Excellent article, which not only captures the true intentions of early Zionists, but also how it has become distorted by a toxic combination of pan-Arabist's and today's left wing. I in fact touched on this very same subject in my recent article about how Palestinians could in fact benefit from Israel's help, and had done so in the past...
...Malaria was rampant in the Levant in the late 1800s, and the early Jewish settlers had drained the areas swamps, all but eradicating the disease and cutting the infant mortality rate from 92% to 6%. They constructed five times the road network and brought the first electricity and road lighting to the area with a hydroelectric project on the River Jordan. They irrigated previously desert or dry scrubland and increased threefold the fresh water supply for drinking and crops.
All of this activity, including building cities like Tel Aviv from scratch, created something of an economic boom, from which local Palestinians benefited greatly, getting paid almost double the wage rate they received in neighbouring Egypt, Jordan and Syria, and often double or treble the rate for land they sold to incoming Jews. Indeed, many Arabs in fact came from those neighbouring Arab countries to benefit from this economic boom, and within months or at the outside a year were also counted as ‘Palestinians’.
One of the first to predict these benefits was no less than T.E. Lawrence – the famed ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ – one of the best English friends the Arabs ever had. He felt the Jews with their advanced farming methods brought in mainly from Europe would greatly benefit local Arab farmers, and he was proven right.
But despite this early accord and the financial boom of the area, already there were noises from factions resistant to Jewish immigration, who would do anything to destroy this early forging of relationships between Jews and Arabs. Leading this purge was Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. A virulent anti-Zionist, he instigated a number of Arab revolts against the Jews in the 1920s and 1930s, fleeing shortly after to Iraq and finally Nazi Germany, where he met with Hitler and continued his quest to end Jewish immigration to the area.
My apologies Dr. Rae, I had to delete my original post as it was a mess, disorganized and full of spelling errors. Anyway, I’m back with a more organized and coherent response to this excellent post! Indeed sir you illuminate for all to see the true intentions of the Zionist settlers in Palestine. They did NOT wish to drive the Arabs out but to rebuild their state in which the Arabs would live with them as equal citizens and bring freedom, democracy and prosperity to all in the holy land!
Prof. Rashid Khalidi’s book “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine” is an artful piece of propaganda. I own the book, but I only would read it to understand the anti-Zionist point of view. But I would ever recommend it as a credible work of history? No. Certainly not to students at a school to read to understand the conflict. Rather I would recommend folks like Noa Tishby, Sir Martin Gilbert, Michael Oren, Daniel Gordis, Einat Wilf, Benny Morris, Tom Segev, and Ronen Bergman. Let’s talk about how Khalidi conveniently leaves out part of the exchange between Herzl and Yusef Diya.
Khalidi deliberately butchers the letter Diva sent to Herzl where he states that the idea of Zionism is a natural, beautiful and just one, that historically Palestine belongs to the Jews and that it would be marvelous to see the Jews reconstituted as an independent nation. Herzl in return assured Diva he had no wish to uproot the Arabs. Herzl believed in the new Jewish state being a state for Jews AND non-Jews alike. Any Arabs living in the new Jewish state were to receive full equal rights.
Khalidi also misrepresents a quote by Herzl about expropriating land and driving off the penniless native inhabitants. What he fails to mention is that Herzl was speaking not of the biblical land of Israel in this passage but of Argentina in South America which was just one of his many ideas for a future Jewish state. This would also have been voluntary and done with compensation. Herzl would follow this up by saying the Jewish state would protect the rights and property of any minorities living in its borders. Funny how Prof. Khalidi “forgot” to add that part in. 😉
He was simply throwing out a bunch of different POTENTIAL ideas and emptying his brain of them to relieve himself of the strain on his brain. In the above quote that Khalidi referenced Herzl never once mentioned Palestine and said that the expropriation would be done voluntarily. When he says this would be done discreetly this is because he understandably feared antisemites would try to prevent the new Jewish state from being born and that landowners would price gouge Jewish buyers if they knew why they wanted the land.
