THE ROOTS OF ISRAEL

THE ROOTS OF ISRAEL
and the European anti-Semitism
By Didier Bertin -27 March 2010

 I-ORIGIN OF THE LAND

1-People:
Hebrew (Root: pass), which means Nomad is the name of a Semitic tribe located in southern Mesopotamia (currently Iraq); Abraham was traditionally known as member of this tribe and founder of monotheism.

2-Name:
According to oral and religious traditions mentioned in writing in the Bible centuries after the events, Abraham, ancestor of the Hebrews, was Grandfather of Jacob, son of Isaac. Jacob was also known under the name of Israel and had 12 sons, whose descendants were thus named “People of Israel.”

3-Location:
Abraham left the Sumerian, in this era, city of Ur, to live in the area of present Israel. This is the origin of the geographical location of Israel without taking into account the population movements, which might certainly be symbolic and mythological and which were reported by the Bible. Other peoples may have also lived in the same area as the Canaanites, which might have also come from eastern region and Philistines of most probably Indo-European origin.

4-History of the Kingdom of Israel until Diaspora:

The Kingdom of Israel was divided into two parts in 922 BC. The North kept the name Kingdom of Israel, but was destroyed by the Assyrians in 722 BC and the south known as Kingdom of Judah (name of one of the twelve sons of Jacob) also called Judea was maintained despite the Babylonian invasion of the sixth century BC.

Judea had kept the beliefs, laws, traditions and religious organization of Israel despite the Babylonian invasion, with adaptations, interpretations and codifications. The words Judaism and Jews in reference to Judea were often utilized after the Babylonian invasion to designate the people of Israel and its cultural and religious heritage.
Israel suffered many invasions, the last being made by the Romans in 63 BC led by General Pompey. The Romans did not tolerate any local revolts and especially those of Israel. The dominance of a small number of Romans over very huge Empire was based on a combination of violent repression, slavery, crucifixions, slaughters and destructions known as "Pax Romana.” The “Pax Romana” could also be seen as abandonment of people’s prerogatives on their territory in exchange for protection against the barbarians and of Roman civilization technical progress.
Judea was an illustration of Roman repression e.g. in 70, they destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem and in 135 after the revolt of Bar Kokhba, they destroyed Jerusalem, expelled the people of Israel out of Judea and even changed the name of the Judea into "Land of the Philistines” who were in the traditional enemies of Israel.  "Land of the Philistines” is Palaestina in Latin or Palestine in English.
This Eviction of Israel people or dispersion or “Diaspora” has facilitated the spread of Christianity and its corollary "anti-Semitism."

II-THE PRECURSORS OF ZIONISM

 Cultural factors, language, history, traditions, religion but also anti-Semitism helped to preserve or enforce the existence of the Jewish people as such. Permanent Anti-Semitism maintained the ideas of a return to the ancestral Land of the Jewish people as a haven.

Zionism is a set of currents of thought which advocates a return to the homeland most often to escape anti-Semitic persecution.
The end of the eighteenth century and early nineteenth is a marked contrast between liberalism emerging in Western Europe and the harsh regimes of Central and Eastern Europe. While a Napoleonic decree politically emancipated Jews in Western Europe in 1806, hatred, iniquity, discrimination and pogroms increased in Central and Eastern Europe. Liberal ideas still penetrated into Central Europe with the Napoleonic breakthroughs. Napoleon Bonaparte was one of the first to call the Jews to rally under his banner to restore the ancient Palestine. He was even considering creating a Jewish state.
Henri Dunant, founder of the Red Cross has proposed the creation of an "International Society for the Orient" whose task would have been to renovate the agriculture, implement industries, rebuild the port of Jaffa and Railways in order to organize the immigration of Jews to Palestine.
Among the precursors of Zionism, one can cite the Talmudic Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, who published a book in 1862 in which he stated that the return to Palestine must be made through agriculture and created a Jewish Agricultural Society in Frankfurt. In Odessa, Leo Pinsker, who had witnessed the wave of pogroms that followed the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, published in 1882 a pamphlet called "Auto emancipation," in which he explained that anti-Semitism was due the lack of Jewish state, which he advocated the establishment.
In 1884, the first Zionist movement arose in Poland, in Katowice under the name of "Lovers of Zion". The French Charles Netter, uncle of the famous Professor of Medicine Arnold Netter, immigrated to Palestine in 1880 and created an agricultural College near Jaffa and Baron Edmond de Rothschild financed many projects.

