242-498: Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism . Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of the modern State of Israel , and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the region of Palestine —a region partly coinciding with the biblical Land of Israel —was flawed or unjust in some way. Until World War II, anti-Zionism was widespread among Jews for varying reasons. Orthodox Jews opposed Zionism on religious grounds, as preempting
484-537: A Jewish state before the appearance of the messiah was widely interpreted in Jewish religious circles as contradicting the divine will, a programme, furthermore, that was visibly driven by Jewish secularists. Until World War I , across Central Europe , Jewish religious leaders largely perceived the Zionist movement's aspirations for Jewish nationhood in a distant "New Judea" as a threat, in that it might encourage paradoxically
726-618: A Semitic language which flourished as a spoken language in the ancient Kingdoms of Israel and Judah during the period from about 1200 to 586 BCE, and continued to be used in some parts of Judea during the Second Temple period and up until 200 CE. It is the language of the Hebrew Bible and the Mishnah , central texts in Judaism . Hebrew was largely preserved throughout later history as
968-508: A colonialist , racist , or exceptionalist ideology or as a settler colonialist movement. Some proponents of Zionism accept the characterization of Zionism as settler-colonial or exceptionalist. The term "Zionism" is derived from the word Zion ( Hebrew : ציון , romanized : Tzi-yon ) or Mount Zion , a hill in Jerusalem , widely symbolizing the Land of Israel. Mount Zion
1210-574: A secular nationalist movement in the late 19th century, in reaction to newer waves of antisemitism and in response to the Haskalah , or Jewish Enlightenment. During this period, as Jewish assimilation in Europe was progressing, some Jewish intellectuals framed assimilation as a humiliating negation of Jewish cultural distinctiveness. The development of Zionism and other Jewish nationalist movements grew out of these sentiments, which began to emerge even before
1452-589: A skeptic Bayle only partially accepted the philosophy and principles of rationality. He did draw a strict boundary between morality and religion. The rigor of his Dictionnaire Historique et Critique influenced many of the Enlightenment Encyclopédistes . By the mid-18th century the French Enlightenment had found a focus in the project of the Encyclopédie . The philosophical movement
1694-536: A "pure Jewish settlement" in Palestine on the basis of "100 per cent Jewish labor" and the claim to an exclusively Jewish economy. The Zionist leadership aimed to establish a fully autonomous and independent Jewish economic sector to create a new type of Jewish society. This new society was intended to reverse the traditional economic structure seen in the Jewish Diaspora, characterized by a high number of middlemen and
1936-525: A God who punishes evil, the moral order of society was undermined; that is, since atheists gave themselves to no supreme authority and no law and had no fear of eternal consequences, they were far more likely to disrupt society. Bayle observed that, in his day, "prudent persons will always maintain an appearance of [religion]," and he believed that even atheists could hold concepts of honor and go beyond their own self-interest to create and interact in society. Locke said that if there were no God and no divine law,
2178-539: A Great Power was seen as fundamental to the success of Zionism and in 1917 the Balfour Declaration established Britain's support for the movement. In 1922, the British Mandate for Palestine would explicitly privilege the Jewish settlers over the local Palestinian population. The British would assist in the establishment and development of Zionist institutions and a Zionist quasi-state which operated in parallel to
2420-404: A Jewish demographic majority, the Zionist movement was faced with a problem, namely the presence of the local Arab (and primarily non-Jewish) population. The practical issue of establishing a Jewish state in a majority non-Jewish region was an issue of fundamental practical importance for the Zionist movement. Zionists used the term "transfer" as a euphemism for the removal, or ethnic cleansing, of
2662-404: A call to Jews to take it upon themselves to appropriate the land. Zionism saw itself as bringing Jews into the modern world by redefining what it means to be Jewish in terms of identification with a sovereign state, rather than Judaic faith and tradition. Zionism sought to reconfigure Jewish identity and culture in nationalist and secular terms. This new identity would be based on a rejection of
SECTION 10
#17328833748582904-441: A century after the beginnings of emancipation , Jews had moved from the margins to the forefront of European society. In the urban centers of Europe and America, Jews played an influential role in professional and intellectual life, considered in proportion to their numbers. During this period as Jewish assimilation was still progressing most promisingly, some Jewish intellectuals and religious traditionalists framed assimilation as
3146-579: A drab period in the history of science. The century saw significant advancements in the practice of medicine, mathematics, and physics; the development of biological taxonomy ; a new understanding of magnetism and electricity; and the maturation of chemistry as a discipline, which established the foundations of modern chemistry. The influence of science began appearing more commonly in poetry and literature. Some poetry became infused with scientific metaphor and imagery, while other poems were written directly about scientific topics. Richard Blackmore committed
3388-562: A good religion based in instinctive morals and a belief in God should not theoretically need force to maintain order in its believers, and both Mendelssohn and Spinoza judged religion on its moral fruits, not the logic of its theology. Several novel ideas about religion developed with the Enlightenment, including deism and talk of atheism . According to Thomas Paine , deism is the simple belief in God
3630-575: A humiliating negation of Jewish cultural distinctiveness. The development of Zionism and other Jewish nationalist movements grew out of these sentiments, which began to emerge even before the appearance of modern antisemitism as a major factor. In this sense, Zionism can be read as a response to the Haskala and the challenges of modernity and liberalism, rather than purely a response to antisemitism. Emancipation in Eastern Europe progressed more slowly, to
3872-548: A knighthood and a very lucrative government office. A common theme among most countries which derived Enlightenment ideas from Europe was the intentional non-inclusion of Enlightenment philosophies pertaining to slavery. Originally during the French Revolution, a revolution deeply inspired by Enlightenment philosophy, "France's revolutionary government had denounced slavery, but the property-holding 'revolutionaries' then remembered their bank accounts." Slavery frequently showed
4114-406: A leading role. The settlements established by Hibbat Zion lacked sufficient funds and were ultimately not very successful but are seen as the first of several aliyahs, or waves of settlement, that led to the eventual establishment of the state of Israel. The conditions in Eastern Europe would eventually provide Zionism with a base of Jews seeking to overcome the challenges of external ostracism, from
4356-423: A liberated, dignified person eager to defend both personal and national pride. The Zionist goal of reframing of Jewish identity in secular-nationalist terms meant primarily the decline of the status of religion in the Jewish community. Prominent Zionist thinkers frame this development as nationalism serving the same role as religion, functionally replacing it. Zionism sought to make Jewish ethnic-nationalism
4598-457: A like attempt to bring to Palestine the Jewish proletariat of Poland, Lithuania, Romania, and the Turkish Empire (1879 and 1882). Reform Jews rejected this idea of a return to Zion. The conference of rabbis held at Frankfurt am Main over July 15–28, 1845, deleted from the ritual all prayers for a return to Zion and a restoration of a Jewish state. The Philadelphia Conference, 1869, followed
4840-596: A more active way than most Christians viewed the Second Coming." The religious Judaic notion of being a nation was distinct from the modern European notion of nationalism. Ultra-Orthodox Jews strongly opposed collective Jewish settlement in Palestine, viewing it as a violation of the three oaths sworn to God: not to force their way into the homeland, not to hasten the end times , and not to rebel against other nations . They believed that any attempt to achieve redemption through human actions, rather than divine intervention and
5082-560: A nation is reflected in the nature of the symbolism of the movement, which are drawn from modern sources and appropriated as Zionist, instancing the fact that the melody of the Hatikvah anthem drew on the version composed by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana . The rejection of life in the diaspora was not limited to secular Zionism; many religious Zionists shared this opinion, but not all religious Zionism did. Abraham Isaac Kook , considered one of
SECTION 20
#17328833748585324-465: A national language was the sense of legitimacy it gave the movement, by suggesting a connection between the Jews of ancient Israel and the Jews of the Zionist movement. These developments are seen in Zionist historiography as a revolt against tradition, with the development of Modern Hebrew providing the basis on which a Jewish cultural renaissance might develop. Zionists generally preferred to speak Hebrew ,
5566-551: A nationalist project. They drew on religious Jewish sources and non-Jewish texts in reconstructing a national identity and consciousness. This new Jewish historiography divorced from and, at times at odds with, traditional Jewish collective memory. It was particularly important in early nation building in Israel, because Jews in Israel are ethnically diverse and the origins of Ashkenazi Jews were not known. Notable proponents of this racial idea included Max Nordau , Herzl's co-founder of
5808-446: A nationalistic context. It adapted traditional Jewish religious concepts, such as the devotion to the God of Israel, reverence for the biblical Land of Israel, and the belief in a future Jewish return during the messianic era, into a modern nationalist framework. To be sure, the yearning for a return to the land of Israel "was entirely quietistic" and the daily prayers of a return to Zion were all accompanied by an appeal to God, rather than
6050-581: A pledge of loyalty to their respective nation-states. Those liberal Jews who accepted integration and assimilationist principles saw Zionism as a threat to efforts to facilitate Jewish citizenship and equality within the European nation-state context. Many in the intellectual elite of the Anglo-Jewish community , for example, opposed Zionism because they felt most at home in England, where, in their view, antisemitism
6292-621: A proletarian critique of both American capitalism and, tacitly in its subplot, of Zionists in both the U.S. and Palestine. As well as left-wing critiques of Zionism, many mainstream liberal and conservative communal organisations in the diaspora continued to promote an assimilationist anti-Zionism. In Germany, for example, the Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens (Central Union of German Citizens of Jewish Faith) argued that German Jews should be primarily loyal to Germany and identify as Jews only on religious terms. Soon after Hitler
6534-473: A reality. The Zionist solution to the perceived deficiencies of diasporic life (or the " Jewish Question ") was dependent on the territorial concentration of Jews in Palestine, with the longer-term goal of establishing a Jewish demographic majority there. Early Zionists were the primary Jewish supporters of the idea that Jews are a race, as it "offered scientific 'proof' of the ethno-nationalist myth of common descent". According to Raphael Falk , as early as
6776-427: A reinterpretation of Messianism along traditionalist lines in which human intervention would prepare (and specifically only prepare) for the final redemption. Accordingly, the Jewish immigration in this vein was intended to be selective, involving only the most devout Jews. Their idea of Jews as a collective was strongly tied to religious notions distinct from the secular movement referred to as Zionism which developed at
7018-471: A representation of Western power. Indeed, philosopher Jean Améry argued that this "Zionism" was merely a straw man redefinition of the term, used to mean world Jewry . The far-left Israeli politician Simha Flapan lamented in 1968, "The socialist world approved the 'Holy War' of the Arabs against Israel in the disguise of a struggle against imperialism. ... Having agreed to the devaluation of its own ideals, [it]
7260-526: A sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning a Jewish state". Jewish settlements were proposed for establishment in the upper Mississippi region by W.D. Robinson in 1819. Ideas of Jewish cultural unity developed a specifically political expression in the 1860s as Jewish intellectuals began promoting the idea of Jewish nationalism. Zionism would be just one of several Jewish national movements which would develop, others included diaspora nationalist groups such as