The Zionist settlers who arrived in Palestine and formed the New Yishuv had come not to expel the Arabs but rather to bring Jews and Arabs together, liberate them both and build a socially just society for people of all races and creeds. These Zionist settlers were basically socialist hippies and pacifists who wanted to build a Jewish state that would be a haven for the persecuted and empower working people Jew and Arab alike. They also took note of how the Arab upper class oppressed the Arab peasantry and poor and sought to help them get out from under that oppression and bring them economic prosperity, better living conditions and scientific and technological progress.
Israeli journalist and author Amos Elon brings us many valuable insights in this article. He states that the Zionist pioneers had always intended the two peoples would live together as one. The social vision of Zionism was not inspired by the prophets of the Hebrew Bible as many assume but by the humanist principles that came out of Western Europe, liberalism and by the dreams and strivings of Russian radicals and revolutionaries.
But what the Zionists didn’t realize was that the local Arab population didn’t feel the same way. The vast majority of Palestinian Arabs hated the Jews. Only a small minority were willing to live with them in peace. Of that small minority, most were bribed to do so. They opposed the creation of a Jewish state in the land of Eretz-Israel because of antisemitism and an attachment to the land. They did not wish to share an inch of Palestine with the Jews. The Zionist settlers were unprepared for Arab violence against them let alone the bloody, violent uprisings that broke out.
There would be numerous Arab attacks on Jewish settlements including the two Arab Revolts of the 1920s and 1930s. Thousands of men, women, children, babies, and old people alike were slaughtered like animals by Arab tribesmen and raiders. The Jews fought back on in self-defense. The War of Independence in 1948 was no different. Israel fought for its survival against the majority of the local Arab population and the invading Arab armies from Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon.
The Arabs would try to wipe the Jewish state off the face of the Earth again in 1967 in the Six-Day War. This war was NOT a land grab by Israel but rather then defending themselves against annihilation. Nor did Israel start it. Yes, Israel struck first but it was the Egyptians who set that chain of events in motion by amassing troops on the border, blocked the Straights of Tiran and expelled the UN forces placed on the border between the two nations after a previous conflict in 1956. I’d say those actions are pretty provocative wouldn’t you? As for the land they conquered, they won all of it fair and square.
As to the question of whether the land of Palestine was inhabited. Not completely, but large swaths of it most certainly were. Plus it was swampy and disease and poverty stricken. The Zionists came and built a garden out of a desert and changed all that. Also, the Zionist settlers legally purchased every speck of land they owned. Amos Elon’s book is an invaluable resource in proving Prof. Khalidi wrong! It can also be used to debunk the talking points of Pro-Palestinian propaganda! It’s a shame the local Arab populace didn’t take advantage of all this!
Thank you Dr. Rae once again for an outstanding piece that every American and westerner must read! You’re inclusion of Mr. Elon’s invaluable volumes on Israeli history were very helpful and insightful as well! I hope this second, revised edition of my response will be better organized and much easier for you to read!
Thank you to everyone who liked this post! But some quotation marks were inadvertently lost when the article was re-published; I don’t want to take credit for Amos Elon’s beautiful prose. The section beginning with "Four Arab states" and ending at the end of the paragraph "For two or three weeks prior to the Six-Day War" are all quotes of Amos Elon.
Excellent article. I think it would have underscored the point to note that not all Jews were immigrants, as there has been 3,000 years of continuous presence in what is now Israel. This is despite the multiple partial expulsions, the restrictive laws on Jews (civil rights and where they may pray), the heavier taxes, and the massacres nearly every century for the last thousand years before modern Israel. Jews were the majority in Jerusalem, and the majority or plurality in other places since well before Herzl. Indigenous Jews joining their existing ancient community in their homeland were not colonists. If they were, what does that make the majority Arab population with no history that moved to what is now Israel during the 19th and early 20th centuries (mostly to benefit from the economic improvements and jobs that Jews were creating).
Thank you for a truthful history piece on Zionism. My great grandmother, and my dad had a huge influence on me, studying the years of writings and the simplistic love the Zionists had. And we still have.
