land of Israel, the proposal aroused a storm at the Congress and nearly led to a split in the Zionist movement. The Jewish Territorialist Organization (ITO) was formed as a result of the unification of various groups who had supported Herzl's Uganda proposals during the period 1903-1905.

The Uganda Program was finally rejected by the Zionist movement at the Seventh Zionist Congress in 1905, but Nahum Syrkin and Israel Zangwill called an alternative conference to continue the plan of the Uganda scheme.

The fortunes of the territorialist movement depended to no small degree on the seriousness of anti-Semitism on the one hand and the failure of the political dimension of Zionist activity on the other. So, for example, the movement's ranks swelled somewhat following the pogroms in 1905, but declined considerably after the securing of the Balfour Declaration.

Zangwill became the movement's undisputed leader. After the rejection of the Uganda scheme on the grounds of impracticability by the British, Zangwill turned his attention to settlement in Canada and Australia. But opposition from local residents led him to abandon the scheme. Expeditions were sent to Mesopotamia (Iraq), Cyrenaica (Libya) and Angola but little came of these expeditions.

A project that had some concrete success was the Galveston scheme which contemplated the settlement of Jews in the American Southwest, in particular in Texas. The project received the assistance of Jacob Schiff, the American Jewish banker, and some 9,300 Jews arrived in that area between 1907-1914, through the Emigration Bureau of the Territorialist organization.

With the publication of the Balfour Declaration, the ITO faced a severe crisis since many of its members came to the conclusion that Eretz-Israel was not so utopian after all. The organization's failure was due to its inability to secure a definite project, and its lack of sensitivity toward the historic and traditional sentiments of Jewish identity.

U.S. Withdraws from World Conference Against Racism

(September 3, 2001)

The World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa, turned into an Arab-led campaign to delegitmize Israel and brand Zionism as a form of racism. The United States warned organizers it would withdraw from the conference if these efforts were not dropped, and worked for weeks to negotiate a compromise by which the conference would stick to its subject and not single one nation out for criticism. That effort failed and the U.S. and Israel withdrew from the conference. The following is the text of Secretary of State Colin Powell's statement:

Today I have instructed our representatives at the World Conference Against Racism to return home. I have taken this decision with regret, because of the importance of the international fight against racism and the contribution that the Conference could have made to it. But, following discussions today by our team in Durban and others who are working for a successful conference, I am convinced that will not be possible. I know that you do not combat racism by conferences that produce declarations containing hateful language, some of which is a throwback to the days of "Zionism equals racism;" or supports the idea that we have made too much of the Holocaust; or suggests that apartheid exists in Israel; or that singles out only one country in the world--Israel--for censure and abuse.

I deeply respect the goals of South African President Mbeki and Foreign Minister Zuma in hosting this conference. I strongly support the good work of Secretary General Annan to try to make it come out right. The United States and delegations interested in a successful outcome had worked productively in Durban on the other key issues of the Conference and were hopeful that they could be resolved. I wish that it could have turned out more successfully.

Youth Movements

Youth movements provide an opportunity for teenagers to put their feelings and ideals into action; to make an impact on the world around them, by helping others and by building their land; and, not least in importance, to form connections with other young persons around the globe whose ideals match or complement their own. Members of Zionist youth movements, more than most, try to meet these challenges.

In Israel today, youth movements as in many other countries and throughout the Jewish world, are an extensive, organized phenomenon. Most Jewish youth movements were established in Eastern Europe towards the beginning of the twentieth century, motivated by the desire for the national revival of the Jewish people in their homeland. Like other European youth movements, they were critical of established society and idealized a return to nature and a simpler - rural - way of life.

During and shortly after World War I, the social climate in the streets and schools of many European countries became extremely nationalistic and anti-Semitic. The German youth movements took a nationalist turn, and most barred Jews. The Jews of Eastern Europe were engulfed in a sense of crisis after the war, heightened by the pogroms which erupted at this time, and this fostered the Zionist national consciousness of Jewish youth.

The first Zionist youth movement was Blau-Weiss (Blue-White), established in Germany before World War I. The Jewish youth movement with the largest membership and most significant impact, though, was Hashomer Hatza'ir, with its Zionist-socialist ideology.

Youth movements played an important role in the history of Jewry between the two world wars. Their influence greatly exceeded their numerical importance in community organization, education, political awareness and Zionist consciousness. Practically speaking, they were also the builders of the kibbutz movement. Their special inner strength became apparent, tragically, during the Holocaust. They remained active throughout this catastrophe, and their leaders orchestrated Jewish organization and resistance in ghettoes and camps. They also helped plan and implement the Beriha (escape from Europe) movement after the Holocaust. Most of the surviving members eventually settled in Palestine. The destruction of the Jewish communities of central and eastern Europe also marked the end of the Jewish youth movements there.

Most of the youth movements that originated in Eastern Europe established worldwide organizations but these had much less impact. The main movements founded in Eastern Europe have branches in the United States, but young people there tend to join social organizations that are less emphatically political. American Jewish teenagers, thus, mostly belong not to zionist youth movements but to organizations such as B'nai B'rith, associations of synagogues, or local and countrywide community organizations which also impart Jewish-Zionist consciousness.

Youth movements in the Diaspora today play a large part in raising Jewish consciousness among youth. Activities focus on Jewish subjects and encourage members to congregate at Jewish institutions such as synagogues; ties with other young Jews are thus strengthened. Most youth movements encourage their members to spend time in Israel, and some have programs in Israel, ranging in length from a few weeks to a year, for their members. Many new immigrants to Israel from the free world have been influenced by youth movements in their countries of origin.

