This post is part of a long series I plan to report about Palestine as a country, culture, and humans across multiple communities in hopes that I spread the word about Palestine and what is happening there.

The fact that I am an Arab obviously comes with perceived bias which is a perception that I accept considering that most of the people on this platform are not Arabs. As much as I believe it is something I am able to refute using my own history, I prefer to keep the focus of this series on Palestine itself and let the series speak for itself.

However, considering the aforementioned fact of my identity, I have challenged myself and limited myself to use mostly sources that are outside of the Arab world when it comes to facts. Therefore, all the events mentioned here come from non-Arab sources which you will be able to verify yourself by reading the sources below. In fact, I implore you to check out those sources regardless of the series.

The Anti-Zionism Israeli historian Illan Pappe says that the worst thing that the Zionist movement has done was manipulate Judaism to use it as a justification in order to implement an ideology that is simply colonial. Transcripts from the World Jewish Conference during that era pretty much prove that as we will see in this post.

I shared in the previous part that there some Jews who accepted the integration into European statehood and some who didn't. Out of those who accepted the integration was a journalist from Austria by the name of Theodor Herzl. Herzl grew up within a wealthy Jewish family, he was well-educated in Germany, and pretty much only knew "Shallom" as far as Hebrew is concerned. Many sources say that he was basically an atheist. But, whether atheist or not, his relationship with Judaism was non-existent.

"Hold on! Wait a minute" you might think, "Herzl 'the father of modern political Zionism' had a non-existent relationship with Judaism and favoured integration?". You can look at this as a dramatic plot in a movie, or the beginning of Herzl's coming-of-age journey.

Herzl, in 1894, went to Paris to cover an important case for a Jewish French officer, Alfred Dreyfus, who was accused of leaking classified information to the Germans. That case was a controversial one in France with many supporting him as innocent and others called for his execution for treason.

Some people went on to protest, many say riot, against Dreyfus and were cheering, "Death to the Jews", or at least according to Herzl. That's in France, yes, there were other sources who claimed what the people were chanting was, "Death to the Traitor" and Herzl was exaggerating, but either way, that moment represented a turning point for Herzl. Those events led to Herzl losing his faith in integration.

No Integration and No Isolation

While many of the Jewish communities were split between integration and isolation, Herzl pretty much rejected both. Herzl went with a third option that not many people considered at the time, an option that didn't have any supporters in the Jewish communities, it was an idea called "Zionism". This simply explains the fact that Jews weren't Zionists by default.

Origin of Zionism

The Zionism ideology is actually not even a Jewish idea, but a Christian one. Not Christian as in it is an idea from the bible but in terms of who suggested it. It appeared in the 16th century. It was suggested by Christians, more specifically, the Protestants. To be even more specific it was Protestants in Britain.

The idea simply stated that Jews must go back to Jerusalem to build the temple in preparation for the Second Coming of Jesus. The idea remained until the 19th century. Just a normal idea with few people caring for it. Jewish people often heard it and didn't pay much attention because there was an anti-Semitic and social-political aspect to it which simply didn't want Jews in the region, especially since as I established in the previous part, Europe was moving toward statehood which meant Jews would be, by law, equal citizens to the rest of the people in the country.

Jewish Zionism was different, especially Herlz's Zionism. It wasn't as simple as Jews "returning to Jerusalem", in the book, "Dissecting Israeli Mind", it is stated that Jewish Zionism is actually a racist ideology. It sees that everyone in the world has a deep-rooted hatred for Jews. Zionism is aggressive toward those who aren't Jewish and sees that their hatred exists for no reason other than they hate Jewish people because they are Jewish. Thus, the only solution for Jews to be safe is to establish a Jewish-only state, or at least one where they hold the vast majority.

The above idea can also be confirmed by reading Herzl's book, "Der Judenstaat" or the "Jewish State". This begs the question

Who Are The Jews In Relation To Zionism?

This is actually difficult to answer precisely, but I could give you the Zionist version of it. The Zionist definition is that Jews are a pure race from the beginning to the end. They don't even represent a religion, Judaism isn't a proselyte religion, it doesn't seek to convert others into their religion like Islam, Christianity, or most religions around the world. They don't marry into other religions.

Thus, in the Zionist's view, Jews are pure people or race, which is a racist ideology as you can see. Not only that, but one of the founding elements of Zionism is that Jews are only oppressed by others and it is impossible that a Jew gets oppressed by other Jews. In the second part of this series, I explored the term "Self-Hating Jew", and how it was thrown at anyone criticizing Israel, including the aforementioned Illan Pappe. Zionism gets shaky when it is criticized by Jewish people.

