175-588: The Jewish Social Democratic Labour Party (Poalei Zion) was a Zionist socialist political party in the Russian Empire and Ukraine . The party was founded in 1906 in Poltava . Members of the party participated in the government of Ukraine in 1917-20. It was part of the international Poalei Zion movement. Due to its position towards the October Revolution and being a strong supporter of
350-641: A Semitic language which flourished as a spoken language in the ancient Kingdoms of Israel and Judah during the period from about 1200 to 586 BCE, and continued to be used in some parts of Judea during the Second Temple period and up until 200 CE. It is the language of the Hebrew Bible and the Mishnah , central texts in Judaism . Hebrew was largely preserved throughout later history as
525-454: A civil war and the first Arab-Israeli war . Primarily due to expulsions by Zionist forces, and later the Israeli army, only a Palestinian minority would remain in the land over which Israel was established. The Zionist mainstream has historically included liberal , labor , revisionist , and cultural Zionism , while groups like Brit Shalom and Ihud have been dissident factions within
700-587: A large-scale ground invasion with the stated goal of destroying Hamas and controlling security in Gaza afterwards. Israel killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, including civilians and combatants and displaced almost two million people. South Africa accused Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice and called for an immediate ceasefire. The Court issued an order requiring Israel to take all measures to prevent any acts contrary to
875-523: A partition plan in 1947, triggering a civil war . During the ensuing 1948 Palestine war , more than half of the mandate's predominantly Palestinian Arab population fled or were expelled by Israeli forces. By the end of the war, Israel was established on most of the former mandate's territory, and the Gaza Strip and the West Bank were controlled by Egypt and Jordan respectively. Since
1050-527: A settler colonialist movement. Some proponents of Zionism accept the characterization of Zionism as settler-colonial or exceptionalist. The term "Zionism" is derived from the word Zion ( Hebrew : ציון , romanized : Tzi-yon ) or Mount Zion , a hill in Jerusalem , widely symbolizing the Land of Israel. Mount Zion is also a term used in the Hebrew Bible . Throughout eastern Europe in
1225-671: A "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. Weizmann would take on a maximalist interpretation of the declaration, in which negotiations on the future of the country were to happen directly between Britain and the Jews, excluding Arab representation. At the Paris Peace Conference , he would later famously share his interpretation of the declaration in his announcement of the goal "[t]o make Palestine as Jewish as England
1400-491: A "pure Jewish settlement" in Palestine on the basis of "100 per cent Jewish labor" and the claim to an exclusively Jewish economy. The Zionist leadership aimed to establish a fully autonomous and independent Jewish economic sector to create a new type of Jewish society. This new society was intended to reverse the traditional economic structure seen in the Jewish Diaspora, characterized by a high number of middlemen and
1575-459: A Jewish demographic majority, the Zionist movement was faced with a problem, namely the presence of the local Arab (and primarily non-Jewish) population. The practical issue of establishing a Jewish state in a majority non-Jewish region was an issue of fundamental practical importance for the Zionist movement. Zionists used the term "transfer" as a euphemism for the removal, or ethnic cleansing, of
1750-525: A Palestinian state comprising the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, within the borders set by the 1949 armistice lines prior to 5 June 1967. Following the declaration, Arafat explicitly denounced all forms of terrorism and affirmed the PLO's acceptance of UN Resolutions 242 and 338, as well as the recognition of Israel's right to exist. All the conditions defined by Henry Kissinger for US negotiations with
1925-401: A Palestinian state. Yaniv described Arafat's willingness to compromise as a "peace offensive" which Israel responded to by planning to remove the PLO as a potential negotiating partner in order to evade international diplomatic pressure. Israel would invade Lebanon the following year in an attempt to undermine the PLO as a political organization, weakening Palestinian nationalism and facilitating
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#17327659939072100-404: A call to Jews to take it upon themselves to appropriate the land. Zionism saw itself as bringing Jews into the modern world by redefining what it means to be Jewish in terms of identification with a sovereign state, rather than Judaic faith and tradition. Zionism sought to reconfigure Jewish identity and culture in nationalist and secular terms. This new identity would be based on a rejection of
2275-450: A campaign of attacks targeting Israelis. Following hundreds of casualties and a wave of anti-government propaganda, Israeli Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli far-right extremist who objected to the peace initiative. This struck a serious blow to the peace process, which in 1996 led to the newly elected government of Israel backing off from the process, to some degree. Following several years of unsuccessful negotiations,
2450-453: A ceasefire was signed with international mediation between the parties, though the occupation and small and sporadic eruptions of violence continued. In 2011, a Palestinian Authority attempt to gain UN membership as a fully sovereign state failed. In Hamas-controlled Gaza, sporadic rocket attacks on Israel and Israeli air raids continued to occur. In November 2012, Palestinian representation in
2625-441: A century after the beginnings of emancipation , Jews had moved from the margins to the forefront of European society. In the urban centers of Europe and America, Jews played an influential role in professional and intellectual life, considered in proportion to their numbers. During this period as Jewish assimilation was still progressing most promisingly, some Jewish intellectuals and religious traditionalists framed assimilation as
2800-639: A further 413,000 Palestinians displaced in the Six-Day War ; 2,000+ Jews displaced in 1948 6,373 Israeli and 13,000–16,000 Palestinian deaths in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War . 654 Israeli and 19,085 Palestinian and Lebanese deaths in the 1982 Lebanon War in addition to 800–3,500 in the Sabra-Shatila massacre . 1,962 Palestinians and 179–200 Israeli deaths in the First Intifada . 1,010 Israelis and up to 3,354 Palestinian deaths in
2975-656: A hardline far-right government , which led to greater political strife in Israel and clashes in the Palestinian territories. This culminated in the 2023 Israel–Hamas war , when Hamas -led militant groups launched a surprise attack on southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing more than 1,200 Israeli civilians and military personnel and taking hostages . The Israeli military retaliated by conducting an extensive aerial bombardment campaign on Gaza, followed by
3150-587: A humiliating negation of Jewish cultural distinctiveness. The development of Zionism and other Jewish nationalist movements grew out of these sentiments, which began to emerge even before the appearance of modern antisemitism as a major factor. In this sense, Zionism can be read as a response to the Haskala and the challenges of modernity and liberalism, rather than purely a response to antisemitism. Emancipation in Eastern Europe progressed more slowly, to
3325-563: A humiliating negation of Jewish cultural distinctiveness. The development of Zionism and other Jewish nationalist movements grew out of these sentiments, which began to emerge even before the appearance of modern antisemitism as a major factor. Assimilation progressed more slowly in Tsarist Russia where pogroms and official Russian policies led to the emigration of three million Jews between 1882 and 1914, only 1% of which went to Palestine. Those who went to Palestine were driven primarily by
3500-406: A leading role. The settlements established by Hibbat Zion lacked sufficient funds and were ultimately not very successful but are seen as the first of several aliyahs, or waves of settlement, that led to the eventual establishment of the state of Israel. The conditions in Eastern Europe would eventually provide Zionism with a base of Jews seeking to overcome the challenges of external ostracism, from
3675-423: A liberated, dignified person eager to defend both personal and national pride. The Zionist goal of reframing of Jewish identity in secular-nationalist terms meant primarily the decline of the status of religion in the Jewish community. Prominent Zionist thinkers frame this development as nationalism serving the same role as religion, functionally replacing it. Zionism sought to make Jewish ethnic-nationalism
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#17327659939073850-464: A like attempt to bring to Palestine the Jewish proletariat of Poland, Lithuania, Romania, and the Turkish Empire (1879 and 1882). Reform Jews rejected this idea of a return to Zion. The conference of rabbis held at Frankfurt am Main over July 15–28, 1845, deleted from the ritual all prayers for a return to Zion and a restoration of a Jewish state. The Philadelphia Conference, 1869, followed
