ROOTS OF ISRAEL AND EUROPEAN ANTI-SEMISTISM PART ONE/4

ROOTS OF ISRAEL- PART ONE- TO BE CONTINUED

THE ROOTS OF ISRAEL
and the European anti-Semitism
By Didier Bertin -30 March 2010

I-ORIGIN OF THE LAND

1-People:
Hebrew (Root: pass), which means Nomad is the name of a Semitic tribe located in southern Mesopotamia (currently Iraq); Abraham was traditionally known as member of this tribe and founder of monotheism.

2-Name:
According to oral and religious traditions mentioned in writing in the Bible centuries after the events, Abraham, ancestor of the Hebrews, was Grandfather of Jacob, son of Isaac. Jacob was also known under the name of Israel and had 12 sons, whose descendants were thus named “People of Israel.”

3-Location:
Abraham left the Sumerian, in this era, city of Ur, to live in the area of present Israel. This is the origin of the geographical location of Israel without taking into account the population movements, which might certainly be symbolic and mythological and which were reported by the Bible. Other peoples may have also lived in the same area as the Canaanites, which might have also come from eastern region and Philistines of most probably Indo-European origin.

4-History of the Kingdom of Israel until Diaspora:

The Kingdom of Israel was divided into two parts in 922 BC. The North kept the name Kingdom of Israel, but was destroyed by the Assyrians in 722 BC and the south known as Kingdom of Judah(name of one of the twelve sons of Jacob)  also called Judea was maintained despite the Babylonian invasion of the sixth century BC.

Judea had kept the beliefs, laws, traditions and religious organization of Israel despite the Babylonian invasion, with adaptations, interpretations and codifications. The words Judaism and Jews in reference to Judea were often utilized after the Babylonian invasion to designate the people of Israel and its cultural and religious heritage.
Israel suffered many invasions, the last being made by the Romans in 63 BC led by General Pompey. The Romans did not tolerate any local revolts and especially those of Israel. The dominance of a small number of Romans over very huge Empire was based on a combination of violent repression, slavery, crucifixions, slaughters and destructions known as "Pax Romana.” The “Pax Romana” could also be seen as an abandonment of people’s prerogatives on their territory in exchange for protection against the barbarians and of Roman civilization technical progress.
Judea was an illustration of Roman repression e.g. in 70, they destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem and in 135 after the revolt of Bar Kokhba, they destroyed Jerusalem, expelled the people of Israel out of Judea and even changed the name of the Judea into "Land of the Philistines” who were in the traditional enemies of Israel.  "Land of the Philistines” is Palaestina in Latin or Palestine in English.
This Eviction of Israel people or dispersion or “Diaspora” has facilitated the spread of Christianity and its corollary "anti-Semitism."

II-THE PRECURSORS OF ZIONISM

 Cultural factors, language, history, traditions, religion but also anti-Semitism helped to preserve or enforce the existence of the Jewish people as such. Permanent Anti-Semitism maintained the ideas of a return to the ancestral Land of the Jewish people as a haven port.

Zionism is a set of currents of thought which advocates a return to the homeland most often to escape anti-Semitic persecution.
The end of the eighteenth century and early nineteenth is a marked contrast between liberalism emerging in Western Europe and the harsh regimes of Central and Eastern Europe. While a Napoleonic decree politically emancipated Jews in Western Europe in 1806, hatred, iniquity, discrimination and pogroms increased in Central and Eastern Europe. Liberal ideas still penetrated into Central Europe with the Napoleonic breakthroughs. Napoleon Bonaparte was one of the first to call the Jews to rally under his banner to restore the ancient Palestine. He was even considering creating a Jewish state.
Henri Dunant, founder of the Red Cross has proposed the creation of an "International Society for the Orient" whose task would have been to renovate the agriculture, implement industries, rebuild the port of Jaffa and Railways in order to organize the immigration of Jews to Palestine.
Among the precursors of Zionism, one can cite the Talmudic Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, who published a book in 1862 in which he stated that the return to Palestine must be made through agriculture and created a Jewish Agricultural Society in Frankfurt. In Odessa, Leo Pinsker, who had witnessed the wave of pogroms that followed the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, published in 1882 a pamphlet called "Auto emancipation," in which he explained that anti-Semitism was due the lack of Jewish state, which he advocated the establishment.
In 1884, the first Zionist movement arose in Poland, in Katowice under the name of "Lovers of Zion". The French Charles Netter, uncle of the famous Professor of Medicine Arnold Netter, immigrated to Palestine in 1880 and created an agricultural College near Jaffa and Baron Edmond de Rothschild financed many projects.

