Jewish Nationalism Quotes
He also expressed his pleasure with the British Balfour Declaration granting the Jews their own country in part of Palestine ({594001}). Wilson had earlier committed himself to support the Zionist claim for Palestine. See {585124}.
The President was referring to the fact that most Arab governments constantly attacked Israel with an end of “wiping them off the face of the map” or “pushing them into the sea.” When Palestine was partitioned into Jewish and Arab states, the Israelis developed their part into a modern industrial democracy with the highest standard of living and political freedom in the Middle East despite having to fight off repeated Arab attacks who resented the fact that non-Arabs controlled any land of the area and that their dictatorships and monarchies were always embarrassed by the success of this “foreign” and “European” force in their midst.
This quotation is very surprising for most people. Reading the text alone, most of us would assume that it came from someone when the Zionist movement was fighting for a Jewish homeland in what is now Israel. Or just before the UN decision in 1947 to partition Palestine. However, it came from one of our founding fathers in Colonial times. Adams was by no means the only Founding Father with this point of view. Fundamentalist Protestants have put much credence in God’s granting the area for the Jewish People—then as today.
Because of the classic historical anti-Semitism and discrimination, Jews were barred from land ownership and as a result few were farmers or had agricultural experience in their families. They were tradesmen, artisans, professionals in Europe. So amongst Jews and non Jews alike the notion of Jews settling the land of Palestine and farming it or trapping, the way the Boers had in South Africa or the French in Canada, was not a very credible image. The Zionists, realizing this potential weakness, placed strong emphasis on agriculture, developed the agricultural kibbutz concept and encouraged Jews to become farmers. The effort was so successful that almost all the leading early Zionist immigrants to Palestine became farmers. When independence came to Israel, the Jewish agriculture was more productive than most of that in Europe and almost on a par with small farms in the United States. The Israelis were known for “making the desert bloom.
This is the first statement of a Jewish nation since Biblical Times.
Mr. Brandeis was Louis D. Brandeis, first Jewish Supreme Court Justice and one of the leading Zionist world leaders. Theodor Herzel is generally credited with being the father of Zionism but his treatise was written in 1895. Four years earlier, Blackstone, a Methodist Evangelical Minister, had drafted what has come to be called the Blackstone Memorial, which was a petition to President Benjamin Harrison to have American foreign policy work to return the Jews to Palestine where they would have a state and government. The petition was signed by over 400 notables. Straus, Brandeis and other Jewish Zionists credited Blackstone even though history has almost forgotten him. See {614860} for quotes from the Blackstone Memorial.
The “radicals” refer to the extremely conservative, religiously-oriented Israelis. To them the only real and important element is the land that God gave to the Jewish people. They see the State as artificial and whose only legitimate role is to protect and defend the land of Israel. God has ordained the laws in the Talmud—the first 5 Books of the Old Testament. They do not believe in democracy but seek a Hebrew Theocracy of the Ancient Jews before they made the error of having kings. Some of them opposed the civil government of Israel when the country was founded via a UN resolution and a few would not even defend the new country under a civil government. The relative moderates see Israel as a nation state where the land of Israel can be changed, negotiated, traded as other nations do with their borders. One irony is no one knows exactly the borders of the land which God gave to the Jews and this is why archeology is so politically important in Israel compared to other countries.