4025-603: A more active way than most Christians viewed the Second Coming." The religious Judaic notion of being a nation was distinct from the modern European notion of nationalism. Ultra-Orthodox Jews strongly opposed collective Jewish settlement in Palestine, viewing it as a violation of the three oaths sworn to God: not to force their way into the homeland, not to hasten the end times , and not to rebel against other nations . They believed that any attempt to achieve redemption through human actions, rather than divine intervention and
4200-569: A nation is reflected in the nature of the symbolism of the movement, which are drawn from modern sources and appropriated as Zionist, instancing the fact that the melody of the Hatikvah anthem drew on the version composed by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana . The rejection of life in the diaspora was not limited to secular Zionism; many religious Zionists shared this opinion, but not all religious Zionism did. Abraham Isaac Kook , considered one of
4375-402: A national liberation movement for the repatriation of an indigenous people (which were subject to persecution and share a national identity through national consciousness ), to the homeland of their ancestors as noted in ancient history . Similarly, anti-Zionism has many aspects, which include criticism of Zionism as a colonialist , racist , or exceptionalist ideology or as
4550-418: A national language was the sense of legitimacy it gave the movement, by suggesting a connection between the Jews of ancient Israel and the Jews of the Zionist movement. These developments are seen in Zionist historiography as a revolt against tradition, with the development of Modern Hebrew providing the basis on which a Jewish cultural renaissance might develop. Zionists generally preferred to speak Hebrew ,
4725-502: A nationalist project. They drew on religious Jewish sources and non-Jewish texts in reconstructing a national identity and consciousness. This new Jewish historiography divorced from and, at times at odds with, traditional Jewish collective memory. It was particularly important in early nation building in Israel, because Jews in Israel are ethnically diverse and the origins of Ashkenazi Jews were not known. Notable proponents of this racial idea included Max Nordau , Herzl's co-founder of
4900-495: A nationalistic context. It adapted traditional Jewish religious concepts, such as the devotion to the God of Israel, reverence for the biblical Land of Israel, and the belief in a future Jewish return during the messianic era, into a modern nationalist framework. To be sure, the yearning for a return to the land of Israel "was entirely quietistic" and the daily prayers of a return to Zion were all accompanied by an appeal to God, rather than
5075-492: A peace treaty between the two countries. The accords also proposed the creation of a "Self-Governing Authority" for the Arab population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, excluding Jerusalem. While it promised "full autonomy for the inhabitants," the land was to remain under Israeli control. A peace treaty based on these accords was signed in 1979, leading to Israel's withdrawal from the occupied Egyptian Sinai Peninsula by 1982. However,
5250-575: A plan to partition Palestine into an Arab state, a Jewish state and the City of Jerusalem. Palestinian Arabs were opposed to the partition. Zionists accepted the partition but planned to expand Israel's borders beyond what was allocated to it by the UN. On the next day, Palestine was swept by violence. For four months, under continuous Arab provocation and attack, the Yishuv was usually on the defensive while occasionally retaliating. The Arab League supported
5425-505: A potential negotiating partner. Most Palestinian militants were defeated within several weeks, Beirut was captured, and the PLO headquarters were evacuated to Tunisia in June by Yasser Arafat's decision. The first Palestinian uprising began in 1987 as a response to escalating attacks and the endless occupation. By the early 1990s, the conflict, termed the First Intifada , was the focus of international settlement efforts, in part motivated by
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5600-473: A reality. The Zionist solution to the perceived deficiencies of diasporic life (or the " Jewish Question ") was dependent on the territorial concentration of Jews in Palestine, with the longer-term goal of establishing a Jewish demographic majority there. Early Zionists were the primary Jewish supporters of the idea that Jews are a race, as it "offered scientific 'proof' of the ethno-nationalist myth of common descent". According to Raphael Falk , as early as
5775-427: A reinterpretation of Messianism along traditionalist lines in which human intervention would prepare (and specifically only prepare) for the final redemption. Accordingly, the Jewish immigration in this vein was intended to be selective, involving only the most devout Jews. Their idea of Jews as a collective was strongly tied to religious notions distinct from the secular movement referred to as Zionism which developed at
5950-526: A sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning a Jewish state". Jewish settlements were proposed for establishment in the upper Mississippi region by W.D. Robinson in 1819. Ideas of Jewish cultural unity developed a specifically political expression in the 1860s as Jewish intellectuals began promoting the idea of Jewish nationalism. Zionism would be just one of several Jewish national movements which would develop, others included diaspora nationalist groups such as
6125-443: A scarcity of productive workers. By developing fundamental sectors such as industry, agriculture, and mining, the goal was to "normalize" Jewish life which had grown "abnormal" as a result of living amongst non-Jews. Most of the Zionist leadership saw it as imperative to employ strictly Jewish workers in order to ensure the Jewish character of the colonies; indeed they sought to minimize mixing with Arabs to, amongst other reasons, avoid
6300-531: A sense of self-determination and Jewish identity, rather than just in response to pogroms or economic insecurity. The arrival of Zionist settlers to Palestine during this period is widely seen as the start of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict . The Zionist claim to Palestine was based on the notion that the Jews' historical right to the land outweighed that of the Arabs. In 1884, proto-Zionist groups established
6475-433: A settlement in Gaza, but moved later to Smyrna . After deposing the old rabbi Aaron Lapapa in the spring of 1666, the Jewish community of Avignon, France , prepared to emigrate to the new kingdom. Proto-Zionist figures in the eighteeenth and nineteenth centuries include the rabbis Yehuda Bibas (1789–1852), Tzvi Kalischer (1795–1874), and Judah Alkalai (1798–1878). Alkalai and Kalischer developed their ideas as
6650-630: A significant effect upon Palestinian nationalism, as Israel gained military control of the West Bank from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt. Consequently, the PLO was unable to establish any control on the ground and established its headquarters in Jordan, home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and supported the Jordanian army during the War of Attrition , which included the Battle of Karameh . However,
6825-518: A system of institutionalized discrimination against Palestinians under its occupation called Israeli apartheid . Israel has drawn international condemnation for violating the human rights of the Palestinians . The international community, with the exception of the US and Israel, has been in consensus since the 1980s regarding a settlement of the conflict on the basis of a two-state solution along
7000-553: Is English." Partially in response to the Zionist movement, a Palestinian national movement would develop more concretely in the interwar period. The years that followed would see Jewish-Palestinian relations deteriorate dramatically. With the commitment to establishing a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine, the creation of the British Mandate in Palestine after the end of the first world war would allow for large-scale Jewish immigration. This would be accompanied by
7175-615: Is ingrained in the man's 'blood', in his physical-racial type, and only in it." According to Hassan S. Haddad, the application of the Biblical concepts of Jews as the chosen people and the " Promised Land " in Zionism, particularly to secular Jews, requires the belief that modern Jews are the primary descendants of biblical Jews and Israelites. This is considered important to the State of Israel, because its founding narrative centers around
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7350-435: Is not a psychosis... nor is it a lie. Anti-Semitism is a necessary outcome of a collision between two kinds of selfhood [or 'essence']. Hate is dependent upon the amount of 'agents of fermentation' that are pushed into the general organism [i.e., the non-Jewish group], whether they are active in it and irritate it, or are neutralized in it. In this sense, Zionism did not seek to challenge anti-semitism, but rather accepted it as
7525-625: Is the ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century and aimed for the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people through the colonization of Palestine , an area roughly corresponding to the Land of Israel in Judaism , and of central importance in Jewish history . Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews , and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible. Following
7700-444: Is viewed as an essentially negative factor, even in religious Zionist ideology, and seen as responsible for the diminishing status of Jews living as a minority. Responding to the challenges of modernity, Zionism sought to replace religious and community institutions with secular-nationalistic ones, defining Judaism in "terms of Christianity." Indeed, Zionism maintained primarily the outward symbols of Jewish tradition, redefining them in
