Israeli Perspective

Hatikvah: The Hope
As long as in our heart of hearts
the Jewish spirit remains strong,
And we faithfully look toward the east,
Our eyes will turn to Zion.
We have not yet lost our hope,
The hope of two thousand years,
To be a free people in our land —
The land of Zion and Jerusalem.

The Zionist movement was born in the major centers of Jewish population in Europe, and its purpose was to return the Jewish people to its land and put an end to its abnormal situation among the nations of the world. At first there was a spontaneous emergence of local associations ("Lovers of Zion") out of which an organized political movement was established, thanks to the activities of "The Father of Zionism," Theodore Herzl [whose Hebrew name is Benjamin Ze'ev Herzl].

In 1882 there was a small wave of immigration [aliya/pl. aliyot] to "the land" [i.e., the land of Israel], the first of several. The purpose of these aliyot was not just to fulfill the religious obligations connected to the land, as had been the case in the past, but rather to create a "new" kind of Jew, a productive laborer who would work on his own land and help establish a Jewish political entity in the land of Israel.

In 1897 the First Zionist Congress took place in Basle, Switzerland, and there the goals of the movement were delineated (the Basle Plan): "The purpose of Zionism is to create a refuge for the Jewish people in the land of Israel, guaranteed by an open and official legal arrangement."

There were two basic approaches to Zionism:
1) Practical Zionism focused on increasing immigration, purchasing land, and settling Jews on the land. By 1914, in the first two waves of immigration, nearly 100,000 people immigrated (although most of them later left the country). Dozens of agricultural settlements were established and there was a significant increase in the urban Jewish population.
2) Political Zionism focused on diplomatic efforts to get support for Zionism from the great empires in order to obtain a legal and official charter for widescale settlement in the land.

Chaim Weizmann, who became Zionism's leader after Herzl's death, integrated both aspects of the movement.

Palestinian Perspective

Historical Background
In April 1799 Napoleon Bonaparte put forth a plan for a Jewish state in Palestine. During the siege of Acre, he sought to enlist Jewish support in return for which he promised to build the Temple. The project failed after the defeat of Napoleon in the battles of Acre and Abu-Qir. It represents the first post-Renaissance expression of cooperation between a colonialist power and the Jewish people.

However, it was the events of 1831-40 that paved the way for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Secretary in 1840-41, proposed establishing a British protectorate in the Ottoman Empire to be settled by Jews as a buffer area — an obstacle to Mohammed Ali of Egypt and to political unity in the Arab regions.

Britain launched a new policy supporting Jewish settlement in Palestine after Eastern European Jews, particularly those in Czarist Russia, whose living conditions were poor in any case, suffered cruel persecution. Consequently, with the rise of nationalism, Zionism appeared as a drastic international solution to the Jewish problem, transforming the Jewish religion into a nationalist attachment to a special Jewish homeland and a special Jewish state. Other factors influencing the birth and development of the Zionist movement were the increasingly competitive interests shared by European colonialists in Africa and Asia, and the Zionist colonialist movement for control of Palestine.

British imperialism found in Zionism a perfect tool for attaining its own interests in the Arab East, which was strategically and economically important for the empire. Likewise, Zionism used British colonialist aspirations to gain international backing and economic resources for its project of establishing a Jewish national home in Palestine.

This alliance of British imperialism and Zionism resulted in the birth of what is known in history books as the Balfour Declaration (November 2, 1917). It is a conspicuous example of the British policy of seizing another nation's land and resources and effacing its identity. It is a policy based on aggression, expansion and repression of a native people's aspirations for national liberation.

For the Palestinians, the year 1917 was the first of many — 1920, 1921, 1929, 1936, 1948, 1967, 1987, 2002 — marked by tragedy, war, disaster, killing, destruction, homelessness and catastrophe.