Editing Zionism (section)

== Beliefs ==
===National self-determination===
{{See also|Nationalism|Rise of nationalism in Europe|Self-determination}}
Fundamental to Zionism is the belief that Jews constitute a nation, and have a moral and historic right and need for [[national self-determination|self-determination]] in [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]].{{efn|"The basic assumption regarding the right of Jews to Palestine—a right that required no proof—was a fundamental component of all Zionist programs. In contrast with other prospective areas for Jewish settlement, such as Argentina or East Africa, it was generally believed that no one could deny the right of the Jews to their ancestral land. Even Ahad Ha-Am, the eternal skeptic, commented that this was 'a land to which our historical right is beyond doubt and has no need for farfetched proofs.' Others, such as Lilienblum, did not even think it necessary to dwell on this matter."{{sfn|Shapira|1992|p=41}}}} This belief developed out of 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. Specifically, prayers emphasized distinctiveness from other nations where a connection to [[Eretz Israel]] and the anticipation of restoration were based on messianic beliefs and religious practices, not modern nationalist conceptions.{{sfn|Rabkin|2006|loc=A New Identity}}{{sfn|Shimoni|1995|p=53}}

=== Claim to a Jewish demographic majority and a Jewish state in Palestine ===
The Zionist claim to Palestine was based on the notion that Jews had a historical right to the land that outweighed the [[Palestinian nationalism|nationalistic rights]] of the local Arabs.<ref>{{bulleted list|
| {{harvnb|Gorny|1987|p=210}}: "This set of assumptions was intended to stress the equal status of the Jews vis-à-vis the rest of the world, and to provide the basis for their superior right to Palestine."
| {{harvnb|Shapira|1992|pp=41–42}}: "The basic assumption regarding the right of Jews to Palestine—a right that required no proof—was a fundamental component of all Zionist programs. In contrast with other prospective areas for Jewish settlement, such as Argentina or East Africa, it was generally believed that no one could deny the right of the Jews to their ancestral land... The slogan 'A land without a people for a people without a land' was common among Zionists at the end of the nineteenth, and the beginning of the twentieth, century. It contained a legitimation of the Jewish claim to the land and did away with any sense of uneasiness that a competitor to this claim might appear."
| {{harvnb|Slater|2020}}: "According to the standard Zionist and then the Israeli narrative, for a number of reasons the land of Palestine rightfully belongs to the Jewish people—and no others, including today's Palestinians."
| {{harvnb|Khalidi|2006}}: "[T]he Zionist claim to Palestine, which since even before the establishment of the state of Israel had depended in some measure on arguing that there was no legitimacy to the competing Arab claim"
| {{harvnb|Alam|2009}}: "Zionism was a messianic movement to restore Palestine to its divinely appointed Jewish owners... Conversely, the Palestinian, whether his ancestors were the ancient Canaanites or Hebrews, would forfeit all rights to his lands; he had become a usurper."
| {{harvnb|Sternhell|1999}}: "Like all Zionists, Gordon did not recognize the principle of majority rule, and he refused to acknowledge the right of the majority to 'take from us what we have acquired through our work and creativity.' Moreover, he had confidence in the spiritual vitality of the Yishuv, its energy and motivation, and believed it was supported by the entire Jewish people. In 1921, he spoke in much stronger terms than he had between 1909 and 1918: 'For Eretz Israel, we have a charter that has been valid until now and that will always be valid, and that is the Bible, and not only the Bible.'... And now came the decisive argument: 'And what did the Arabs produce in all the years they lived in the country? Such creations, or even the creation of the Bible alone, give us a perpetual right over the land in which we were so creative, especially since the people that came after us did not create such works in this country, or did not create anything at all.' The founders accepted this point of view. This was the ultimate Zionist argument."
}}</ref> The establishment of a Jewish demographic majority was an essential aspect of Zionism.<ref>{{bulleted list|
| {{harvnb|Ben-Ami|2007|p=22}}: "Zionism is both a struggle for land and a demographic race; in essence, the aspiration for a territory with a Jewish majority."
| {{harvnb|Gorny|1987}}
| {{harvnb|Morris|2001}}: "Zionism had always looked to the day when a Jewish majority would enable the movement to gain control over the country: The Zionist leadership had never posited Jewish statehood with a minority of Jews ruling over a majority of Arabs, apartheidstyle."
| {{harvnb|Pappé|2006}}: "Already in the late nineteenth century Zionism had identified the 'population problem' as the major obstacle for the fulfillment of its dream."
}}</ref>