7875-704: The 1948 Genocide Convention , but did not order Israel to suspend its military campaign. The war spilled over , with Israel engaging in clashes with local militias in the West Bank , Hezbollah in Lebanon and northern Israel, and other Iranian-backed militias in Syria. Iranian-backed militias also engaged in clashes with the United States, while the Houthis blockaded the Red Sea in protest, to which
8050-454: The 1967 borders and a just resolution for Palestinian refugees . The US and Israel have instead preferred bilateral negotiations rather than resolving the conflict on the basis of international law . In recent years, public support for a two-state solution has decreased, with Israeli policy reflecting an interest in maintaining the occupation rather than seeking a permanent resolution to the conflict. In 2007, Israel tightened its blockade of
8225-661: The Ashkenazi an augury—" Next year in Jerusalem —which was then included in the thrice-daily Amidah (Standing prayer). The biblical prophecy of Kibbutz Galuyot , the ingathering of exiles in the Land of Israel as foretold by the Prophets , became a central idea in Zionism. The forerunners of Zionism, rather than being causally connected to the later development of Zionism, are thinkers and activists who expressed some notion of Jewish national consciousness or advocated for
8400-481: The Battle of Gaza (2007) , Hamas took full control of the area. In 2007, Israel imposed a naval blockade on the Gaza Strip , and cooperation with Egypt allowed a ground blockade of the Egyptian border. The tensions between Israel and Hamas escalated until late 2008, when Israel launched operation Cast Lead upon Gaza, resulting in thousands of civilian casualties and billions of dollars in damage. By February 2009,
8575-756: The Coastal Road massacre led to the Israeli full-scale invasion known as Operation Litani . This operation sought to dislodge the PLO from Lebanon while expanding the area under the control of the Israeli allied Christian militias in southern Lebanon. The operation succeeded in leaving a large portion of the south in control of the Israeli proxy which would eventually form the South Lebanon Army . Under United States pressure, Israeli forces would eventually withdraw from Lebanon. In 1982, Israel, having secured its southern border with Egypt, sought to resolve
8750-669: The Declaration of Principles (or Oslo I) was signed and set forward a framework for future Israeli–Palestinian negotiations, in which key issues would be left to "final status" talks. The stipulations of the Oslo agreements ran contrary to the international consensus for resolving the conflict; the agreements did not uphold Palestinian self-determination or statehood and repealed the internationally accepted interpretation of UN Resolution 242 that land cannot be acquired by war. With respect to access to land and resources, Noam Chomsky described
8925-544: The Jewish Supernumerary Police , and Special Night Squads . The suppression of the revolt would leave at least 10% of the adult male population killed, wounded, imprisoned or exiled. In the first wave of organized violence, lasting until early 1937, most of the Arab groups were defeated by the British, and forced expulsion of much of the Arab leadership ensued. With much of the leadership in exile and
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#17327659939079100-520: The Kadimah nationalist Jewish students' movement; he used the term in 1890 in his journal Selbst-Emancipation ( Self-Emancipation ), itself named almost identically to Leon Pinsker 's 1882 book Auto-Emancipation . Fundamental to Zionism is the belief that Jews constitute a nation and have a moral and historic right and need for self-determination in Palestine . This belief developed out of
9275-566: The Lovers of Zion , and in 1897 the first Zionist Congress was organized. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a large number of Jews immigrated first to Ottoman and later to Mandatory Palestine . The support of a Great Power was seen as fundamental to the success of Zionism and in 1917 the Balfour Declaration established Britain's support for the movement. In 1922, the British Mandate for Palestine would explicitly privilege
9450-489: The Palestine Liberation Organization led by Yasser Arafat strove to find a peaceful solution through what became known as the Oslo peace process. A crucial milestone in this process was Arafat's letter of recognition of Israel's right to exist. Emblematic of the asymmetry in the Oslo process, Israel was not required to, and did not, recognize the right of a Palestinian state to exist. In 1993,
9625-1061: The Russian Constituent Assembly , the party was banned from soviets dominated by the Bolsheviks , but did not fully dissolve until 1928. The party suffered a major split in August 1919, when a dissident group formed the Jewish Communist Party (Poalei Zion) . After the JCP(PZ) had merged into the Communist Party by 1922, the JSDLP(PZ) changed name to the Jewish Communist Labour Party (Poalei Zion) (known by its Yiddish acronym א.ק.א.פ. (פועלי ציון)). Its Yiddish organ, Der proletarisher gedank ('Proletarian Thought'),
9800-541: The Second Intifada . 402 Palestinians were killed in the 2006 Gaza–Israel conflict . 1,116 –1,417 Palestinian deaths in the Gaza War (2008–2009) . 2,125–2,310 Palestinian deaths in the 2014 Gaza War . 285 Palestinian and 17 Israeli deaths in the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis . The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is an ongoing military and political conflict about land and self-determination within
9975-802: The United Nations , Human Rights Watch and many other international bodies and NGOs continue to consider Israel to be the occupying power of the Gaza Strip as Israel controls Gaza Strip's airspace, territorial waters and controls the movement of people or goods in or out of Gaza by air or sea. In 2006, Hamas won a plurality of 44% in the Palestinian parliamentary election . Israel responded it would begin economic sanctions unless Hamas agreed to accept prior Israeli–Palestinian agreements, forswear violence, and recognize Israel's right to exist, all of which Hamas rejected. After internal Palestinian political struggle between Fatah and Hamas erupted into
10150-551: The West Bank and Gaza Strip. The ICJ also determined that Israeli policies violate the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination . Since 2006, Hamas and Israel have fought five wars , the most recent of which began in 2023 and is ongoing. The Israeli–Palestinian conflict began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the development of political Zionism and
10325-675: The Yishuv and Mandate authorities. Increased illegal immigration from Jewish refugees, along with a paramilitary campaign of resistance against British authorities by Zionist militias , would effectively overturn the White Paper and eventually lead to the withdrawal of the British. On 29 November 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted Resolution 181(II) recommending the adoption and implementation of
10500-595: The "surplus of Jews, the inassimilable residue" from Eastern Europe who had arrived in Germany in response to the pogroms. The pogroms motivated a small number of Jews to establish various groups in the Pale of Settlement and Poland aimed at supporting Jewish emigration to Palestine. The publication of Autoemancipation provided these groups with an ideological charter around which they would be confederated into Hibbat Zion ("Lovers of Zion") in 1887 where Pinsker would take
10675-418: The 1870s Zionist and pre-Zionist thinkers conceived of Jews as belonging to a distinct biological group. This re-conceptualization of Jewishness cast the " volk " of the Jewish community as a nation-race, in contrast to centuries-old conceptions of the Jewish people as a religious socio-cultural grouping. The Jewish historians Heinrich Graetz and Simon Dubnow are largely credited with this creation of Zionism as
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#173276599390710850-551: The 1890s, Theodor Herzl (the father of political Zionism) infused Zionism with a practical urgency and would work to unify the various strands of the movement. His efforts would lead to the First Zionist Congress at Basel in 1897, which created the Zionist Organization (ZO), renamed in 1960 as World Zionist Organization (WZO). The Zionist Organization was to be the main administrative body of
11025-589: The 1950s, Jordan and Egypt supported the Palestinian Fedayeen militants' cross-border attacks into Israel, while Israel carried out its own reprisal operations in the host countries. The 1956 Suez Crisis resulted in a short-term Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and exile of the All-Palestine Government , which was later restored with Israeli withdrawal. The All-Palestine Government was completely abandoned by Egypt in 1959 and
11200-440: The 1967 Six Day War , Israel has been occupying the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, known collectively as the Palestinian territories . Two Palestinian uprisings against Israel and its occupation erupted in 1987 and 2000, the first and second intifadas respectively. Israel's occupation, which is now considered to be the longest military occupation in modern history, has seen it constructing illegal settlements there, creating
11375-409: The Arab Palestinian population. The concept of "transfer" had a long pedigree in Zionist thought, with moral considerations rarely entering into the discussions of what was viewed as a logical solution-opposition to transferring the Arab population outside Palestine was typically expressed on practical, rather than moral grounds. The concept of forcibly removing the non-Jewish population from Palestine
