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Detail - Zionist Stages of Development

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The Zionist movement originated in Europe in the mid to late 1800’s – a time which was characterized by four major cultural and political movements that both inspired and shaped the Zionist movement. The Zionist movement itself then went through 5 different stages of development, all of which combined to lead to the conflicts outlined above:

• 1. European Enlightenment: in Europe, in the 1800’s, with the spread of the printing press, the ideas of freedom and equality blazed across Europe formenting political debate and revolution. These ideas were very exciting for the Jewish people, because for the first time they thought there might be a solution to their problems with Anti-Semitism, which had plagued them for hundreds of years.

  Thus during this period, Jewish leaders pushed assimilation, which meant fitting in with the new progressive intellectual and business classes of Europe that seemed to be free of Anti-Semitism.

• 2. Nationalism: from the ideas of freedom and equality grew a new movement of taking pride in one’s own group.

  The growth of Nationalism was also a positive thing for the Jewish people because they began to form associations to promote Judaism, and develop the Jewish identity independent of European culture. In some ways, this conflicted with the assimilation movement, but it also was complementary because both movements looked to fit in with European culture and society overall.

  Part of this was the beginning of the Judaism Reform Movement, which hoped to modernize and Europeanize Jewish thought and religious practice, to both help with assimilation, and also to help develop modern Jewish identity and culture that was also distinctive across the range of European cultures and society.

  Thus was born the first stage in the historic development of Zionism - CULTURAL ZIONISM - the Jewish cultural movement for helping the Jewish people of Europe through assimilation into general European society, while reforming and modernizing Judaism itself.

• 3. Ethnocentrism: Unfortunately, pride in one’s own group often led to hatred toward other groups, which then brought back Anti-Semitism. The epitomy of this was the trial and framing of Captain Dreyfus in France, where the unfair conviction of a Jewish Army officer led to waves of hatred toward Jews across France.

  This was a huge disappointment to the Jewish people and organizations that had hoped that finally in modern progressive European society they had finally found refuge from Anti-Semitism, and the freedom to pursue their own cultural developmental direction.

  Thus developed the next form of Zionism - POLITICAL ZIONISM - which focused on starting new Jewish communities, or even a Jewish State, which would be run by Jews, for Jews to be safe in, and prosper, and pursue their own cultural direction.

  Most of these communities still held onto the ideals of freedom and equality from the European Enlightenment period and thus developed their new communities according to the ideals of socialism. Thus was born the next stage in the maturation of the Zionist Movement - the LABOR ZIONISTS.

  But, many of these ideals were not practical, and thus many of these first communities failed. But then Baron Von Rothchild stepped in and forced many of these communities to become more practical – and more capitalistic – and more rigorous in their economic business practices, and these communities did much better.

  Labor Zionists were mostly secular and humanist, and yet generally still did not believe in full equal rights for non-Jews in Israel – an uncomfortable conflict for most of them.

  These communities were the forerunners of the Labor Movement and Labor Political Party in the State of Israel, when it finally came into being in 1948.

  A number of different places in the world were considered for these communities. Some of the different locations were Uganda in Africa, Argentina in South America, and even in Europe. But the one location that was closest to the heart and spirituality of the Zionist Jews was Palestine, where their religion had found home more than 2000 years ago.

  But Palestine was the home of about 1 million Palestinian Arabs, whose ancestry could be tracked back to the Philistines, over 2000 years back.

  And it is important to note that the Palestinian Arabs have lived peacefully with a small number of Jews who had lived in Palestine for thousands of years as well.

  Knowing about the large native population already living in Palestine, did the European Zionist organizations approach the native Palestinian Arabs and offer to cooperate in developing the land together? Did the European Zionist organizations offer to negotiate with the Palestinian Arabs that already lived there, some way to find common ground and a mutually beneficial way for both groups to live in Palestine together?

• 4. Imperialism: Even though the ideals of freedom and equality were central to the European Age of Enlightenment, during which Zionism first came into being, and also to the philosophy of Socialism, which was adopted by the first Zionist communities to settle in Palestine, these ideals did not extend to non-European cultures and communities and societies outside Europe elsewhere in the world. This was because European culture at the time was ethnocentric – which means that Europeans considered themselves to be superior to all other peoples, and thus had special privileges and special exemptions relative to the peoples found elsewhere in the world. Thus, we find Europeans, who within Europe believed in equality and freedom and legal due process, elsewhere in the world were practicing oppression, exploitation, slavery, colonialism, and what we would call today, violations of human rights. We also understand now that these actions were based in racist attitudes, which today are considered illegal and immoral. These oppressive and exploitive practices by European culture against non-European cultures based on racist understanding we now call “Imperialism”.

  We now understand such practices as Imperialism, colonialism, slavery, racist oppression and exploitation to be immoral and the international community has thus made them illegal with international laws written specifically to define them, and prevent, suppress and punish them.

  It is thus an ironic tragedy that the Zionists have been able to get away with such practices up to the present largely because they have been able to get the world to focus on the good side of their venture, while making them feel guilty about what happened to the Jews during the Nazi holocaust when over 6,000,000 Jews were slaughtered.

  CONSERVATIVE ZIONISM: The first wave of Jewish immigrants to Israel were from Europe (Eastern and Western), and they were largely followers of the ideals of socialism and European social liberalism. But the next few waves beginning in the 1970’s were from other areas of the world – from Russia and from Middle Eastern countries. These people were more conservative, and focused on just surviving, and beyond that – on economic stability and then on economic success. Thus they disagreed with the socialism of the other group of Jews, and they thus helped form the Conservative parties in Israeli politics, the main one becoming the Likud Party led by Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netyanahu.

  The Conservative Zionist are both secular and religious, but their most important priority was the survival of Jews in Israel, at almost any cost.

  RELIGIOUS ZIONISM: This is one group of Conservative Zionists that base their political viewpoint on their fundamentalist understanding of the Torah – the main Jewish Holy Text. Thus they believe that according to their interpretation of the Torah, God has awarded the region of Palestine to the Jews, and because this involves the will of God, therefore any and every method, no matter how inhumane, is ok for kicking the Palestinian Arabs out, and securing the land for Jews alone.

  Thus, as the population of Israel became more conservative, the original dilemma that the State of Israel found itself in wherein the effort to create a system of special privilege for one group who were a minority in the region while still maintaining a system based on democracy, justice and equality, became resolved because the more conservative masses cared less about democracy, justice and equality, and more about merely surviving as a nation, thriving economically personally and nationally, and/or finally, realizing a religious fundamental vision which conflicted directly with the ideals of democracy, justice and equality.

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