After suffering as a minority in Europe and the Middle East, establishing a Jewish state, with a Jewish majority, became a focus of the Zionist movement.<ref>{{bulleted list|
| {{harvnb|Morris|2001|p=14}}: "The reality of Jewish life, when most of the world's Jews lived in the European part of the Russian Empire known as the 'Pale of Settlement,' running from Memel in the north to Crimea on the Black Sea, was one of continuous discrimination and insecurity and occasional oppression and violence. The historian Elie Kedourie once spoke of the "deep insult of diaspora life." Basic freedoms—of movement, place of residence, language, occupation, and worship—were severely curtailed or regulated by the state. The restrictions, including prohibition of landownership,assured the impoverishment and socioeconomic immobility of most Jews in the Pale. During the mid-nineteenth century, Jews were subjected to a brutal system of twenty-five-year military conscription, which occasionally entailed the virtual kidnapping of their children at the age of twelve, or even some-times at eight or nine, and their attempted conversion to Christianity by the authorities in special preparatory military schools. Indeed, an official Rus-sian government commission in 1888 defined the Jews' condition as one of "repression and disenfranchisement, discrimination and persecution." The impulse to Zionism arose out of and was a product of this reality."
| {{harvnb|Meir-Glitzenstein|2004|p=11}} "The bloodshed [of the ''[[Farhud]]''] prompted many of [the Jewish youth] to turn their backs on traditional leadership and its conservative policy and to seek a radical solution to the Jewish problem in Iraq. The revolutionary fervour of youth led in two different directions: the Jewish national direction, which took them to the Zionist movement; and the socialist direction, which brought them to the Communist Party."
| {{harvnb|Laskier|1994|pp=85–86}}: "The Vichy period ''did'' stimulate a growing segment of pro-Zionist youths and young adults in [[Moroccan Jews|Morocco]] and the rest of the [[Maghrebi Jews|Maghrib]] to engage in active Zionism ({{lang|he-latn|tsīyonut magshīma}}) leading to ʿaliya. [...]<br/>
"The decision in the Yishuv to dispatch the special emissaries to North Africa and to other Arabic-speaking countries from 1943 onward in order to organize youth ʿaliya as well as self-defense, was supported by these and several other leaders in the Maghrib. The latter felt that the experience of 1940–42, the German occupation of Tunisia, the ''farhūd'' (pogrom) in Iraq of June 1941—in which 179 Jews were slaughtered by pro-Nazi Muslim groups—necessitated the formation of self-defense units to guard the communities."
| {{harvnb|Miccoli|2015|p=149}} "With the Arab revolt in Palestine in 1936 and the radicalisation in an anti-Jewish sense of part of the Egyptian sociopolitical arena, a more significant number of Jews started to become interested in Zionism and to worry about the situation of Jews in Palestine and – because of the dramatic news that arrived and thanks to the activities of a group like the {{lang|fr|Ligue contre l'Antisémitisme Allemand}} – in Europe as well."
}}</ref> Zionist organizations encouraged immigration to Palestine, and anti-Semitism produced a strong push factor.{{cn|date=May 2025}} Israeli historian [[Yosef Gorny]] argues that this demographic change required annulling the majority status of the Arabs.<ref>{{harvnb|Gorny|1987}}: "This was potentially a much more dangerous situation than the struggle of two peoples maintaining a constant balance of forces between them for the same territory.The logical, and even inevitable, corollary of the aspiration towards territorial concentration was the desire to create a Jewish majority in Palestine. Without it, Zionism would forfeit its meaning, since the history of Exile had demonstrated the danger inherent in perpetual minority status. Thus, the desire for a Jewish majority was the key issue in the implementation of Zionism, implying a basic change in the international standing of the Jewish people and marking a turning-point in their history. The significance of this demand, and of the untiring endeavour to realize it in various ways, lay in the annulling of the majority standing of the Arabs of Palestine. The roots of the Jewish-Arab confrontation, therefore, are embedded in the incessant process of disturbance of the status quo ante as regards national status in Palestine."</ref> Gorny argues that the Zionist movement regarded Arab motives in Palestine as lacking both moral and historical significance.{{sfn|Gorny|1987|p=251}} According to Israeli historian Simha Flapan, the view expressed by the proclamation "[[there was no such thing as Palestinians]]" is a cornerstone of Zionist policy.{{sfn|Flapan|1979|p=12}} This perspective was also shared by those on the far-left of the Zionist movement, including [[Martin Buber]] and other members of Brit Shalom, after the Holocaust.{{sfn|Jacobs|2017|p=274|ps=: "In fact Buber also shared the common European Orientalist perspective, by which the local Arabs did not really have a national concern and may be appeased by the cultural and economic benefits that will accrue from Jewish immigration to Palestine."}}{{efn|"When faced with the apocalyptic dimensions of the Jewish catastrophe, the Holocaust, even Brit-Shalom Ihud moved to endorse first the necessity of demographic parity between Jews and Arabs in Palestine, and then, as 'a necessary evil', the idea of a Jewish independent state, that is the partition of Palestine. It was no longer the time for moral scruples or guilt feelings towards the dispossessed Arab population. This is how a Brit-Shalom Ihud, non-Zionist member of the Jewish Agency, Werner Senator, put it: 'If I weigh the catastrophe of five million Jews against the transfer of one million Arabs, then with a clean and easy conscience I can state that even more drastic acts are permissible.{{' "}}{{sfn|Ben-Ami|2007}}}} [[Judah Leon Magnes|Judah Magnes]], even after the Holocaust, continued to support a binational state, even one imposed by the Great Powers, but was unable to find any Arab interlocutors.<ref>{{bulleted list|
| {{harvnb|Morris|2013|pp=51–52}}: "The problem with binationalism, however—apart from main-stream Zionist opposition—was that Brit Shalom and Magnes could find no Arab partners, or even interlocutors, who shared the binational vision or hope. As Magnes succinctly put it as early as 1932: "Arabs will not sit on any committee with Jews [...] [Arab] teachers [...] teach children more and more Jew-hatred." In this sense, things only got worse with the passage of time, the deepening of the Arabs’ political consciousness, and the increase in Jewish immigration."
| {{harvnb|Morris|2013|p=55}}: "By mid-World War II Magnes realized that an open-ended international mandate was no longer feasible. He had despaired of ever reaching substantive Jewish-Arab negotiations or agreement and decided that the only solution would be an externally imposed “union between the Jews and the Arabs within a binational Palestine.” Further, he determined, this union would need to be subsumed or incorporated in a wider economic and political "union of Palestine, Transjordan, Syria and Lebanon" and linked to and guaranteed by an "Anglo-American union." And the binational state would have to be "imposed [on the Jews and Arabs] over their opposition” by the United States and Britain. The binational state would need to be based on "parity," in terms of political power, between the two constituent groups, in order to guarantee the rights of whichever group was in the minority.<br/>
"By mid-1948, with the first Arab-Israeli war in full swing, Magnes was deeply pessimistic. He feared an Arab victory: "there are millions upon millions of Muslims in the world [...] They have time. The timelessness of the desert." An Arab ambush on 13 April 1948 of a Jewish convoy bearing doctors and nurses traveling through East Jerusalem to the Hebrew University–Hadassah Medical School campus on Mount Scopus—in which seventy-eight were slaughtered—was in effect the final nail in the coffin of Magnes's binationalism. It was not that he publicly recanted. But he understood that it was a lost cause—and that his own standing in the Yishuv had been irreparably shattered."
}}</ref> British officials supporting the Zionist effort also held similar beliefs.{{efn|Lord Balfour would write, "Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far greater import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land."{{sfn|Khalidi|2006|p=252}}}}{{efn|While Secretary of State for the Colonies, Winston Churchill spoke to the Peel Commission: "I do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger, even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit, for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to those people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race, or, at any rate, a more worldly-wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."{{sfn|White|2012|loc=Introduction}}}}<ref>{{bulleted list|
| {{harvnb|White|2012|loc=Introduction}}
| {{harvnb|Jacobs|2017|loc=Does the Left have a Zionist Problem?}}
| {{harvnb|Khalidi|2006|pp=145–150}}
}}</ref>