11550-516: The Arab side and 700 combined on the British and Jewish side total. With the eruption of World War II , the situation in Mandatory Palestine calmed down. It allowed a shift towards a more moderate stance among Palestinian Arabs under the leadership of the Nashashibi clan and even the establishment of the Jewish–Arab Palestine Regiment under British command, fighting Germans in North Africa. The more radical exiled faction of al-Husseini, however, tended to cooperate with Nazi Germany, and participated in
11725-416: The Arab struggle by forming the volunteer-based Arab Liberation Army , supporting the Palestinian Arab Army of the Holy War , under the leadership of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni and Hasan Salama . On the Jewish side, the civil war was managed by the major underground militias – the Haganah , Irgun and Lehi – strengthened by numerous Jewish veterans of World War II and foreign volunteers. By spring 1948, it
11900-428: The Black Hand militant group and had prepared the grounds for the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine . Following the death of al-Qassam at the hands of the British in late 1935, tensions erupted in 1936 into the Arab general strike and general boycott. The strike soon deteriorated into violence, and the Arab revolt was bloodily repressed by the British assisted by the British armed forces of the Jewish Settlement Police ,
12075-430: The Bund . Zionism emerged towards the end of the "best century" for Jews who for the first time were allowed as equals into European society. During this time, Jews would have equality before the law and gain access to schools, universities, and professions which were previously closed to them. By the 1870s, Jews had achieved almost complete civic emancipation in all the states of western and central Europe. By 1914,
12250-466: The Camp David summit, a narrative emerged, supported by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and his foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, as well as US officials including Dennis Ross and Madeleine Albright, that Yasser Arafat had rejected a generous peace offer from Israel and instead incited a violent uprising. This narrative suggested that Arafat was not interested in a two-state solution, but rather aimed to destroy Israel and take over all of Palestine. This view
12425-439: The Council of National Ministers of the Ukrainian National Republic (executive branch of the Ukrainian National Republic) the Poalist Abraham Revutsky was minister of Jewish affairs. Another Poalist, Solomon Goldelman , was deputy minister of trade and industry and of labour in the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic (state authority created by the Ukrainian National Union on 14 November 1918). Zionist Zionism
12600-492: The First World War that the landscape of Ottoman Palestine would start to significantly change. Land purchases, the eviction of tenant Arab peasants and armed confrontation with Jewish para-military units would all contribute to the Palestinian population's growing fear of territorial displacement and dispossession. This fear would gradually be replaced by a broader sense of Palestinian national expression which included
12775-438: The Gaza Strip and made official its policy of isolating it from the West Bank. Since then, Israel has framed its relationship with Gaza in terms of the laws of war rather than in terms of its status as an occupying power . In a July 2024 ruling , the International Court of Justice rebuffed Israel's stance, determining that the Palestinian territories constitute one political unit and that Israel continues to illegally occupy
12950-523: The Great Powers, and would "form part of a defensive wall for Europe in Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism." In 1902, Herzl published Altneuland , a utopian novel which portrays a Jewish state where Jews and Arabs live together. In the novel, Jewish immigration had not forced the Arabs to leave, orange exports had multiplied tenfold, and Arab landowners profited from selling land to
13125-531: The Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur. Egyptian and Syria had crossed over the ceasefire lines that were agreed upon prior to 1973. Egypt had in particular tried to reoccupy much of the area surrounding the Suez Canal, whilst the frontline with Syria was mainly situated around the north in the Golan Heights. The war concluded with an Israeli victory, with both sides suffering tremendous casualties. Following
13300-415: The Jewish identity which developed while living amongst non-Jews . Accordingly, the early Zionists sought to develop a nationalist Jewish political life in a territory where Jews constitute a demographic majority. The early Zionist thinkers saw the integration of Jews into non-Jewish society as both unrealistic (or insufficient to address the deficiencies associated with the demographic minority status of
13475-545: The Jewish paramilitary force Haganah . In 1929, a series of violent riots resulted in the deaths of 133 Jews and 116 Arabs, with significant Jewish casualties in Hebron and Safed , and the evacuation of Jews from Hebron and Gaza. In the early 1930s, the Arab national struggle in Palestine had drawn many Arab nationalist militants from across the Middle East, such as Sheikh Izaddin al-Qassam from Syria, who established
13650-466: The Jewish settlers over the local Palestinian population. The British would assist in the establishment and development of Zionist institutions and a Zionist quasi-state which operated in parallel to the British mandate government. After over two decades of British support for the movement, Britain restricted Jewish immigration with the White Paper of 1939 in an attempt to ease local tensions. Despite
13825-543: The Jews in Europe) and undesirable, since assimilation was accompanied by the dilution of Jewish cultural distinctiveness. Moses Hess , a leading precursor of Zionism, commented on the perceived insufficiency of assimilation: "The German hates the Jewish race more than the religion; he objects less to the Jews' peculiar beliefs than to their peculiar noses." Prominent leaders of the Zionist movement expressed an "understanding" of antisemitism , echoing its beliefs: Anti-Semitism
14000-452: The Jews. Walter Laqueur describes Herzl in real life as emphasizing the importance of close relationships between Jews and Muslims on several occasions. Altneuland also reflected Herzl's belief in the importance of technology and progress. The Jewish state in the novel is a highly advanced society, where scientific and technological innovation is celebrated and valued. Before World War I, although led by Austrian and German Jews, Zionism
14175-602: The Oslo Accords as legitimizing "the transformation of the West Bank into what has been called a 'cartographic cheeseboard'." Core to the Oslo Accords was the creation of the Palestinian Authority and the security cooperation it would enter into with the Israeli military authorities in what has been described as the "outsourcing" of the occupation to the PA. Just before signing the Oslo accord, Rabin described
14350-578: The Oslo agreements as allowing "Israel to do virtually what it likes." The Oslo process was delicate and progressed in fits and starts. The process took a turning point at the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995 and the election of Netanyahu in 1996, finally unraveling when Arafat and Ehud Barak failed to reach an agreement at Camp David in July 2000 and later at Taba in 2001. The interim period specified by Oslo had not built confidence between
14525-425: The PLO as a mistake that threatened the existing territorial status quo. He argued that negotiating with the PLO meant accepting the existence of a Palestinian state and hence was unacceptable. The term "peace process" refers to the step-by-step approach to resolving the conflict. Having originally entered into usage to describe the US mediated negotiations between Israel and surrounding Arab countries, notably Egypt,
14700-411: The PLO had now been met. Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir stood behind the stance that the PLO was a terrorist organization. He maintained a strict stance against any concessions, including withdrawal from occupied Palestinian territories, recognition of or negotiations with the PLO, and especially the establishment of a Palestinian state. Shamir viewed the U.S. decision to engage in dialogue with
14875-523: The Palestinian base in Jordan collapsed with the Jordanian–Palestinian civil war in 1970. The PLO defeat by the Jordanians caused most of the Palestinian militants to relocate to South Lebanon, where they soon took over large areas, creating the so-called "Fatahland". On 6 October 1973, a coalition of Arab forces consisting of mainly Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack against Israel on
15050-462: The Palestinian issue by attempting to dismantle the military and political power of the PLO in Lebanon. The goal was to establish a friendly regime in Lebanon and continue its policy of settlement and annexation in occupied Palestine. The PLO had observed the latest ceasefire with Israel and shown a preference for negotiations over military operations. As a result, Israel sought to remove the PLO as
15225-446: The Palestinian territories, despite the PA upholding its obligation to curbing violent attacks from extremist groups, in part by cooperating with Israeli forces. Meron Benvenisti , former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, observed that life became harsher for Palestinians during this period as state violence increased and Palestinian land continued to be expropriated as settlements expanded. Israeli foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami described