7502-443: A scarcity of productive workers. By developing fundamental sectors such as industry, agriculture, and mining, the goal was to "normalize" Jewish life which had grown "abnormal" as a result of living amongst non-Jews. Most of the Zionist leadership saw it as imperative to employ strictly Jewish workers in order to ensure the Jewish character of the colonies; indeed they sought to minimize mixing with Arabs to, amongst other reasons, avoid
Anti-Zionism - Misplaced Pages Continue
7744-463: A scientific study of how humans behaved in ancient and primitive cultures with a strong awareness of the determining forces of modernity . Modern sociology largely originated from this movement, and Hume's philosophical concepts that directly influenced James Madison (and thus the U.S. Constitution), and as popularised by Dugald Stewart was the basis of classical liberalism . In 1776, Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations , often considered
7986-472: A secular fashion and used "Zion", "Jerusalem", "Land of Israel", "redemption" and "ingathering of exiles" as literal rather than sacred terms, endeavouring to achieve them in this world. According to Menachem Keren-Kratz, the situation in the United States differed, with most Reform rabbis and laypeople endorsing Zionism. Dina Porat holds the opposite view of Orthodox Jewish opinion generally. Elaborating on
8228-480: A settlement in Gaza, but moved later to Smyrna . After deposing the old rabbi Aaron Lapapa in the spring of 1666, the Jewish community of Avignon, France , prepared to emigrate to the new kingdom. Proto-Zionist figures in the eighteeenth and nineteenth centuries include the rabbis Yehuda Bibas (1789–1852), Tzvi Kalischer (1795–1874), and Judah Alkalai (1798–1878). Alkalai and Kalischer developed their ideas as
8470-448: A single state that would give Jews and Palestinians equal rights. Anti-Zionists have argued that a binational state would still realize Jewish self-determination, as self-determination need not imply a separate state. Some supporters of Zionism highlight that some antisemites hold anti-Zionist views. The relationship between Zionism, anti-Zionism and antisemitism is debated, with some academics and organizations that study antisemitism taking
8712-478: A society based on reason and that women as well as men should be treated as rational beings. She is best known for her work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). Science played an important role in Enlightenment discourse and thought. Many Enlightenment writers and thinkers had backgrounds in the sciences and associated scientific advancement with the overthrow of religion and traditional authority in favour of
8954-511: A team of 150 others. The Encyclopédie helped in spreading the ideas of the Enlightenment across Europe and beyond. Other publications of the Enlightenment included Berkeley's A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710), Voltaire's Letters on the English (1733) and Philosophical Dictionary (1764); Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature (1740); Montesquieu's The Spirit of
9196-518: A true faith in God. For moderate Christians, this meant a return to simple Scripture. Locke abandoned the corpus of theological commentary in favor of an "unprejudiced examination" of the Word of God alone . He determined the essence of Christianity to be a belief in Christ the redeemer and recommended avoiding more detailed debate. Anthony Collins , one of the English freethinkers , published his "Essay concerning
9438-544: A white and European power, supported from the outside, and occupying space that rightfully belongs to the original inhabitants of Palestine." In January 2015, the Lausanne movement published an article in its official journal comparing Christian Zionism , the crusades, and the Spanish Inquisition, and calling Zionism "apartheid on steroids". The Simon Wiesenthal Center called this last claim "the big lie ", and rebutted
9680-581: Is Soviet in origin. In a retrospective analysis of Arab anti-Zionism in 1978, Yehoshafat Harkabi argued, in a view reflected in the works of the anti-Zionist Russian-Jewish orientalist Maxime Rodinson , that Arab hostility to Zionism arose as a rational response in historical context to a genuine threat, and, with the establishment of Israel, their anti-Zionism was shaped as much by Israeli policies and actions as by traditional antisemitic stereotypes, and only later degenerated into an irrational attitude. Anne de Jong asserts that direct resistance to Zionism from
9922-463: Is also a term used in the Hebrew Bible . Throughout eastern Europe in the late 19th century, numerous grassroots groups promoted the national resettlement of the Jews in their homeland, as well as the revitalization and cultivation of the Hebrew language . These groups were collectively called the " Lovers of Zion " and were seen as countering a growing Jewish movement toward assimilation. The first use of
Anti-Zionism - Misplaced Pages Continue
10164-426: Is grounded in a ruler's habitual authority and force. It is precisely because of the ruler's authority over-and-against the subject that the subject tacitly consents, and Hume says that the subjects would "never imagine that their consent made him sovereign," rather the authority did so. Similarly, Ferguson did not believe citizens built the state, rather polities grew out of social development. In his 1767 An Essay on
10406-601: Is ingrained in the man's 'blood', in his physical-racial type, and only in it." According to Hassan S. Haddad, the application of the Biblical concepts of Jews as the chosen people and the " Promised Land " in Zionism, particularly to secular Jews, requires the belief that modern Jews are the primary descendants of biblical Jews and Israelites. This is considered important to the State of Israel, because its founding narrative centers around
10648-435: Is not a psychosis... nor is it a lie. Anti-Semitism is a necessary outcome of a collision between two kinds of selfhood [or 'essence']. Hate is dependent upon the amount of 'agents of fermentation' that are pushed into the general organism [i.e., the non-Jewish group], whether they are active in it and irritate it, or are neutralized in it. In this sense, Zionism did not seek to challenge anti-semitism, but rather accepted it as
10890-564: Is really its greatest failure. For the very being of the Zionist state rests, in final analysis, on the passing whim of international politics. Al-Faruqi argues that the injustices he attributes to Zionism require its dismantling, suggesting that Israeli Jews who renounce Zionism can live as an "ummatic community" within the Muslim world, following Jewish law as interpreted by rabbinic courts within an Islamic framework. According to New York University social and cultural theorist Susie Linfield , one of
11132-452: Is that which provides, in his words, "the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers." Much of what is incorporated in the scientific method (the nature of knowledge, evidence, experience, and causation) and some modern attitudes towards the relationship between science and religion were developed by Hutcheson's protégés in Edinburgh : David Hume and Adam Smith. Hume became a major figure in
11374-444: Is viewed as an essentially negative factor, even in religious Zionist ideology, and seen as responsible for the diminishing status of Jews living as a minority. Responding to the challenges of modernity, Zionism sought to replace religious and community institutions with secular-nationalistic ones, defining Judaism in "terms of Christianity." Indeed, Zionism maintained primarily the outward symbols of Jewish tradition, redefining them in
11616-573: Is widely seen as the start of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict . The Zionist claim to Palestine was based on the notion that the Jews' historical right to the land outweighed that of the Arabs. In 1884, proto-Zionist groups established the Lovers of Zion , and in 1897 the first Zionist Congress was organized. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a large number of Jews immigrated first to Ottoman and later to Mandatory Palestine . The support of
11858-454: Is your country!" But Khalidi suggested that, since Palestine was already inhabited, the Zionists should find another place for the implementation of their political goals: "in the name of God", he wrote, "let Palestine be left alone." According to Rashid Khalidi , Alexander Scholch and Dominique Perrin , Yousef Khalidi was prescient in predicting that, regardless of Jewish historic rights, given
12100-581: The philosophes of the French Enlightenment were not revolutionaries and many were members of the nobility, their ideas played an important part in undermining the legitimacy of the Old Regime and shaping the French Revolution . Francis Hutcheson , a moral philosopher and founding figure of the Scottish Enlightenment , described the utilitarian and consequentialist principle that virtue
12342-640: The American Council for Judaism , conserved an earlier Reform tradition of rejection of Zionism. Non-Jewish anti-Zionism likewise spanned communal and religious groups, with the Arab populace of Palestine largely opposed to what they considered the colonial dispossession of their homeland. Opposition to Zionism was, and continues to be, widespread in the Arab world , especially among Palestinians . Many anti-Zionists seek to replace Israel and its occupied territories with
SECTION 50
#173288337485812584-646: The Ashkenazi an augury—" Next year in Jerusalem —which was then included in the thrice-daily Amidah (Standing prayer). The biblical prophecy of Kibbutz Galuyot , the ingathering of exiles in the Land of Israel as foretold by the Prophets , became a central idea in Zionism. The forerunners of Zionism, rather than being causally connected to the later development of Zionism, are thinkers and activists who expressed some notion of Jewish national consciousness or advocated for
12826-636: The Bundism , Autonomism , Folkism , Jewish Communists, Territorialism , and Jewish-language anarchist movements . Yevsektsiya , the Jewish section of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union created to combat "Jewish bourgeois nationalism", targeted the Zionist movement and managed to close down its offices and place Zionist literature under a ban, but Soviet officials themselves often disapproved of anti-Zionist zeal. Arabs began paying attention to Zionism in
13068-712: The Central Rabbinical Congress of the United States and Canada and Israel in the Edah HaChareidis . Many Hasidic rabbis oppose the creation of a Jewish state. In 1959, the Satmar Hasidic group's leader, Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum , published the book VaYoel Moshe , which expounds an Orthodox position for anti-Zionism based on a derivation of halacha from an aggadic passage in the Babylonian Talmud 's tractate Ketubot 111a . Teitelbaum writes that God and
13310-492: The Declaration of Independence ; and Madison incorporated these ideals into the U.S. Constitution during its framing in 1787. Locke, one of the most influential Enlightenment thinkers, based his governance philosophy in social contract theory, a subject that permeated Enlightenment political thought. English philosopher Thomas Hobbes ushered in this new debate with his work Leviathan in 1651. Hobbes also developed some of
13552-581: The European Council for Fatwa and Research condemned "Zionists who usurped Palestinian lands and forcibly expelled the Palestinians from their own homes." Palestinian-American philosopher and scholar Ismail Raji al-Faruqi was a notable critic of Zionism, asserting that its nationalist ideology was incompatible with Judaism. In his book Islam and the Problem of Israel , first published in 1980, he examines
13794-469: The French Revolution of 1789—both had some intellectual influence from Thomas Jefferson. One view of the political changes that occurred during the Enlightenment is that the " consent of the governed " philosophy as delineated by Locke in Two Treatises of Government (1689) represented a paradigm shift from the old governance paradigm under feudalism known as the " divine right of kings ." In this view,
14036-628: The King–Crane Commission , that the provisions for Zionism could only be implemented by military force. To this end, the British Army calculated that a garrison of at least 50,000 troops would be required to implement the Zionist project on Palestinian soil. According to Henry Laurens , uneasiness among British troops stationed in the region over the task of ostensibly supporting Zionism, something that clashed with their customary paternalistic treatment of colonial populations, accounted for much of
14278-566: The Revolutionary Cells . The hijackers released all the non-Jewish hostages without Israeli citizenship, but kept all the Israeli citizens (including those with dual citizenship) and Jewish people for ransom. The separation of Jewish non-Israelis and Israelis from non-Israelis—which, in essence, meant separating out the Jewish passengers generally—shocked many on the German left. To Joschka Fischer ,
14520-560: The Scientific Revolution and the work of Johannes Kepler , Galileo Galilei , Francis Bacon , Pierre Gassendi , and Isaac Newton , among others, as well as the rationalist philosophy of Descartes , Hobbes , Spinoza , Leibniz , and John Locke . Some date the beginning of the Enlightenment to the publication of René Descartes ' Discourse on the Method in 1637, with his method of systematically disbelieving everything unless there
14762-558: The Soviet Union aliyah and 1990s post-Soviet aliyah , took place from the 1970s onward. According to Anthony Julius, in 1989, "Soviet anti-Zionism was credibly considered the greatest threat to Israel and Jews generally. ... This 'anti-Zionism' survived the collapse of the Soviet system." In the 21st century, factions within American academia have supported boycotts of Israel using language that