Unlike other forms of nationalism, the Zionist claim to Palestine was aspirational and required a mechanism by which the claim could be realized.{{sfn|Penslar|2023|pp=1–2|ps=, "Zionism, in turn, is the belief that Jews constitute a nation that has a right and need to pursue collective self-determination within historic Palestine ... Unlike other nationalisms, however, pre-1948 Zionism's claim on territory was aspirational, based in ancient memories and future hopes. Until well into the twentieth century, a negligible number of Jews lived in the Land of Israel ... It is a belief that Jews have a moral right and historic need for self-determination within historic Palestine."}} 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.<ref>{{harvnb|Morris|1999|p=682}}: "Zionism had always looked to the day when a Jewish majority would enable the movement to gain control over the country: The Zionist leadership had never posited Jewish statehood with a minority of Jews ruling over a majority of Arabs, apartheid style."</ref> By 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.{{sfn|Gorny|1987|pp=Introduction, Chapter 8}}<ref>{{harvnb|Ben-Ami|2007|pp=22–23}}: "Zionism is both a struggle for land and a demographic race; in essence, the aspiration for a territory with a Jewish majority...Zionist democratic diversity did not mean that there was no commonground between the major segments of the movement. Initially, Ben-Gurion preferred an 'iron wall of workers', namely settlements and Jewish infrastructure, on Jabotinsky's call for an iron wall of military might and deterrence... he even lashed out against what he defined as Jabotinsky's 'perverted national fanaticism', and against the Revisionists 'worthless prattle of sham heroes, whose lips becloud the moral purity of our national movement. . .' Eventually, however, under the growing chal-lenge of Arab nationalism and especially with the growth in the Yishuv of a collective mood of sacred Jewish nationalism following the Holocaust, the Labour Zionists, chief among them David Ben-Gurion, accepted forall practical purposes Jabotinsky's iron-wall strategy. The Jewish State could only emerge, and force the Arabs to accept it, if it erected around it an impregnable wall of Jewish might and deterrence."</ref> 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.<ref>{{harvnb|Finkelstein|2003|loc=Chapter 1}}: "Within the Zionist ideological consensus there coexisted three relatively distinct tendencies—political Zionism, labor Zionism and cultural Zionism. Each was wedded to the demand for a Jewish majority, but not for entirely the same reasons."</ref>

In pursuing a Jewish demographic majority, the Zionist movement encountered the demographic problem posed by the presence of the local Arab population, which was predominantly non-Jewish. The practical issue of establishing a Jewish state in a majority non-Jewish region was an issue of fundamental importance for the Zionist movement.<ref>{{harvnb|Gorny|1987|p=2}}: "Thus, the desire for a Jewish majority was the key issue in the implementation of Zionism, implying a basic change in the international standing of the Jewish people and marking a turning-point in their history. The significance of this demand, and of the untiring endeavour to realize it in various ways, lay in the annulling of the majority standing of the Arabs of Palestine."</ref>{{sfn|Finkelstein|2016|loc=Chapter 1}} Many Zionist activists intended to establish a Jewish majority through Jewish immigration to the region.<ref>{{bulleted list|
| [[Nahum Sokolow]] in 1918 quoted in {{harvnb|Sanders|1984|pp=641–642}}: "A Jewish government would be established once the Jews formed a majority, which would transpire through steady, large-scale immigration."
| {{harvnb|Morris|2001|p=72}}: "[[Herbert Samuel]] favored gradual but steady immigration; eventually a Jewish majority would form and, then, a state would naturally follow."
| [[Eliezer Ben-Yehuda]], quoted in {{harvnb|Morris|2001|p=49}}: "The goal is to revive our nation on its land [...] ''if only we succeed in increasing our numbers here until we are the majority'' [Emphasis in original]"
}}</ref>