15400-515: The Palestinians and other Arab nations, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza and a "just resolution" of the Palestinian refugee question. These principles, known as "land for peace" and Palestinian self-determination through a two-state settlement, were endorsed by the International Court of Justice, the United Nations, and international human rights organizations. The June 1967 war exerted
15575-568: The Temple Mount or any core East Jerusalem neighbourhoods, and continued Israel control over the Jordan Valley. Arafat rejected this offer, which Palestinian negotiators, Israeli analysts and Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami described as "unacceptable". According to the Palestinian negotiators the offer did not remove many of the elements of the Israeli occupation regarding land, security, settlements, and Jerusalem. After
15750-663: The Temple Mount/Noble sanctuary, while the Israelis would have sovereignty over the Western Wall. On refugees the plan suggested a number of proposals including financial compensation, the right of return to the Palestinian state, and Israeli acknowledgment of suffering caused to the Palestinians in 1948. Security proposals referred to a "non-militarized" Palestinian state, and an international force for border security. Both sides accepted Clinton's plan and it became
15925-574: The Tsarist regime, and internal changes within the Jewish communities there. The groups which formed Hibbat Zion included the Bilu group which began its settlements in 1882. Shapira describes the Bilu as serving the role of a prototype for the settlement groups that followed. At the end of the 19th century, Jews remained a small minority in Palestine. At this point, Zionism remained a scattered movement. In
16100-414: The UN was upgraded to a non-member observer state, and its mission title was changed from "Palestine (represented by PLO)" to " State of Palestine ". In 2014, another war broke out between Israel and Gaza, resulting in over 70 Israeli and over 2,000 Palestinian casualties. After the 2014 war and 2021 crisis , Hamas began planning an attack on Israel. In 2022, Netanyahu returned to power while headlining
16275-469: The United States responded with airstrikes in Yemen , Iraq, and Syria . The PLO's participation in diplomatic negotiations was dependent on its complete disavowal of terrorism and recognition of Israel's "right to exist." This stipulation required the PLO to abandon its objective of reclaiming all of historic Palestine and instead focus on the 22 percent which came under Israeli military control in 1967. By
16450-478: The West Bank after having already given up 78% of historic Palestine. Thus, an Israeli offer of 91 percent of the West Bank (5,538 km of the West Bank translates into only 86 percent from the Palestinian perspective), including Arab parts of East Jerusalem and the entire Gaza Strip, as well as a stipulation that 69 Jewish settlements (which comprise 85% of the West Bank's Jewish settlers) would be ceded to Israel, no right of return to Israel, no sovereignty over
16625-538: The White Paper, Zionist immigration and settlement efforts continued during WWII . While immigration had previously been selective, once the details of the Nazi Holocaust reached Palestine in 1942, selectivity was abandoned. The Zionist war effort focused on the survival and development of the Yishuv , with little Zionist resources being deployed in support of European Jews. The State of Israel would be established in 1948 over 78% of mandatory Palestine following
16800-555: The Wye as having successfully reduced both violent and non-violent protests, both of which he considers to be "inconsistent with the spirit of Wye." Watson claims that the PA frequently violated its obligations to curb incitement and its record on curbing terrorism and other security obligations under the Wye River Memorandum was, at best, mixed. In 1993, Israeli officials led by Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leaders from
16975-441: The Zionist effort also held similar beliefs regarding Jewish and Arab rights in Palestine. Unlike other forms of nationalism, the Zionist claim to Palestine was aspirational and required a mechanism by which the claim could be realized. The territorial concentration of Jews in Palestine and the subsequent goal of establishing a Jewish majority there was the main mechanism by which Zionist groups sought to realize this claim. By
17150-406: The Zionist settlers of the first aliyah had ventured to create a "pure Jewish settlement," they did grow to rely on Arab labor due to the lack of availability of Jewish laborers during this period. With the arrival of the more ideologically driven settlers of the second aliyah, the idea of "avoda ivrit" would become more central. The future leaders of the Zionist movement saw an existential threat in
17325-482: The annexation of the West Bank into Greater Israel. While the PLO had adopted a program of pursuing a Palestinian state alongside Israel since the mid-1970s, the 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence formally consecrated this objective. This declaration, which was based on resolutions from the Palestine National Council sessions in the late 1970s and 1980s, advocated for the creation of
17500-420: The anticipation of restoration were based on messianic beliefs and religious practices, not material nationalistic conceptions. The Zionist claim to Palestine was based on the notion that Jews had a historical right to the land which outweighed the rights of the Arabs, which were "of no moral or historical significance." According to Israeli historian Simha Flapan, the view expressed by the proclamation " there
17675-454: The arrival of Zionist settlers to Palestine. The modern political Zionist movement, with the goal of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine , grew out of the last two decades of the 19th century, largely in response to antisemitism in Europe. While Jewish colonization began during this period , it was not until the arrival of more ideologically Zionist immigrants in the decade preceding
17850-469: The claim has "remained forever elusive". With the arrival in Palestine of more ideologically motivated settlers after the turn of the century, the Zionist movement began to emphasize the importance of the productivization of Jewish society and the so-called "conquest of labor," the belief that the employment of exclusively Jewish labour was the pre-condition for the development of an independent Jewish society in Palestine. The Zionist movement sought to build
18025-402: The collapse of the summit. In the months following the summit, Clinton appointed former US Senator George J. Mitchell to lead a fact-finding committee aiming to identify strategies for restoring the peace process. The committee's findings were published in 2001 with the dismantlement of existing Israeli settlements and Palestinian crackdown on militant activity being one strategy. Following
18200-511: The coming of the Messiah , constituted a rebellion against divine will and a dangerous heresy. The cultural memory of Jews in the diaspora revered the Land of Israel. Religious tradition held that a future messianic age would usher in their return as a people., a 'return to Zion' commemorated particularly at Passover and in Yom Kippur prayers. In late medieval times, there arose among
18375-442: The concept of an " Ingathering of the exiles " and the " Return to Zion ", on the assumption that all modern Jews are the direct lineal descendants of the biblical Jews. The question has thus been focused on by supporters of Zionism and anti-Zionists alike, as in the absence of this biblical primacy, "the Zionist project falls prey to the pejorative categorization as 'settler colonialism' pursued under false assumptions, playing into
18550-418: The concept of das völk : people of shared ancestry should pursue separation and establish a unified state. Zionist thinkers view the movement as a "revolt against a tradition of many centuries" of living parasitically at the margins of Western society. Indeed, Zionism was uncomfortable with the term "Jewish," associating it with passivity, spirituality and the stain of "galut". Instead, Zionist thinkers preferred
18725-735: The conflict re-erupted as the Second Intifada in September 2000. The violence, escalating into an open conflict between the Palestinian National Security Forces and the Israel Defense Forces , lasted until 2004/2005 and led to approximately 130 fatalities . In 2005, Israeli Prime Minister Sharon ordered the removal of Israeli settlers and soldiers from Gaza . Israel and its Supreme Court formally declared an end to occupation, saying it "had no effective control over what occurred" in Gaza. However,
18900-448: The consequent first arrival of Jewish settlers to Ottoman Palestine in 1882. The local Arab population increasingly began to oppose Zionism, primarily out of fear of territorial displacement and dispossession. The Zionist movement garnered the support of an imperial power in the 1917 Balfour Declaration issued by Britain, which promised to support the creation of a " Jewish homeland " in Palestine . Following British occupation of
19075-536: The construction of Zionist identity as a militarized nationalism arose in contrast to the imputed identity of the Diaspora Jew as a "feminised" Other . She describes this as a relationship of contempt towards the previous identity of the Jewish Diaspora viewed as unable to resist antisemitism and the Holocaust. Lentin argues that Zionism's rejection of this "feminised" identity and its obsession with constructing
