- For centuries the West has attempted to get a foothold
in the Middle East. They finally succeeded in 1948 when the state of Israel
supplanted the land formerly known as Palestine. Virgil wrote of how the
Greeks were able to enter the city of Troy hidden in a huge wooden gift
horse, similarly, the great nations of the western world successfully claimed
the gateway to the Middle East by way of Zionism.
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- The flag which flies over Israel is not a Jewish flag,
but a Zionist one, and to understand Israel is to understand Zionism. Although
the desire to occupy Zion, or Jerusalem, dates back to the crusades, Zionism
of today was born in Europe in the late 1800s. Zionists believe that the
land of Palestine was decreed by God to the Jews alone and that this land
is "non-transferable to others even in part" (Palumbo. 1990:15).
As far as the Arabs who have been living there for centuries, the Zionists
teach that it was the will of God to expel them from their homes and take
back the land. These Zionists were white Europeans; however, their belief
was that they were direct descendants of the Biblical Israelites from millennial
past. In the 1880s Zionists began emigrating to Palestine where they lived
on the shores of Jaffa. In 1909 the foreign intruders officiated that the
name be changed from Jaffa to Tel Aviv and that it would be a purely Jewish
city. In 1914, the Turks made enemies of the Arabs when they aligned with
the Germans and occupied Arab lands. Great Britain took this opportunity
to gain favor and helped the Arab tribes to fight the Turks back across
the Turkish border.
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-
-
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- Having gained an Arab alliance, Great Britain spoke loudly
of a future Unified Arab nation while quietly assisting in the Zionist
emigration of European Jews into Tel Aviv. Showing support for the Zionists,
the British government mandated Tel Aviv to be a national home for the
Jewish people and wrote that it be clearly understood that "nothing
shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the
existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine" (Johnson. 1946:13).
Meanwhile, the Zionist settlers exuberantly celebrated biblical stories
of Arab slaughter - the locals were getting edgy.
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- In 1929 Germany, Zionism was accepted by high ranking
members of the Nazi party who shared the Zionist goal of exporting every
German Jew to the future Jewish state of Palestine. While every other political
organization was outlawed in Germany, the Nazis assisted Zionism in gaining
national attention and they soon increased their numbers by four hundred
percent. This led to the largest emigration into Palestine to date. Baron
Von Mildenstein was Nazi liaison to the Zionists and he found that their
goals were very similar; the Germans hoped to purify their homeland for
the Aryan race and the Zionists hoped to create their own wholly Jewish
homeland in Palestine. He wrote strong praise for the Zionist objectives
and of the hard work happening in Palestine - "The soil has reformed
him. This new Jew will be a new people" (Boas. 1980:37). When Adolf
Hitler officially came to power in 1933, while Zionism was still allowed
to operate its migration to Palestine, it became an escape from the monstrous
mechanisms of depopulation later employed by the Nazi party.
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- With the end of World War Two came the terrible images
of Germany's final solution which caused great empathy and consideration
for the Jews. The Zionists took this moment to gather support for their
plans in Palestine. In November of 1947 they successfully lobbied the United
Nations to split Palestine into two states thereby creating the state of
Israel and turning thousands of Palestinians into refugees.
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- Zionism is and always has been a political ideology and
prior to World War Two it was considered to be an extremist one. With the
creation of the state of Israel came the illusion that Zionism and Judaism
are united. This illusion makes possible a great power of deception; when
one criticizes the politics of Israel he is often accused of being a racist,
this conditions society to keep their objections silent allowing the state
to operate beyond reproach.
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- Not only does this silence allow for the continued annihilation
of the Palestinian people, but the confusion of it also manifests misguided
prejudice towards Jewish people worldwide. Without an open discussion,
justice will never be realized, irrational emotions will always prevail,
and peace will forever remain intangible. Only with truth will this calamity
find resolve.
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- Bibliography
- Boas, Jacob. "A Nazi travels to Palestine."
History Today. 1980. London. January. p33-38
- Johnson, Julia. Palestine: Jewish Homeland?. 1946. New
York: H.W. Wilson.
- Palumbo, Michael. Imperial Israel. 1990. London: Bloomsbury.
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