What happened to the Zionist inspiration?

Following the fall of Judea (the land of Jews around 70AC) during the Jewish-Roman wars, as described in my precedent post, the Jews were scattered around Europe, Roman provinces, the Middle East, and North Africa. After the fall of their land, some Jews were sold as slaved, or transported as captives. However, some Jews stayed in the former land of Judea. Those Jews in the Diaspora experienced restrictive conditions to practice their religion. During the Middle Ages, Jews divided into distinct regional groups, the Ashkenazi of Northern and Eastern Europe, and Sephardic Jews of Iberia, North Africa, and the Middle East. Judaism was never welcomed in the European countries (France enacted an interdiction of Judaism in 1308, and Spain expulsed the Jews in 1492, among other persecution episodes in European history). The Jewish Diaspora continued towards Eastern Europe, where their condition would not be better, as they would be gathered in ghettos, isolated from the population, and persecuted in pogroms (for instance, anti-Jewish pogroms of 1881-1884 in the Russian Empire). The idea for a new Jewish country would rise in this climate of European anti-Semitism. Hovevei Zion is considered as the forerunner movement of the Zionist movement. As early as 1880, the movement would facilitate the immigration of Jewish citizen, and the implementation of agricultural settlements, to the land of Palestine, part of the Ottoman Empire at this time. However, the idea for Zionism would become influent among the Jewish intellectuals of the time, with Theodor Herzl, an Austro-Hungarian journalist. In fact, the man considered the previous attempts as being "wrongly conceived". He wrote Der Jundenstaat in 1896 (The Jews' state), as a political program for the creation of a Jewish State, and a first Zionist congress would be organized in Basel, Switzerland, the following year. I read The Jews' state in order to gain a proper understanding of the initial ideas that lead to the creation of the State of Israel.


Theodor Herzl

Foremost, what surprised me is Herzl's conception that the only solution to the issue of anti-Semitism, is the creation of a sovereign states for the Jews. His vision emerges from an overall context of various "Nationalist claims resulting from globalization, and the strengthening of the communication links among the scattered peoples. He believes that his political program would be adopted by Jewish, and anti-Semites, and that everybody would be better off with a State for the Jews: "The governments of those countries affected by anti-Semitism have a lively interest in providing us with this sovereignty". He conceives that: "The peoples with whom Jews live are all anti-Semites, without exception, discreetly or brazenly", but that "anti-Semitism will cease immediately everywhere" as soon as the Jewish state would announce its independence.

Herzl designs a plan to build a Jewish state around two organizations that would serve as the main engines: The Society of Jews (intellectual organism), and the Jewish Company (responsible for liquidating the assets of immigrants, among other technical tasks...).

The plan is consciously detailed, and straightforward, for it has to charm the Jewish potential builders of the country: "First the poorest Jews will go and make the land arable. (...) they will build the streets, bridges and railways. (...) Their work will lead to business."

Nevertheless, Herzl opens the discussion in the Conclusion to a honest objection of his plan: "One of the big objections is that the Jews' situation is not the only perilous one in the world". The question remains relevant: could every historical nation claim its independence, and be given a piece of land? Although, the upcoming Holocaust certainly would had strengthen the legitimacy of a Jewish state.
Herzl ideas made their way through history, and the idea for the state of Israel would get the support of the British in 1917 -they had a mandate in Palestine at this time- (Balfour declaration), and would get the UN approval in 1948 (although the episode of the Holocaust might had helped the moral evidence for the need of a Jewish country). As evidence not envisioned by Herzl, throughout the history of the Jewish country, and form its very first day, the Palestinians, Muslims or Catholics, would never accept the creation of a Jewish state within "their country" (part of the Ottoman Empire before the British mandate). The declaration of the independence of Israel (14th May 1948) would trigger are fierce conflict between the Arabs and Jews known as the War of Independence. The focus of this paper is not to erect a historical summary of the sixty years of conflict between the Palestinian Arabs and the Jewish state, but rather to stress out a problem in the root ideology: How should Arabs be treated in the "Jewish State"? Among other influent intellectuals for the fight of Zionism, are the works of Jabotinsky (Russian journalist). The man believed that: "Each one of the ethnic communities will be recognized as autonomous and equal in the eyes of the law." Herzl would go along this idea: "It would be immoral if we would exclude anyone, whatever his origin, his descent, or his religion, from participating in our achievements. For we stand on the shoulders of other civilized peoples."

Among defenders of the Jewish State is the common argument that Arabs ever fought against Israel and never wanted to live with Israeli. These people forget that it seemed clear to Ben Gurion (founder of the state), that the Arabs would never accept Israel; in fact, why would they accept to be stolen their land!
Nowadays, the dilemma is very complex, and I will strive with Christeen, and Anthon, to better understand the diverse attempts of orthodox Jews, non-religious Jews, Catholic Arabs, Muslim Arabs etc. Although we will certainly not find a solution to the conflict, it is a first step to thoroughly understand what lead us to a terrible situation, both for the Israeli, and the Arab populations. In the following posts, I will try to better understand how the political life in Israel is designed, and what the eventual solutions to the conflict are.