SECTION 60
#173288337485815004-689: The State of Palestine since 2015. Most Orthodox religious groups have accepted and actively support the State of Israel, even if they have not adopted "Zionist" ideology. The World Agudath Israel party (founded in Poland) has at times participated in Israeli government coalitions. Most religious Zionists hold pro-Israel views from a right-wing viewpoint. The main exceptions are Hasidic groups such as Satmar Hasidim, which have about 100,000 adherents worldwide and numerous different, smaller Hasidic groups, unified in America in
15246-683: The United Nations General Assembly 's passage of Resolution 3379 by a vote of 72 to 35 (with 32 abstentions), which declared, "Zionism is a form of racism, and racial discrimination". The passage evoked, in the words of American U.N. Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan , "a long mocking applause." U.N. representatives from Libya, Syria, and the PLO made speeches claiming that this resolution negated previous resolutions calling for land-for-peace agreements between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Israel's U.N. representative, Chaim Herzog , interpreted
15488-621: The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom . Jefferson's political ideals were greatly influenced by the writings of Locke, Bacon, and Newton, whom he considered the three greatest men that ever lived. The Enlightenment took hold in most European countries and influenced nations globally, often with a specific local emphasis. For example, in France it became associated with anti-government and anti-Church radicalism, while in Germany it reached deep into
15730-460: The rule of law , and religious freedom , in contrast to an absolute monarchy or single party state and the religious persecution of faiths other than those formally established and often controlled outright by the State. By contrast, other intellectual currents included arguments in favour of anti-Christianity , Deism , and even Atheism , accompanied by demands for secular states , bans on religious education, suppression of Monasteries ,
15972-468: The skeptical philosophical and empiricist traditions of philosophy. Kant tried to reconcile rationalism and religious belief, individual freedom and political authority, as well as map out a view of the public sphere through private and public reason. Kant's work continued to shape German thought and indeed all of European philosophy, well into the 20th century. Mary Wollstonecraft was one of England's earliest feminist philosophers. She argued for
16214-544: The state of nature as a condition in which humans are rational and follow natural law, in which all men are born equal and with the right to life , liberty, and property. However, when one citizen breaks the law of nature both the transgressor and the victim enter into a state of war, from which it is virtually impossible to break free. Therefore, Locke said that individuals enter into civil society to protect their natural rights via an "unbiased judge" or common authority, such as courts. In contrast, Rousseau's conception relies on
16456-676: The suppression of the Jesuits , and the expulsion of religious orders . Contemporary criticism, particularly of these anti-religious concepts, has since been dubbed the Counter-Enlightenment by Sir Isaiah Berlin . The Age of Enlightenment was preceded by and closely associated with the Scientific Revolution . Earlier philosophers whose work influenced the Enlightenment included Francis Bacon , Pierre Gassendi , René Descartes , Thomas Hobbes , Baruch Spinoza , John Locke , Pierre Bayle , and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz . Some of figures of
16698-472: The "civilized nations" of Europe, but even before Herzl, the idea of Zionism – of Jews as constituting a nation rather than a people constituted by their religion – promoted by Moses Hess (1862) and Leo Pinsker (1882) elicited fierce opposition within European Orthodox Jewry . Samson Raphael Hirsch , for one, considered the active promotion of Jewish emigration to Palestine a sin. The creation of
16940-570: The "dismissal of the validity of Israel's right to exist as the Jewish State". Muslims have made several arguments to oppose the state of Israel. Some Muslims view the State of Israel as an intrusion into what shari'a law defines as Dar al-Islam , a domain they believe should be ruled by Muslims, reflecting its historical conquest in the name of Islam. In addition, Quran 22:39–40 gives Muslims permission to fight those who "drove them from their homes", so some Muslims believe jihad against Israel
17182-536: The "surplus of Jews, the inassimilable residue" from Eastern Europe who had arrived in Germany in response to the pogroms. The pogroms motivated a small number of Jews to establish various groups in the Pale of Settlement and Poland aimed at supporting Jewish emigration to Palestine. The publication of Autoemancipation provided these groups with an ideological charter around which they would be confederated into Hibbat Zion ("Lovers of Zion") in 1887 where Pinsker would take
17424-404: The 17th and the 18th centuries. The Enlightenment featured a range of social ideas centered on the value of knowledge learned by way of rationalism and of empiricism and political ideals such as natural law , liberty , and progress , toleration and fraternity , constitutional government , and the formal separation of church and state . The Enlightenment was preceded by and overlaps
17666-418: The 1870s Zionist and pre-Zionist thinkers conceived of Jews as belonging to a distinct biological group. This re-conceptualization of Jewishness cast the " volk " of the Jewish community as a nation-race, in contrast to centuries-old conceptions of the Jewish people as a religious socio-cultural grouping. The Jewish historians Heinrich Graetz and Simon Dubnow are largely credited with this creation of Zionism as
17908-532: The 1890s, Theodor Herzl (the father of political Zionism) infused Zionism with a practical urgency and would work to unify the various strands of the movement. His efforts would lead to the First Zionist Congress at Basel in 1897, which created the Zionist Organization (ZO), renamed in 1960 as World Zionist Organization (WZO). The Zionist Organization was to be the main administrative body of
18150-486: The 19 Arab countries, including those engaged in negotiations with Israel, voted against the repeal, and another six were absent. All the ex-communist countries and most of the African countries who had supported Resolution 3379 voted to repeal it. In 1993, philosopher Cornel West wrote: "Jews will not comprehend what the symbolic predicament and literal plight of Palestinians in Israel means to blacks.... Blacks often perceive
18392-520: The 1930s by Arthur Ruppin , that such a state would automatically entail a situation of continuous warfare with the Arab world, an inference Moshe Dayan later endorsed. By 1948, when the Soviet Union recognized Israel, Jewish institutional life within its borders had been effectively dismantled. The Soviet Union nonetheless played a leading role in recognizing the state of Israel, was harshly critical of Arab states opposing it and enabled Israel to procure substantial armaments in 1948–1949. But at roughly
18634-747: The 2000s, leaders of the Respect Party and the Socialist Workers Party of the United Kingdom met with leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah at the Cairo Anti-war Conference . The result of the 2003 conference was a call to oppose "normalization with the Zionist entity". In April 2013 the Church of Scotland published "The Inheritance of Abraham: A Report on the Promised Land" , which rejects
18876-624: The Affairs of Europe now turn." Locke's theory of natural rights has influenced many political documents, including the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the French National Constituent Assembly's Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen . Some philosophes argued that the establishment of a contractual basis of rights would lead to the market mechanism and capitalism , the scientific method, religious tolerance , and
19118-468: The Arab Palestinian population. The concept of "transfer" had a long pedigree in Zionist thought, with moral considerations rarely entering into the discussions of what was viewed as a logical solution-opposition to transferring the Arab population outside Palestine was typically expressed on practical, rather than moral grounds. The concept of forcibly removing the non-Jewish population from Palestine
19360-633: The British mandate government. After over two decades of British support for the movement, Britain restricted Jewish immigration with the White Paper of 1939 in an attempt to ease local tensions. Despite the White Paper, Zionist immigration and settlement efforts continued during WWII . While immigration had previously been selective, once the details of the Nazi Holocaust reached Palestine in 1942, selectivity
19602-477: The Bund . Zionism emerged towards the end of the "best century" for Jews who for the first time were allowed as equals into European society. During this time, Jews would have equality before the law and gain access to schools, universities, and professions which were previously closed to them. By the 1870s, Jews had achieved almost complete civic emancipation in all the states of western and central Europe. By 1914,
19844-762: The Creator with no reference to the Bible or any other miraculous source. Instead, the deist relies solely on personal reason to guide his creed , which was eminently agreeable to many thinkers of the time. Atheism was much discussed, but there were few proponents. Wilson and Reill note: "In fact, very few enlightened intellectuals, even when they were vocal critics of Christianity, were true atheists. Rather, they were critics of orthodox belief, wedded rather to skepticism, deism, vitalism, or perhaps pantheism." Some followed Pierre Bayle and argued that atheists could indeed be moral men. Many others like Voltaire held that without belief in
20086-561: The Criminal Trial, 1787), which established him as an international authority on criminal law. The Enlightenment has long been seen as the foundation of modern Western political and intellectual culture. The Enlightenment brought political modernization to the West, in terms of introducing democratic values and institutions and the creation of modern, liberal democracies. This thesis has been widely accepted by scholars and has been reinforced by
20328-464: The Enlightenment included Cesare Beccaria , George Berkeley , Denis Diderot , David Hume , Immanuel Kant , Lord Monboddo , Montesquieu , Jean-Jacques Rousseau , Adam Smith , Hugo Grotius , and Voltaire . One influential Enlightenment publication was the Encyclopédie ( Encyclopedia ). Published between 1751 and 1772 in 35 volumes, it was compiled by Diderot, Jean le Rond d'Alembert , and
20570-399: The Enlightenment undermined the authority of the monarchy and religious officials and paved the way for the political revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. A variety of 19th-century movements, including liberalism, socialism , and neoclassicism , trace their intellectual heritage to the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was marked by an increasing awareness of the relationship between
20812-509: The French government, was eager to accept Frederick's invitation to live at his palace. Frederick explained: "My principal occupation is to combat ignorance and prejudice... to enlighten minds, cultivate morality, and to make people as happy as it suits human nature, and as the means at my disposal permit." The Enlightenment has been frequently linked to the American Revolution of 1776 and
21054-513: The Great Powers, and would "form part of a defensive wall for Europe in Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism." In 1902, Herzl published Altneuland , a utopian novel which portrays a Jewish state where Jews and Arabs live together. In the novel, Jewish immigration had not forced the Arabs to leave, orange exports had multiplied tenfold, and Arab landowners profited from selling land to
21296-585: The Great of Prussia, Catherine the Great of Russia, Leopold II of Tuscany and Joseph II of Austria. Joseph was over-enthusiastic, announcing many reforms that had little support so that revolts broke out and his regime became a comedy of errors, and nearly all his programs were reversed. Senior ministers Pombal in Portugal and Johann Friedrich Struensee in Denmark also governed according to Enlightenment ideals. In Poland,
21538-715: The History of Civil Society , Ferguson uses the four stages of progress, a theory that was popular in Scotland at the time, to explain how humans advance from a hunting and gathering society to a commercial and civil society without agreeing to a social contract. Both Rousseau's and Locke's social contract theories rest on the presupposition of natural rights , which are not a result of law or custom but are things that all men have in pre-political societies and are therefore universal and inalienable. The most famous natural right formulation comes from Locke's Second Treatise, when he introduces
21780-491: The Jew? Even in the very heartland of Zionism, in Israel, the Jew sits in the midst of an armory, surrounding himself with barbed wire, minefields, and all kinds of weaponry to prevent an onslaught which he knows for certain is coming, sooner or later. His very existence is a regimented spartanism, due in greatest measure to the bounty of international imperialism and colonialism. Thus, Israel, the so-called greatest achievement of Zionism,
