Islam And The West

Lionel Walter Rothschild

In terms of the struggle for the creation Israel the Zionist narrative is supreme. The narrative is built upon  the notion that Zionism is the Jewish aspiration for a return to Eretz Yisroel. While it is true that over the last 2000 years there has been a yearning amongst the Jewish people for a return to the land of Israel,  this is some what different to the  struggle that Theodore Herzl launched under the banner of political Zionism.

The Zionist narrative tries to demonstrate that the struggle for a Jewish homeland in Palestine was whole heartedly supported by all members of the Jewish community. This is far from the truth as Jews Against Zionism, Neturei Karta and Jews Not Zionists all prove. Furthermore a cursory reading of Walter Laqueur ’s The History of Zionism, shows that while there was considerable support for political Zionism amongst European Jewry there was also considerable opposition from within the same community.Which all brings me on to the topic of this post.

In 1917 as leader of the Jewish community in Britain,  Lord Rothschild received an undertaking from the British government, to facilitate the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.

The undertaking became known as the Balfour Declaration and Lord Rothschild went down in history as one of those who helped in the creation of the state of Israel. However Rothschild did not start out life as an ardent Zionist. As the following letter quoted by Shulamit Aloni in Haaretz and  written in 1902 by Rothschild to Theodore Herzl illusrates :

“In the letter, Rothschild explains why he refuses to support the establishment of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel. He writes that he “should view with horror the establishment of a Jewish colony pure and simple; such a colony would be Imperium Imperio; it would be a Ghetto with the prejudice of the Ghetto; it would be a small petty Jewish state, orthodox and illiberal, excluding the Gentile and the Christian.” {Source: Haaretz)

If political Zionism had been such a natural extension of the Jewish yearning for Zion why would Baron Rothschild have opposed it in such terms? In reality the struggle for Israel pitted Zionists against their own community long before it pitted them against others.

image by Shyamal

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