In defense of Israel and Zionism

Unfortunately, it seems anti-semitism is inevitable.

As a modern Jew living in the 21st century, this fact makes me a bit discouraged.

Last week, for example, was Holocaust Remembrance Day. Thirteen million innocent people, six million of them Jews, perished at the hands of the Nazis during the Holocaust.

And yet, while walking back from Hodge Hall after accounting, I overheard one guy saying, “Hitler should have finished what he started. This whole Zionism thing is just some bullshit excuse so they can have a country they don’t deserve.”

Zionism is not a new concept.

In fact, the destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE is considered the start of Zionism.

Jews were forced to leave Palestine and moved to other areas in the world. Jews wrote poems and songs expressing their longing to go back to their beloved land.

The First Zionist Congress was held in 1897. Here, Theodor Herzl founded modern Zionism. Herzl was a journalist reporting on the Dreyfus Affair. In this case, a Jew was wrongfully convicted of treason in France.

Realizing Jews would never be fully accepted into society no matter how much they assimilated, Herzl said Jews should do more to create their own Jewish state.

Following the First Zionist Congress, Jews began to move to Palestine. They fertilized the land, turning the once barren desert into a place of life. Arabs from neighboring countries began to immigrate to Palestine, encouraged by the new availability of jobs.
 
Joan Peters, a non-Jewish journalist, published her book “From Time Immemorial” in 1984. The book relied on data from the British Mandate and information in British archives.It started in support of the Palestinians instead of the Jews because she thought Arabs had occupied the land before the Jews.

However, during the process of writing her book, she realized the Arabs were moving in at the same time as the Jews because of the new economic resources created by the Jews.

Britain signed the Balfour Declaration in 1917. It vaguely stated it was in favor of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

Soon after, however, the British revised this statement.

When the British discovered oil in Saudi Arabia, they wanted the Arabs to have 70 percent of the land. They gave the Jews only 30 percent of the land, an area later known as Transjordan.

The Jews did not protest.

In 1937, the British created the Peel Commission Partition Plan, splitting the land evenly between the Jews and Arabs.

Even though the Jews agreed, the Arabs refused to compromise.

Again in 1947, the United Nations created the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, deciding to split the land between the areas that were predominantly Jewish and those that were predominantly Arab.

Although this came to be fairly even once again, the Arabs still would not agree to compromise.

To them, it was not a war about borders — it was a war of religion.

We have the right to live in Israel and call it our home.

And anyone who thinks Zionism is some “bullshit excuse” just needs a basic history lesson.

­— aledaily@indiana.edu