JULY 2007
ISRAEL: A 20TH CENTURY 'nation'?
ZNet Commentary
June 02, 2007
By Gabriel Kolko
.....a vital component of nationalism, often its sole
one, was a hatred of foreigners-"others"-giving
it largely a negative function rather than an assertion
of distinctive values and traits essential to a unique
entity.
One of the many quirks of the nineteenth century's
intellectual heritage was the great intensification of
nationalism and-to quote one expert-the creation of
"nation-ness," the consequences of which have
varied dramatically all the way from the negligible to
the crucial (as in the case of Israel) to war and peace
in a vast strategic region. There was, of course, often a
basis for various nationalisms to build upon, but the
essentially artificial function of forming nations from
very little or nothing was common.
Wars were the most conducive to this enterprise, and the
emergence of what was termed socialism after 1914 - which
had a crucial nationalist basis in such places as China
and Vietnam - was due to the fact that foreign invasions
greatly magnified nationalism's ability to build on
ephemeral foundations to merge socialism and patriotism.
For a vital component of nationalism, often its sole one,
was a hatred of foreigners-"others"-giving it
largely a negative function rather than an assertion of
distinctive values and traits essential to a unique
entity. Myths, often far-fetched and irrational, were
built. Zionism is the focus of this discussion but it was
scarcely alone.
Vienna was surely the most intellectually creative place
in the world at the end of the 19th century. Economics,
art, philosophy, political theories on the Right as well
as Left, psychoanalysis-Vienna gave birth or influenced
most of them. Ideas had to be very original to be
noticed, and most were. We must understand the unique and
rare innovative environment in which Theodore Herzl, an
assimilated Hungarian Jew who became the founder of
Zionism, functioned. For a time he was also a German
nationalist and went through phases admiring Richard
Wagner and Martin Luther. Herzl was many things,
including a very efficient organizer, but he was also
very conservative and feared that Jews without a state -
especially those in Russia - would become
revolutionaries.
A state based on religion rather than the will of all of
its inhabitants was at the end of the 19th century not
only a medieval notion but also a very eccentric idea,
one Herzl concocted in the rarified environment of cafes
where ideas were produced with scant regard for reality.
It was also full of countless contradictions, based not
merely on the conflicts between theological dogmas and
democracy but also vast cultural differences among Jews,
all of which were to appear later.
Europe's Jews have precious little in common, and their
mores and languages are very distinct. But the gap
between Jews from Europe and those from the Arab world
was far, far greater. Moreover, there were many radically
different kinds of Zionism within a small movement,
ranging from the religiously motivated to Marxists who
wanted to cease being Jews altogether and, as Ber
Borochov would have it, become "normal." In the
end, all that was to unite Israel was a military ethic
premised on a hatred of those "others" around
them-and it was to become a warrior-state, a virtual
Sparta dominated by its army. Initially, at least, Herzl
had the fate of Russian and East European Jews in mind;
the outcome was very different.
Zionism was original but at the turn of the century it's
following was close to non-existent. An important
exception was the interest of Lord Rothschild. Moreover,
from its inception Zionism was symbiotic on Great
Powers-principally Great Britain-that saw it as a way of
spreading their colonial ambitions to the Middle East. As
early as 1902 Herzl met with Joseph Chamberlain, then
British Colonial Secretary, to further Zionist claims in
the region bordering Egypt, and the following year he
hired David Lloyd George-later to become prime
minister-to handle the Zionist case.
Herzl also unsuccessfully asked the sultan of the Ottoman
Empire if he might obtain Palestine, after which he
advocated establishing a state in Uganda-although his
followers much preferred the Holy Land. Only the
principle of a Jewish State, anywhere, appealed to him -
but mainly for Jews in the Russian Empire. Herzl was only
the first in the Zionist tradition of advocating a state
for others; he was never in favor of all Jews moving
there. Chaim Weizmann wrote Herzl in 1903 that the large
majority of the young Jews in Russia were anti-Zionist
because they were revolutionaries - which only reinforced
Herzl's convictions. In 1913 British Intelligence
estimated that perhaps one percent of the Jews had
Zionist affiliations, a figure that rose in the Russian
Pale-which contained about six million Jews - as the war
became longer.
It was scarcely an accident that in November 1917 Lord
Arthur Balfour was to make Britain's historic endorsement
of a Jewish homeland in their newly mandated territory of
Palestine in a letter to Rothschild. Some of these
Englishmen also shared the Biblical view that it was the
destiny of Jews to return to their ancient soil. Others
thought that this gesture would help keep Russia in the
war, and that nefarious Jews had the influence to do so.
Most saw a Jewish state as a means of consolidating
British power in the vast Islamic region.