Zionists used the term "transfer" as a euphemism for the removal, or what would now be called [[ethnic cleansing]], of the Palestinian population.<ref>{{harvnb|Masalha|2014}}: "In the 1930s and 1940s the Zionist leadership found it expedient to euphemize, using the term "transfer" or "ha'avara" – the Hebrew euphemism for ethnic cleansing – one of most enduring themes of Zionist settler-colonization (see below). Other themes included demographic transformation of the land and physical separation between the immigrant-settlers and the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine. All these colonizing themes were central to Zionist muscular nationalism, with its rejection of both liberal forms of universalism and Marxism, along with individual rights and class struggle. Instead, Zionism gave precedence to the realization of its ethnocratic völkisch project: the establishment of a biblically ordained state."</ref> According to [[Benny Morris]], the idea of transfer played a large role in Zionist ideology from the inception of the movement and was seen as the main method of maintaining the "Jewishness" of the Zionist's state.<ref>{{harvnb|Morris|2001}}: "The idea of transferring the Arabs out of the Jewish State area to the Arab state area or to other Arab states was seen as the chief means of assuring the stability of the 'Jewishness' of the proposed Jewish State"</ref> He explains that "transfer" was "inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism" and that a land that was primarily Arab could not be transformed into a Jewish state without displacing the Arab population.<ref>{{harvnb|Morris|2004|p=}}: "transfer was inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism—because it sought to transform a land which was 'Arab' into a 'Jewish' state and a Jewish state could not have arisen without a major displacement of Arab population; and because this aim automatically produced resistance among the Arabs which, in turn, persuaded the Yishuv's leaders that a hostile Arab majority or large minority could not remain in place if a Jewish state was to arise or safely endure."</ref> Further, the stability of the Jewish state could not be ensured given the Arab population's fear of displacement. He explains that this would be the primary source of conflict between the Zionist movement and the Arab population.{{sfn|Finkelstein|2012|pp=259–260}}

The concept of "transfer" had a long pedigree in Zionist thought, as it was considered both moral and practical, as a way to deal with the Palestinian problem, create a Jewish homeland and avoid ethnic conflict.<ref>{{bulleted list|
|{{harvnb|Morris|1999|p=139}}: "The transfer idea did not originate with the Peel Commission. It goes back to the fathers of modern Zionism and, while rarely given a public airing before 1937, was one of the main currents in Zionist ideology from the movement's inception. It was always clear to the Zionists that a Jewish state would be impossible without a Jewish majority; this could theoretically be achieved through massive immigration, but even then the Arabs would still be a large, threatening minority."
|{{harvnb|Morris|1999|p=140}}: "Moreover, transfer was seen as a highly moral solution. The Zionist leaders felt that the Jews' need for a country with empty spaces able to absorb future immigrants morally outweighed the rights of the indigenous Arabs—who were no different than their brothers across the Jordan or Litani and could relocate there with relative ease if the transfer was well compensated and well organized. The Arab states—principally Transjordan, Syria, and Iraq—had vast uninhabited areas and required additional inhabitants for their own development. In any event, separation was preferable to an intermingling, which could only end in a bloodbath."
}}
</ref>{{sfn|Ben-Ami|2007|p=25-26}}{{sfn|Masalha|2012|loc=Chapter 1}} The concept of removing the non-Jewish population from Palestine was a notion that garnered support across the entire spectrum of Zionist groups, eventually including its farthest left factions, who, after realizing the extent of the destruction of European Jewry, viewed it as a lesser evil.{{efn|group=fn|On this topic, Ben-Ami writes: "This is how a Brit-Shalom Ihud, non-Zionist member of the Jewish Agency, Werner Senator, put it: 'If I weigh the catastrophe of five million Jews against the transfer of one million Arabs, then with a clean and easy conscience I can state that even more drastic acts are permissible.{{' "}}{{sfn|Ben-Ami|2007|pp=}}}}<ref>{{harvnb|Masalha|2014|loc=Chapter 2}}: "The archival and documentary evidence shows that in the pre-1948 period, "transfer"/ethnic cleansing was embraced by the highest levels of Zionist leadership, representing almost the entire political spectrum. Nearly all the founding fathers of the Israeli state advocated transfer in one form or another, including Theodor Herzl, Leon Motzkin, Nahman Syrkin, Menahem Ussishkin, Chaim Weizmann, David Ben-Gurion, Yitzhak Tabenkin, Avraham Granovsky, Israel Zangwill, Yitzhak Ben-Tzvi, Pinhas Rutenberg, Aaron Aaronson, Vladmir Jabotinsky and Berl Katznelson (Masalha, 1992). Supporters of "voluntary" removal included Arthur Ruppin, a co-founder of Brit Shalom, a movement advocating bi-nationalism and equal rights for Arabs and Jews; moderate leaders of Mapai (later the Labour party) such as Moshe Shertok and Eli'ezer Kaplan, Israel's first finance minister; and leaders of the Histadrut (Hebrew Labour Federation) such as Golda Meyerson (later Meir) and David Remez (Masalha, 1992)."</ref> Transfer thought began early in the movement's development in various forms.<ref>{{bulleted list|
| {{harvnb|Ben-Ami|2007|pp=25–26}}
| {{harvnb|Slater|2020|loc=''Transfer''}}
| {{harvnb|Masalha|1992|p=2}}: "It should not be imagined that the concept of transfer was held only by maximalists or extremists within the Zionist movement. On the contrary, it was embraced by almost all shades of opinion, from the Revisionist right to the Labor left. Virtually every member of the Zionist pantheon of founding fathers and important leaders supported it and advocated it in one form or another, from Chaim Weizmann and Vladimir Jabotinsky to David Ben-Gurion and Menahem Ussishkin. Supporters of transfer included such moderates as the "Arab appeaser" Moshe Shertok and the socialist Arthur Ruppin, founder of Brit Shalom, a movement advocating equal rights for Arabs and Jews. More importantly, transfer proposals were put forward by the Jewish Agency itself, in effect the government of the Yishuv."
| {{harvnb|Morris|2001|p=139}}: "For many Zionists, beginning with Herzl, the only realistic solution lay in transfer. From 1880 to 1920, some entertained the prospect of Jews and Arabs coexisting in peace. But increasingly after 1920, and more emphatically after 1929, for the vast majority a denouement of conflict appeared inescapable. Following the outbreak of 1936, no mainstream leader was able to conceive of future coexistence and peace without a clear physical separation between the two peoples—achievable only by way of transfer and expulsion. Publicly they all continued to speak of coexistence and to attribute the violence to a small minority of zealots and agitators. But this was merely a public pose, designed to calm the worried inhabitants and the troubled British: To speak out loud of inevitable bloodshed and expulsion could only have undermined both internal self-confidence and external support for their cause."
| {{harvnb|Segev|2001|pp=404–405}}
|{{harvnb|Finkelstein|2016|loc=Introduction}}
}}</ref> "Transfer" was not only seen as desirable but also as an ideal solution by some the Zionist leadership, but it remained controversial.<ref>{{bulleted list|
| {{harvnb|Finkelstein|2016|loc=Chapter 1}}
| {{harvnb|Shapira|1992|loc=The Shift to an Offensive Ethos}}
| {{harvnb|Gorny|1987|loc=The Decisive Years, 1939–948}}
| {{harvnb|Ben-Ami|2007|pp=25–26}}
| {{harvnb|Morris|2001|pp=682–683}}
}}</ref>