22022-512: The Jewish defense of the state of Israel as a second instance of naked group interest, and, again, an abandonment of substantive moral deliberation." African-American support of Palestinians is frequently due to the consideration of Palestinians as people of color; political scientist Andrew Hacker writes: "The presence of Israel in the Middle East is perceived as thwarting the rightful status of people of color. Some blacks view Israel as essentially
22264-415: The Jewish identity which developed while living amongst non-Jews . Accordingly, the early Zionists sought to develop a nationalist Jewish political life in a territory where Jews constitute a demographic majority. The early Zionist thinkers saw the integration of Jews into non-Jewish society as both unrealistic (or insufficient to address the deficiencies associated with the demographic minority status of
22506-640: The Jewish people through the colonization of Palestine , an area roughly corresponding to the Land of Israel in Judaism , and of central importance in Jewish history . Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews , and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible. Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Zionism became Israel's national or state ideology . Zionism initially emerged in Central and Eastern Europe as
22748-449: The Jewish people exchanged three oaths at the time of the Jews' exile from ancient Israel, forbidding the Jewish people from massively immigrating to the Land of Israel and from rebelling against the nations of the world. Zionism Zionism is the ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century and aimed for the establishment of a homeland for
22990-539: The Jews in Europe) and undesirable, since assimilation was accompanied by the dilution of Jewish cultural distinctiveness. Moses Hess , a leading precursor of Zionism, commented on the perceived insufficiency of assimilation: "The German hates the Jewish race more than the religion; he objects less to the Jews' peculiar beliefs than to their peculiar noses." Prominent leaders of the Zionist movement expressed an "understanding" of antisemitism , echoing its beliefs: Anti-Semitism
23232-452: The Jews. Walter Laqueur describes Herzl in real life as emphasizing the importance of close relationships between Jews and Muslims on several occasions. Altneuland also reflected Herzl's belief in the importance of technology and progress. The Jewish state in the novel is a highly advanced society, where scientific and technological innovation is celebrated and valued. Before World War I, although led by Austrian and German Jews, Zionism
23474-488: The Laws (1748); Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality (1754) and The Social Contract (1762); Cesare Beccaria's On Crimes and Punishments (1764); Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and The Wealth of Nations (1776); and Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1781). Bacon's empiricism and Descartes' rationalist philosophy laid the foundation for enlightenment thinking. Descartes' attempt to construct
23716-453: The Mandate itself – and complaints were made of the heavy burden it was to govern the land with competing national interests. It was claimed that Zionism's promise of a homeland for the Jewish people with civil rights for its Arab citizens was impossible to realize. Much of this anti-Zionist sentiment and diffidence about Jews in the early Mandate years, limited in scope like British antisemitism,
23958-689: The Messiah , while many secular Jewish anti-Zionists identified more with ideals of the Enlightenment and saw Zionism as a reactionary ideology. Opposition to Zionism in the Jewish diaspora was surmounted only from the 1930s onward, as conditions for Jews deteriorated radically in Europe and, with the Second World War, the sheer scale of the Holocaust was felt. Thereafter, Jewish anti-Zionist groups generally either disintegrated or transformed into pro-Zionist organizations, though many small groups , and bodies like
24200-402: The Middle East. The overriding impulse of post-1948 anti-Zionism is to dismantle the current State of Israel and replace it with something else. On the eve of the foundation of Israel in 1948, Judah Magnes , president of Jerusalem's Hebrew University , adopted an anti-Zionist position in opposing the imminent establishment of a Jewish state. His opposition was grounded on a view, anticipated in
24442-584: The Mizrachi movement and formed Agudat Yisrael as a bulwark against secularists, including Zionists. In Palestine, the Agudah sought complete separation from secularists, though one key leader, Rabbi Yosef Sonnenfeld, was amenable to limited cooperation with local Zionists. In his essay Mauschel , Herzl called Jews who opposed his project "yids", and not true Jews. Among left-wing currents within diaspora Jewish communities , strong opposition emerged in such formations as
24684-741: The Newtonian system to verse in Creation, a Philosophical Poem in Seven Books (1712). After Newton's death in 1727, poems were composed in his honour for decades. James Thomson penned his "Poem to the Memory of Newton," which mourned the loss of Newton and praised his science and legacy. Hume and other Scottish Enlightenment thinkers developed a " science of man ," which was expressed historically in works by authors including James Burnett , Adam Ferguson , John Millar , and William Robertson , all of whom merged
24926-515: The Orthodox yishuv who disagreed with Zionism also played an important role in getting Mandate authorities to grasp that Zionists did not represent the entire Palestinian Jewish community. The Haganah assassinated him in 1924. The British press during the Mandate period was often critical – the Northcliffe Press was openly anti-Zionist, and the newspaper baron Lord Beaverbrook was opposed to
25168-542: The Palestinians "should not be misunderstood as questioning the right of the State of Israel to exist". In 2014, a controversy arose when the United States Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) published a study guide, Zionism Unsettled , quickly withdrawn from sale on its website, that asserted that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was fueled by a "pathology inherent in Zionism" . Cary Nelson argued that
25410-519: The Palestinians. Religious Zionism is a variant of Zionist ideology which brings together secular nationalism and religious conservatism. Advocates of Zionism have viewed it as a national liberation movement for the repatriation of an indigenous people (which were subject to persecution and share a national identity through national consciousness ), to the homeland of their ancestors as noted in ancient history . Similarly, anti-Zionism has many aspects, which include criticism of Zionism as
25652-548: The Scientific Revolution as the creators of scientific knowledge, in contrast to the scholasticism of the university. Some societies created or retained links to universities, but contemporary sources distinguished universities from scientific societies by claiming that the university's utility was in the transmission of knowledge while societies functioned to create knowledge. As the role of universities in institutionalized science began to diminish, learned societies became
25894-725: The Soviet–Arab alliance and the democracies of the Western world . Israel's victory in the Six-Day War of 1967 necessitated a diplomatic response by the Soviet–Arab alliance. The result was resolutions in the Organization for African Unity and the Non-Aligned Movement condemning Zionism and equating it with racism and apartheid during the early 1970s. This culminated in November 1975 in
26136-521: The State of Israel on anti-imperialist and human rights grounds. Many oppose it as a form of nationalism, which they argue is a product of capitalism. One secular anti-Zionist group, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network , a socialist, antiwar, anti-imperialist organization, calls for "the dismantling of Israeli apartheid, return of Palestinian refugees, and the ending of the Israeli colonization of historic Palestine." In
26378-561: The Tsarist regime, and internal changes within the Jewish communities there. The groups which formed Hibbat Zion included the Bilu group which began its settlements in 1882. Shapira describes the Bilu as serving the role of a prototype for the settlement groups that followed. At the end of the 19th century, Jews remained a small minority in Palestine. At this point, Zionism remained a scattered movement. In
26620-525: The United Nations also claimed that Zionists had unethically enticed Arab Jews to come to Israel. According to Gil Troy , neither claim is historically accurate, as Jews did not have the same rights as Muslims in these lands and had periodically experienced violent riots. In the 1960s and 1970s, Soviets and Americans interpreted the Arab–Israeli conflict as a proxy war between the totalitarianism of
26862-660: The Use of Reason in Propositions the Evidence whereof depends on Human Testimony" (1707), in which he rejects the distinction between "above reason" and "contrary to reason," and demands that revelation should conform to man's natural ideas of God. In the Jefferson Bible , Thomas Jefferson went further and dropped any passages dealing with miracles, visitations of angels, and the resurrection of Jesus after his death , as he tried to extract
27104-441: The Zionist effort also held similar beliefs regarding Jewish and Arab rights in Palestine. Unlike other forms of nationalism, the Zionist claim to Palestine was aspirational and required a mechanism by which the claim could be realized. The territorial concentration of Jews in Palestine and the subsequent goal of establishing a Jewish majority there was the main mechanism by which Zionist groups sought to realize this claim. By
27346-406: The Zionist settlers of the first aliyah had ventured to create a "pure Jewish settlement," they did grow to rely on Arab labor due to the lack of availability of Jewish laborers during this period. With the arrival of the more ideologically driven settlers of the second aliyah, the idea of "avoda ivrit" would become more central. The future leaders of the Zionist movement saw an existential threat in
27588-498: The Zionists' attitudes and zealous behaviour exacerbated hostilities, being perceived as "arrogant, insolent and provocative." Some members of the Jewish-Marxist Poale Zion , which advocated under Ber Borochov a separate Zionist organization for Jewish workers and advocated emigration to Palestine as a solution to antisemitism, found to their surprise on making aliyah that Palestine was a predominantly Arab country. By
27830-468: The absolutist government was very strong. The early enlightenment emerged in protest to these circumstances, gaining ground under the support of Madame de Pompadour , the mistress of Louis XV . Called the Siècle des Lumières, the philosophical movement of the Enlightenment had already started by the early 18th century, when Pierre Bayle launched the popular and scholarly Enlightenment critique of religion. As
28072-592: The anti-Zionist sentiment that UK military personnel based in Palestine expressed. American approval of the Declaration came about through the direct and secret mediation of the antisemitic anti-Zionist Colonel House with President Woodrow Wilson by bypassing Robert Lansing , the United States Secretary of State . The last sentence in the draft proposal passed to Wilson, mentioning Jews "who are fully contented with their existing nationality and citizenship",
28314-420: The anticipation of restoration were based on messianic beliefs and religious practices, not material nationalistic conceptions. The Zionist claim to Palestine was based on the notion that Jews had a historical right to the land which outweighed the rights of the Arabs, which were "of no moral or historical significance." According to Israeli historian Simha Flapan, the view expressed by the proclamation " there
28556-510: The antisemitic Drumont, lambasted Reform Judaism for emptying ancient Jewish prayers of their literal meaning in claiming that the Jewish diaspora was a fact of destiny. Herzl's proposal initially met with broad, vigorous opposition within Jewish intellectual, social and political movements. A notable exception was the religious Mizrachi movement . After the Tenth Zionist Congress moved to expand in Palestine, many Orthodox Jews left
28798-546: The appearance of modern antisemitism as a major factor. Assimilation progressed more slowly in Tsarist Russia where pogroms and official Russian policies led to the emigration of three million Jews between 1882 and 1914, only 1% of which went to Palestine. Those who went to Palestine were driven primarily by a sense of self-determination and Jewish identity, rather than just in response to pogroms or economic insecurity. The arrival of Zionist settlers to Palestine during this period
29040-504: The authorities of partisanship. Several contemporary sources credit the notion that English administrators were partial to Arabs, and diffident about, if not outright disliking, Jews. One Zionist complaint was that among the higher functionaries of the British Mandatory administration were several officials who countenanced anti-Zionist and even antisemitic policies. The energetic arguments of Jacob Israël de Haan on behalf of sectors of
29282-561: The citizenry only had their "religious rights" recognized. Given that Arab notables were almost unanimous in repudiating Zionism, and incidents such as the Surafend massacre (perpetrated by Australian and New Zealand troops serving alongside the British) stirred deep resentment against Britain throughout the area, the British soon came to the conclusion, which they confided to the Americans during