III - THE BIRTH OF MODERN ZIONISM

Theodor Herzl founded the modern Zionism; he was born in Hungary, lived in Vienna and was an assimilated Jew both journalist and writer. Anti-Semitism of the German philosopher Eugen Dühring, the pogroms in Russia, and French anti-Semitism as illustrated by Drumont and Dreyfus affair in November 1884 led him to consider a political solution to counter hostility against the Jews. In 1885, he wrote "the Jewish State" (Der Judenstaat) in which he presented the following ideas:

1. The Jewish people endure anti-Semitism, which is increased by their vulnerability as minority position within dominant host nations.
2. An international agreement must guarantee a Jewish territory in Palestine
3. A political association and an economic company, must negotiate, and finance the development of the future state

The Political association was "the World Zionist Organization" and the economic company was the “Jewish National Fund” established in 1899 in London, which created the Anglo-Palestinian Bank two years later.

IV - EVOLUTION OF ZIONISM

At his death, Theodor Herzl left a project that Chaim Weizmann and David Ben Gurion, could have achieved. The Zionist movement was itself divided between the "politics", following the ideas of Theodor Herzl regarding the need of an international agreement on the principle of the Jewish state and the "pragmatists" who saw as Priority the immediate settlement in Palestine. Pragmatists saw their position strengthened by the increase of pogroms authorized by the Tsarist regime as a diversion from the failure of the Russian Revolution of 1905. Pragmatists gave reality to the establishment in Palestine but immigrants suffered heavy threatens that only a political solution could erased. Zionism needed together pragmatic and politics aspects and Chaim Weizman created the "synthetic Zionism", combining both.

V - CONSECRATION OF ZIONISM- Opportunist support of Great Britain

Chaim Weizmann who was born in Belarus in 1874 became a famous British scientist and Director of Scientific Research from the British Admiralty and inventor of synthetic acetone in 1916 needed to maintain the explosives production during the WW1. He got from the British Government a statement expressed by "Lord Arthur Balfour, the Foreign Secretary Office of the Prime Minister David Lloyd George, on 2 November 1917, in the form of a letter addressed to Lord Rothschild:

“His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

It must be noted that Chaim Weizman became the first president of the State of Israel in 1948.

The name of Balfour must also be linked to the "Aliens Act" that he established in 1905, when he was Prime Minister, in order to prevent  the  Jews from Russia and Poland to come as  refugees  in Great Britain when the pogroms at a very high level as already explained.

The statement of the British Government in 1917 might thus also viewed as a way seemingly generous, to regulate the movement of Jewish populations in Central Europe by finding a haven.
The declaration of 1917 by Lord Balfour was supported by the French Minister for Foreign Affairs Stephen Pichon. Thus Zionism was consecrated by two great Nations. In April 1920, the new League Of Nations (LON), hereinafter referred as to LON that is to say 42 founder-states, confirmed their agreement at the San Remo Conference, with the British Government's statement called "Balfour Declaration". On 24 July 1922 LON (51 states on that date) gave Great Britain the "Mandate of Palestine”, to give reality to the terms of the British declaration.

Palestine included the current territory of Israel, Gaza, the West Bank and current Jordan Kingdom (Transjordan).
Israel was thus not only the result of the UN’s decision of 1947, but also of the LON’s decision of 1920.

Since the principle of the Jewish state was adopted in 1920, one might thought that if Great Britain would have achieved it within 18 years i.e. before 1940, which is a long period, a substantial part of European Jews could have escaped the Holocaust.
In fact, Great Britain quickly realized that the implementation of the Mandate could endanger the achievement of its own ambitions in the former Turkish Empire, and notably to control the oil resources and lines of communication in Middle East.

VI-THE MANDATE – Two Main Articles

 "Article 2: The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion.”

"Article 4: An appropriate Jewish agency shall be recognized as a public body for the purpose of advising and cooperating with the Administration of Palestine in such economic, social and other matters as may affect the establishment of the Jewish national home and the interests of the Jewish population in Palestine, and, subject always to the control of the Administration, to assist and take part in the development of the country. The Zionist Organization, so long as its organization and constitution are in the opinion of the Mandatory appropriate, shall he recognized as such agency. It shall take steps in consultation with His Britannic Majesty's Government to secure the cooperation of all Jews who are willing to assist in the establishment of the Jewish national home.”