Youth movements in Palestine began to organize in the 1920s, chiefly under the influence of movement alumni who had come from the Diaspora. They stressed togetherness, pioneering and personal fulfillment, especially on the kibbutz. Here, as in Europe, their public impact and influence on young people was immense.

Most of the movements were affiliated with political entities or even established them. Only the Scouts movement defined itself as nonpartisan, but it also educated its members in a national pioneering spirit and established agricultural training groups that founded their own kibbutzim.

The establishment of the State of Israel marked the fulfillment of many of the goals toward which the movements had educated, and state institutions now took over national tasks such as education. Over the past two decades, the social scale of values of Israeli society has changed, and to some extent, the competitive and materialistic climate has crowded out the pioneering ideals and romanticism of the youth movements. They have, however, continued to cope with social change and are attempting to adjust to changing goals.

BETAR (the initials of Brit Yosef Trumpeldor, Joseph Trumpeldor Alliance), the educational youth movement of the Revisionist Zionist Organization and, subsequently, the Herut movement, was established in December 1923 in Riga, Latvia. The ideology of Betar included the establishment of a Jewish state in all of the territory of Mandatory Palestine, ingathering of the exiles, Zionism without a socialist component, a just society, military training for self-defense and a pioneering spirit.

The first members of Betar who settled in Palestine established a kvutsa (forerunner of the kibbutz) called Menora in Petah Tikva, and were active in settlement enterprises around the country. Betar spread to other countries, and established a world organization with Ze'ev Jabotinsky as its head (1931). The movement solidified and expanded its membership vigorously in the 1930s, playing an influential role in organizing clandestine immigration in the years before World War II.

It is active today in Israel and in the Diaspora, with a membership of 14,500 in Israel and 8,500 around the world.

BLAU-WEISS (Blue-White) was the first Jewish youth movement established in Germany (1912) after German youth movements refused to accept Jewish members. Its nucleus was comprised of Jewish youngsters who were inspired by the German youth movement culture of outings, hikes and togetherness. Blau-Weiss adopted an official Zionist platform at its convention in 1922, stressing emigration to Palestine, retraining for agricultural and manual labor and rural settlement. The movement members who went to Palestine joined kibbutzim. Blau-Weiss was disbanded in 1929.

BNEI AKIVA, a religious Zionist youth movement, was founded in Jerusalem in 1929 with a philosophy of Torah Ve'avoda - a fusion of Orthodox observance of religious commandments and Zionist pioneering. In 1947 the movement's first kibbutz, Sa'ad, was founded in the northern Negev. Later on, Bnei Akiva alumni established kibbutzim and moshavim throughout the country. Kfar Haro'eh Yeshiva, established in 1940, served as the anchor of a network of Bnei Akiva yeshivot. The movement is also active in other countries, and its World Organization was founded in 1954. Today, Bnei Akiva is sponsored by the National Religious Party (NRP).

The movement has some 70,000 members in Israel as well as 45,000 in Diaspora communities around the world.

DROR, a Socialist Zionist movement founded before World War I in Russia, promoted national and socialist values as well as Jewish culture. Its members took part in Jewish self-defense in Russia. After the Bolshevik revolution, Dror went underground, moved its headquarters to Poland, and, in 1925, joined Poalei Zion. Members who settled in Palestine joined the United Kibbutz Movement. In 1938, Dror merged with Hehalutz Hatza'ir.

EZRA, a religious youth movement named for the biblical prophet Ezra, was founded in Germany in 1919, while its first groups were founded in Palestine in 1936. Affiliated at the start with the Orthodox Agudat Israel party, it now considers itself apolitical. Its aim is to educate young Jews towards the building of the Land in the spirit of Orthodox Judaism. Its members have taken part in the establishment of a number of kibbutzim and moshavim, as well as in various community and educational enterprises. Active today in Israel and in the Diaspora, the movement has some 7,000 members in Israel and 3,000 abroad.

GORDONIA, was a Zionist pioneering youth movement named for Aaron David Gordon, a philosopher of Labor Zionism who idealized physical labor, cooperation, mutual aid and human values. Founded in 1925 in Poland, it gradually became a worldwide movement.

Gordonia became active in Palestine in 1937. It joined with the Hapoel Hatza'ir party and in 1945 participated in the establishment of the United Kibbutz Movement. By 1951, it had undergone further mergers in Israel and in the Diaspora and today it no longer exists.

HABONIM, a Zionist youth movement which aimed to foster Jewish culture, the Hebrew language, and pioneering in Palestine, was founded in 1930 in London and affiliated with the Zionist Labor Movement. In the following years it established additional branches in the United States, South Africa, India, and Israel.

The Habonim union, into which several youth movements in various countries were merged, was established in 1958, becoming the largest youth organization in the Zionist movement with some 20,000 members. In Israel, the Habonim union helped found Hanoar Ha'oved Vehalomed while continuing as an active pioneering movement, whose members have established many kibbutzim.

HANOAR HA'OVED, a movement for working teenagers, was established in 1926 by the Histadrut (General Federation of Jewish Labor). It aimed to meet the cultural, social and economic needs of youth while emphasizing the spirit of pioneering achievement and active participation in a working society. The movement established night schools and labor bureaus for working youth. Most of its instructors came from kibbutzim, and the movement established its first kibbutz, Na'an, in 1933. Its members were founding members of dozens of additional kibbutzim. Hanoar Ha'oved merged with the Habonim union in 1959, and together they established Hanoar Ha'oved Vehalomed (Working and Student Youth).