Jewish Migration: Many Promised Lands
Migration has been one of the universal phenomena of
world history since time immemorial, and we know a great
deal about its causes and motives. People migrate mainly
out of necessity, generally economic, and they choose
from existing options. They very rarely go someplace for
the "blessings of liberty," or ideology; if
they do such variable factors as economic deprivation or
changes in laws should not exist. But in the case of
Palestine and Zionism, Jews behaved like people
everywhere and at most times.
It is a Zionist myth that there were many Jews who wished
to go to a primitive hot, dusty place and did so. They
did not-and all of the available numbers prove this
conclusively. After the Bolshevik Revolution of October
1917 the Pale was abolished and a very large number of
the Jews in it moved to Russia's cities; many of them saw
the Bolsheviks as liberators and filled the ranks of the
revolution at every level. If they emigrated, and here
the numbers are very important, it was not-if they had a
choice--to Palestine.
>From 1890 to 1924 about two million of the 20 million
immigrants to the United States were Jews-overwhelmingly
from East Europe. Other nations in the Western Hemisphere
also attracted about a million Jews during this period,
to which we must add Jewish migration to South Africa,
Australia, West Europe, and the like. This does not mean
that Jews were not "Zionists" but they had no
intention whatsoever of embarking on Aliyah-of going to
Palestine themselves. As Herzl believed, it was a project
for others.
Jews in the Diaspora, like most ethnic groups, banded
together in numerous organizations and nostalgia-and
confusion--soon overwhelmed them. Organized Zionism grew
in the U.S. as it had not in East Europe--but it demanded
only money, thereby ultimately making Israel viable.
In 1893 there were an estimated 10,000 Jews in Palestine,
61,000 in 1920, and 122,000 in 1925. All of these figures
are only the best-informed estimates; there were censuses
in 1922 and 1931 only, and even the 1922 numbers are
contested. But the general trend is beyond doubt and very
clear. For every Jew who went to Palestine from 1890 to
1924, at least 27 went to the Western Hemisphere alone.
Relatively, the Zionist project was the utopian dream of
a tiny minority and it would have failed save for two
factors, the Holocaust and the much-overlooked fact that
in 1924 the U. S. passed a new immigration law based on
quotas using the nationalities distribution in the 1890
census as a basis, effectively cutting off migration from
East and South Europe to a mere trickle of what it had
been.
In 1924, Jewish population in Palestine increased 5.9
percent but in 1925-the first year the American law went
into effect-- it leaped 28 percent, and 23 percent in
1926. This was still a small minority of the Jews who
left Europe but this sudden spurt was directly related to
American policy. From 1927 to 1932 it never grew more
than 5.3 percent annually and in 1927 it was a mere 0.2.
Very few Jews went to Palestine, and a small proportion
of them were ideologically motivated; the vast majority
migrated elsewhere.
The British had always been in favor of Jewish migration
and after 1933 it grew greatly-Jews were six percent of
the Palestinian population in 1912 but 29 percent in
1935-- but now it was increasingly composed of Jews from
Germany rather than Poland. These Jews had to get out of
Germany, where the Zionist movement had always been very
weak, and they were scarcely ideological zealots. Had
there been open migration to the U. S. they would have
gone there. Arab riots after 1935 compelled the British
to reduce the inflow and in 1939 they adopted a White
Paper enforcing strict restrictions on immigration.
What is certain is that Hitler's importance must always
be set in a larger context. Without him there never would
have been a flow of Jews out of Germany, and very
probably no state of Israel, but also crucial was the
U.S. 1924 Immigration Act. Migrants went to Palestine out
of necessity, in the vast majority of cases, not choice.
Both of these factors were crucial, and to determine
their relative importance is an abstract, futile
enterprise. But without either the Zionist project of
creating a Jewish state in Palestine would have remained
another exotic Viennese concoction, never to be realized,
because while the Jews in the Diaspora were in favor of a
Jewish state, virtually none living in safe nations were
ever to uproot themselves and embark on Aliyah-the return
to the ancient homeland. They had no reason to do so.
There were many promised lands and Herzl's exotic
ruminations were scarcely the inspiration for the flow of
Jews out of Europe. Israel's existence was an
unpredictable accident of history. The past century has
been full of them, everywhere. That is why the world is
in such a perilous condition.
###
1 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on
the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London, Verso,
1983, pp. 4-6.
2 David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of
the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle
East, New York, Henry Holt, 1989, pp. 272-3, 278, 317.
3 William M. Johnston, The Austrian Mind: An Intellectual
and Social History, 1848-1938, Berkeley, University of
California Press, 1972, pp. 357-61; Yuri Slezkine, The
Jewish Century, Princeton University Press, 2004, pp.
149-52; David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace, op.
cit., pp. 272, 294.
4 Yuri Slezkine, The Jewish Century, passim.
5 Data on Palestine is from Population of Ottoman and
Mandate Palestine: Statistical and Demographic
Considerations, 2002-05, pp. 5, 6, 11 and passim. http://www.mideastweb.org/palpop.htm