Zionism, the turn of the century historical divides and some intellettuali.Per is a national liberation movement and "redemption" social other is a racist movement.
In general, regardless of the author, the basis of all anti-Zionist critique is the claim of the existence of a causal link between Zionism and anti-Semitism. Ultimately, according to these critics, Zionism was merely a reaction to anti-Semitism and the same <
In other words, the choice of Palestine as a homeland would be the result of contingent historical situation and of their relationship with the millenary terra.Tutto this because, as Abram Leon Trotsky wrote, the age-old bond between Jews and Palestine is a myth, never existed and does not correspond to any real interest in Judaism.
These theories that arose in the late nineteenth century to the Marxist left, naturally widespread in the Arab world and formed the ideological basis of what has defined the Maxime Rodinson <
"Zionism is an ideology imperialist, colonialist, racist, profoundly reactionary and discriminatory, it is linked to anti-Semitism in its principles and is, In fact, the other side of the same coin. Because when it is proposed that members of the Jewish people, beyond their original nationality, should neither loyalty to your native country or to be considered equal to their fellow citizens or non-Jews when it is proposed this, we grasp reality in the proposition of anti-Semitic themes. When we say that the only solution to the Jewish question is that the Jews to peel off from the community or the nation which historically were merged, and when it is proposed that they solve their problems by setting up immigrating to the land of another people through terrorism and force, then feel, which will be exactly the same attitude held by anti-Semites in
against the Jews. "
The logical consequence of this doctrine has been to present the state of Israel as the result of an act of 'anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and the subsequent American and European choice to remedy this injustice against making another the Arabs. The Israeli state in
Palestine is therefore an artificial entity with no historical roots, the result of an act of imperialist West and done at the expense of the legitimate inhabitants of the earth: the Palestinians as a result, the elimination of this state would only be an act of justice storica.I Zionists On the contrary, recognized that anti-Semitism may have been a catalyst of the Jewish nationalist movement, but they have always rejected the idea that it could have been the "generator".
Max Nordau, incidentally, wrote that anti-Semitism could be considered "at best a chance, certainly not the cause" of Zionism. In fact: "The hatred of the Jews did nothing to revive many of them in the dormant Jewish consciousness, and to appeal for their historical individuality. Prompted them to think about their position in the world, their relationships to other people, what they can expect as individual men and collectively, and this reflection is not the injustice of anti-Semites, had convinced them of the Zionists and resolute. "
The best summary of Zionist thought into the matter is, however, that Ben Gurion tramote that gives us the story of his personal experience:
"Certainly anti-Semitism acted as a catalyst for Zionism in general. It has transformed the same Herzl perfectly by an amateur at home in non-Jewish world in a man who has spent to get a home. And the fact that Jews were subject to periodic ostracism and persecution has made them even more important to have a place for themselves But I, personally, I never suffered persecution. We emigrated not for negative reasons such as the need to escape but for the purpose of rebuilding a positive motherland, a place where we were not always foreigners, and that through our hard work would become irrevocably ours. "
The development of the migration process from the Jewish Pale, (from where almost all Zionists provennero) confirms the theory of Zionism. The Jews who wanted to "just" escape from the pogroms and move to countries that offered them the opportunity to improve their standard of living, ensuring equal political, economic and social rights, avoid coming to an arid and unhealthy and moved to the U.S. or the British dominions. (between 1881 and 1904 were 1.4 million). In Eretz Israel only went to those who wanted to realize the Zionist project (ten thousand in the same period). `But what is this plan?
was both simple and revolutionary: the jew should be transformed from object to subject of history. Could not continue to spend generation after generation a lifetime waiting for the Messiah and his coming put an end to the humiliating and alienating the Diaspora and return the people in the Land of the Fathers. L `jew was able to return to their land which was bound by tradition and religion with its own strengths.
This was the "conditio sine qua non" through which the jew was born but it was not enough. In fact, everything would be useless if once arrived in Eretz Israel, the Jews had played there the conditions of the Diaspora, which had continued to live productive, despising the agricultural work to devote himself to commerce, to jobs in the service sector, or even be limited to live on charity. The revival, however, was because from the second Alyiah Zionists adopted a new model of life based on the cultivation of the earth.
Alan Dowty has shown that the "mass immigration of Jews who came-not ideological in Palestine just because they had nowhere else to go there was only a few decades later when, in Israel, there were already strong structures and institutions created just by the Zionists of the first aliyah. "