III - THE BIRTH OF MODERN ZIONISM

Theodor Herzl founded the modern Zionism; he was born in Hungary, lived in Vienna and was an assimilated Jew both journalist and writer. Anti-Semitism of the German philosopher Eugen Dühring, the pogroms in Russia, and French anti-Semitism as illustrated by Drumont and Dreyfus affair in November 1884 led him to consider a political solution to counter hostility against the Jews. In 1885, he wrote "the Jewish State" (Der Judenstaat) in which he presented the following ideas:
 

1. The Jewish people endure anti-Semitism, which is increased by their vulnerability as minority position within dominant host nations.
2. An international agreement must guarantee a Jewish territory in Palestine
3. A political association and an economic company, must negotiate, and finance the development of the future state

The Political association was "the World Zionist Organization" and the economic company was the “Jewish National Fund” established in 1899 in London, which created the Anglo-Palestinian Bank two years later.

IV - EVOLUTION OF ZIONISM

At his death, Theodor Herzl left a project that Chaim Weizmann and David Ben Gurion, could have achieved. The Zionist movement was itself divided between the "politics", following the ideas of Theodor Herzl regarding the need of an international agreement on the principle of the Jewish state and the "pragmatists" who saw as Priority the immediate settlement in Palestine. Pragmatists saw their position strengthened by the increase of pogroms authorized by the Tsarist regime as a diversion from the failure of the Russian Revolution of 1905. Pragmatists gave reality to the establishment in Palestine but immigrants suffered heavy threatens that only a political solution could erase. Zionism needed together pragmatic and politics aspects and Chaim Weizman created the "synthetic Zionism", combining both.

V - CONSECRATION OF ZIONISM- Opportunist support of Great Britain

Chaim Weizmann who was born in Belarus in 1874 became a famous British scientist and Director of Scientific Research from the British Admiralty and inventor of synthetic acetone in 1916 needed to maintain the explosives production during the WW1. He got from the British Government a statement expressed by "Lord Arthur Balfour, the Foreign Secretary Office of the Prime Minister David Lloyd George, on 2 November 1917, in the form of a letter addressed to Lord Rothschild:

“His Majesty's government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

It must be noted that Chaim Weizman became the first president of the State of Israel in 1948.

The name of Balfour must also be linked to the "Aliens Act" that he established in 1905, when he was Prime Minister, in order to prevent the Jews from Russia and Poland to come as refugees in Great Britain when the pogroms at a very high level as already explained.

The statement of the British Government in 1917 might thus also viewed as a way seemingly generous, to regulate the movement of Jewish populations in Central Europe by finding for them a haven.
The declaration of 1917 by Lord Balfour was supported by the French Minister for Foreign Affairs Stephen Pichon. Thus, Zionism was consecrated by two great Nations. In April 1920, the new League of Nations (LON), hereinafter referred as to LON that is to say 42 founder-states, confirmed their agreement at the San Remo Conference, with the British Government's statement called "Balfour Declaration". On 24 July 1922 LON (51 states on that date) gave Great Britain the "Mandate of Palestine”, to give reality to the terms of the British declaration.

Palestine included the current territory of Israel, Gaza, the West Bank and current Jordan Kingdom (Transjordan).
Israel was thus not only the result of the UN’s decision of 1947, but also of the LON’s decision of 1920.

Since the principle of the Jewish state was adopted in 1920, one might think that if Great Britain would have achieved it within 18 years i.e. before 1940, which is a long period, a substantial part of European Jews could have escaped the Holocaust.
In fact, Great Britain quickly realized that the implementation of the Mandate could endanger the achievement of its own ambitions in the former Turkish Empire, and notably the access to the oil resources and lines of communication in Middle East.

VI-THE MANDATE – Two Main Articles

 "Article 2: The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion.”

"Article 4: An appropriate Jewish agency shall be recognized as a public body for the purpose of advising and cooperating with the Administration of Palestine in such economic, social and other matters as may affect the establishment of the Jewish national home and the interests of the Jewish population in Palestine, and, subject always to the control of the Administration, to assist and take part in the development of the country. The Zionist Organization, so long as its organization and constitution are in the opinion of the Mandatory appropriate, shall he recognized as such agency. It shall take steps in consultation with His Britannic Majesty's Government to secure the cooperation of all Jews who are willing to assist in the establishment of the Jewish national home.”