19250-458: The context of ideological developments within modern European nations in the 19th century. The concept of the "return" remained a powerful symbol within religious Jewish belief which emphasized that their return should be determined by Divine Providence rather than human action. Leading Zionist historian Shlomo Avineri describes this connection: "Jews did not relate to the vision of the Return in
19425-470: The development of a separate Jewish controlled sector of the economy which was supported with large amounts of capital from abroad. The more ardent Zionist ideologues of the Second Aliyah would become the leaders of the Yishuv starting in the 1920s and believed in the separation of Jewish and Arab economies and societies. During this period, the exclusionary nationalist ethos would grow to overpower
19600-436: The distinctive trait of Jews rather than their commitment to Judaism. Zionism instead adopted a racial understanding of Jewish identity, which paradoxically mirrored anti-Semitic views by suggesting that Jewishness is an inherent, unchangeable trait found in one's "blood." Framed this way, Jewish identity is only secondarily a matter of tradition or culture. Zionist nationalism embraced pan-Germanic ideologies, which stressed
19775-538: The economy severely weakened, the Palestinians would struggle to confront the Zionist movement which was growing in strength, with the support of the British. The cost and risks associated with the revolt and the ongoing inter-communal conflict led to a shift in British policies in the region and the appointment of the Peel Commission which recommended the partitioning of Palestine. The two main Zionist leaders, Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion , accepted
19950-411: The employment of Arab labor-the fear that the "half-wild natives" would rise up against their "Jewish masters" motivated the movement on a practical level to work towards a society based on purely Jewish labor. Zionism rejected traditional Judaic definitions of what it means to be Jewish, but struggled to offer a new interpretation of Jewish identity independent of rabbinical tradition. Jewish religion
20125-407: The emptiness and futility of trying to 'combat' anti-Semitism." Herzl's project was purely secular, the selection of Palestine, after considering other locations, was motivated by the credibility the name would give to the movement. From early on, Herzl recognized that Zionism could not succeed without the support of a Great Power. His view was that this Judenstaat would serve the interests of
20300-491: The end of the century. In contrast, Hess advocated for the establishment of an independent Jewish state in pursuit of the economic and social normalization of the Jewish people. Hess believed that emancipation alone was not a sufficient solution to the problems faced by European Jewry; he perceived a shift of anti-Jewish sentiment from a religious to a racial basis. For Hess, religious conversion would not fix this anti-Jewish hostility. Christian restorationist ideas promoting
20475-660: The end of the war, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 338, which confirmed the land-for-peace principle established in Resolution 242, initiating the Middle East peace process. The Arab defeat would play an important role in the PLO's willingness to pursue a negotiated settlement to the conflict. Additionally, many Israelis began to believe that the area under Israeli occupation could not be held indefinitely by force. The Camp David Accords, agreed upon by Israel and Egypt in 1978, primarily aimed to establish
20650-462: The envisioned European and German culture of the state where Jews were simply the transmitters of imperialist culture rather than producers or creators of culture. Like Pinsker, Herzl saw antisemitism as a reality that could only be addressed by the territorial concentration of Jews in a Jewish state. He wrote in his diary: "I achieved a freer attitude toward anti-Semitism, which I now began to understand historically and to pardon. Above all, I recognized
20825-600: The establishment of a pro-Nazi propaganda machine throughout the Arab world. The defeat of Arab nationalists in Iraq and subsequent relocation of al-Husseini to Nazi-occupied Europe tied his hands regarding field operations in Palestine, though he regularly demanded that the Italians and the Germans bomb Tel Aviv . By the end of World War II, a crisis over the fate of Holocaust survivors from Europe led to renewed tensions between
21000-411: The establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and 94–96 percent of the West Bank plus the equivalent of 1–3 percent of the West Bank in land swaps from pre-1967 Israel. On Jerusalem, the plan stated that "the general principle is that Arab areas are Palestinian and that Jewish areas are Israeli." The holy sites were to be split on the basis that Palestinians would have sovereignty over
21175-618: The establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Zionism became Israel's national or state ideology . Zionism initially emerged in Central and Eastern Europe as a secular nationalist movement in the late 19th century, in reaction to newer waves of antisemitism and in response to the Haskalah , or Jewish Enlightenment. During this period, as Jewish assimilation in Europe was progressing, some Jewish intellectuals framed assimilation as
21350-544: The expectation that the "Palestinians will be better at establishing internal security than we were, because they will allow no appeals to the Sepreme Court and will prevent [human rights groups] from criticizing the conditions there." Along these lines, Ben-Ami, who participated in the Camp David 2000 talks, described this process: "One of the meanings of Oslo was that the PLO was eventually Israel's collaborator in
21525-467: The experiences of European Jewry, which the early Zionists believed demonstrated the danger inherent to their status as a minority. In contrast to the Zionist notion of nationhood, the Judaic sense of being a nation was rooted in religious beliefs of unique chosenness and divine providence, rather than in ethnicity. Daily prayers emphasized distinctiveness from other nations; a connection to Eretz Israel and
21700-447: The failed summit Palestinian and Israeli negotiators continued to meet in small groups through August and September 2000 to try to bridge the gaps between their respective positions. The United States prepared its own plan to resolve the outstanding issues. Clinton's presentation of the US proposals was delayed by the advent of the Second Intifada at the end of September. Clinton's plan, eventually presented on 23 December 2000, proposed
21875-455: The formerly Ottoman region during World War I , Mandatory Palestine was established as a British mandate . Increasing Jewish immigration led to tensions between Jews and Arabs which grew into intercommunal conflict . In 1936, an Arab revolt erupted demanding independence and an end to British support for Zionism, which was suppressed by the British. Eventually tensions led to the UN adopting
22050-504: The hands of Israel's critics and fueling the indignation of the displaced and stateless Palestinian people," whilst right-wing Israelis look for "a way of proving the occupation is legitimate, of authenticating the ethnos as a natural fact, and of defending Zionism as a return". A Jewish "biological self-definition" has become a standard belief for many Jewish nationalists, and most Israeli population researchers have never doubted that evidence will one day be found, even though so far proof for
22225-481: The ideological basis for Zionism, Der Judenstaat , is typically translated as The Jewish State. Herzl sought to establish a state where Jews would be the majority and as a result, politically dominant. Ahad Ha'am , the founder of cultural Zionism criticized the lack of Jewish cultural activity and creativity in Herzl's envisioned state which Ha'am referred to as "the state of the Jews." Specifically, Ha'am points to
22400-468: The late 1970s, Palestinian leadership in the occupied territories and most Arab states supported a two-state settlement. In 1981, Saudi Arabia put forward a plan based on a two-state settlement to the conflict with support from the Arab League. Israeli analyst Avner Yaniv describes Arafat as ready to make a historic compromise at this time, while the Israeli cabinet continued to oppose the existence of
22575-424: The late 19th century was among assimilated Central European Jews who, despite their formal emancipation, still felt excluded from high society. Many of these Jews had moved away from traditional religious observances and were largely secular, mirroring a broader trend of secularization in Europe. Despite their efforts to integrate, the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe were frustrated by continued lack of acceptance by
22750-539: The late 19th century, numerous grassroots groups promoted the national resettlement of the Jews in their homeland, as well as the revitalization and cultivation of the Hebrew language . These groups were collectively called the " Lovers of Zion " and were seen as countering a growing Jewish movement toward assimilation. The first use of the term is attributed to the Austrian Nathan Birnbaum , founder of
22925-607: The lead of the German rabbis and decreed that the Messianic hope of Israel is "the union of all the children of God in the confession of the unity of God". In 1885 the Pittsburgh Conference reiterated this interpretation of the Messianic idea of Reform Judaism, expressing in a resolution that "we consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community; and we therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor
