Title: Zionism in a world of nationalism and imperialism
1Zionism in a world of nationalism and imperialism
- Prof. Noam Pianko, January 21, 2009
2Lecture Goals
- Review European Nationalism and the Origins of
Zionism - Understand Jewish quest for a homeland in larger
context of European Imperialism and world
history, 1897-1917 - Compare conflicting Arab and Jewish narratives of
this process
3Origins of Zionism
- Historical Roots
- Jewish experience
- European ideologies
- Ideological Tensions
4Political Zionism
Theodore Herzl, 1860-1904
5Achad Ha-am-Cultural Zionism
6Religious ZionismAbraham Kook, 1865-1935
7Zionism Continuity or Rupture?
- Modern nations and all their impedimenta
generally claim to be the opposite of novel,
namely rooted in the remotest antiquity, and the
opposite of constructured namely human
communities so natural as to require no
definition other than self-assertion. Whatever
the historic or other continuities embedded in
the modern concept of France and the
Frenchand which nobody would seek to denythese
very concepts themselves must include a
constructed of invented component. (Hobsbawm,
The Nation as Invented Tradition)
8(No Transcript)
9The New (Hebrew) Jew
10Judaism, Israel, and Zionism
- Am Yisrael (People of Israel)
- Land of Israel/Redemption
- Historical Narrative
- Myths and symbols
- Secular
- Nationhoodstatehood
- Redemption
- European Ideals of New Jew
11Herzls Diary, 1897
- Were I to sum up the Basel congress in a wordit
would be this At Basel I founded the Jewish
StatePerhaps in five years, and certainly in 50,
everyone will know it.
12The Ottoman Period (1517-1917)
13Jews in the Turkish Empire
- Palestine in Province of Syria
- Population in 1880
- 470,000 Arabs
- 24,000 Jews
14Jews and Arabs Under Turkish Rule
- Arabs
- Beduins turned sedentary
- Live in Hills, not in coastal areas
- Feuding villages, clans
- Land owners outside Palestine
- Jews
- Live in 4 Holy Cities
- Jews are dhimini-Second Class Citizens
15Dream or Reality?
- Funds to Purchase Land
- Alliance with Great Powers
- Arab Population
- What is his strategy?
16Herzl and the Sultan, 1901
- No support for Jewish Homeland
- Jewish Immigration Banned
17The British Empire
- 1903 Uganda Offer
- Split between territorialist and Zionist
- 1905 rejected at Zionist Conference
- Why help the Jews?
18New Imperialism
19Zionism, imperialism and the Arabs
- A Land without people for a people without a
land (1854 by Lord Shaftesbury.) - We abroad are used to believing that Eretz
Yisrael is now almost totally desolate, a desert
that is not sowed.. But in truth this is not the
case. Throughout the country it is difficult to
find fields that are not sowed. Only sand dunes
and stony mountainsare not cultivated. Ahad
Ha-am 1891
20Theodore Herzl, Old-New Land, 1904
- What a question! It was a great blessing for all
of us, returned Reschid. Naturally, the
land-owners gained most because they were able to
sell to the Jewish society at high prices, or to
wait for still higher ones,
21Zionism and Colonialism
- Orientalism and assumptions about Arabs
- Civilizing Mission dessert bloom
22Zionism and Colonialism
- No colonizing state
- Limited exploitation of Arab workers
- Jewish nationalism is anti-colonial