VII-MISCONDUCT OF GREAT BRITAIN UNTIL 1945

1-From Balfour Declaration to British Mandate
Eager to expand its empire to zones controlled by Turkey, Great Britain tried to arouse the Arab nationalist movements assumed to be above the traditional tribal conflicts. During the War of 1914-1918, Colonel Thomas Lawrence's British military intelligence service, instigated the revolt of Arabs and united their forces to fight the Turks.
Having helped the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in creating the new Arab nationalisms and choosing their leaders, Britain wanted by strengthening its relations with Arab states to maintain control over most of the territories formerly under Turkish control; in particular on the oil areas and channels of communication. The dismantling of the Ottoman Empire in favour of Great Britain and France  was prepared under the Skypes-Picot agreements in 1916, but the Ottoman Empire disappeared with the Lausanne Agreement in 1923, as a result of which it was replaced by Turkey, which is a residual part of it.
The Balfour Declaration and the mandate from LON, became an embarrassment to the specific interests of Great Britain. Presumably it has not renounced the mandate to maintain situation under its control.

 2-Hostility to Great Britain regarding the implementing of its mandate and fight against the Jewish refugees during WWII

The Great Britain opposed to the gradual establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, violating the terms of the Balfour Declaration and the LON Mandate. This opposition was expressed in 3 White Papers published in 1922, 1930 and 1939.
In 1922 the Government White Paper of Winston Churchill was based on a declaration of the latter stating that “Palestine was not to become as Jewish as England is English", and wished rather to create "a center to which the Jewish people as a whole can, for grounds of religion or race, have an interest and pride and can immigrate to the extent of the integration capacity of the country."

The Jewish presence was maintained in principle, but became subsidiary to the Arab presence. Winston Churchill then unilaterally changed the terms of the LON Mandate.
The publication of the White Paper of 1930 was made at the occasion of the riots of 21^st October organized by the Mufti of Jerusalem, "Haj Amin El Husseini. For Great Britain, these disorders were merely a consequence of the development of Jewish national home and meant that it was necessary to reduce the number of Jewish emigrants and the acquisition of land by Jews.

In 1937, Britain proposed an unrealistic division of Palestine including population transfers between a coastal strip, part of Galilee and the establishment of a corridor to Jerusalem to allow Jews to keep an access to the city. In any case the Arabs refused this proposal.

The English stated in 1938 that sharing of Palestine became then impossible and published a 3rd White Paper on May 17, 1939 which underlined the claims of Arabs, and permanently restricted Jewish immigration to 75 000 new people spread over 5 years corresponding exactly to the WW2. Any new immigration would have then to be authorized by the Arab authorities. This decision did not take into account the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe and especially in Germany.

Faced with the Nazi persecution in Europe whose consequences were aggravated by the refusal of English to allow immigration to Palestine, the Jewish Agency decided to organize secret immigration named "Aliyah Bet" or "Ha'apala. The English responded by announcing their intention to arrest and deport any unauthorized Jewish refugees. In 1942 the ship "Struma" sank with 768 refugees from Europe after being pushed off of Palestine by the British.
 

3-Start of unilateral sharing of Palestine by Great Britain

Great Britain had supported the Arab Revolt of 1916 against the Turkish authorities, led by the Hashemite Sharif of Mecca, Hussein ibn Ali. Because of its ties with him, Britain unilaterally decided in 1921 to give one of his four sons Emir Abdullah, three quarters of the territory subject to its mandate, that is to say Transjordan or the current Jordan and similarly, they gave another of his sons, Faisal, Iraq territory (outside the Mandate) in 1921, after having tried vainly to give him Syria in 1920.
Transjordan with an area of 89 342 km2 mainly composed of arid areas with access to the Red Sea and with a population today mostly Palestinian, accounted for 76% of the land subject of the mandate of a total area of 117 634 km2.
The English have thus taken in 1921 a major initiative unilaterally regarding the partition of Palestine. They took advantage of article 25 of the Mandate, which gave them a certain freedom of appreciation subject to LON ‘s Council agreement as far as Transjordan was concerned.
Great Britain gave Jordan an apparent independence in June 1945.