=== Zionism, antisemitism and an "existential need" for self-determination ===
From the perspective of some early Zionist thinkers, Jews living amongst non-Jews suffer from impediments that can be addressed only by rejecting the Jewish identity that developed [[Negation of the Diaspora|while living amongst non-Jews]].{{sfn|Engel|2021|p=}} Accordingly, the early Zionists sought to develop a nationalist Jewish political life in a territory where Jews constitute a demographic majority.{{sfn|Rabkin|2006}}{{page needed|date=November 2024}}{{sfn|Yadgar|2017}}{{page needed|date=November 2024}}{{efn|"Unsatisfactory and simplistic as Pinsker's quasi-medical diagnosis may be, it does try to address itself to the exceptional conditions of Jewish existence. If Jews are a nation and they continue to exist as a nation despite the lack of the effective attributes of national life, this is an obvious anomaly, and an explanation has to be found. Krochmal and Graetz tried to explain this deviation from the norms of universal historical development by rearranging the conventional norms of universal history itself. Pinsker lacks this philosophical dimension of history, and he therefore limits himself to stating what he conceives as an anomaly and attempting to suggest a clinical diagnosis for it. Pinsker's diagnosis may appear irrelevant, but his cure is radical. If the nations of the world see the Jew as a soul without a body, a shadowless Ahasver, an eternal Wandering Jew, lacking real, corporeal existence, the cure surely has to be radical. If the Jews are hated because they have no homeland, normalization will become possible only if they acquire one. Were this to happen, then the nations of the world would view the Jews as normal human beings and would consequently lose their inordinate fear of them. No concrete, real attribute of the Jews causes Judeophobia; it is the abnormality of the Jews being somewhere between a national existence and a lack of a real foundation for that existence. For the Jews to appear like any other people they need a homeland, Pinsker argues: then everybody will relate to them as normal people and Judeophobia will wither away." {{harvnb|Avineri|2017|loc=Chapter 7}}}} The early Zionist thinkers saw the integration of Jews into non-Jewish society as both unrealistic (or insufficient to address the deficiencies associated with demographic minority status) and undesirable, since assimilation was accompanied by the dilution of Jewish cultural distinctiveness.{{sfn|Shimoni|1995|loc=Chapter 1}} 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.{{sfn|Gorny|1987|loc=Introduction}}{{sfn|Finkelstein|2016|loc=Chapter 1}}{{sfn|Shimoni|1995|loc=Chapter 1}}

=== Racial conceptions of Jewish identity ===
{{main|Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism}}
In the late 19th century, amid attempts to apply science to notions of [[Race (human categorization)|race]], the founders of Zionism ([[Theodor Herzl]] and [[Max Nordau]], among others) sought to reformulate conceptions of [[Jewish identity|Jewishness]] in terms of [[racial identity]] and the [[scientific racism|"race science" of the time]]. They believed that this concept would allow them to build a new framework for collective Jewish identity,{{sfn|Avraham|2017|p=357}} and thought that biology might provide "proof" for the "ethnonational myth of common descent" from the biblical [[land of Israel]].{{sfn|Hirsch|2009|p=592}}{{sfn|Doron|1980|p=404}} Countering [[Antisemitism|antisemitic]] claims that Jews were both aliens and a racially inferior people, these Zionists drew on and appropriated elements from various race theories,{{sfn|Hart|1999|p=271}}{{sfn|Avraham|2013|pp=355–357}}{{efn|"If anything, the first decades of Zionism bear out an affinity with some of the more unsavoury 'regenerative' discourses of the late nineteenth century, particularly Social Darwinism, eugenics, nationalism, and colonialism, precisely because Zionism – partly as a project of self-legitimacy – was both a Jewish response to and extension of these very same discourses." {{harv|Presner|2007|pp=1–23,4}}}} to argue that only a [[First Zionist Congress#Basel Program|home for the Jewish people]] could enable the physical regeneration of the Jewish people and a renaissance of pride in their ancient cultural traditions.{{sfn|Vogt|2015|pp=85–86}}

The contrasting [[Jewish assimilation|assimilationist viewpoint]] was that Jewishness consisted in an attachment to [[Judaism]] as a religion and culture. Both the [[Orthodox Judaism|orthodox]] and [[Reform Judaism|liberal]] establishments often rejected this idea.{{sfn|Efron|1994|pp=4,144–146}}{{sfn|Avraham|2013|p=358}}{{sfn|Falk|2017|pp=35–36}} Subsequently, Zionist and non-Zionist Jews vigorously debated aspects of this proposition in terms of the merits or otherwise of [[Jewish diaspora|diaspora life]]. While Zionism embarked on its project of social engineering in [[Mandatory Palestine]], [[Ethnic nationalism|ethnonationalist]] politics on the European continent strengthened and, by the 1930s, some [[History of the Jews in Germany|German Jews]], acting defensively, asserted Jewish collective rights by redefining Jews as a race after [[Nazism]] rose to power.{{sfn|Avraham|2013|pp=354–374,}} The [[Holocaust]]'s policies of [[Genocide|genocidal]] [[ethnic cleansing]] utterly discredited race as the lethal product of [[pseudoscience]].