My step kid's grade 12 English teacher offered to lend Khalidi's book to any students in the class who wanted to "know more about the conflict". This is after she said "Jews are settler-colonialists".
Somehow Western liberals have become the worst enemies and greatest threats to Western liberalism.
Their desperate victim fetish, which takes the place of the faith and community they no longer have, distorts their vision to the point where good and evil switch places and nothing matters but cheering on the "Oppressed" inflicting vengeance aka Justice on the "Oppressor", which of course is never them, no matter how wealthy or powerful they may be.
This neurotic and entirely performative xenophilia, where Western liberals become nurturing mother hens to all the planet's supposed victims, has reached the point of mass mania or psychosis, the goal of which seems to be having Europeans (including Americans and Israelis) atone themselves out of existence, just so our priestly professoriate dies feeling righeous and holy.
This is a deep spiritual sickness that presages some ugly events up ahead.
Thank you for the great article, Dr. Rae. After reading it, along with another great piece by John Matthews, I have awakened to memories learned in Hebrew School (early 60's) about Theodor Herzl, often called the Father of Zionism, and the early days of Israel as the Jewish Homeland. Although you have imparted more information/facts/truth, the history is what I remember being taught. Israel was a collective of kibbutzim, the Jews struggling to hoe the dry, hard land. They had no desire for fighting and were probably too tired. Strange how the socialists today, while spilling their vile lies about Israel, don't even realize there were (are) many Jewish socialists.
Thank you so much! Some quotation marks were inadvertently lost when the article was re-published; I don’t want to take credit for Amos Elon’s beautiful prose, so if you want to see the original article, you can find it in my feed, under the title “Who were the real Zionists?”
Excellent article, which not only captures the true intentions of early Zionists, but also how it has become distorted by a toxic combination of pan-Arabist's and today's left wing. I in fact touched on this very same subject in my recent article about how Palestinians could in fact benefit from Israel's help, and had done so in the past...
...Malaria was rampant in the Levant in the late 1800s, and the early Jewish settlers had drained the areas swamps, all but eradicating the disease and cutting the infant mortality rate from 92% to 6%. They constructed five times the road network and brought the first electricity and road lighting to the area with a hydroelectric project on the River Jordan. They irrigated previously desert or dry scrubland and increased threefold the fresh water supply for drinking and crops.
All of this activity, including building cities like Tel Aviv from scratch, created something of an economic boom, from which local Palestinians benefited greatly, getting paid almost double the wage rate they received in neighbouring Egypt, Jordan and Syria, and often double or treble the rate for land they sold to incoming Jews. Indeed, many Arabs in fact came from those neighbouring Arab countries to benefit from this economic boom, and within months or at the outside a year were also counted as ‘Palestinians’.
One of the first to predict these benefits was no less than T.E. Lawrence – the famed ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ – one of the best English friends the Arabs ever had. He felt the Jews with their advanced farming methods brought in mainly from Europe would greatly benefit local Arab farmers, and he was proven right.
But despite this early accord and the financial boom of the area, already there were noises from factions resistant to Jewish immigration, who would do anything to destroy this early forging of relationships between Jews and Arabs. Leading this purge was Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. A virulent anti-Zionist, he instigated a number of Arab revolts against the Jews in the 1920s and 1930s, fleeing shortly after to Iraq and finally Nazi Germany, where he met with Hitler and continued his quest to end Jewish immigration to the area.
My apologies Dr. Rae, I had to delete my original post as it was a mess, disorganized and full of spelling errors. Anyway, I’m back with a more organized and coherent response to this excellent post! Indeed sir you illuminate for all to see the true intentions of the Zionist settlers in Palestine. They did NOT wish to drive the Arabs out but to rebuild their state in which the Arabs would live with them as equal citizens and bring freedom, democracy and prosperity to all in the holy land!