Over the years, two additional movements for working and studying youth have been set up, Hanoar Haleumi Ha'oved Vehalomed and Hanoar Hadati Ha'oved Vehalomed. Hanoar Ha'oved Vehalomed today comprises some 80,000 members.

HASHOMER HATZA'IR, the oldest existing Jewish youth movement in the world, defines itself as a world organization of Zionist youth that strives for personal pioneering fulfillment in Israel. It developed a singular educational ideology and principles that fused scouting, personal example, socialist Zionist fulfillment through aliya and a collective lifestyle. Founded in Poland (1913-1914), it was a composite of a number of groups that merged into a united movement in 1916. The first members of Hashomer Hatza'ir came to Palestine with the Third Aliya (1919-1923) and founded kibbutzim. In 1927, their kibbutz movement was established in Palestine, and a strong relationship took shape between it and the world movement.

In World War II, Hashomer Hatza'ir members continued to operate in the Nazi-occupied areas, principally in Poland, and were among the leaders of the ghetto uprisings. Mordechai Anielewicz, leader of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, was a member of Hashomer Hatza'ir. After the war, they took part in organizing the Beriha movement.

In 1946, Hashomer Hatza'ir formed a political party which, along with Ahdut Ha'avoda, became Mapam in 1948. Hashomer Hatza'ir functions as a youth movement in towns, villages and kibbutzim in Israel, as well as in many Diaspora communities, with a membership of 14,000 in Israel and 15,000 abroad.

HANOAR HATZIONI, a pioneering Zionist youth movement, was founded in Poland in 1932. It supports different types of settlement - kibbutz, moshav and development towns - and strives to inculcate its members with a pioneering, pluralistic outlook.

HATZOFIM (Hebrew Scouts Federation) was founded in Palestine in 1919 in accordance with the views of Baden-Powell, the founder of world scouting. It educates towards allegiance to Jewish spiritual values and culture and personal fulfillment of Zionist ideals. Scouts alumni volunteered for the Haganah (Jewish self-defense organization) and established several kibbutzim.

Hatzofim, with 40,000 members in Israel, is affiliated with the World Organization of Scout Movements.

HEHALUTZ, a worldwide federation of Zionist youth, embraced various "halutzic" movements, i.e., those that encouraged young people to settle in Palestine and trained them for labor and rural settlement there. It espoused the following basic principles: membership in the World Zionist Organization; fostering of Hebrew language and culture; training for a life of labor in Palestine; and commitment to personal fulfillment through aliya, at any time and in any way possible.

Pioneering youth associations first came into being in the early twentieth century. The first countrywide convention of the Hehalutz associations in Russia, held in Moscow in January 1919, was strongly influenced by the personality and ideas of Joseph Trumpeldor. Several thousand halutzim (Zionist pioneers) managed to make their way to Palestine from Russia in 1919-1921, but the movement was repressed and emigration from Russia banned immediately afterwards.

Between the world wars, Hehalutz associations spread throughout Eastern, Central, and Western Europe; northern Africa; North and South America; and South Africa; they were strongest in Poland. Hehalutz reached its peak in 1935, its membership verging on 100,000.

World War II and the Holocaust devastated the large Jewish centers and deprived the pioneering movements in Europe of the source of their strength. Hehalutz maintained its structure in the ghettos as long as it could, and its members formed the activist core of fighters in ghetto uprisings and the Jewish partisan units, as well as in the Beriha movement after the Holocaust.

Attempts to re-establish a worldwide organization after the war proved futile. Only in South America is the movement still active.

MACCABI HATZA'IR, a pioneering Zionist youth movement, was founded in Germany in 1926 and subsequently expanded to other countries. From 1933 on, this movement, along with Maccabi Youth, formed the young stratum of the World Maccabi organization ( an international Jewish sports organization), but it did not confine itself to sports, engaging also in education for aliya and rural settlement in Palestine. In 1936, it held its first convention in Tel Aviv. Members of Maccabi Hatza'ir formed settlement groups, settled in Palestine, joined settlements and established new ones of their own.

The movement has undergone several metamorphoses over the years, and today has some 3,000 members.

HAMAHANOT HA'OLIM, a pioneering movement of teenagers in Palestine, stressed defense and personal fulfillment. It initially evolved from groups in the Herzliya Gymnasium (high school) in 1926; they established Kvutsat Hahugim in Hadera in 1929 and eventually settled in Beit Hashita. After this group merged with breakaway Scouts groups in Haifa and Jerusalem, the Hamahanot Ha'olim movement was established. It affiliated itself with Hakibbutz Hame'uhad, and its alumni established kibbutzim.

It has undergone a number of mergers and splits over the years; today it has some 3,000 members.

YOUNG JUDAEA, the oldest Jewish youth movement in the United States, was founded in 1909 by the Zionist Organization of America. It promotes the Zionist idea, encourages Jewish youth in their spiritual and physical development, and fosters Jewish culture and identity. The movement, operating in conjunction with Hebrew schools, was the largest youth movement in American Jewry for many years. In World War I, some of its members joined the Jewish regiments. From 1924 on, Young Judaea developed a cooperative relationship with the Scouts organization in Palestine. In 1967, it accepted the patronage of Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America.