29524-469: The claim has "remained forever elusive". With the arrival in Palestine of more ideologically motivated settlers after the turn of the century, the Zionist movement began to emphasize the importance of the productivization of Jewish society and the so-called "conquest of labor," the belief that the employment of exclusively Jewish labour was the pre-condition for the development of an independent Jewish society in Palestine. The Zionist movement sought to build
29766-536: The clergy of all churches and was a plea for deism. Roy Porter argues that the reasons for this neglect were the assumptions that the movement was primarily French-inspired, that it was largely a-religious or anti-clerical, and that it stood in outspoken defiance to the established order. Porter admits that after the 1720s England could claim thinkers to equal Diderot , Voltaire, or Rousseau. However, its leading intellectuals such as Gibbon, Edmund Burke and Samuel Johnson were all quite conservative and supportive of
30008-500: The coming of the Messiah , constituted a rebellion against divine will and a dangerous heresy. The cultural memory of Jews in the diaspora revered the Land of Israel. Religious tradition held that a future messianic age would usher in their return as a people., a 'return to Zion' commemorated particularly at Passover and in Yom Kippur prayers. In late medieval times, there arose among
30250-442: The concept of an " Ingathering of the exiles " and the " Return to Zion ", on the assumption that all modern Jews are the direct lineal descendants of the biblical Jews. The question has thus been focused on by supporters of Zionism and anti-Zionists alike, as in the absence of this biblical primacy, "the Zionist project falls prey to the pejorative categorization as 'settler colonialism' pursued under false assumptions, playing into
30492-418: The concept of das völk : people of shared ancestry should pursue separation and establish a unified state. Zionist thinkers view the movement as a "revolt against a tradition of many centuries" of living parasitically at the margins of Western society. Indeed, Zionism was uncomfortable with the term "Jewish," associating it with passivity, spirituality and the stain of "galut". Instead, Zionist thinkers preferred
30734-525: The construction of Zionist identity as a militarized nationalism arose in contrast to the imputed identity of the Diaspora Jew as a "feminised" Other . She describes this as a relationship of contempt towards the previous identity of the Jewish Diaspora viewed as unable to resist antisemitism and the Holocaust. Lentin argues that Zionism's rejection of this "feminised" identity and its obsession with constructing
30976-454: The context of ideological developments within modern European nations in the 19th century. The concept of the "return" remained a powerful symbol within religious Jewish belief which emphasized that their return should be determined by Divine Providence rather than human action. Leading Zionist historian Shlomo Avineri describes this connection: "Jews did not relate to the vision of the Return in
31218-503: The cornerstone of organized science. Official scientific societies were chartered by the state to provide technical expertise. Most societies were granted permission to oversee their own publications, control the election of new members and the administration of the society. In the 18th century, a tremendous number of official academies and societies were founded in Europe, and by 1789 there were over 70 official scientific societies. In reference to this growth, Bernard de Fontenelle coined
31460-470: The country", rather than the European model vision of Jews as the cause of all the ills of mankind. According to Anthony Julius , anti-Zionism, a highly heterogeneous phenomenon, and Palestinian nationalism , are separate ideologies; one need not have an opinion on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict to be an anti-Zionist. One Arab criticism of Zionism is that Islamic–Jewish relations were entirely peaceful until Zionism conquered Arab lands. Arab delegates to
31702-510: The development of free speech and thought. There were immediate practical results. The experiments of Antoine Lavoisier were used to create the first modern chemical plants in Paris, and the experiments of the Montgolfier brothers enabled them to launch the first manned flight in a hot air balloon in 1783. Broadly speaking, Enlightenment science greatly valued empiricism and rational thought and
31944-440: The diaspora in their respective national contexts. It dismissed its antagonist Zionism's vision of resolving matters definitively by emigrating to Palestine as marked by a "separatist, chauvinist, clerical and conservative" outlook, values diametrically opposed to Bundism 's secular, progressive and internationalist principles. The Communist Party USA (CPUSA) was resolutely anti-Zionist throughout this period, believing that "that
32186-435: The diaspora, such as George Steiner , Tony Judt and Baruch Kimmerling . There was a shift in the meaning of anti-Zionism after the events of the 1940s. Whereas pre-1948 anti-Zionism was against the hypothetical establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, post-1948 anti-Zionism had to contend with the existence of the State of Israel. This often meant taking a retaliatory position to the new reality of Jewish sovereignty in
32428-436: The distinctive trait of Jews rather than their commitment to Judaism. Zionism instead adopted a racial understanding of Jewish identity, which paradoxically mirrored anti-Semitic views by suggesting that Jewishness is an inherent, unchangeable trait found in one's "blood." Framed this way, Jewish identity is only secondarily a matter of tradition or culture. Zionist nationalism embraced pan-Germanic ideologies, which stressed
32670-538: The early 1920s, the realization that Zionism would be discriminatory had turned Poale militants like Yaakov Meiersohn and Joseph Berger into anti-Zionists. In 1922 the Comintern 's disowning of Poale Zion spurred the growth of a Jewish anti-Zionist left in Palestine, culminating with the formation of the Palestine Communist Party (PCP) , which retained some residual Zionist traces. This anti-Zionist Jewish PCP
32912-411: The employment of Arab labor-the fear that the "half-wild natives" would rise up against their "Jewish masters" motivated the movement on a practical level to work towards a society based on purely Jewish labor. Zionism rejected traditional Judaic definitions of what it means to be Jewish, but struggled to offer a new interpretation of Jewish identity independent of rabbinical tradition. Jewish religion
33154-407: The emptiness and futility of trying to 'combat' anti-Semitism." Herzl's project was purely secular, the selection of Palestine, after considering other locations, was motivated by the credibility the name would give to the movement. From early on, Herzl recognized that Zionism could not succeed without the support of a Great Power. His view was that this Judenstaat would serve the interests of
33396-491: The end of the century. In contrast, Hess advocated for the establishment of an independent Jewish state in pursuit of the economic and social normalization of the Jewish people. Hess believed that emancipation alone was not a sufficient solution to the problems faced by European Jewry; he perceived a shift of anti-Jewish sentiment from a religious to a racial basis. For Hess, religious conversion would not fix this anti-Jewish hostility. Christian restorationist ideas promoting
33638-609: The entire Enlightenment include England and others ignore it, although they do include coverage of such major intellectuals as Joseph Addison , Edward Gibbon , John Locke, Isaac Newton, Alexander Pope , Joshua Reynolds , and Jonathan Swift . Freethinking , a term describing those who stood in opposition to the institution of the Church, and the literal belief in the Bible, can be said to have begun in England no later than 1713, when Anthony Collins wrote his "Discourse of Free-thinking," which gained substantial popularity. This essay attacked
33880-462: The envisioned European and German culture of the state where Jews were simply the transmitters of imperialist culture rather than producers or creators of culture. Like Pinsker, Herzl saw antisemitism as a reality that could only be addressed by the territorial concentration of Jews in a Jewish state. He wrote in his diary: "I achieved a freer attitude toward anti-Semitism, which I now began to understand historically and to pardon. Above all, I recognized
34122-571: The establishment of a Jewish nation in Palestine was anachronistic. In May 1942, before the full revelation of the Holocaust , the Biltmore Program proclaimed a radical departure from traditional Zionist policy by adopting a maximalist position in calling for the creation of a Jewish commonwealth in an unpartitioned Palestine to resolve the issue of Jewish homelessness. At the American Jewish Conference in late August-early September
34364-463: The experiences of European Jewry, which the early Zionists believed demonstrated the danger inherent to their status as a minority. In contrast to the Zionist notion of nationhood, the Judaic sense of being a nation was rooted in religious beliefs of unique chosenness and divine providence, rather than in ethnicity. Daily prayers emphasized distinctiveness from other nations; a connection to Eretz Israel and
34606-509: The face of strenuous resistance from two anti-Zionists, Lord Curzon and Edwin Montagu , then the (Jewish) Secretary of State for India . Other than assuring civil equality for all future Palestinians regardless of creed, it promised diaspora Jews territorial rights to Palestine, where, according to the 1914 Ottoman census of its citizens, 83% were Muslim, 11.2% Christian, and 5% Jewish. The majority Muslim and Christian population constituting 94% of
34848-934: The first modern geologist. Several Americans, especially Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, played a major role in bringing Enlightenment ideas to the New World and in influencing British and French thinkers. Franklin was influential for his political activism and for his advances in physics. The cultural exchange during the Age of Enlightenment ran in both directions across the Atlantic. Thinkers such as Paine, Locke, and Rousseau all take Native American cultural practices as examples of natural freedom. The Americans closely followed English and Scottish political ideas, as well as some French thinkers such as Montesquieu. As deists, they were influenced by ideas of John Toland and Matthew Tindal . There
35090-496: The first work on modern economics as it had an immediate impact on British economic policy that continues into the 21st century. It was immediately preceded and influenced by Anne Robert Jacques Turgot 's drafts of Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth (1766). Smith acknowledged indebtedness and possibly was the original English translator. Beccaria, a jurist, criminologist, philosopher, and politician and one of
35332-430: The following year, Zionists received 85% as opposed to 5% for the anti-Zionists. Opposition to official Zionism's firm, unequivocal stand caused some prominent Zionists to establish their own party, Ichud (Unification), which advocated an Arab–Jewish Federation in Palestine. Ichud represented a very small minority of Jewish Palestine ; there were only 97 party members in 1943. Opposition to the Biltmore Program also led to
35574-554: The fore, conflating anti-Zionism and antisemitism despite the conceptual distinction between the two. A deep-seated antisemitic strain within Russian culture influencing the Soviet state's approach to events in the Middle Easts emerged to intensify the Soviet leadership's anti-Zionist hostility to Israel as a major threat to the communist world, especially in the aftermath of the Six-Day War , when official documents and party connivance resuscitated antisemitic imagery related to Zionism. Two waves of mass Russian-Jewish immigration to Israel,
35816-428: The founding of the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism , which, according to Noam Chomsky was the only Jewish group in America immediately after WW2 to lobby for the immigration of Jewish Holocaust-survivors to the United States, rather than Palestine. Orthodox Judaism, which stressed civic responsibilities and patriotic feelings in religion, was strongly opposed to Zionism because Zionism espoused nationalism in
36058-419: The fundamentals of European liberal thought: the right of the individual, the natural equality of all men, the artificial character of the political order (which led to the later distinction between civil society and the state), the view that all legitimate political power must be " representative " and based on the consent of the people, and a liberal interpretation of law which leaves people free to do whatever
36300-498: The geopolitical context, Zionism could stir an awakening of Arab nationalism uniting Christians and Muslims. Kahn showed the letter to Theodor Herzl, who on 19 March 1899 replied to Khalidi in French arguing that both the Ottoman Empire and the non-Jewish population of Palestine would benefit from Jewish immigration. As to Khalidi's concerns about the non-Jewish majority population of Palestine, Herzl replied rhetorically: "who would think of sending them away?" Rashid Khalidi notes that this
36542-410: The government lacked authority in the realm of individual conscience, as this was something rational people could not cede to the government for it or others to control. For Locke, this created a natural right in the liberty of conscience, which he said must therefore remain protected from any government authority. These views on religious tolerance and the importance of individual conscience, along with