Prof. Rashid Khalidi’s book “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine” is an artful piece of propaganda. I own the book, but I only would read it to understand the anti-Zionist point of view. But I would ever recommend it as a credible work of history? No. Certainly not to students at a school to read to understand the conflict. Rather I would recommend folks like Noa Tishby, Sir Martin Gilbert, Michael Oren, Daniel Gordis, Einat Wilf, Benny Morris, Tom Segev, and Ronen Bergman. Let’s talk about how Khalidi conveniently leaves out part of the exchange between Herzl and Yusef Diya.
Khalidi deliberately butchers the letter Diva sent to Herzl where he states that the idea of Zionism is a natural, beautiful and just one, that historically Palestine belongs to the Jews and that it would be marvelous to see the Jews reconstituted as an independent nation. Herzl in return assured Diva he had no wish to uproot the Arabs. Herzl believed in the new Jewish state being a state for Jews AND non-Jews alike. Any Arabs living in the new Jewish state were to receive full equal rights.
Khalidi also misrepresents a quote by Herzl about expropriating land and driving off the penniless native inhabitants. What he fails to mention is that Herzl was speaking not of the biblical land of Israel in this passage but of Argentina in South America which was just one of his many ideas for a future Jewish state. This would also have been voluntary and done with compensation. Herzl would follow this up by saying the Jewish state would protect the rights and property of any minorities living in its borders. Funny how Prof. Khalidi “forgot” to add that part in. 😉
He was simply throwing out a bunch of different POTENTIAL ideas and emptying his brain of them to relieve himself of the strain on his brain. In the above quote that Khalidi referenced Herzl never once mentioned Palestine and said that the expropriation would be done voluntarily. When he says this would be done discreetly this is because he understandably feared antisemites would try to prevent the new Jewish state from being born and that landowners would price gouge Jewish buyers if they knew why they wanted the land.
The Zionist settlers who arrived in Palestine and formed the New Yishuv had come not to expel the Arabs but rather to bring Jews and Arabs together, liberate them both and build a socially just society for people of all races and creeds. These Zionist settlers were basically socialist hippies and pacifists who wanted to build a Jewish state that would be a haven for the persecuted and empower working people Jew and Arab alike. They also took note of how the Arab upper class oppressed the Arab peasantry and poor and sought to help them get out from under that oppression and bring them economic prosperity, better living conditions and scientific and technological progress.
Israeli journalist and author Amos Elon brings us many valuable insights in this article. He states that the Zionist pioneers had always intended the two peoples would live together as one. The social vision of Zionism was not inspired by the prophets of the Hebrew Bible as many assume but by the humanist principles that came out of Western Europe, liberalism and by the dreams and strivings of Russian radicals and revolutionaries.
But what the Zionists didn’t realize was that the local Arab population didn’t feel the same way. The vast majority of Palestinian Arabs hated the Jews. Only a small minority were willing to live with them in peace. Of that small minority, most were bribed to do so. They opposed the creation of a Jewish state in the land of Eretz-Israel because of antisemitism and an attachment to the land. They did not wish to share an inch of Palestine with the Jews. The Zionist settlers were unprepared for Arab violence against them let alone the bloody, violent uprisings that broke out.
There would be numerous Arab attacks on Jewish settlements including the two Arab Revolts of the 1920s and 1930s. Thousands of men, women, children, babies, and old people alike were slaughtered like animals by Arab tribesmen and raiders. The Jews fought back on in self-defense. The War of Independence in 1948 was no different. Israel fought for its survival against the majority of the local Arab population and the invading Arab armies from Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon.
The Arabs would try to wipe the Jewish state off the face of the Earth again in 1967 in the Six-Day War. This war was NOT a land grab by Israel but rather then defending themselves against annihilation. Nor did Israel start it. Yes, Israel struck first but it was the Egyptians who set that chain of events in motion by amassing troops on the border, blocked the Straights of Tiran and expelled the UN forces placed on the border between the two nations after a previous conflict in 1956. I’d say those actions are pretty provocative wouldn’t you? As for the land they conquered, they won all of it fair and square.
