Zionism
Illan Pappé
Although usages of “Zionism,” “Zion,” and “Zionist” have varied historically, there are common etymological threads and mutual ideological influences underlying their various deployments. Today “Zionism” is primarily associated with the Jewish political movement that colonized Palestine. However, in Victorian Britain, among North American settlers, and from the Caribbean islands to South Africa, the adjective “Zionist” tended to be deployed by Christian cults and churches for whom the idea of a transcendental promised land became dogma. These usages originated in the Holy Scriptures. The New Testament adopted the Old Testament’s reference to Jerusalem as “Zion,” though it distinguished the “earthly” geographical manifestation from the “spiritual” one. Some congregations aspired to both, though most have been more attracted by Zionism’s spiritual promise than its earthly manifestation.
“Zionism” became a dominant metaphor in the era of settler colonialism, during which it appealed to settlers and colonized people alike. To understand this pattern, it is necessary to consider how “Zion” and “Zionism” developed as intellectual reference points in nineteenth-century Europe. “Zion” had a powerful appeal for Victorian thinkers in Britain, as evidenced by the term’s many appearances in the writings of both Matthew Arnold and his rivals (Dawson and Pfordresher 2013).49 For these authors, “Zion” denoted both the Christian way of life as well as the lively intellectual scene in which they operated. For George Sainsbury (1916), “Zion” was the milieu to which cultural critics, writers, and poets belonged during the second half of the twentieth century: “I have in common with all the youth of Zion to acknowledge [Mathew Arnold’s] vindication of our faith and freedom from the chain of Philistia.”
In Arnold’s usage, “Zion” was interchangeable with Hebraism—a commitment to obedience he contrasted to the pursuit of truth animating Hellenism (Dawson and Pfordresher 2013, 324–26). Hellenism (the intellectual pursuit of knowledge, self-discipline, and moral behavior emphasized during the Renaissance) was exemplified in the positions of the churches during Arnold’s time. And, without a proper equilibrium between Zionism and Hellenism, there was a danger of a crisis. Consequently, Arnold viewed “Zion” as the traditional Semitic and Christian heritage that should not be forsaken, though Hellenism might be considered a more advanced cultural achievement. Accordingly, he thought that a good dose of Zion might free society from an overdose of Hellenism. For this reason, “Zion” became a powerful metaphor and orientation toward the new settler-colonial reality in North America.
According to Fuad Shaban (2005), the idea of Zion in America can be traced back to Christopher Columbus, whose westward voyages revived visions of the Crusaders. As it unfolded, it also came to be viewed as a “Quest for Zion.” The idea would subsequently become ingrained in the Puritan and Mormon settler projects. The first Britons who came to New England referred to the territory as Zion, and their “saints” dubbed the settlement “the new Zion on the hill”:
Where righteous men govern,
where Zion is rising.
To spread forth her glory to every shore.
’Tis the rest of the Saints,
and my home of adoption,
Oh, England! I’ll call thee my country no more
(“Diary of a Voyage from Liverpool to New Orleans on Board the Ship International,” quoted in Buchanan 1961).
From here, “Zion” spread easily to other parts of the continent. The Puritans who traveled to Virginia reported that they had found the new Zion, which they described as a paradise, a utopia come true through settler colonialism. They saw themselves as God’s descendants and chosen people and America as the Promised Land. Like their counterparts in New England, they too wished to build Zion on the Hill. The same phenomenon also prevailed during the Civil War, when the North became Babylon in opposition to the Zion of the South. John Winthrop (1838), a puritan lawyer, wrote that he would create a “Wilderness Zion” in the newfound land.
The motivation for this kind of colonization came from the Latter Day Saint Movement, arguably the most Zionist among the European settlers of North America. They also provided the most “earthly” interpretation of “Zion,” which they took to denote a specific location where members needed to live in anticipation of the millennial moment. Like the ancient city of Enoch, this “Zion” promised to be taken to heaven and back, with a temple in its midst. Jewish political Zionism would later adopt the Latter Day Saint’s idea of a Third Temple, though they eschewed the more bizarre parts of the vision. Despite this difference, the two movements nevertheless shared common ground, and Christian Zionism extends enthusiastic support to Israel today. This affinity became even stronger when the Latter Day Saint Movement included the “Gathering of Israel” into its divine scheme. The “Gathering” was the return of the Jews from their exiles to Palestine, an event seen as precipitating the second coming of the Messiah and the resurrection of the dead. In the 1830s, Mormon leaders—notably Brigham Young—encouraged British Mormons to immigrate to the Utah desert and make it bloom to secure Zion for the “chosen people.”
On board the “International”
All joyful and lighthearted.
Bound Zionward, four hundred Saints,
From Liverpool we started.
We’re English, Irish, Scotch, and Welsh
Assembled here together;
Resolved to do the will of God,
Whate’er the wind and weather.
(quoted in Buchanan 1961)
In 1837, these Europeans rescued Zion—not the imagined haven but the actual one in Utah—with machinery, tools, and materials for the establishment of new settlements. Many years later, the more cruel aspects of this “Zionization” would be denied as history was rewritten to accommodate today’s “multicultural” approach.
Zionism’s metaphoric journey from colonization to multiculturalism is best understood through the history of Zion National Park, in southwestern Utah. This park is well excavated and toured. Consequently, we know about who lived there and when. The earliest known Native American inhabitants date back twelve thousand years. In 1860, European settlers (Mormons) arrived, destroyed the Native peoples and their culture, and called the place Zion. According to the park’s website, Native Americans and settlers lived peacefully in Zion and united against the hardships of life. “Only the will to survive saw Paiute, Anasazi, and European descendants through great difficulties,” the website reads. “Perhaps today Zion is again a sanctuary, a place of life and hope” (National Park Service 2015).
