What is Zionism, exactly?
Tom
http://safra-vesaifa.blogspot.com
from Ireland has asked me to define
Zionism.
Having just finished
James Parkes'
book
A History of the Jewish People
http://www.parkes.soton.ac.uk/welcome2.htm
this definition from the book is probably as good as any:
'The roots of Zionism are to be found ... everywhere and in every century of Jewish history.... Zionism is simply one expression of the confusing fact that the word 'Jews' covers both a people and a religion. It would doubtless be simpler if it were not so; but all attempts to force Jewish history into one category or the other end by falsifying it. If Jews had been simply a people two thousand years ago, when they lost home and autonomy, they would long have been extinct. Had the religion of Judaism been all that was involved, it would long ago have been absorbed into one or the other of the daughter monotheisms.
Zionism has minifested itself in many different ways during its long history.... But one thing has been constant, a determination to maintain roots in the 'Promised Land'. Much of the modern discussions of Zionism would have been clearer if this had been realized. It was not case of 'Jews returning to a land they had left two thousand years ago'. As a people they had never left it either physically or spiritually.'
On the Balfour Declaration:
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/balfour.html
'The Balfour Declaration 'gave' them nothing. It recognized rights which already existed.'
Here is another comment on the whole issue from
Eamonn McDonagh
also from Ireland:
Comments