Seven Theses on Zionist History for Today[1] |
1. What is “Zionism”?
The only definition possible for “Zionism” is the simplest: “The modern movement for Jews to immigrate to the Land of Israel aka Palestine.” On the other hand, there is no possible definition for the word “Zionist”; any attempted definition would include many who would deny they are Zionists, or fail to include many who think they are – or would (most likely) be so politically skewed as to be nonsense.
The word was invented by Nathan Birnbaum in 1890 but popularized by Theodore Herzl, whose own Zionism, as expressed in his books Die Judenstaat (The State of the Jews) and Altneuland (Old-New Land) are fantasies, but they inspired, and still indirectly inspire, various progressively more extreme ideologies and movements, many active in the real world.
Perhaps the words “Islamism” and “Islamist” are similar in this respect.
Zionism was a real expression of Jewish longing; it was not a colonial invention. That said, it is hard to imagine it being actualized any time other than the late 19th century and the first third of the twentieth. That was a time in which educated, even liberal, Europeans and Americans became used to seeing other Europeans and Americans undertake expeditions designed to take over and rule most of the rest of the world. Undoubtedly the reframing of Judaism into Zionism borrowed from well-known theories of nationalism, but Judaism fit well enough into contemporary nationalism that the lack of significant Jewish presence on the land it claimed seemed remediable, though, admittedly not easily. And the biblical origin and references made more sense to Christian Europeans then than they do now.
“Settler Colonialism” is a tautology
Settler colonialism was originally used to describe the Anglo-Saxon colonies, i.e. those that became the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand where, unlike most other colonies, the original (“indigenous”) people largely disappeared through disease and other means, and their few descendants constitute a tiny minority. Israel was added to this category because, well, it fits, except for such details as the lack of a sponsoring country and the occurrence of a major war between Zionists and Palestinians, as well as the failure of the latter to disappear.
The lack of a sponsoring country (“metropol”) became irrelevant to many since “westerners” in the 1970s morphed for many into a category superseding specific national allegiance. Thus the lack of a metropol can be finessed, since “westerner” covers all sins. I call it a tautology because it’s a definition that can’t be proven or disproved by factual analysis.
The Levant was one of the few parts of Asia and Africa not colonized before 1914 because it had already been colonized centuries earlier by a country Europeans had to at least pretend to respect, namely, the Ottoman Empire. European nations had taken away all the Empire’s African possessions and Christian nationalism had nibbled up its European possession since the 1820s, but the Empire’s core, Anatolia and the Levant through Iraq, was still Ottoman. Thus, Palestine was comparatively open to foreigners coming – and staying for the price of a small bribe, something Herzl was unlikely to be aware of. As is well-known, the British offered a part of “Uganda” (actually Kenya today), which Herzl strongly supported. The traditionalist majority in the movement he had created strongly opposed this – and it was dropped. That proves nothing about Zionism except that it was lucky; could Israel have survived the era of decolonization had it been located in East........