- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmy.ml
Israel’s war in Gaza is chipping away at so much of what we – in the United States but also internationally – had agreed upon as acceptable, from the rules governing our freedom of speech to the very laws of armed conflict. It seems no exaggeration to say that the foundation of the international order of the last 77 years is threatened by this change in the obligations governing our legal and political responsibilities to each other.
It’s actually a good question. We didn’t.
The desire to create a country Israel came about in the 1800s, when Theodor Herzl looked at anti-semitism in Europe and concluded that Jews would never be accepted by countries or have any political power so the only way to get ahead in such a nationalistic world would be to make their own country. It was built on an anachronistic set of ideas; religion was tied to your citizenship of a country. Turkey represented European Muslims and UK/France/Germany represented Christians, and he concluded there was no way Jews could be considered equal citizens in Europe.
Originally the plan was to buy land in Africa or South America and declare a new country there. It was a purely secular plan to build an ethnostate. The World Zionist Congress had a vote and they narrowly approved to build the country in British mandate Palestine, not for religious reasons but because the connection to Jerusalem would help motivate immigration and tourism. They almost had it in Uganda or Argentina or Madagascar.
The holocaust merely accelerated the plan and gave a justification after the fact to build the country. Initially Israeli society didn’t like having holocaust survivors and they weren’t treated well, only today are they out on a pedestal and used as justification for their colonialism.
Did he thought that they would be accepted by the local population?
As best as we can tell, he truly didn’t care what locals thought. He wanted to buy the land and make everyone else leave so an all Jewish state could be created.
Unfortunately this plan didn’t sit well with the locals who eventually stopped selling land to these newcomers, and the rising illegal immigration caused conflicts. Eventually an actual war erupted and new militias massacred and forcibly expelled the local Arab communities, creating the Israel we have today.
Herzl’s concept wasn’t as terrible on paper as it actually was in practice. (It just wouldn’t work in modern society where countries aren’t governed under ethnic supremacy) But likely if the World Zionist Congress had voted a different way, we’d be talking about how awful Israel was for mistreating Ugandans and forcing them off their land.