VIII – JEWISH DIFFERENCES REGARDING GREAT BRITAIN BEFORE WW2

"The World Union of Zionist Revisionists" was created in August l925, by Vladimir Jabotinsky. They wanted to organize a massive immigration to Palestine to establish by force a Great Jewish State on the two banks of Jordan. In 1935 the Revisionists, that is to say extremists, withdrew from the Jewish Agency, whose role was that of a kind of Jewish government in Palestine in agreement with the Mandate and created the NZO (New Zionist Organization). Vladimir Jabotinsky named Ze'ev Jabotinsky was the leader of the ultra-extremism. With a certain distance, he had a clear admiration for Mussolini and was inspired by fascism to create his paramilitary organization.

The ultra-rightist ideas of Vladimir Jabotinsky were opposed to the Socialist Workers Movement predominant in the Jewish Agency. The opposition to the Zionist official was so great that some suspected them to have inspired the murder in 1933 of Chaim Arlozoroff. The latter was a Socialist Zionist leader, member of Political Bureau of the Jewish Agency considered by them as being too much open to negotiation with the English. Yitzhak Rabin would then be the second Jewish leader after Chaim Arlozoroff, to have been murdered under the influence of extreme right.

In 1931, Leumi Irgun Tsvai or Etzel, known as Irgun, was created after split with the Haganah, the Jewish defense organization considered to be insufficiently aggressive. Irgun’s violence deteriorated more than they were relations between Jews and British in Palestine.
During World War II, 30 000 Jews of Palestine engaged alongside the British to fight Germany by far considered a first priority. However, some members of Irgun considered they should continue to fight the British and formed the extremist group LEHI or Stern Group.
The opposition grew violently between Stern Group and Irgun in one hand and the Jewish Agency on the other. This opposition continued even after independence in June 1948 when the Israeli army under instruction of Ben Gurion sank the ship "Altalena” utilized by Irgun to import weapons.

IX-HOLOCAUST and Palestine partition

It is useful to bear in mind the figures of the Holocaust, to understand the strength of anti-Semitism at its peak. The Holocaust is unique regarding the high extermination performance and as a result nearly 63% of European Jews perished. It seems that it was unfortunately necessary to reach this climax to reach a decision regarding the partition of Palestine despite the effort of Great Britain to make it impossible.
In 9 of the 20 European countries concerned by Holocaust, the extermination was included between 69% and 91% of the Jewish population. The countries of Central and Eastern Europe i.e. 10 countries out 20, counted 5 400 000 victims that is to say 90% of the six millions victims. In 1939, 84% of Europe's Jewish population lived in Central and Eastern Europe.
In many countries of Western Europe, the victims were less numerous but represented a significant part of the Jewish population of each.
 

X - DIFFICULT BIRTH OF ISRAEL

1-BEHAVIOR OF GREAT BRITAIN AFTER WW2

Abdullah, a native of Mecca was crowned King of Jordan in May 1946. In fact that despite Great Britain no longer fully controlled officially Jordan since 1945; it retained control of the Jordan through the Anglo-Jordanian treaty ending in 1956. This treaty allowed Britain to keep military bases, and have control of the Jordanian army called "Arab Legion" in ensuring the “de facto” command. Great Britain had created the Jordanian army in 1923, which was until 1956, under command of the British Lieutenant-General Sir John Bagot Glubb (1897-1986) nicknamed "Glubb Pasha". It must be noted that when the British troops were leaving Israel in May 1948 British Lieutenant-General Sir John Bagot Glubb was preparing at the same time invasion of Israel with his Jordanian legion.

Sir John Bagot Glubb and the new King Abdullah retained benefits of their attack since they kept an additional part of Palestine:  "West Bank" and East side of Jerusalem.
After the armistice on 3d April 1949, King Abdullah integrated officially the new acquired territories in his Kingdom which was named “Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.”

CURRENT DISTRIBUTION OF THE TERRITORY UNDER MANDATE

The revelation of the Holocaust made outrageous the maintenance of British policy of deportation and persecution of Jewish survivors trying to reach to Palestine. Among these scandals has figured the episode of the ship Exodus in July 1947 whose passengers were deported to Germany by British.