Zionism Is Not Colonialism

by Mitchell Bard

“Colonialism means living by exploiting others,” Yehoshofat Harkabi has written. “But what could be further from colonialism than the idealism of city-dwelling Jews who strive to become farmers and laborers and to live by their own work?”¹

Moreover, as British historian Paul Johnson noted, Zionists were hardly tools of imperialists given the powers’ general opposition to their cause. “Everywhere in the West, the foreign offices, defense ministries and big business were against the Zionists.”²

Emir Faisal also saw the Zionist movement as a companion to the Arab nationalist movement, fighting against imperialism, as he explained in a letter to Harvard law professor and future Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter on March 3, 1919, one day after Chaim Weizmann presented the Zionist case to the Paris conference. Faisal wrote:

Notes

Zionism Is Not Racism

Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, which holds that Jews, like any other nation, are entitled to a homeland.

History has demonstrated the need to ensure Jewish security through a national homeland. Zionism recognizes that Jewishness is defined by shared origin, religion, culture and history.

The realization of the Zionist dream is exemplified by more than four million Jews, from more than 100 countries, including dark-skinned Jews from Ethiopia, Yemen and India, who are Israeli citizens. Approximately 1,000,000 Muslim and Christian Arabs, Druze, Baha'is, Circassians and other ethnic groups also are represented in Israel's population.

Many Christians have traditionally supported the goals and ideals of Zionism. Israel's open and democratic character and its scrupulous protection of the religious and political rights of Christians and Muslims rebut the charge of exclusivity.

The Arab states define citizenship strictly by native parentage. It is almost impossible to become a naturalized citizen in many Arab states, especially Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Several Arab nations have laws that facilitate the naturalization of foreign Arabs, with the specific exception of Palestinians. Jordan, on the other hand, instituted its own "law of return" in 1954, according citizenship to all former residents of Palestine, except for Jews.

The presence of thousands of black Jews in Israel is the best refutation of the calumny against Zionism. In a series of historic airlifts, labeled Moses (1984), Joshua (1985) and Solomon (1991), Israel rescued almost 42,000 members of the ancient Ethiopian Jewish community.

To single out Jewish self-determination for condemnation is itself a form of racism. "A world that closed its doors to Jews who sought escape from Hitler's ovens lacks the moral standing to complain about Israel's giving preference to Jews," wrote noted civil rights lawyer Alan Dershowitz.

When approached by a student who attacked Zionism, Martin Luther King responded: "When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You're talking anti-Semitism."

The 1975 UN resolution was part of the Soviet-Arab Cold War anti-Israel campaign. Almost all the former non-Arab supporters of the resolution have apologized and changed their positions. When the General Assembly voted to repeal the resolution in 1991, only some Arab and Muslim states, as well as Cuba, North Korea and Vietnam were opposed.

Zionist Congresses

Zionist Organization Statement on Palestine

Paris Peace Conference

(February 3, 1919)

The Zionist Organization respectfully submits the following draft resolutions for the consideration of the Peace Conference:

1. The High Contracting Parties recognize the historic title of the Jewish people to Palestine and the right of Jews to reconstitute in Palestine their National Home.

2. The boundaries of Palestine shall be as declared in the Schedule annexed hereto.

3. The sovereign possession of Palestine shall be vested in the League of Nations and the Government entrusted to Great Britain as Mandatory of the League.

4. (Provision to be inserted relating to the application in Palestine of such of the general conditions attached to mandates as are suitable to the case.)

1. Palestine shall be placed under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment there of the Jewish National Home, and ultimately render possible the creation of an autonomous Commonwealth, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

1. Promote Jewish settlement and close settlement on the land, the established rights of the present non-Jewish population being equitably safeguarded.

2. Accept the co-operation in such measures of a Council representative of the Jews in Palestine and of the world that may be established for the development of the Jewish National Home in Palestine and entrust the organization of Jewish education to such Council.

3. On being satisfied that the constitution of such Council precludes the making of private profit, offer to the Council in priority any concession for public works or for the development of natural sources which may be found desirable to grant.

1. The Mandatory Power shall encourage the widest measure of self-government for localities practicable in the conditions of the country.

2. There shall be for ever the fullest freedom of religious worship for all creeds in Palestine. There shall be no discrimination among the inhabitants with regard to citizenship and civil rights, on the grounds of religion, or of race.

Starting on the North at a point on the Mediterranean Sea in the vicinity south of Sidon and following the watersheds of the foothills of the Lebanon as far as Jisr El-Karaon thence to El-Bire, following the dividing line between the two basins of the Wadi El-Korn and the Wadi Et-Teim, thence in a southerly direction following the dividing line between the Eastern and Western slopes of the Hermon, to the vicinity west of Beit Jenn, then eastward following the northern watersheds of the Nahr Mughaniye close to and west of the Hedjaz Railway.

In the east a line close to and west of the Hedjaz Railway terminating in the Gulf of Akaba.

The details of the delimitations, or any necessary adjustments of detail, shall be settled by a Special Commission on which there shall be Jewish representation.

The claims of the Jews with regard to Palestine rest upon the following main considerations:

1. The land is the historic home of the Jews; there they achieved their greatest development; from the centre, through their agency, there emanated spiritual and moral influences of supreme value to mankind. By violence they were driven from Palestine, and through the ages they have never ceased to cherish the longing and the hope of a return.