36784-502: The great Enlightenment writers, became famous for his masterpiece Dei delitti e delle pene (Of Crimes and Punishments, 1764). His treatise, translated into 22 languages, condemned torture and the death penalty and was a founding work in the field of penology and the classical school of criminology by promoting criminal justice . Francesco Mario Pagano wrote important studies such as Saggi politici (Political Essays, 1783); and Considerazioni sul processo criminale (Considerations on
37026-440: The guise of Zionism before the horrified British administration with some success. OETA and the British government took these claims seriously and addressed them in the Palin Commission report in August 1920, an investigation into the reasons behind the subsequent anti-Zionist riots at Nebi Musa . The Commission found that there was a widespread perception among the Arabs, reflected also among British residents and officials, that
37268-504: The hands of Israel's critics and fueling the indignation of the displaced and stateless Palestinian people," whilst right-wing Israelis look for "a way of proving the occupation is legitimate, of authenticating the ethnos as a natural fact, and of defending Zionism as a return". A Jewish "biological self-definition" has become a standard belief for many Jewish nationalists, and most Israeli population researchers have never doubted that evidence will one day be found, even though so far proof for
37510-425: The idea of a special right of Jewish people to the Holy Land through analysis of scripture and Jewish theological claims. The report draws on the writings of anti-Zionist Jews and Christians. According to Ira Glunts, it was revised after Scottish Jews harshly criticized it, replacing input from Mark Braverman with material from Marc H. Ellis , both Jewish. The revision says that criticism of Israel's policies toward
37752-429: The ideological basis for Zionism, Der Judenstaat , is typically translated as The Jewish State. Herzl sought to establish a state where Jews would be the majority and as a result, politically dominant. Ahad Ha'am , the founder of cultural Zionism criticized the lack of Jewish cultural activity and creativity in Herzl's envisioned state which Ha'am referred to as "the state of the Jews." Specifically, Ha'am points to
37994-404: The inevitable result of the radical opposition created in the 18th century between the monarchy and the men of letters of the Enlightenment. These men of letters constituted a sort of "substitute aristocracy that was both all-powerful and without real power." This illusory power came from the rise of "public opinion," born when absolutist centralization removed the nobility and the bourgeoisie from
38236-423: The inhabitants of historical Palestine "focused less on religious arguments and was instead centered on countering the experience of colonial dispossession and opposing the Zionist enforcement of ethnic division of the indigenous population." Until 1948, according to Derek Penslar , antisemitism in Palestine "grew directly out of the conflict with the Zionist movement and its gradual yet purposeful settlement of
38478-495: The key to imposing reforms designed by the intellectuals. Voltaire despised democracy and said the absolute monarch must be enlightened and must act as dictated by reason and justice—in other words, be a " philosopher-king ." In several nations, rulers welcomed leaders of the Enlightenment at court and asked them to help design laws and programs to reform the system, typically to build stronger states. These rulers are called "enlightened despots" by historians. They included Frederick
38720-453: The land over which Israel was established. The Zionist mainstream has historically included liberal , labor , revisionist , and cultural Zionism , while groups like Brit Shalom and Ihud have been dissident factions within the movement. Mainstream Zionist groups for the most part differ more in style than substance, having in some cases adopted similar strategies to achieve their goals, such as violence or compulsory transfer to deal with
38962-405: The large-scale studies by Robert Darnton , Roy Porter , and, most recently, by Jonathan Israel. Enlightenment thought was deeply influential in the political realm. European rulers such as Catherine II of Russia , Joseph II of Austria , and Frederick II of Prussia tried to apply Enlightenment thought on religious and political tolerance, which became known as enlightened absolutism . Many of
39204-442: The late Ottoman period. In 1899, compelled by a "holy duty of conscience", Yousef al-Khalidi , mayor of Jerusalem and a member of the Ottoman Parliament , wrote a letter to Zadok Kahn , the chief rabbi of France to voice his concerns that Zionism would jeopardize the friendly associations among Muslims, Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire. He wrote: "Who can deny the rights of the Jews to Palestine? My God, historically it
39446-424: The late 19th century was among assimilated Central European Jews who, despite their formal emancipation, still felt excluded from high society. Many of these Jews had moved away from traditional religious observances and were largely secular, mirroring a broader trend of secularization in Europe. Despite their efforts to integrate, the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe were frustrated by continued lack of acceptance by
39688-404: The law does not explicitly forbid. Both Locke and Rousseau developed social contract theories in Two Treatises of Government and Discourse on Inequality , respectively. While quite different works, Locke, Hobbes, and Rousseau agreed that a social contract, in which the government's authority lies in the consent of the governed , is necessary for man to live in civil society. Locke defines
39930-462: The law of nature because a person cannot surrender their own rights: freedom is absolute, and no one can take it away. Locke argues that one person cannot enslave another because it is morally reprehensible, although he introduces a caveat by saying that enslavement of a lawful captive in time of war would not go against one's natural rights. The leaders of the Enlightenment were not especially democratic, as they more often look to absolute monarchs as
40172-425: The lead of the German rabbis and decreed that the Messianic hope of Israel is "the union of all the children of God in the confession of the unity of God". In 1885 the Pittsburgh Conference reiterated this interpretation of the Messianic idea of Reform Judaism, expressing in a resolution that "we consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community; and we therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor
40414-498: The life of exile. Zionism portrayed the Diaspora Jew as mentally unstable, physically frail, and prone to engaging in transient businesses like peddling or acting as intermediaries. They were seen as detached from nature, purely materialistic, and focused solely on their personal gains. In contrast, the vision for the new Jew was radically different: an individual of strong moral and aesthetic values, not shackled by religion, driven by ideals and willing to challenge degrading circumstances;
40656-695: The limitations of the Enlightenment ideology as it pertained to European colonialism, since many colonies of Europe operated on a plantation economy fueled by slave labor. In 1791, the Haitian Revolution , a slave rebellion by emancipated slaves against French colonial rule in the colony of Saint-Domingue , broke out. European nations and the United States, despite the strong support for Enlightenment ideals, refused to "[give support] to Saint-Domingue's anti-colonial struggle." The very existence of an English Enlightenment has been hotly debated by scholars. The majority of textbooks on British history make little or no mention of an English Enlightenment. Some surveys of
40898-462: The local national movements which tended toward intolerance and exclusivity. For the early Zionists, if nationalism posed a challenge to European Jewry, it also proposed a solution. In the wake of the 1881 Russian pogroms , Leo Pinsker , who was previously an assimilationist, came to the conclusion that the root of the Jewish problem was that Jews formed a distinctive element which could not be assimilated. For Pinsker, emancipation could not resolve
41140-457: The main liturgical language of Judaism. Zionists worked to modernize Hebrew and adapt it for everyday use. They sometimes refused to speak Yiddish , a language they thought had developed in the context of European persecution . Once they moved to Israel, many Zionists refused to speak their (diasporic) mother tongues and adopted new, Hebrew names . Hebrew was preferred not only for ideological reasons, but also because it allowed all citizens of
41382-485: The main goal of enlightenment. According to Derek Hirst , the 1640s and 1650s saw a revived economy characterised by growth in manufacturing, the elaboration of financial and credit instruments, and the commercialisation of communication. The gentry found time for leisure activities, such as horse racing and bowling. In the high culture important innovations included the development of a mass market for music, increased scientific research, and an expansion of publishing. All
41624-418: The major political and intellectual figures behind the American Revolution associated themselves closely with the Enlightenment: Benjamin Franklin visited Europe repeatedly and contributed actively to the scientific and political debates there and brought the newest ideas back to Philadelphia; Thomas Jefferson closely followed European ideas and later incorporated some of the ideals of the Enlightenment into
41866-446: The middle classes, where it expressed a spiritualistic and nationalistic tone without threatening governments or established churches. Government responses varied widely. In France, the government was hostile, and the philosophes fought against its censorship, sometimes being imprisoned or hounded into exile. The British government, for the most part, ignored the Enlightenment's leaders in England and Scotland, although it did give Newton
42108-401: The migration of Jews to Palestine contributed to the ideological and historical context that gave a sense of credibility to these pre-Zionist initiatives. Restorationist ideas were a prerequisite for the success of Zionism, since although it was created by Jews, Zionism was dependent on support from Christians, although it is unclear how much Christian ideas influenced the early Zionists. Zionism
42350-455: The migration of Jews to Palestine. These attempts were not continuous as national movements typically are. The most notable precursors to Zionism were thinkers such as Judah Alkalai and Zvi Hirsch Kalischer (who were both rabbinical figures), as well as Moses Hess who is regarded as the first modern Jewish nationalist. The Jewish expulsion from Spain led to some Jewish refugees fleeing to Ottoman Palestine . In 1564, Joseph Nasi , with
42592-422: The mind and the everyday media of the world, and by an emphasis on the scientific method and reductionism , along with increased questioning of religious dogma — an attitude captured by Kant's essay Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment? , where the phrase sapere aude ('dare to know') can be found. The central doctrines of the Enlightenment were individual liberty , representative government,
42834-476: The model constitution of 1791 expressed Enlightenment ideals, but was in effect for only one year before the nation was partitioned among its neighbors. More enduring were the cultural achievements, which created a nationalist spirit in Poland. Frederick the Great, the king of Prussia from 1740 to 1786, saw himself as a leader of the Enlightenment and patronized philosophers and scientists at his court in Berlin. Voltaire, who had been imprisoned and maltreated by
43076-400: The moderate variety, following Descartes, Locke, and Christian Wolff , which sought accommodation between reform and the traditional systems of power and faith, and, second, the Radical Enlightenment, inspired by the philosophy of Spinoza, advocating democracy, individual liberty, freedom of expression, and eradication of religious authority. The moderate variety tended to be deistic whereas
43318-454: The moral and collective legislative body constituted by citizens. Locke is known for his statement that individuals have a right to "Life, Liberty, and Property," and his belief that the natural right to property is derived from labor. Tutored by Locke, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury , wrote in 1706: "There is a mighty Light which spreads its self over the world especially in those two free Nations of England and Holland; on whom
43560-421: The most important religious Zionist thinkers, characterized the diaspora as a flawed and alienated existence marked by decline, narrowness, displacement, solitude, and frailty. He believed that the diasporan way of life is diametrically opposed to a "national renaissance," which manifests itself not only in the return to Zion but also in the return to nature and creativity, revival of heroic and aesthetic values, and
43802-430: The most pressing questions facing the New Left after World War II was "How can we maintain our traditional universalist values in light of the nationalist movements sweeping the formerly colonized world?" During the late 1960s, anti-Zionism became a part of a collection of sentiments within the far-left politics , including anti-colonialism , anti-capitalism , and anti-Americanism . In this environment, Zionism became