As to the question of whether the land of Palestine was inhabited. Not completely, but large swaths of it most certainly were. Plus it was swampy and disease and poverty stricken. The Zionists came and built a garden out of a desert and changed all that. Also, the Zionist settlers legally purchased every speck of land they owned. Amos Elon’s book is an invaluable resource in proving Prof. Khalidi wrong! It can also be used to debunk the talking points of Pro-Palestinian propaganda! It’s a shame the local Arab populace didn’t take advantage of all this!
Thank you Dr. Rae once again for an outstanding piece that every American and westerner must read! You’re inclusion of Mr. Elon’s invaluable volumes on Israeli history were very helpful and insightful as well! I hope this second, revised edition of my response will be better organized and much easier for you to read!
Thank you for your thoughtful words and information.
Thank you to everyone who liked this post! But some quotation marks were inadvertently lost when the article was re-published; I don’t want to take credit for Amos Elon’s beautiful prose. The section beginning with "Four Arab states" and ending at the end of the paragraph "For two or three weeks prior to the Six-Day War" are all quotes of Amos Elon.
“I am an anti-Zionist” has never had anything to do with Zionism. It is a code phrase, or term of art, meaning “I want the Jews to suffer and die.”
Excellent article. I think it would have underscored the point to note that not all Jews were immigrants, as there has been 3,000 years of continuous presence in what is now Israel. This is despite the multiple partial expulsions, the restrictive laws on Jews (civil rights and where they may pray), the heavier taxes, and the massacres nearly every century for the last thousand years before modern Israel. Jews were the majority in Jerusalem, and the majority or plurality in other places since well before Herzl. Indigenous Jews joining their existing ancient community in their homeland were not colonists. If they were, what does that make the majority Arab population with no history that moved to what is now Israel during the 19th and early 20th centuries (mostly to benefit from the economic improvements and jobs that Jews were creating).
Thank you for a truthful history piece on Zionism. My great grandmother, and my dad had a huge influence on me, studying the years of writings and the simplistic love the Zionists had. And we still have.
My step kid's grade 12 English teacher offered to lend Khalidi's book to any students in the class who wanted to "know more about the conflict". This is after she said "Jews are settler-colonialists".
Somehow Western liberals have become the worst enemies and greatest threats to Western liberalism.
Their desperate victim fetish, which takes the place of the faith and community they no longer have, distorts their vision to the point where good and evil switch places and nothing matters but cheering on the "Oppressed" inflicting vengeance aka Justice on the "Oppressor", which of course is never them, no matter how wealthy or powerful they may be.
This neurotic and entirely performative xenophilia, where Western liberals become nurturing mother hens to all the planet's supposed victims, has reached the point of mass mania or psychosis, the goal of which seems to be having Europeans (including Americans and Israelis) atone themselves out of existence, just so our priestly professoriate dies feeling righeous and holy.
This is a deep spiritual sickness that presages some ugly events up ahead.
Beautiful essay! Thank you very much.
Thank you for the great article, Dr. Rae. After reading it, along with another great piece by John Matthews, I have awakened to memories learned in Hebrew School (early 60's) about Theodor Herzl, often called the Father of Zionism, and the early days of Israel as the Jewish Homeland. Although you have imparted more information/facts/truth, the history is what I remember being taught. Israel was a collective of kibbutzim, the Jews struggling to hoe the dry, hard land. They had no desire for fighting and were probably too tired. Strange how the socialists today, while spilling their vile lies about Israel, don't even realize there were (are) many Jewish socialists.
Yisrael was and still are called to do one thing and this one thing only , "OBEDIENCE", "SHAMAH", "HEAR and DO"
We didn't imagine, plan, built or created this world, nevermind all of creation.
It is not ours to improve or save! IT WAS MADE "PERFECT"
All that was and still is required, is obedience.
Stop trying and attempt to surplant the Creator by
"I will do it my way"
"Ha" (my disappointment)
SHAMAH SHAMAH SHAMAH!
Thank you so much! Some quotation marks were inadvertently lost when the article was re-published; I don’t want to take credit for Amos Elon’s beautiful prose, so if you want to see the original article, you can find it in my feed, under the title “Who were the real Zionists?”