2. In some parts of the world, and particularly in Eastern Europe, the conditions of life of millions of Jews are deplorable. Forming often a congested population, denied the opportunities which would make a healthy development possible, the need of fresh outlets is urgent, both for their own sake and the interests of the population of other races, among whom they dwell. Palestine would offer one such outlet. To the Jewish masses it is the country above all others in which they would most wish to cast their lot. By the methods of economic development to which we shall refer later, Palestine can be made now, as it was in ancient times, the home of a prosperous population many times as numerous as that which now inhabits it.

3. Palestine is not large enough to contain more than a proportion of the Jews of the world. The greater part of the fourteen millions or more scattered throughout all countries must remain in their present localities, and it will doubtless be one of the cares of the Peace Conference to ensnare for them, wherever they have been oppressed, as for all peoples, equal rights and humane conditions. A Jewish National Home in Palestine will, however, be of high value to them also. It influence will permeate the Jewries of the world, it will inspire these millions, hitherto often despairing, with a new hope; it will hold out before their eyes a higher standard; it will help to make them even more useful citizens in the lands in which they dwell.

4. Such a Palestine would be of value also to the world at large, whose real wealth consists in the healthy diversities of its civilizations.

5. Lastly, the land itself needs redemption. Much of it is left desolate. It present condition is a standing reproach. Two things are necessary for that redemption -- a stable and enlightened Government, and an addition to the present population which shall be energetic, intelligent, devoted to the country, and backed by the large financial resources that are indispensable for development. Such a population the Jews alone can supply.

Inspired by these ideas, Jewish activities, particularly during the last thirty years, have been directed to Palestine within the measure that the Turkish administrative system allowed. Some millions of pounds sterling have been spent in the country, particularly in the foundation of agricultural settlements. These settlements have been, for the most part, highly successful.

With enterprise and skill the Jews have adopted modern scientific methods and have shown themselves to be capable agriculturalists. Hebrew has been revived as a living language; it is the medium of instruction in the schools and the tongue is in daily use among the rising generation. The foundations of a Jewish University have been laid at Jerusalem and considerable funds have been contributed for the creation of its building and for its endowment. Since the British occupation the Zionist Organization has expended in Palestine approximately =A3 50,000 a month upon relief, education and sanitation. To promote the future development of the country, great sums will be needed for drainage, irrigation, roads, railways, harbors and public works of all kinds, as well as for land settlement and house building. Assuming a political settlement under which the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine is assured, the Jews of the world will make every effort to provide the vast sums of money that will be needed.

Hundreds of thousands of Jews pray for the opportunity speedily to begin life anew in Palestine. Messengers have gone out from many places, and groups of young Jewish men proceeding on foot have already reached Trieste and Rome on their weary pilgrimage to Zion.

The historic title of the Jews to Palestine was recognized by the British Government in its Declaration of November 2nd, 1917, addressed by the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to Lord Rothschild, and reading as follows:

"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this objective, it being clear that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

The French Government gave its support to the British Declaration to M. Sokolow as follows:

"Comme il avait convenu au cours de notre entretien le samedi 9 de ce mois, le Gouvernement de la Republique, en vue de preciser son attitude

vis-a-vis de aspirations sionistes, tendant por les juifs en Palestine un foyer national, a publi un communique dans la Presse.

"En vous communiquant ce texte, je saisis avee empressement l occasionde vous feliciter du gereux devouement avec lequel vous poursuivez la realisation des voeux de vos coreligionnaires et de voux remercier du zele que vous apportez el leur faire connaitre les sentiments de sympathie que leurs efforts eveillent dans les pays de le Entente et notamment en France.

"Veuillez agreer, Monsieur, les assurances de ma consideration tres distinguee.

"Monsieur Sokolow representant des organisations Sionistes, a et reu ce matin, au Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, par M. Stephen Pichon, qui a heureaux de lui conformer que l entente est complete entre les gouvernements francaise et britannique en ce qui concerne la question dun etablissement juif en Palestine.

The Italian Government has declared its approval on the same lines. The President of the United States has expressed his sympathy with the Zionist aspirations in the spirit of Mr. Balfour's declaration. The Governments of Japan, Greece, Serbia, China, and Siam have added their approval to the declaration.

We ask that Great Britain shall act as Mandatory of the League of Nations for Palestine. The selection of Great Britain as Mandatory is urged on the ground that this is the wish of the Jews of the world, and the League of Nations in selecting a Mandatory will follow as far as possible the popular wish of the people concerned.

The Preference on the part of the Jews for a British Trusteeship is unquestionably the result of the peculiar relationship of England to the Jewish Palestinian problem. The return of the Jews to Zion has not only been a remarkable feature in English literature, but in the domain of statecraft it has played its part, beginning with the readmission of the Jews under Cromwell. It manifested itself particularly in the nineteenth century in the instructions given to British Consular representatives in the Orient after the Damascus [Blood Libel] incident; in the various Jewish Palestinian projects suggested by English non-Jews prior to 1881; in the letters of endorsement and support given by members of the Royal Family and Officers of the Government to Lawrence Oliphant; and, finally, in the three consecutive acts which definitely associated Great Britain with Zionism in the minds of the Jews, viz: the El-Arish offer in 1901; the East African offer in1903, and, lastly, the British Declaration in favour of a Jewish National Home in Palestine in 1917. Moreover, the Jews who have gained political experience in many lands under a great variety of governmental systems, whole-heartedly appreciate the advanced and liberal policies adopted by Great Britain in her modern colonial administration.