On November 29, 1947, the UN has accepted the partition of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state with 33 positive votes against 13 negative votes and 11 abstentions.
After this vote Great Britain continued to cause trouble in the region until the official end of its mandate 6 months later:

• Through its influence on the Arab Legion of Jordan
• by continuing to restrict Jewish immigration
• by refusing to surrender his powers to a UN Commission
• by refusing to open a Jewish port
• by refusing to end the link between the Palestinian Pound and the British pound
The independence of the state was proclaimed on May 14, 1948, on the eve of the expiry of the British Mandate but Great Britain waited until January 29, 1949 to recognize Israel.
In the days following the independence of Israel, the army of Jordan under the command of Sir Glubb joined those of Egypt, Syria and Iraq in an attempt to invade Israel, which had only 650 000 inhabitants.

Twenty-six years after its beginning, the Mandate ended in war and disorders, obliging many Palestinians to leave the country and went to refugees Camps in which many of them are there until today. Great Britain concentrated on its own interests and was unable and not willing in 26 years to organize a decent partition.

2-POSITION OF OTHER COUNTRIES AFTER WW2

The need of the Holocaust to bring a solution proved that it was difficult for European states to overcome their deep-rooted prejudices. As a matter of fact, it appears that the Holocaust was known during the war but was not priority concern as it was reported in 1944, by Jan Karsky, an intelligence officer of the Polish Government who also met Roosevelt.

USSR had changed during a brief period and saw Israel as an opponent of British, able to relay its ideas in Middle East and voted de Jure in favour of Israel independence.

It must be noted that during the war of independence, Czechoslovakia, Italy and France supplied many weapons to Israel "while the United States had imposed an embargo."

USSR changed quickly its position under the pretext that the influence of American Jews and through them of the US Government will not permit Israel to be a pro-Soviet component.
The reversal of communist countries has shown a tightening not only against Israel but against Jews. As a matter of fact, in Czechoslovakia, fourteen people were arrested in November 1951, including Rudolf Slansky, former Secretary General of the Communist Party and Vladimir Clements, former Foreign Affairs Minister, and were accused to have given too many positions in the communist Party and Government to people called "bourgeois nationalists and Zionists." Out of the 14 people, 11 were Jews. In fact, Rudolf Slansky participated in the liquidation of the Zionist organizations in Czechoslovakia after 1949 and was the only leader to have objected to the delivery of arms to Israel during the 1948 war. Rudolf Slansky and Vladimir Clementis were executed in 1952.

XI - CONCLUSION: The Responsibilities of Europe

The independence of Israel came from the resilient two millennium of European anti-Semitism. In 1920, the League of Nations was obliged to consider the reality of this fact and felt obliged to accept the need to create a Jewish national home and this well before the Holocaust.

The mandate given by the League of Nations to Great Britain to achieve this mission was utilized by the latter to only serve its own interests. Britain has spent most of the time to redraw the map of the Middle East according to its wishes in line with its traditional view as colonization as an intense economic exploitation. Until the last moment, Britain rejected the Holocaust survivors to the sea, as it already did with Pogrom survivors with Balfour’s Aliens Act of 1905.

The target of the Mandate was to prevent events as Holocaust, which might have been avoided if, would have been completed in less than 18 years.

Paradoxically it was necessary to suffer the Holocaust to achieve thus imperfectly the mandate in haste, disorders and war resulting in numerous Palestinian refugees whose status remains unresolved.

The UN decision in 1947 enabled many nations to acquire a good conscience despite the alerts during WW2 on the ongoing process of the Holocaust had not generated much response.
The situation after the war has devoted the Great Victory of the European anti-Semitism since 63% of European Jews were exterminated.
 

Today European anti-Semitism still remains despite it has no more material target because the European Jewish population has become negligible. This might explain why anti-Semitic acts concern often cemeteries.

As a matter of fact, the world's Jewish population lives mainly in the United States and Israel. Twelve percent of world Jewry only remains in Europe against almost sixty percent in 1939. The European Jewish population represents only one sixth of what it was in 1939.
We may hope that Europe, which has now overcome the issues of national prerogatives generating conflicts for the benefit of Union, has acquired sufficiently strong and resilient Ethics.

The Charter of Fundamental Rights is a good start subject to a strict respect of it. Europe must give way to tolerance after its excess; it must declare outlaw all political parties based on xenophobia; those parties are today bursting everywhere among European members.

DISTRIBUTION OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE IN THE WORLD
Approximate rounded figures