ISRAEL ZANGWILL
The Jewish and American perception at the time was that the Arabs of Palestine were nomadic tribes who trekked through the countries of the Middle East without any national allegiance to any nation including the Ottoman Turks who before WWI ruled the area. However, there were also a small number of Arabs who had settled on fixed land, operating farms and olive groves. They were not nomads, and while not attached to a nation were very much attached to the land. Those families, who did not fight the Jewish right to establish a Jewish state, still possesses, work, and live on those traditional lands. Those who fought against the founding of Israel in 1949 and those who followed 14 Arab armies’ military instructions to evacuate their lands so the military could shell and bomb the Jews and were promised the land and goods of the Jews after their defeat, became refugees who would never be integrated by the 14 Arab nations whose requests they followed.
This is the origin of the “melting pot” term. Although British, Zangwill wrote this play for America and it was first produced in Washinton DC with Theodore Roosevelt in attendance. The theme was just the concept that most Americans think of relative to the large immigration of so many peoples to America.
Zangwill had been asked to be part of a team to assesses the accusations of pogroms against Jews in the Ukraine.
Israel Zangwill was a British author at the forefront of cultural Zionism during the 19th century, and was a close associate of Theodor Herzl. He later rejected the search for a Jewish homeland in Palestine and became the prime thinker behind the territorial movement.