It may be stated without doubt that all of these things account for the attitude taken by the Jews with reference to the Trusteeship, as evidenced by the following:

On December 16th, 1918, the American Jewish Congress composed of delegates representing 3,000,000 American Jews adopted the following resolution:

"The American Jewish Congress instruct their delegation to Europe to co-operate with representatives of other Jewish Organizations and specifically with the World Zionist Organization, to the end that the Peace Conference may recognize the aspirations and historic claims of the Jewish people with regard to Palestine, and declare that, in accordance with the British Government's Declaration of November 2nd, 1917, endorsed by the Allied Governments and the President of the United States, there shall be established such political administrative and economic conditions in Palestine, as will assure under the trusteeship of Great Britain, acting on behalf of such League of Nations as may be formed, the development of Palestine into a Jewish Commonwealth; it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which shall prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in other countries."

Similar action was taken in Jaffa in the month of December, 1918, by a conference of representatives of the Jewish population in Palestine, and on January 4th, 1919, by Jewish Congresses representing about two million Jews of the reconstituted States of Austria-Hungary and of Poland.

The boundaries above outlined are what we consider essential for the necessary economic foundation of the country. Palestine must have its natural outlets to the seas and the control of its rivers and their headwaters. The boundaries are sketched with the general economic needs and historic traditions of the country in mind, factors which necessarily must also be considered by the Special Commission in fixing the definite boundary lines. This Commission will bear in mind that it is highly desirable, in the interests of economical administration, that the geographical area of Palestine should be as large as possible, so that it may eventually contain a large and thriving population which could more easily bear the burdens of modern civilized government than a small country with a necessary limitation of inhabitants.

The economic life of Palestine, like that of every other semi-arid country, depends on the available water supply. It is, therefore, of vital importance not only to secure all water resources already feeding the country, but also to be able to conserve and control them at their sources.

The Hermon is Palestine's real "Father of Waters," and cannot be severed from it without striking at the very root of its economic life. The Hermon not only need re-afforestation but also other work before it can again adequately serve as the water reservoir of the country. It must, therefore, be wholly under the control of those who will most willingly as well as most adequately restore it to its maximum utility. Some international arrangement must be made whereby the riparian rights of the people dwelling south of the Litani River may be fully protected. Properly cared for, these headwaters can be made to serve in the development of the Lebanon as well as of Palestine.

The fertile plains east of the Jordan, since the earliest Biblical times, have been linked economically and politically with the land west of the Jordan. The country which is now very sparsely populated, in Roman times supported a great population. It could now serve admirably for colonization on a large scale. A just regard for the economic needs of Palestine and Arabia demands that free access to the Hedjaz Railway throughout its length be accorded both Governments.

An intensive development of the agriculture and other opportunities of Trans-Jordania make it imperative that Palestine shall have access to the Red Sea and an opportunity of developing good harbours on the Gulf of Akaba. Akaba, it will be recalled, was the terminous of an important trade route of Palestine from the days of Solomon onwards. The ports developed in the Gulf of Akaba should be free ports through which the commerce of the Hinterland may pass on the same principle which guides us in suggesting that free access be given to the Hedjaz Railway.

In connection with the Government to be set up by the Mandatory of the League of Nations until such time as the people of Palestine shall be prepared to undertake the establishment of representative and responsible Government, proposals will be made in due course to the Mandatory Power to the following effect:

1. In any instrument establishing the constitution of Palestine the Declarations of the Peace Conference shall be recited as forming an integral part of that constitution.

2. The Jewish people shall be entitled to fair representation in the executive and legislative bodies in the selection of public and civil servants. In giving such representation the Mandatory Power shall consult the Jewish Council hereinafter mentioned.

Neither law nor custom shall preclude the appointment of a citizen of Palestine as chief of the Executive.

1. That in encouraging the self-government of localities the Mandatory Power shall secure the maintenance by local communities of proper standards of administration in matters of education, communal or regional activities. In granting or enlarging local autonomy regard shall be had to readiness and ability of the community to attain such standards. Local autonomous communities shall be empowered and encouraged to combine and co-operate for common purposes.

2. Education without distinction of race shall be assisted from public funds.

3. Hebrew shall be one of the official languages of Palestine and shall be employed in all documents, decrees, and announcements and on all stamps, coins and notes issued by the Government.

4. The Jewish Sabbath and Holy Days shall be recognized as legal days of rest.

5. All inhabitants continuing to reside in Palestine who on the day of , 19 , have their domicile in Palestine, except those who elect in writing within six months from such date to retain their foreign citizenship, shall become citizens of Palestine, and they and all persons in Palestine or naturalized under the laws of Palestine after the day of , 19 , shall be citizens thereof and entitled to the protection of the Mandatory Power on behalf of the Government of Palestine.

Recognizing that the general progress of Palestine must begin with the reform of the conditions governing land tenure and settlement, the Mandatory Power shall appoint a Commission (upon which the Jewish Council shall have representation) with power:

1. To make a survey of the land and to schedule all lands that may be made available for close settlement, intensive cultivation, and public use.

2. To propose measures for determining and registering titles of ownership of land.

3. To propose measures for supervising transactions in land with a view of preventing land speculation.

4. To propose measures for the close settlement, intensive cultivation, and public use of land, where necessary by compulsory purchase at a fair pre-war price and further, by making available all waste lands unoccupied and inadequately cultivated lands or lands without legal owners and state lands.

5. To propose measures for the taxation and the tenure of land and in general any progressive measures in harmony with the policy of making the land available for close settlement and intensive cultivation.

6. To propose measures whereby the Jewish Council may take over all lands available for close settlement and intensive cultivation.