With the [[Israeli Declaration of Independence|establishment of Israel]] in 1948, the [[Gathering of Israel|"ingathering of the exiles"]], and the [[Law of Return]], the question of Jewish origins and biological unity came to assume particular importance during early nation building. Conscious of this, Israeli medical researchers and geneticists were careful to avoid any language that might resonate with racial ideas. Themes of "blood logic" or "race" have nevertheless been described as a recurrent feature of modern Jewish thought in both scholarship and popular belief.{{efn|"throughout all of the de-racializing stages of twentieth-century social thought, Jews have continued to invoke blood logic as a way of defining and maintaining group identity...'race' is a significant component not only of scholarly or academic modern Jewish thought, but also of popular or everyday Jewish thought. It is one of the building blocks of contemporary Jewish identity construction, even if there are many who would dispute the applicability of biological or racial categories to Jews." {{harv|Hart|2011|pp=xxxiv-xxxv}}}} Despite this, many aspects of the role of race in the formation of Zionist concepts of a Jewish identity were rarely addressed until recently.<ref>{{bulleted list|
| {{harvnb|Doron|1983|pp=170–171}}
| {{harvnb|Morris-Reich|2006|pp=1–2,4–5}}
| {{harvnb|Gelber|2000|p=133}}
| {{harvnb|Nicosia|2010|pp=1–2,6–8}}
| {{harvnb|Hart|2011|p=xxxiv}}
| {{harvnb|Avraham|2017|pp=172–173}}
| {{harvnb|Avraham|2013|p=356}}
}}</ref>

Questions of how political narratives impact the work of population genetics, and its connection to race, have a particular significance in [[Jewish history]] and [[Jewish culture|culture]].{{efn|"To be sure, 'Jewish genetics' is only one of many examples for the search of origins of today's population groups with the help of DNA analysis. Whether it is 'the origin of modern Japanese populations' ... the 'genetics of ancient Romans' ... or an analysis of the genomes from 'Bronze Age Bulgaria' ... to give only a few examples, ancient forefathers and -mothers are a fascinating topic for scientists as well as for the general public. In the case of 'Jewish genetics', however, scientific work can get easily politicized ... But rather than dealing with politicians and their use of scientific papers for populistic ends, this essay highlights, delineates, and contextualizes the ongoing debate between various geneticists and social scientists on two main points. One is whether or how narratives impact the work of the researchers. In our case, it is the association of modern Jews as the (biological) descendants of the biblical Hebrews or today's Cohanim as descendants of the biblical priestly caste. As the debate on the Khazars exemplifies, genetic research can be politically loaded. Scientific theories or research results about the origin of Ashkenazi Jews are used for political purposes – but interest in the topic also places the researchers into a context of ideology and identity politics, which is closely linked to real or perceived national interests ... The other point is the discussion about the danger that genetic studies on population groups reify race. Neither of these questions applies only to genetic research on Jews, but for Jews they have a special meaning that is rooted in Jewish history and culture." {{harv|Kohler|2022|pp=1–2}}.}} Genetic studies on the origins of modern Jews have been criticized as "being designed or interpreted in the framework of a 'Zionist narrative{{' "}} and as an [[Essentialism#Racial, cultural and strategic essentialism|essentialist approach]] to biology{{efn|name=Kohler8|"The extent to which today's human population genetics are compared to past theories of race varies greatly, and thus the emphasis on an inherent danger of racism. In the Jewish context, the genetic studies on collective Jewish ancestry are mainly criticized as being designed or interpreted in the framework of a 'Zionist narrative', as essentializing biology, or both" {{harv|Kohler|2022|p=8}}.}} in a similar manner to criticism of the [[Politics of archaeology in Israel and Palestine|interpretation of archaeology in the region]].{{efn|name=Weitz310|"A second critique of genetics research is one that has been made about archaeological evidence as well. Here too the evidence does not speak for itself: it has to be interpreted; and geneticists do not realize the extent to which their interpretations read into the evidence more than is really there." {{harv|Weitzman|2019|p=310}}}} According to Israeli historian of science Nurit Kirsh and Israeli geneticist [[Raphael Falk (geneticist)|Raphael Falk]], the interpretation of the genetic data has been unconsciously influenced by Zionism and [[anti-Zionism]].{{efn|name=Prainsack|"The biological dimension of Judaism, namely the debate about whether Judaism is 'only' a religion, or Jews are a 'people', a 'nation' or a 'race', has become central to both how Jews were thought of and to the ways in which they thought about themselves during modern times, as modern genetics was expected to both establish the determinants of 'Jewishness' and to find out whether particular individuals or groups fit into this category... As has been argued elsewhere (Prainsack 2007; Falk 2006; Kirsh 2003), the interpretation of the data on different Jewish 'ethnic' groups and their relatedness to one another as well as to non-Jewish neighbouring/hosting populations has always been influenced by political ideologies. While many Zionists favour a view of Jews as a distinct, non-European "ethnicity" that has remained relatively homogenous throughout history (see, for example, Cochran et al. 2006), during the 1950s and early 1960s Israeli geneticists found many genetic differences between the diverse Jewish groups gathering in Israel. Yet Kirsh (2003) argues that an unconscious internalisation of Zionist ideology by the Israeli geneticists of the time led them to emphasise points of similarity rather than points of difference between the studied groups, thereby in turn reinforcing Zionist convictions." {{harv|Prainsack|Hashiloni-Dolev|2009|p=410}}}} Falk wrote that every generation has witnessed efforts by both Zionist and non-Zionist Jews to seek a link between national and biological aspects of Jewish identity.{{efn|"In every generation there are still Zionists as well as non-Zionists who are not satisfied with the mental and social notions that bind Jews together, and who seek to find the link between the national and the biological aspects of being Jews." Footnote: An interesting aspect is that of orthodox-religious circles that seek support of the "biological" argument for the Jewishness (or for membership in the Ten Lost Tribes) of tribes and congregations all over the world. Rabbi Eliyahu Avichail, the founder of the "Amishav" (Hebrew for "My People Return") organization and the author of the book Israel's Tribes, followed on his journeys "the footprints of forgotten Jewish communities, who lost their contact with the Jewish world... at the same time he also located tribes that have no biological relationship to the people of Israel but who want very much to join them" (Yair Sheleg, "All want to be Jewish", Haaretz, 17 September 1999, p. 27). In recent years, Rabbi Avichail "discovered" the tribe of Menasheh among the Koki, Mizo and Chin in the Manipur mountains at the border between India and Burma. In a TV program on "the search after the lost tribes", Hillel Halkin, a demographer of cultures, claimed that whereas the Jews of Ethiopia converted to Judaism during the Middle Ages and are not of ancient Jewish stock, the Koki, Mizo and Chin people are direct progeny of the Biblical tribe of Menasheh {{harv|Falk|2017|p=16}}.}}
{{undue weight inline|How significant is this last paragraph for a page about Zionism in general?|date=January 2025}}

