Origins & Evolution of Zionism

Zionism is "a movement born in a situation of exile" (Segre, 1980, p. 16). This statement refers to the fact that, while Jews were dispersed in various countries of the world in the latenineteenth century, they were largely unassimilated, or, at least, not fully assimilated, in the societies of these countries. They were subject to periodic repression and other forms of antisemitism. Zionists saw the solution to the problems of repression and antisemitism in a Jewish unification; however, they were not the first to express this idea (Segre, 1980). Zionists, however, were more specific than others in their conception of how such unification should occur.

Zionism "started as an immediate response of individuals to a situation which had come to be regarded as intolerable" (Vital, 1975, p. 137). The situation was the pogroms in Russia during the 18811884 time period. Yehuda Pinsker published a phamplet in 1882, which is considered to be the first manifesto of Zionism (Segre, 1980). In this pamphlet, Pinsker, among other things, attacked Jews for seeking the cures to their problem from outside Jewry, and called for a territorial solution, i. e., the establishment of a Jewish land (Segre, 1980).

Zionism was formally founded by Theodor Herzl, with the convocation of the First Zionist Congress in Basle in 1897 (Segre, 1980). The Zionism of Herzl was a secular movement,

and, as such, it drew strong criticism a

. . .
ver, the Israelis are divided over the justification for their presence in Palestine. Secular Zionists justify the creation of the state of Israel as the only solution to the repression and other forms of antisemitism suffered by Jews in other countries (Laqueur, 1976). For most secular Zionists, the creation of a Jewish state need not have occurred on Palestinian territory, although it needed to occur on territory somewhere. Religious Zionists, by contrast contend that Israel had to have been created on Palestinian territory, because the land was theirs by biblical promise (Chapman, 1983). Some people contend that both the Arabs and the Jews have legitimate rights in Palestine, and that the irony of the conflict between competing rights is the development of great injustice. In the case of the state of Israel, the injustice is the loss of Palestinian Arab rights through a securing of 1 2Jewish rights. This argument is supportable, if one agrees with the proposition that Jews from all parts of the world have rights to the territory of Palestine which are at least equal to those of the Arab Palestinians who were born there. If one agrees with the religious Zionists, of course, there is no question of competing equal
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Approximate Word count = 1630
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)