7. In all such measures the established rights of the present population shall be equitably safeguarded.

1. A Jewish Council for Palestine shall be elected by a Jewish Congress representative of the Jews of Palestine and of the world, which shall be convoked in Jerusalem on or before January 1st, 1920, or as soon thereafter as possible by the Provisional Jewish Council hereinafter mentioned.

The Jewish Congress shall determine its function as well as constitution and functions of the Jewish Council in conformity with the purpose and spirit of the Declarations of the Peace Conference and of the powers conferred by the Mandatory Power upon the Jewish Council.

2. The Jewish Council shall be recognized as a legal entity and shall have power:

1. To co-operate and consult with and to assist the Government of Palestine in any and all matters affecting the Jewish people in Palestine and in all such cases to be and to act as the representative of the Jewish people.

2. To participate in the development and administration of immigration, close land settlement, credit facilities, public work, services and enterprises, and every other form of activity conducive to the development the country. The organization of Jewish education to be entrusted to such Council.

4. To acquire and exercise concessions for public works and the development of natural resources.

5. With the consent of the Jewish inhabitants concerned or their accredited representatives, to assess such inhabitants for the purpose of stimulating and maintaining education, communal, charitable and other public institutions (including the Jewish Council), and other activities primarily concerned with the welfare of the Jewish people in Palestine.

6. With the approval of the Mandatory Power and upon such terms and conditions as the Mandatory Power may prescribe, to administer the immigration laws of Palestine in so far as they affect the Jewish immigration.

7. With the approval of the Mandatory Power, to issue bonds, debentures, or other obligations, the proceeds of any or all of which to be expended by the Jewish Council for the benefit of the Jewish people or for the development of Palestine.

8. The Jewish Council shall hold all of its property and income in trust for the benefit of the Jewish people.

1. A Provisional Jewish Council of representatives of the Zionist Organization, of the Jewish population in Palestine, and of such other approved Jewish organizations as are willing to co-operate in the development of a Jewish Palestine shall be formed forthwith by the Zionist Organization. Such Provisional Jewish Council shall exercise all of the powers and perform all of the duties of the Jewish Council until such time as the Jewish Council shall be formally constituted by the Jewish Congress.

2. Finally, when in the opinion of the Mandatory Power, the inhabitants of Palestine shall be able to undertake the establishment of a representative and responsible government, such steps shall be taken as will permit the establishment of such government through the exercise of a democratic franchise without regard to race or faith; and the inhabitants of Palestine under such government shall continue to enjoy equal civil and political rights as citizens irrespective of race or faith.

The foregoing proposals with reference to Palestine are submitted to the Peace Conference by the Zionist Organization. The Organization in the present form dates from the year 1897, when the first Zionist Congress was held at Basle, Switzerland, under the leadership of Theodore Herzl. This Organization absorbed at that time all Zionist Organizations which had been in existence previously. The Zionist Movement is supported by Jews in every country where there are Jewish mass settlements, i.e., in Eastern Europe, the United States of America, in Western Europe, in all the British Colonies, in the Argentine, in Siberia, in Shanghai, in Morocco, and in Tunis. Zionist federations actively engaged in furthering the principles for which the movement stands are to be found in all these countries.

The supreme body which controls the activities of the organizations in the different countries consist of delegates elected by the various local Shekel payers (poll tax) by a democratic franchise, and this body meets biennially.

Through the several financial agencies which the Zionist Congress has created to enable it to carry forward its work in Palestine, the Organization and associated bodies have raised and have expended in Palestine since its inception; millions of pounds. Notwithstanding the fact that since 1913 no meetings of the Congress have been held, the Organization has greatly increased its enrolled membership, and has the support of hundreds of thousands of Jews who sympathize with aims of the movement, and contribute to its funds. Since the war, the centres of political activity have been transferred to London and the United States of America.

In the allied countries the conduct of the political activities of the Organization has been entrusted to Dr. Chaim Weizmann and M. Nahum Sokolow, members of the Executive. In the United States of America the Provisional Executive Committee for General Zionist Affairs, created at the outbreak of the war, has been replaced by the Zionist Organization of America, the Honorary President of which is Louis D. Brandeis, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Zionists are to be found at the head of all the greater Jewish national institutions which depend upon mass opinion for moral and financial support; and in addition, take a prominent part in all the Jewish National Councils established in the new states in Eastern Europe.

In every part of the world on the Day of Atonement the Jews pray that "all nations may be united by a common bond, so that the will of God may reign supreme throughout the world." In the fulfillment of this prayer, the Jews hope that they will be able to take an honorable place in the new community of nations. It is their purpose to establish in Palestine a government dedicated to social and national justice; a government that shall be guided, like the community of old, by that justice and equality which is expressed in the great precept of our Lawgiver: "There shall be but one law for you and the stranger in the land."

Julian W. Mack.
Stephen S. Wise
Harry Friedenwald.
Jacob De Haas.
Mary Fels.
Louis Robison.
Bernard Flexner.

On behalf of the Russian Zionist Organization

On behalf of the Jewish Population of Palestine in accordance with Mandate received,

Zionist Shekel

The name of the certificate of membership in the Zionist Organization, given to every Jew who paid annual membership dues. The name comes from the unit of weight and currency used in the First Temple period. Purchasing the Zionist shekel expressed identification with Zionism and its goals. It was a prerequisite for voting for the Zionist Congress. Any Jew 18 years of age or over could buy a shekel, and from the age of 21 could be elected as a delegate to the Congress. The revenue from the sale of the shekalim was used for Zionist activities. The number of delegates that each country sent to the Congress was determined on the basis of the number of shekalim sold in that country.