=== Conquest of labor ===
{{main|Hebrew labor}}
In the early 20th century a more ideologically motivated wave of Zionist immigrants arrived in Palestine. With them, the Zionist movement began to emphasize the so-called "conquest of labor", the belief that the employment of exclusively Jewish labor was the pre-condition for the development of an independent Jewish society in Palestine.{{sfn|Gorny|1987|loc=Introduction}} The goal was to build a "pure Jewish settlement" in Palestine on the basis of "100 per cent Jewish labor" and the claim to an exclusively Jewish, highly productive economy.{{sfn|Flapan|1979|loc=Jewish and Arab Labour}}{{sfn|Shafir|1996|loc=Conclusion}} 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 a scarcity of productive workers. By developing fundamental sectors such as industry, agriculture, and mining, the goal was to "normalize" Jewish life that had grown "abnormal" as a result of living amongst non-Jews.{{sfn|Flapan|1979|loc=The Policy of Economic and Social Separation}} Most of the Zionist leadership saw it as imperative to employ strictly Jewish workers in order to ensure the Jewish character of the colonies. Another factor, according to [[Benny Morris]], was the worry that that "employment of Arabs would lead to 'Arab values' being passed on to Zionist youth and nourish the colonists' tendency to exploit and abuse their workers", as well as security concerns.{{sfn|Morris|1999|p=51|ps=: "Continued employment of Arabs would lead to "Arab values" being passed on to Zionist youth and nourish the colonists' tendency to exploit and abuse their workers. Moreover, Arabs living in or on the periphery of colonies were suspected of pilfering and of passing information to hostile villagers and officials."}}

The employment of exclusively Jewish labor was also intended to avoid the development of a national conflict in conjunction with a class-based conflict.{{sfn|Almog|1983|p=5}} 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.{{sfn|Flapan|1979|p=201}} While 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.{{sfn|Shafir|1996|pp=196–200}} 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 the employment of Arab labor, motivating the movement to work towards a society based on purely Jewish labor.{{sfn|Shapira|1992|p=60}}{{sfn|Shapira|2014|p=45-50}}{{sfn|Morris|1999|loc=Chapter 2}}

=== Negation of the life in the Diaspora ===
{{main|Negation of the Diaspora}}
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 is viewed as an essentially negative factor, even in religious Zionist ideology, and as responsible for the diminishing status of Jews living as a minority.{{sfn|Yadgar|2017|loc=Zionism, Jewish "Religion," and Secularism}} Responding to the challenges of modernity, Zionism sought to replace religious and community institutions with secular-nationalistic ones.<ref>Avineri, cited in {{harvnb|Yadgar|2017|p=72}}</ref> Indeed, Zionism maintained primarily the outward symbols of Jewish tradition, redefining them in a nationalistic context.{{sfn|Rabkin|2006|loc=A New Identity}}{{sfn|Penslar|2023|pp=18–23}} 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.{{sfn|Avineri|2017|loc=Introduction}}