23100-498: The life of exile. Zionism portrayed the Diaspora Jew as mentally unstable, physically frail, and prone to engaging in transient businesses like peddling or acting as intermediaries. They were seen as detached from nature, purely materialistic, and focused solely on their personal gains. In contrast, the vision for the new Jew was radically different: an individual of strong moral and aesthetic values, not shackled by religion, driven by ideals and willing to challenge degrading circumstances;
23275-532: The lines discussed in Madrid in 1991 have never taken place. The Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995 built on the incremental framework put in place by the 1978 Camp David negotiations and the 1991 Madrid and Washington talks. The motivation behind the incremental approach towards a settlement was that it would "build confidence", but the eventual outcome was instead a dramatic decline in mutual confidence. At each incremental stage, Israel further entrenched its occupation of
23450-462: The local national movements which tended toward intolerance and exclusivity. For the early Zionists, if nationalism posed a challenge to European Jewry, it also proposed a solution. In the wake of the 1881 Russian pogroms , Leo Pinsker , who was previously an assimilationist, came to the conclusion that the root of the Jewish problem was that Jews formed a distinctive element which could not be assimilated. For Pinsker, emancipation could not resolve
23625-457: The main liturgical language of Judaism. Zionists worked to modernize Hebrew and adapt it for everyday use. They sometimes refused to speak Yiddish , a language they thought had developed in the context of European persecution . Once they moved to Israel, many Zionists refused to speak their (diasporic) mother tongues and adopted new, Hebrew names . Hebrew was preferred not only for ideological reasons, but also because it allowed all citizens of
23800-413: The main phase of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War . The overall fighting, leading to around 15,000 casualties, resulted in cease-fire and armistice agreements of 1949, with Israel holding much of the former Mandate territory, Jordan occupying and later annexing the West Bank and Egypt taking over the Gaza Strip, where the All-Palestine Government was declared by the Arab League on 22 September 1948. Through
23975-401: The migration of Jews to Palestine contributed to the ideological and historical context that gave a sense of credibility to these pre-Zionist initiatives. Restorationist ideas were a prerequisite for the success of Zionism, since although it was created by Jews, Zionism was dependent on support from Christians, although it is unclear how much Christian ideas influenced the early Zionists. Zionism
24150-455: The migration of Jews to Palestine. These attempts were not continuous as national movements typically are. The most notable precursors to Zionism were thinkers such as Judah Alkalai and Zvi Hirsch Kalischer (who were both rabbinical figures), as well as Moses Hess who is regarded as the first modern Jewish nationalist. The Jewish expulsion from Spain led to some Jewish refugees fleeing to Ottoman Palestine . In 1564, Joseph Nasi , with
24325-421: The most important religious Zionist thinkers, characterized the diaspora as a flawed and alienated existence marked by decline, narrowness, displacement, solitude, and frailty. He believed that the diasporan way of life is diametrically opposed to a "national renaissance," which manifests itself not only in the return to Zion but also in the return to nature and creativity, revival of heroic and aesthetic values, and
24500-472: The movement and would go on to establish the Jewish Colonial Trust , whose objectives were to encourage European Jewish emigration to Palestine and to assist with the economic development of the colonies. The first Zionist Congress would also adopt the official objective of establishing a legally recognized home for the Jewish people in Palestine. The title of Herzl's 1896 manifesto providing
24675-401: The movement. Mainstream Zionist groups for the most part differ more in style than substance, having in some cases adopted similar strategies to achieve their goals, such as violence or compulsory transfer to deal with the Palestinians. Religious Zionism is a variant of Zionist ideology which brings together secular nationalism and religious conservatism. Advocates of Zionism have viewed it as
24850-732: The new state to have a common language, thus furthering the political and cultural bonds among Zionists. The revival of the Hebrew language and the establishment of Modern Hebrew is most closely associated with the linguist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and the Committee of the Hebrew Language (later replaced by the Academy of the Hebrew Language ). The transformation of a religious and primarily passive connection between Jews and Palestine into an active, secular, nationalist movement arose in
25025-517: The original Zionist Organization , Ze'ev Jabotinsky , the prominent architect of early statist Zionism and the founder of what became Israel's Likud party, and Arthur Ruppin , considered the "father of Israeli sociology". Birnbaum, who is widely attributed with the first use of the term "Zionism" in reference to a political movement, viewed race as the foundation of nationality, Jabotinsky wrote that Jewish national integrity relies on "racial purity", and that "(t)he feeling of national self-identity
25200-479: The passing of "Arab values" into Zionist society. The employment of exclusively Jewish labor was also intended to avoid the development of a national conflict in conjunction with a class-based conflict. The Zionist leadership believed that by excluding Arab workers they would stimulate class conflict only within Arab society and prevent the Jewish-Arab national conflict from attaining a class dimension. While
25375-490: The point that Deickoff writes "social conditions were such that they made the idea of individual assimilation pointless." Antisemitism, pogroms and official policies in Tsarist Russia led to the emigration of three million Jews in the years between 1882 and 1914, only 1% of which went to Palestine. Those who went to Palestine were driven primarily by ideas of self-determination and Jewish identity, rather than just in response to pogroms or economic insecurity. Zionism's emergence in
25550-401: The problems of the Jewish people. In Pinsker's analysis, Judeophobia was the cause of antisemitism and was primiarily driven by Jews' lack of a homeland. The solution Pinsker proposed in his pamphlet, Autoemancipation , was for Jews to become a "normal" nation and acquire a homeland over which Jews would have sovereignty. Pinsker primarily viewed Jewish emigration a solution for dealing with
25725-542: The proposal on the table: "The Clinton parameters... are the best proof that Arafat was right to turn down the summit's offers". In July 2000, US President Bill Clinton convened a peace summit between Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Barak reportedly put forward the following as "bases for negotiation", via the US to the Palestinian President: a non-militarized Palestinian state split into 3–4 parts containing 87–92% of
25900-465: The recommendations on the basis that it would allow for further expansion, but some secondary Zionist leaders disapproved of it. The subsequent publication of the White Paper of 1939 , which sought to limit Jewish immigration to the region, was the breaking point in relations between British authorities and the Zionist movement. The renewed violence, which continued sporadically until the beginning of World War II, ended with around 5,000 causualties on
26075-476: The rejection of the Zionist goal of turning the mostly Arab populated land into a Jewish homeland. From early on, the leadership of the Zionist movement had the idea of "transferring" (a euphemism for ethnic cleansing ) the Arab Palestinian population out of the land for the purpose of establishing a Jewish demographic majority. According to the Israeli historian Benny Morris the idea of transfer
26250-406: The resurgence of individual and societal power. The revival of the Hebrew language in Eastern Europe as a secular literary medium marked a significant cultural shift among Jews, who per Judaic tradition used Hebrew only for religious purposes. This secularization of Hebrew, which included its use in novels, poems, and journalism, was met with resistance from rabbis who viewed it as a desecration of
26425-417: The sacred language. While some rabbinical authorities did support the development of Hebrew as a common vernacular, they did so on the basis of nationalistic ideas, rather than on the basis of Jewish tradition. Eliezer Ben Yehuda , a key figure in the revival, envisioned Hebrew as serving a "national spirit" and cultural renaissance in the Land of Israel. The primary motivator for establishing modern Hebrew as
26600-596: The socialist ideals that the Second Aliyah had arrived with. Amin al-Husseini, the leader of the Palestinian Arab national movement, immediately marked Jewish national movement and Jewish immigration to Palestine as the sole enemy to his cause, initiating large-scale riots against the Jews as early as 1920 in Jerusalem and in 1921 in Jaffa . Among the results of the violence was the establishment of
26775-708: The specifics of the Palestinian-autonomy accords were disputed among the signatories and other Arab groups, and were never implemented. Palestinian insurgency in South Lebanon peaked in the early 1970s, as Lebanon was used as a base to launch attacks on northern Israel and airplane hijacking campaigns worldwide, which drew Israeli retaliation. During the Lebanese Civil War , Palestinian militants continued to launch attacks against Israel while also battling opponents within Lebanon. In 1978,