After the establishment of the state, the sale of the shekel was discontinued, and elections to the Zionist Congress were conducted on the basis of a census of members of Zionist federations. The decision to abolish the shekel was made official only at the 27th Congress in 1968.

World Zionist Organization (WZO)

The Zionist Organization was founded by Theodor Herzl at the First Zionist Congress in Basle in 1897; it was renamed the World Zionist Organization in 1960. Its goals were set forth in the Basle Program: "Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Palestine, secured under public law." The right of membership in the ZO was given to anyone who accepted the Basle Program and purchased the Zionist shekel (dues). The first constitution was passed by the Third Congress in 1899 and amended over the years.

At the First Zionist Congress, the Zionist movement organized itself as a worldwide organization with permanent institutions. The supreme institution was, and still is, the Zionist Congress. The elected institutions that function between congresses are the Zionist General Council and the Zionist Executive; the latter carries out the movement's policies. The Zionist Congress also elects a law court, an attorney and a comptroller. The Zionist Executive is headed by its chairman, who is also the president of the ZO.

Since its foundation, the ZO has established companies and institutions to carry out its policies; these include Keren Hayesod, the Jewish National Fund, the Jewish Colonial Trust, and the Jewish Colonial Trust's subsidiary, the Anglo-Palestine Bank.

The Mandate for Palestine accorded Great Britain by the League of Nations called for the establishment of a Jewish Agency to represent the Jewish people vis-a-vis the Mandatory government and to cooperate with it in establishing the national home. The Zionist Organization was initially given the status of a Jewish Agency.

In 1929, an expanded agency was established as a partnership between the ZO and non-Zionist, public Jewish groups. At the founding conference in Zurich in 1929, half the delegates were representatives of the ZO, and half represented the non-Zionist organizations. Dr. Chaim Weizmann, president of the ZO, was elected president of the newly founded Jewish Agency.

The Jewish Agency was viewed as a tool for the involvement of the entire Jewish people in the building of the land. It was also hoped that inclusion of the non-Zionist organizations would boost the financial resources available to the Zionist movement, something which did not occur, partly because of the worldwide economic crisis of 1929. The principle of equal representation in the Jewish Agency leadership was also gradually breached. After several years, the Executive of the Jewish Agency became identical with that of the Zionist Organization.

In the pre-state period, the Jewish Agency was an "almost-government" which dealt with organizing immigration - including illegal immigration - and absorbing the immigrants in Palestine. It founded Youth Aliya, maintained labor, settlement and industry departments, and was a senior partner in the establishment of the yishuv's defense force and of the stockade and watchtower settlements. David Ben-Gurion served as chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive from 1935 to 1948, while Moshe Shertok (later Sharett) headed the Political Department.

The goals of the ZO and the Jewish Agency did not change until after the establishment of the State of Israel, when their status was redefined. On November 24, 1952, the Knesset passed the "Zionist Organization - Jewish Agency for Israel Status Law", and later a covenant was signed between the government of Israel and the Zionist Executive, according to which the organizations' main areas of responsibility remained those related to aliya, immigrant absorption and settlement.

In August 1970, an agreement was signed modifying the structure and functions of the Jewish Agency and the WZO. Half the members of the Assembly of the expanded Jewish Agency are representatives of the WZO; 30 percent represent the UJC (U.S.); and 20 percent represent organizations affiliated with Keren Hayesod in the rest of the world. With regard to immigration, the following division was set forth: the Jewish Agency would deal with immigration from countries of persecution and the WZO would deal with immigration from affluent countries. The Jewish Agency and the WZO signed two new covenants with the government of Israel in June 1979. The Jewish Agency retained its responsibility for initial absorption of the immigrants in Israel; support for educational activities and work with youth; immigrant absorption in rural settlements; immigrant housing; and welfare services. The WZO concentrates on work in the Diaspora and that relating to Diaspora Jewry: Jewish education, work with youth and so forth.

A Definition of Zionism

Anti-Zionism Among Jews

Autonomism

The Biltmore Conference

(May 6-11, 1942)

BILU

Chicago: Incubator of American Zionism

Christian Zionism

Could the Zionists Have Chosen Another Country Besides Palestine?

by Mitchell Bard

Alfred Dreyfus and “The Affair”

Essential Texts Concerning Zionism

Excerpts From Herzl’s The Jewish State

General Zionism

Hibbat Zion

Hovevei Zion

Jewish Colonial Trust

Keren Hayesod

The Last Days of the Zionist Youth Movement in Germany

(March 1942)

Lord Balfour’s Introduction to the History of Zionism 1600-1919

by Nahum Sokolow Longmans, Green and Co., London

(1919)

Orthodox Anti-Zionism

"

Neturei Karta

“New Historians”

Political Zionism

Practical Zionism

Quotations Regarding Zionism

Radical Messianic Zionism

Religious Zionism

The Return to Zion

Revisionist Zionism

Socialist Zionism

Spiritual Zionism

Synthetic Zionism

Territorialism

The Uganda Proposal

U.S. Withdraws from World Conference Against Racism

(September 3, 2001)

Youth Movements

Zionism Is Not Colonialism

by Mitchell Bard

Notes

Zionism Is Not Racism

Zionist Congresses

Zionist Organization Statement on Palestine

Paris Peace Conference

(February 3, 1919)

Zionist Shekel

World Zionist Organization (WZO)