Zionism

Zionism
One of the most controversial ideologies to shape life in the modern Middle East is Zionism. Started in Eastern Europe in the nineteenth century, Zionism was originally a movement that wanted to create an independent homeland for Jewish people. Because Jews were a minority religious group in Europe and parts of Asia and had little power, they were often blamed by governments for varioussocietal problems. This led to anti-Semitism, or discrimination and abuse against Jewish people, in many countries. Anti-Semitism grew worse in the nineteenth century as governments issued pogroms, or organized killings and persecution, against Jews, first in areas like Poland and Russia, and later in Austria, Hungary, France, Germany, and other countries. Jews seeking to escape this persecutionbegan looking for a place to begin a country of their own. Many areas were suggested, such as Argentina or parts of Africa, but there was more support for a return to the site of the Jewish ancient kingdom, the Kingdom of Israel, with its capital in Jerusalem in the land of Palestine, a part of the Ottoman Empire. In 1881 a Jewish author named Leo Pinsker (1821–1891) wrote a book titledAutoemancipation to promote this idea; though the book was not read by many, it did prompt a small group of European Jews to immigrate to Palestine. In 1896 a Hungarian Jew named Theodore Herzl (1860–1904) published a popular exploration of the same idea. His book, The Jewish State, drew the attention of many to the ideas of Zionism, and Herzl founded the World Zionist Organization to promote and fund theimmigration of Jews to Palestine. By the turn of the twentieth century, several thousand Jews had moved to the region, forming the basis for a new community in Palestine based on Zionism. Zionism was initially based on the idea that Jews would thrive if they could form a separate community of their own, but it developed into a complex plan for building first a community, then a state. Zionistorganizations formed in many countries in Europe and in the United States. They collected money and helped organize the immigration of Jews from anti-Semitic communities to Palestine. Once Jews reached Palestine, Zionist agencies helped these immigrants settle in, finding them jobs or a place in the communal farms, or kibbutzim, that they had established. Over time, Zionists formed their own governmentsystem called the Jewish Agency. After the British took control of Palestine from the Ottoman Empire following World War I, the Jewish Agency built roads and schools and provided social services for themselves. Zionists promoted their ideology as a way to avoid conflict and anti-Semitism, yet in forming a Jewish society in Palestine they created the very conflict they hoped to avoid. From its verybeginnings, Zionists ignored or tried to downplay the impact their ideology had on the mostly poor Arab inhabitants of Palestine. Yet in developing a Jewish community, Zionists bought and later stole land from the local Arabs, who were called Palestinians. The Palestinians came to the realization that Zionists planned to create a Jewish community on what had long been Arab land, and by the 1920sArabs in Palestine and in the surrounding areas began to express their opposition to Zionism. By the 1930s many Palestinians had committed themselves to combating Zionism. Though Zionists had once claimed they could live in harmony with Arabs, constant conflict with Arabs in Palestine, especially after the 1930s, pushed Zionists to develop plans for a separate and independent Jewish state onPalestinian land. The United Nations (an international organization founded in 1945 and made up of most of the countries of the world) supported this Zionist plan after World War II but the Palestinians and other Arab countries saw this Jewish state as a threat to Islam and as a loss of Arab land. Jews and Arabs went to war in 1948 over the creation of the Jewish nation of Israel. Even though the...