44044-400: The movement and would go on to establish the Jewish Colonial Trust , whose objectives were to encourage European Jewish emigration to Palestine and to assist with the economic development of the colonies. The first Zionist Congress would also adopt the official objective of establishing a legally recognized home for the Jewish people in Palestine. The title of Herzl's 1896 manifesto providing
44286-503: The new state to have a common language, thus furthering the political and cultural bonds among Zionists. The revival of the Hebrew language and the establishment of Modern Hebrew is most closely associated with the linguist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and the Committee of the Hebrew Language (later replaced by the Academy of the Hebrew Language ). The transformation of a religious and primarily passive connection between Jews and Palestine into an active, secular, nationalist movement arose in
44528-446: The notion that there could ever be a Jewish Palestine. When he found out, Lansing thought that Zionism contradicted Wilson's own declared principle of self-determination for the peoples of the world. One other effect was that of laying the grounds for an anti-Zionist tradition in the US State Department . Once the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration (OETA) began to implement the Balfour Declaration, both sides had reason to accuse
44770-462: The only way Zionism would be able to emerge in Palestine was through a colonial project and through the expulsion of the indigenous Palestinians from the land". Under CPUSA general-secretary Earl Browder , a clear distinction was drawn between anti-Jewish pogroms in Europe, which were likened to the activities of white supremacist groups in the U.S. such as the Ku Klux Klan and Black Legion , and Arab resistance to Jewish settlers in Palestine. At
45012-478: The organization of states into self-governing republics through democratic means. In this view, the tendency of the philosophes in particular to apply rationality to every problem is considered the essential change. Although much of Enlightenment political thought was dominated by social contract theorists, Hume and Ferguson criticized this camp. Hume's essay Of the Original Contract argues that governments derived from consent are rarely seen and civil government
45254-517: The original Zionist Organization , Ze'ev Jabotinsky , the prominent architect of early statist Zionism and the founder of what became Israel's Likud party, and Arthur Ruppin , considered the "father of Israeli sociology". Birnbaum, who is widely attributed with the first use of the term "Zionism" in reference to a political movement, viewed race as the foundation of nationality, Jabotinsky wrote that Jewish national integrity relies on "racial purity", and that "(t)he feeling of national self-identity
45496-526: The outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789. Many historians now date the end of the Enlightenment as the start of the 19th century, with the latest proposed year being the death of Immanuel Kant in 1804. In reality, historical periods do not have clearly defined start or end dates. Philosophers and scientists of the period widely circulated their ideas through meetings at scientific academies , Masonic lodges , literary salons , coffeehouses and in printed books , journals , and pamphlets . The ideas of
45738-419: The passing of "Arab values" into Zionist society. The employment of exclusively Jewish labor was also intended to avoid the development of a national conflict in conjunction with a class-based conflict. The Zionist leadership believed that by excluding Arab workers they would stimulate class conflict only within Arab society and prevent the Jewish-Arab national conflict from attaining a class dimension. While
45980-490: The point that Deickoff writes "social conditions were such that they made the idea of individual assimilation pointless." Antisemitism, pogroms and official policies in Tsarist Russia led to the emigration of three million Jews in the years between 1882 and 1914, only 1% of which went to Palestine. Those who went to Palestine were driven primarily by ideas of self-determination and Jewish identity, rather than just in response to pogroms or economic insecurity. Zionism's emergence in
46222-600: The political sphere. The "literary politics" that resulted promoted a discourse of equality and was hence in fundamental opposition to the monarchical regime. De Tocqueville "clearly designates... the cultural effects of transformation in the forms of the exercise of power." It does not require great art or magnificently trained eloquence, to prove that Christians should tolerate each other. I, however, am going further: I say that we should regard all men as our brothers. What? The Turk my brother? The Chinaman my brother? The Jew? The Siam? Yes, without doubt; are we not all children of
46464-504: The practical Christian moral code of the New Testament . Enlightenment scholars sought to curtail the political power of organized religion and thereby prevent another age of intolerant religious war. Spinoza determined to remove politics from contemporary and historical theology (e.g., disregarding Judaic law ). Moses Mendelssohn advised affording no political weight to any organized religion but instead recommended that each person follow what they found most convincing. They believed
46706-401: The problems of the Jewish people. In Pinsker's analysis, Judeophobia was the cause of antisemitism and was primiarily driven by Jews' lack of a homeland. The solution Pinsker proposed in his pamphlet, Autoemancipation , was for Jews to become a "normal" nation and acquire a homeland over which Jews would have sovereignty. Pinsker primarily viewed Jewish emigration a solution for dealing with
46948-413: The radical tendency separated the basis of morality entirely from theology. Both lines of thought were eventually opposed by a conservative Counter-Enlightenment which sought a return to faith. In the mid-18th century, Paris became the center of philosophic and scientific activity challenging traditional doctrines and dogmas. After the Edict of Fontainebleau in 1685, the relationship between church and
47190-430: The resolution as an attack on Israel's legitimacy. African U.N. delegates from non-Arab countries also resented the resolution as a distraction from the fight against racism in places like South Africa and Rhodesia . The decision was revoked on 16 December 1991, when the General Assembly passed Resolution 4686 , repealing resolution 3379, by a vote of 111 to 25, with 13 abstentions and 17 delegations absent. Thirteen of
47432-417: The result would be moral anarchy: every individual "could have no law but his own will, no end but himself. He would be a god to himself, and the satisfaction of his own will the sole measure and end of all his actions." The "Radical Enlightenment" promoted the concept of separating church and state, an idea that is often credited to Locke. According to his principle of the social contract, Locke said that
47674-406: The resurgence of individual and societal power. The revival of the Hebrew language in Eastern Europe as a secular literary medium marked a significant cultural shift among Jews, who per Judaic tradition used Hebrew only for religious purposes. This secularization of Hebrew, which included its use in novels, poems, and journalism, was met with resistance from rabbis who viewed it as a desecration of
47916-407: The revolutions were caused by the fact that this governance paradigm shift often could not be resolved peacefully and therefore violent revolution was the result. A governance philosophy where the king was never wrong would be in direct conflict with one whereby citizens by natural law had to consent to the acts and rulings of their government. Alexis de Tocqueville proposed the French Revolution as
48158-417: The sacred language. While some rabbinical authorities did support the development of Hebrew as a common vernacular, they did so on the basis of nationalistic ideas, rather than on the basis of Jewish tradition. Eliezer Ben Yehuda , a key figure in the revival, envisioned Hebrew as serving a "national spirit" and cultural renaissance in the Land of Israel. The primary motivator for establishing modern Hebrew as
48400-441: The same father and creatures of the same God? Voltaire (1763) Enlightenment era religious commentary was a response to the preceding century of religious conflict in Europe, especially the Thirty Years' War . Theologians of the Enlightenment wanted to reform their faith to its generally non-confrontational roots and to limit the capacity for religious controversy to spill over into politics and warfare while still maintaining
48642-424: The same time, in early 1948, Ilya Ehrenburg had been co-opted to write an article for Pravda that set forth what later became the authoritative rationale for Soviet hostility to Zionism, as aspiring to create a dwarfish state of capitalism. Virulent antisemitism, particularly after the fabricated Doctors' plot affair in 1953, and with clear parallels to the content of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion , came to
48884-409: The sciences for distancing man from nature and not operating to make people happier. Science during the Enlightenment was dominated by scientific societies and academies , which had largely replaced universities as centres of scientific research and development. Societies and academies were also the backbone of the maturation of the scientific profession. Scientific academies and societies grew out of
49126-544: The sciences on a secure metaphysical foundation was not as successful as his method of doubt applied in philosophic areas leading to a dualistic doctrine of mind and matter. His skepticism was refined by Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) and Hume's writings in the 1740s. His dualism was challenged by Spinoza's uncompromising assertion of the unity of matter in his Tractatus (1670) and Ethics (1677). According to Jonathan Israel , these laid down two distinct lines of Enlightenment thought: first,
49368-405: The social contract, became particularly influential in the American colonies and the drafting of the United States Constitution. In a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut, Thomas Jefferson calls for a "wall of separation between church and state" at the federal level. He previously had supported successful efforts to disestablish the Church of England in Virginia and authored
49610-414: The standing order. Porter says the reason was that Enlightenment had come early to England and had succeeded such that the culture had accepted political liberalism, philosophical empiricism, and religious toleration, positions which intellectuals on the continent had to fight against powerful odds. Furthermore, England rejected the collectivism of the continent and emphasized the improvement of individuals as
49852-434: The state of Israel from an Islamic perspective. Al-Faruqi argued that rather than providing security and dignity for Jews, Zionism had led to a precarious existence for Jews in Israel, where life was defined by conflict and dependence on international powers: Zionism has not only contributed to this sad state of affairs. It is directly responsible for it. How, then, can it be said that it had succeeded in providing security for
50094-411: The state of nature. For Locke, the law of nature is grounded on mutual security or the idea that one cannot infringe on another's natural rights, as every man is equal and has the same inalienable rights. These natural rights include perfect equality and freedom, as well as the right to preserve life and property. Locke argues against indentured servitude on the basis that enslaving oneself goes against
50336-424: The support of the sultan of the Ottoman Empire, attempted to create a Jewish province in the Galilee, but he died in 1579 and his plans weren't completed. However, the community in Safed continued as did small-scale aliyah into the 17th century. In the 17th century Sabbatai Zevi (1626–1676) announced himself as the Messiah and gained many Jews to his side, forming a base in Salonika. He first tried to establish
50578-417: The supposition that "civil man" is corrupted, while "natural man" has no want he cannot fulfill himself. Natural man is only taken out of the state of nature when the inequality associated with private property is established. Rousseau said that people join into civil society via the social contract to achieve unity while preserving individual freedom. This is embodied in the sovereignty of the general will ,
50820-536: The term "Hebrew" to describe their identity which they associated with the healthy and modern sabra. In Zionist thought, the new Jew would be productive and work the land, in contrast to the diaspora Jew who, mirroring the anti-semitic portrayals, was depicted as lazy and parasitic on society. Zionism linked the term "Jewish" with these negative characteristics prevalent in European anti-Semitic stereotypes, which Zionists believed could be remedied only through sovereignty. Israeli-Irish scholar Ronit Lentin has argued that
51062-405: The term "the Age of Academies" to describe the 18th century. Another important development was the popularization of science among an increasingly literate population. Philosophes introduced the public to many scientific theories, most notably through the Encyclopédie and the popularization of Newtonianism by Voltaire and Émilie du Châtelet . Some historians have marked the 18th century as