26950-652: The success of the Egyptian–Israeli peace treaty of 1982. Eventually the Israeli–Palestinian peace process led to the Oslo Accords of 1993, allowing the PLO to relocate from Tunisia and take ground in the West Bank and Gaza Strip , establishing the Palestinian National Authority . The peace process also had significant opposition among elements of Palestinian society, such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, who immediately initiated
27125-705: The support of the sultan of the Ottoman Empire, attempted to create a Jewish province in the Galilee, but he died in 1579 and his plans weren't completed. However, the community in Safed continued as did small-scale aliyah into the 17th century. In the 17th century Sabbatai Zevi (1626–1676) announced himself as the Messiah and gained many Jews to his side, forming a base in Salonika. He first tried to establish
27300-458: The task of stifling the Intifada and cutting short what was clearly an authentically democratic struggle for Palestinian independence." The Wye River Memorandum agreed on by the PA and Israel introduced a "zero tolerance" policy for "terror and violence." This policy was uniformly criticised by human rights organizations for its "encouragement" of human rights abuses. Dennis Ross describes
27475-592: The term "Hebrew" to describe their identity which they associated with the healthy and modern sabra. In Zionist thought, the new Jew would be productive and work the land, in contrast to the diaspora Jew who, mirroring the anti-semitic portrayals, was depicted as lazy and parasitic on society. Zionism linked the term "Jewish" with these negative characteristics prevalent in European anti-Semitic stereotypes, which Zionists believed could be remedied only through sovereignty. Israeli-Irish scholar Ronit Lentin has argued that
27650-462: The term "peace-process" has grown to be associated with an emphasis on the negotiation process rather than on presenting a comprehensive solution to the conflict. As part of this process, fundamental issues of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict such as borders, access to resources, and the Palestinian right of return, have been left to "final status" talks. Such "final status" negotiations along
27825-453: The territory of the former Mandatory Palestine . Key aspects of the conflict include the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip , the status of Jerusalem , Israeli settlements , borders, security, water rights, the permit regime , Palestinian freedom of movement , and the Palestinian right of return . The conflict has its origins in the rise of Zionism in Europe and
28000-421: The time of the 1936 Arab Revolt , the political differences between the various Zionist groups had shrunk further, with almost all Zionist groups seeking a Jewish state in Palestine. While not every Zionist group openly called for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, every group in the Zionist mainstream was wedded to the idea of establishing a Jewish demographic majority there. In order to achieve
28175-501: The two parties; Barak had failed to implement additional stages of the interim agreements and settlements expanded by 10% during his short term. The disagreement between the two parties at Camp David was primarily on the acceptance (or rejection) of international consensus. For Palestinian negotiators, the international consensus, as represented by the yearly vote in the UN General Assembly which passes almost unanimously,
28350-509: The world, including the attempt to rescue Edgardo Mortara , established a colony for Jews in Palestine. In 1854, his friend Judah Touro bequeathed money to fund Jewish residential settlement in Palestine. Montefiore was appointed executor of his will, and used the funds for a variety of projects, including building in 1860 the first Jewish residential settlement and almshouse outside of the old walled city of Jerusalem—today known as Hebrew : Mishkenot Sha'ananim . Laurence Oliphant failed in
28525-559: The year considered as the start of practical Zionism. Moral but not practical efforts were made in Prague to organize a Jewish emigration, by Abraham Benisch and Moritz Steinschneider in 1835. In the United States, Mordecai Noah attempted to establish a Jewish refuge opposite Buffalo, New York , on Grand Isle, 1825. These early Jewish nation building efforts of Cresson, Benisch, Steinschneider and Noah failed. Sir Moses Montefiore , famous for his intervention in favor of Jews around
28700-402: Was "inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism". The Arab population felt this threat as early as the 1880s with the arrival of the first aliyah. Chaim Weizmann 's efforts to build British support for the Zionist movement would eventually secure the Balfour Declaration , a public statement issued by the British government in 1917 during the First World War announcing support for the establishment of
28875-441: Was a notion that garnered support across the entire spectrum of Zionist groups, including its farthest left factions, from early on in the movement's development. "Transfer" was not only seen as desirable but also as an ideal solution by the Zionist leadership. The notion of forcible transfer was so appealing to the movement's leaders that it was considered the most attractive provision in the Peel Commission . Indeed, this sentiment
29050-470: Was already clear that the Arab forces were nearing a total collapse, while Yishuv forces gained more and more territory, creating a large scale refugee problem of Palestinian Arabs. Following the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel on 14 May 1948, the Arab League decided to intervene on behalf of Palestinian Arabs, marching their forces into former British Palestine, beginning
29225-465: Was also dependent on the thinkers of the Haskalah or Jewish enlightenment, such as Peretz Smolenskin in 1872, although it often depicted it as its opponent. The idea of returning to Palestine was rejected by the conferences of rabbis held in that epoch. Individual efforts supported the emigration of groups of Jews to Palestine, pre-Zionist Aliyah , even before the First Zionist Congress in 1897,
29400-410: Was deeply ingrained to the extent that Ben Gurion's acceptance of partition was contingent upon the removal of the Palestinian population. He would go as far as to say that transfer was such an ideal solution that it "must happen some day". From the perspective of the early Zionist thinkers, Jews living amongst non-Jews are abnormal and suffer from impediments which can only be addressed by rejecting
29575-604: Was granted a seat in the Arab League . In the 1967 Arab-Israel War , Israel occupied the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza Strip, Egyptian Sinai, Syrian Golan Heights, and two islands in the Gulf of Aqaba . By the mid-1970s, the international community had converged on a framework to resolve the conflict. This included Israel's full withdrawal from the occupied territories in exchange for recognition by
29750-471: Was no such thing as Palestinians " was a cornerstone of Zionist policy initiated by Ben-Gurion, Weizmann and continued by their successors. Flapan further writes that the non-recognition of Palestinians remains a basic tenet of Israeli policy. This perspective was also shared by those on the far-left of the Zionist movement, including Martin Buber and other members of Brit Shalom. British officials supporting
29925-582: Was officially merged into the United Arab Republic , to the detriment of the Palestinian national movement. Gaza Strip then was put under the authority of the Egyptian military administrator, making it a de facto military occupation. In 1964, however, a new organization, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), was established by Yasser Arafat. It immediately won the support of most Arab League governments and
30100-481: Was primarily composed of Russian Jews. Initially, Zionists were a minority, both in Russia and worldwide. Russian Zionism quickly became a major force within the movement, making up about half the delegates at Zionist Congresses. Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian conflict [REDACTED] Palestinians : 1948: 1949–1956: 1964–2005: 2006–present: More than 700,000 Palestinians displaced with
30275-615: Was published from Moscow between 1926 and 1927, replacing its Moscow central Russian organ Evreiskaya proletarskaya mysl ('Jewish Proletarian Thought', 1920-1926). The 12th conference of the party was held in Moscow March 11–18, 1926. The party opposed the policy of regionalization of the Soviet Union. The party had completely dissolved by 1928. The party was represented in the Central Council of Ukraine in 1917 and in
30450-467: Was the starting point for negotiations. The Israeli negotiators, supported by the American participants, did not accept the international consensus as the basis for a settlement. Both sides eventually accepted the Clinton parameters "with reservations" but the talks at Taba were "called to a halt" by Barak, and the peace process itself came to a stand-still. Ben-Ami, who participated in the talks at Camp David as Israel's foreign minister, would later describe
30625-502: Was widely accepted in US and Israeli public opinion. Nearly all scholars and most Israeli and US officials involved in the negotiations have rejected this narrative. These individuals include prominent Israeli negotiators, the IDF chief of staff, the head of the IDF's intelligence bureau, the head of the Shin Bet as well as their advisors. No tenable solution was crafted which would satisfy both Israeli and Palestinian demands, even under intense US pressure. Clinton has long blamed Arafat for
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