In summary, Zionism is based on the belief that the whole world hates Jews the entire world being anti-semitic, and who those aren't anti-semitic will be soon. Herzl saw that the oppression, hatred, and anti-semitism were the driving power that would lead Jews to the solution, or in his words:

We are one people - our enemies have made us one

This idea is a little scary as it bases the unification of some people on the hatred of others toward them. You see that in today's world, everyone criticizing Israel is immediately anti-semitic, or being guided into only criticizing certain people and not the foundation. That is a true definition, in my opinion, for the simple reason that

Zionism Wouldn't Exist Without Antisemitism

Can you imagine an ideology existing on people rejecting it? The moment everyone would accept it, it would actually fall apart. In fact, the only thing preserving Zionism at the moment is the people who are against it, as without them, Israel would have to, at some point, come face to face with the massacres they committed before and since the country's establishment.

In short, Zionism is a racist response to all oppression against Jews by oppressing everything that is not Jewish, and Jewish by the Zionist definition. Thus, the solution became that Jews needed their own state.

Herzl started thinking where would this state be? There were many suggestions like Uganda, Argentina, Madagascar, and Russia. Those places were the suggestions way before Palestine because as I stated, the whole ordeal had nothing to do with religion. It was all about establishing a state for protection from the hatred toward Jews that is implanted in everyone who isn't Jewish.

Let me tell you a surprise, most Jewish communities rejected that idea Herzl proposed. Those communities rejected that idea while being oppressed in Europe. They were questioning the reason they would emigrate from the places where they had been living instead of demanding their rights. Also, if they were to emigrate, why not go to the New World? A place like the United States of America, a place that was already the first destination for European Jews. That is how New York turned into the most important Jewish city in the world in the late 19th century.

The first Zionist Congress was supposed to be in Munich, Germany, but the German Jewish people rejected that idea over its silliness. So much so that many Hakhams saw Zionism as a challenge to God's will of dating diaspora for the Jews.

The Holy Destination

Due to the difficulty of convincing Jewish communities of the Zionist idea, Herzl thought that he would need to convince all these people of Zionism. The way to do that was through a very nice story, even if it is not real. He needed a legend, a myth. In her book, "A Short History of Myth", Karen Armstrong states:

A myth, therefore, is true because it is effective, not because it gives us factual information.

Why would Jews go to Uganda? It's too hot. Why would Jews go to Russia? It's too cold. And since the Zionist belief is that everyone else oppresses Jews by nature, that would leave you oppressed and cold.

But, what if the destination was known, guaranteed, and holy? It would be a happy ending to a tragic story. That was the only way Herzl managed to convince Jewish communities of Zionism. We won't be immigrating to a new place, we're going back home.

At the time, in the first Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897, the Zionist movement announced its destination, Palestine. According to Argentinian sociologist, Pedro Bridger, Herzl turned the Torah's epic story into a modern ownership document of Palestine, that was what he needed to turn the situation from being a political solution into a religious duty.

That's when the mix-up started between Zionism and Judaism. That's what started the fallacy that says "Zionism is Judaism" and that anti-Zionism is anti-Judaism and therefore anti-semitic.

When you equate a political goal with a holy destination, everything becomes allowed, including taking advantage of oppressed people into joining you on your journey by sharing more lies with them, lies like the promotion of "A land without a people for a people without a land" and that myth is what I will be talking about in the next part.

Previous Parts

The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 1: Tantura
The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 2: Protecting The Israel Mythology
The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 3: The Israel Foundation Myth
The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 4: The "One People" Myth

Follow-up Parts

Sources

The Arabs: A History - Eugene Rogan
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine - Ilan Pappe
Ten Myths About Israel - Ilan Pappe
Palestine: ...it is something colonial (Decolonizing the mind)
One hundred questions and answers about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - Pedro Brieger
Tantura Documentary
Executions and Mass Graves in Tantura - Forensic Architecture
Israel’s 55-year occupation of Palestinian Territory is apartheid – UN human rights expert
"Nakba Law" - Amendment No. 40 to the Budgets Foundations Law
Eye Witnesses Statments
Al-Nakba: The Palestinian catastrophe - Episode 1 | Featured Documentary
Al-Nakba: The Palestinian catastrophe - Episode 2 | Featured Documentary
Al-Nakba: The Palestinian catastrophe - Episode 3 | Featured Documentary
Al-Nakba: The Palestinian catastrophe - Episode 4 | Featured Documentary
Anatomy of the Israeli mind
Collusion Across The Jordan: King Abdullah, The Zionist Movement, And The Partition Of Palestine - Avi Shlaim

The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 5: The "Zionism is Judaism" Myth