==== Zionism and secular Jewish identity ====
Zionism sought to reconfigure Jewish identity and culture in nationalist and secular terms.{{sfn|Shimoni|1995|loc=Zionism as Secular Jewish Identity}}<ref>{{harvnb|Yadgar|2017|p=2}}: "Indeed, Zionism has celebrated itself as the modernization of the Jews, manifested in the dual revolution of allegedly secularizing Jewish identity and nationalizing, or politicizing it."</ref> This new identity would be based on a rejection of the life of exile. Zionism portrayed the Diaspora Jew as mentally unstable, physically frail, and prone to engaging in transient businesses. 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; a liberated, dignified person eager to defend both personal and national pride.<ref>{{harvnb|Shapira|2014}}: "This poem, published in Warsaw, epitomizes the youth rebellion that was part of the Zionist experience. Old Judaism seemed aged and ailing, lacking relevance to the new world dawning in the wake of World War One. The old Jew, the Jew of the Diaspora, was depicted as psychologically flawed, physically weak, inclined toward luftgesheftn (lit., "air business", meaning peddling, acting as middlemen, and engaging in other ephemeral trades), a stranger to nature and anything natural and spontaneous, materialistic and incapable of acting on anything but his or her own immediate interests. The new Jew was to be the complete opposite: an ethical, aesthetic person guided by ideals who rebels against a debasing reality; a free, proud individual ready to fight for his or her own and the nation's honor. Yearning for freedom and equality among peoples, admiring nature, beauty, and open spaces, the new Jew relinquished the pleasures of a hypocritical, bourgeois world shackled by outdated conventions and sought the challenge of a life in which dedication to the collective was congruent with maintaining inner truth and a life of simplicity, honesty, and self-realization. The new Jew aspired to equality, justice, and truth in human relations, and was prepared to die for them."</ref>

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.<ref>{{harvnb|Yadgar|2017|p=68}}: "This secularization means primarily the "decline of the status of religion in the Jewish community"7 and a gradual "liberation" from the shackles of "religious tradition"."</ref> Prominent Zionist thinkers frame this development as nationalism serving the same role as religion, functionally replacing it.<ref>{{harvnb|Avineri|2017|loc=Introduction, Notes}}: "Zionism was the most fundamental revolution in Jewish life. It substituted a secular self-identity of the Jews as a nation for the traditional and Orthodox self-identity in religious terms. It changed a passive, quietistic, and pious hope of the Return to Zion into an effective social force, moving millions of people to Israel. It transformed a language relegated to mere religious usage into a modern, secular mode of intercourse of a nation-state... This does not mean that Israel is a substitute for Jewish religion, only that functionally it plays a role similar to that of religion in pre-Emancipation days. For Jews today who are still religious in the traditional sense, religion has a deep collective existential meaning. But since not all Jews can identify today with the religious symbols, religion is merely a partial focus of identity, and Israel, more than any other factor, now plays this unifying role."</ref> Zionism sought to make Jewish [[Ethnic nationalism|ethnic-nationalism]] the distinctive trait of Jews rather than their commitment to Judaism.{{sfn|Shimoni|1995}}{{page needed|date=November 2024}} Zionism instead adopted a racial understanding of Jewish identity.<ref>{{harvnb|Yadgar|2017|p=4}}: "Failing (or neglecting) to offer a fully-fledged national identity that would be independent from rabbinical readings of Jewish iden-tity, yet zealously rebelling against rabbinical authority and "religion" in general, Zionism was left with a racial notion of Jewish identity: Tautologically, echoing anti-Semitic notions of Jewishness, it would argue that a Jew, simply, is a Jew; that Jewishness is something some-one is born with. One does not choose it, nor can one rid oneself of his Jewishness; it is in one's "blood"."</ref> Framed this way, Jewish identity is only secondarily a matter of tradition or culture.<ref>{{harvnb|Yadgar|2017|pp=192–193, 202}}: "The author, essayist, and public intellectual A. B. Yehoshua is one of the more committed and outspoken spokespersons of the State of Israel's political theology. As such, Yehoshua also functions as an influential formulator of the ideological bed upon which statist Jewishness is founded... Yehoshua's reply to this criticism repeats the claim that Jewish political sovereignty renders assimilation impossible and guarantees, no matter what, that meaningful Jewish content is to be produced. For him, "the cultural matter" is secondary, and as such not deserving of judgment. Political sovereignty, on the other hand, is primary and absolute: Jewishness is not only culture and not only religion."</ref> Zionist nationalism embraced pan-Germanic ideologies, which stressed the concept of das [[Volkish|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 the term "Hebrew" to describe their identity. In Zionist thought, the new Jew would be productive and work the land, in contrast to the diaspora Jew. Zionism linked the term "Jewish" with negative characteristics prevalent in European anti-Semitic stereotypes, which Zionists believed could be remedied only through sovereignty.{{sfn|Masalha|2012|loc=Chapter 1}}

=== Revival of the Hebrew language ===
{{Main|Revival of the Hebrew language}}{{See also|Modern Hebrew|Hebraization of surnames|Hebraization of Palestinian place names}}
[[File:Portrait of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (cropped).jpg|thumb|[[Eliezer Ben-Yehuda]] (1858–1922), founder and leader of the movement to [[Revival of the Hebrew language|revive the Hebrew language]], is considered the father of [[Modern Hebrew]].{{sfn|Mandel|2005|pp=85}}]]
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.<ref>{{harvnb|Rabkin|2006}}: "The political movement of Zionism was preceded in Eastern Europe by a revival of the Hebrew language as a nonreligious, literary medium. Jews always used Hebrew in their prayers and religious writings, but this was a revival of Hebrew as a language of novels and poems, polemical articles, and journalistic feuilletons. This development was an anathema to the rabbis who saw in it a desecration of the Holy Tongue. The origins of this movement are found in ethnically mixed Lithuania and later in Galicia, where the German Kultursprache of the Austrian rulers contended with both Polish and Ukrainian (Ruthenian) nationalism. Secularized, modern Jews began to ask for the origins of their culture, for the roots of their history; to extol the glories of Jerusalem; to ask whether they should not look into their own past just as members of other groups were doing."</ref> The primary motivator for establishing modern Hebrew as 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.{{sfn|Dieckhoff|2003|pp=104}} 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.{{sfn|Rabkin|2006}}

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]]).{{sfn|Fellman|2011|p=7}}{{sfn|Blau|1981|p=33}}