51304-479: The term is attributed to the Austrian Nathan Birnbaum , founder of the Kadimah nationalist Jewish students' movement; he used the term in 1890 in his journal Selbst-Emancipation ( Self-Emancipation ), itself named almost identically to Leon Pinsker 's 1882 book Auto-Emancipation . Fundamental to Zionism is the belief that Jews constitute a nation and have a moral and historic right and need for self-determination in Palestine . This belief developed out of
51546-421: The time of the 1936 Arab Revolt , the political differences between the various Zionist groups had shrunk further, with almost all Zionist groups seeking a Jewish state in Palestine. While not every Zionist group openly called for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, every group in the Zionist mainstream was wedded to the idea of establishing a Jewish demographic majority there. In order to achieve
51788-424: The time, around half of the CPUSA's membership was Jewish, with perhaps 10% of the U.S. Jewish population joining the group over a decade. Throughout the 1930s and '40s, members of the American Jewish left and its intelligentsia were almost all anti-Zionists, an exception being Meyer Levin . Mike Gold 's 1930 novel Jews without Money depicts a Zionist entrepreneur's fatal extortion of a poor Jew and can be read as
52030-530: The trends were discussed in depth at the newly established coffee houses . In the Scottish Enlightenment , the principles of sociability, equality, and utility were disseminated in schools and universities, many of which used sophisticated teaching methods which blended philosophy with daily life. Scotland's major cities created an intellectual infrastructure of mutually supporting institutions such as schools, universities, reading societies, libraries, periodicals, museums, and masonic lodges. The Scottish network
52272-466: The very antisemites, with their treatment of Jews in their midst as "aliens", whose fundamental rationale Zionism itself sought to undermine. When Herzl began to propound his proposal, many, including, secular Jews, regarded Zionism as a fanciful and unrealistic movement. Some antisemites even dismissed it as a "Jewish trick". Many assimilationist Jewish liberals, heirs of the Enlightenment , had argued that Jews should enjoy full equality in exchange for
52514-519: The view that anti-Zionism is inherently antisemitic or new antisemitism , while others reject any such linkage as unfounded and a form of weaponization of antisemitism in order to stifle criticism of Israel and its policies, including its occupation of the West Bank and blockade of the Gaza Strip . Formal anti-Zionism arose in the late 19th century as a response to Theodor Herzl 's proposal in The Jewish State (1896) to create an independent country in Palestine for Jews subject to persecution in
52756-401: The war. He continually compared Israel to Nazi Germany . In 1969, West German left-wing anti-Zionists placed a bomb in a Jewish Community Center . A series of anti-Zionist aircraft hijackings took place in the 1970s with left-wing groups' support. The most famous of these was the 1976 Air France hijacking perpetrated by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in coordination with
52998-455: The way the hijackers treated Jews opened his eyes to the violent, Nazi-like implications of anti-Zionism. A few years later, the Revolutionary Cells and another anti-Zionist group attempted to firebomb two German movie theaters that were showing a movie based on the hijacking. Some Jewish organizations oppose Zionism as an integral part of their anti-imperialism . Today, some secular Jews, particularly socialists and Marxists , continue to oppose
53240-428: The work and the Church's position were flawed, anti-Zionist, and antisemitic. In 2022, the same denomination's general assembly determined that Israel is an apartheid state. The Catholic Church rejects a theological basis for Zionism and has historically opposed it. The Vatican has nonetheless had diplomatic relations with Israel since 1993 (as a result of the Oslo Accords ). It has also had diplomatic relations with
53482-446: The work of David N. Myers , Jonathan Judaken states that "numerous Jewish traditions have insisted that preservation of what is most precious about Judaism and Jewishness 'demands' a principled anti-Zionism or post-Zionism." This tradition dwindled in the aftermath of the Holocaust and the establishment of Israel, but is still alive in religious groups such as Neturei Karta and among many intellectuals of Jewish background in Israel and
53724-509: The world, including the attempt to rescue Edgardo Mortara , established a colony for Jews in Palestine. In 1854, his friend Judah Touro bequeathed money to fund Jewish residential settlement in Palestine. Montefiore was appointed executor of his will, and used the funds for a variety of projects, including building in 1860 the first Jewish residential settlement and almshouse outside of the old walled city of Jerusalem—today known as Hebrew : Mishkenot Sha'ananim . Laurence Oliphant failed in
53966-507: The year considered as the start of practical Zionism. Moral but not practical efforts were made in Prague to organize a Jewish emigration, by Abraham Benisch and Moritz Steinschneider in 1835. In the United States, Mordecai Noah attempted to establish a Jewish refuge opposite Buffalo, New York , on Grand Isle, 1825. These early Jewish nation building efforts of Cresson, Benisch, Steinschneider and Noah failed. Sir Moses Montefiore , famous for his intervention in favor of Jews around
54208-524: Was "predominantly liberal Calvinist , Newtonian, and 'design' oriented in character which played a major role in the further development of the transatlantic Enlightenment." In France, Voltaire said "we look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilization." The focus of the Scottish Enlightenment ranged from intellectual and economic matters to the specifically scientific as in the work of William Cullen , physician and chemist; James Anderson , agronomist ; Joseph Black , physicist and chemist; and James Hutton,
54450-441: Was a notion that garnered support across the entire spectrum of Zionist groups, including its farthest left factions, from early on in the movement's development. "Transfer" was not only seen as desirable but also as an ideal solution by the Zionist leadership. The notion of forcible transfer was so appealing to the movement's leaders that it was considered the most attractive provision in the Peel Commission . Indeed, this sentiment
54692-415: Was a well-founded reason for accepting it, and featuring his famous dictum, Cogito, ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am"). Others cite the publication of Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica (1687) as the culmination of the Scientific Revolution and the beginning of the Enlightenment. European historians traditionally dated its beginning with the death of Louis XIV of France in 1715 and its end with
54934-428: Was abandoned. The Zionist war effort focused on the survival and development of the Yishuv , with little Zionist resources being deployed in support of European Jews. The State of Israel would be established in 1948 over 78% of mandatory Palestine following a civil war and the first Arab-Israeli war . Primarily due to expulsions by Zionist forces, and later the Israeli army, only a Palestinian minority would remain in
55176-411: Was also dependent on the thinkers of the Haskalah or Jewish enlightenment, such as Peretz Smolenskin in 1872, although it often depicted it as its opponent. The idea of returning to Palestine was rejected by the conferences of rabbis held in that epoch. Individual efforts supported the emigration of groups of Jews to Palestine, pre-Zionist Aliyah , even before the First Zionist Congress in 1897,
55418-435: Was also tinged with anti-Bolshevism , since the Russian revolution had earlier engendered a sharp spike in antisemitism in the British press. Official sponsorship of Zionism, as evidenced by the Balfour Declaration, had been influenced by the communist takeover of Russia, which Anglo-Jewry itself abhorred, in which Jews were alleged to have played a major role. Palestinians raised the spectre of possible communist infiltration in
55660-582: Was appointed Chancellor in January 1933, Jews, and anti-Zionists among them, were galvanized to organize global protests against the new regime's discrimination against their German confreres. Similarly, as Italian fascism came to identify Zionism with enemies of the country abroad, in 1934 the Italian-Israeli Community Union responded to pressure by solemnly affirming the community's allegiance to their country. Italian anti-Zionists such as Ettore Ovazza reacted by creating their own newspaper, La Nostra Bandiera (Our Flag), whose editorial line maintained that
55902-410: Was deeply ingrained to the extent that Ben Gurion's acceptance of partition was contingent upon the removal of the Palestinian population. He would go as far as to say that transfer was such an ideal solution that it "must happen some day". From the perspective of the early Zionist thinkers, Jews living amongst non-Jews are abnormal and suffer from impediments which can only be addressed by rejecting
56144-409: Was embedded with the Enlightenment ideal of advancement and progress. The study of science, under the heading of natural philosophy , was divided into physics and a conglomerate grouping of chemistry and natural history , which included anatomy , biology , geology, mineralogy , and zoology . As with most Enlightenment views, the benefits of science were not seen universally: Rousseau criticized
56386-409: Was founded in 1911 in the then Arab-majority city of Jaffa and soon became the area's fiercest and most consistent critic of Zionism. It helped shape Palestinian identity and nationalism . Palestinian and broader Arab anti-Zionism took a decisive turn, and became a serious force, with the November 1917 publication of the Balfour Declaration – which arguably emerged from an antisemitic milieu – in
56628-419: Was justified due to the 1948 Palestinian expulsions . Likewise, Iranian Islamists have cited the expulsion of Palestinians in their opposition to Israel. The founder of Hamas , Ahmad Yassin , said "we are not fighting Jews because they are Jews! We are fighting them because they assaulted us, they killed us, they took our land, our homes." Yusuf al-Qaradawi cited the expulsion of Palestinians. A fatwa from
56870-423: Was led by Voltaire and Rousseau, who argued for a society based upon reason rather than faith and Catholic doctrine, for a new civil order based on natural law , and for science based on experiments and observation. The political philosopher Montesquieu introduced the idea of a separation of powers in a government, a concept which was enthusiastically adopted by the authors of the United States Constitution . While
57112-459: Was neither a social or cultural norm. The Jewish establishment in Germany, France (and its Alliance Israelite Universelle ), and America strongly identified with its respective states, a sentiment that made it regard Zionism negatively. Reform rabbis in German-speaking lands and Hungary advocated the erasure of all mentions of Zion in their prayer books . Herzl's successor, the Zionist atheist Max Nordau , whose views on race coincided with those of
57354-419: Was no such thing as Palestinians " was a cornerstone of Zionist policy initiated by Ben-Gurion, Weizmann and continued by their successors. Flapan further writes that the non-recognition of Palestinians remains a basic tenet of Israeli policy. This perspective was also shared by those on the far-left of the Zionist movement, including Martin Buber and other members of Brit Shalom. British officials supporting
57596-447: Was penned four years after Herzl had confided to his diary the idea of spiriting the Arab population away to make way for Jews. The Maronite Christian Naguib Azoury , in his 1905 The Awakening of the Arab Nation , warned that the "Jewish people" were engaged in a concerted drive to establish a country in the area they believed was their homeland. Subsequently, the Palestinian Christian -owned and highly influential newspaper Falastin
57838-417: Was primarily composed of Russian Jews. Initially, Zionists were a minority, both in Russia and worldwide. Russian Zionism quickly became a major force within the movement, making up about half the delegates at Zionist Congresses. Age of Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment (also the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment ) was an intellectual and philosophical movement that occurred in Europe in
58080-430: Was ready to enter an alliance with reactionary and chauvinist appeals to genocide." East Germany 's government was passionately anti-Zionist. From the 1950s through the 1970s, East Germany supplied Israel's neighboring Arab states with weapons. Immediately after the Six-Day War in 1967, East German Communist Party chairman Walter Ulbricht claimed that Israel had not been threatened by its neighboring Arab states before
58322-400: Was recognized by the Comintern in 1924, and, that same year, the first Palestinian Arab joined the party. The Yiddish-speaking General Jewish Labor Union of Eastern Europe , the largest Jewish left-wing organization in Europe between the two wars, focused on a practice of doykayt (hereness) as the key to Jewish identity; that is, it advocated addressing practical issues Jews faced all over
58564-437: Was struck from the final British version. This recognition by Wilson stirred great anxieties among numerous leaders of the American Jewish community, which had made the adoption of its country a "theological substitution for the return to Zion" and was highly satisfied with its prosperous lives in this "new Zion". 299 prominent rabbis registered their disapproval in a submission to the forthcoming Paris Peace Conference , rebuffing
#857142