Depictions of the United States as Zion propelled colonization and settlement in South Africa as well. Under the American influence, the concept of Zion became both a missionary tool and a shield against the white man’s oppression. Indeed, “Zionism” became a wayward term as it passed between periods and locations. Its usage by seventeenth-century Puritans was different from the inflection given to it by the Mormons. Eventually it took a new shape with the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church of Johan Alexander Dowie of Zion, Illinois. Dowie dispatched Daniel Bryant to institute Zionist churches throughout South Africa. The concept of Zion, a land where all is well, resonated with traditional views as well as with the new ideas brought by white settlers—a mixture that helped to confront oppression and hardship while maintaining native roots within the oppressors’ faith (Elphick 1997, 229–30).
Zionist Christianity in South Africa also reconnected the community with the tribal dress code of the local culture. Eventually a Zion was built in Charlestown, Natal, and in several other locations in South Africa. Different successful offshoots of African Zionism fused with Zulu ambitions for statehood and sovereignty. Not surprisingly, the preacher Shembe thus presented himself as the prophet sent by God to the Zulu nation.
A similar religious movement known as the Great Revival or Revival Zion emerged in 1860s Jamaica. The sudden explosion of emotional religious activity on the island was not limited to the established Christian churches. Led by members with no theological training and little education, new “churches” sprang up without orthodox Christian sanction. These churches became cults (especially in Kingston’s poorer parts and in the rural countryside) in which Zion and the Bible fused into a polytheistic belief system and a rich world of gods and spirits.
Better known is the role of Zion in the music and lyrics of the Rastafari Movement, which appeared as a religion in the 1930s. Ras Tafari was a title of the emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, crowned in 1930 and regarded as the prophet by this church; his country was viewed as Zion upon earth. Rastafarians believe strongly in a genealogy that dates back to the lost tribes of Israel and hold that every Zion has a Babylon—the emblem of materialism and oppression. From “Train to Zion” to “On the Rivers of Babylon,” Bob Marley’s songs reveal the inspiration derived from the concept of a New Jerusalem (allegedly anchored in a real geographical location but, in practice, existing in one’s mind and away from life’s daily tribulations).
This spirituality does not exist in Zionism as a Jewish political movement. Founded in the late-nineteenth century in Eastern and Central Europe, this movement is now Israel’s hegemonic ideology. Its premise is that Judaism is a national movement. Expelled from their homeland two thousand years ago, Jews began to find redemption through Zionism in the late nineteenth century. Geographically, Zionism conceives the Jewish homeland as the whole of historical Palestine—Israel and the occupied territories of today. Historically, however, Zionism was not initially associated with Palestine, nor did it require its faithful to settle there. It was born of two impulses. The first was a search for a safe haven during a particularly perilous time in which anti-Jewish legislation, pogroms, and expulsions engulfed Central and Eastern Europe. In response, some moved from Eastern Europe to the western region of the continent, where they were encouraged by the rise of democratic, socialist, and liberal ideas and made an effort to assimilate. Looking for a new world where ideas of equality had a better chance of improving their lives, others traveled to the United States.
Because of romantic nationalism—the second impulse motivating the emergence of Zionism—the competing destination was Palestine. Unable to assimilate into new or old national identities in Europe, educated and politically active Jews sought to redefine Judaism as nationalism and demand the right to self-determination and a homeland. Although movement founder Theodor Herzl considered places such as Uganda as possible destinations, many other Jewish nationalists singled out Palestine as the only place to fulfill their aspirations. They considered Palestine to be their ancestral homeland, which had been taken by force by the Romans. Pragmatically, they accepted help from willing international powers and persuaded a fifth of the world’s Jews that the colonization would redeem their lost homeland.
Until the end of the First World War, Palestine was under Ottoman rule. Colonization was thus undertaken incrementally, in disguise, and with enormous obstacles. Many who arrived before 1917 soon departed. (At that time, for strategic, pious Christian, and anti-Semitic reasons, the British occupied Palestine.) Those who remained became the core group from which the future Zionist leadership in Palestine—and later Israel—would emerge.
The implementation of the Zionist project resulted in incremental dispossession between 1918 and 1948. Ethnic cleansing of the native people of Palestine began in 1948 when Zionist forces expelled half the population and demolished half of the country’s villages and towns. For Palestinians, Zionism therefore was (and remains) an ideology that negates their existence.
In theory, Zionism still denotes the desire to bring all the world’s Jews to Israel, and the Law of Return grants citizenship to any Jew arriving in Israel. In practice, however, various religious trends (such as Reform Judaism) were not recognized as religiously abiding. Similarly, ultra-Orthodox Jews, who do not believe the Jews can return without God’s will, are marginalized and alienated. Nonetheless, since the Second World War, most Jews regarded Zionism as an insurance policy—an ideology that would provide them escape in time of trouble. Only in recent years has a strong anti-Zionist impulse found expression in Jewish communities that realize that this policy demands unconditional support for Israel.
Initially the adjective “Zionist” denoted anyone with full right to be part of the project of Israel. Being a Zionist meant that one regarded Israel (which, after 1967, included the whole of historical Palestine) as the Jewish homeland and nation state. Zionism dictated that the symbols of the state be Jewish and its laws Halachic. It equated citizenship with religious identity. However, one-fifth of Israel’s citizens were Palestinians who could not be Zionists or accept the Zionist narrative. The people in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip were living in regions that some Zionists believed were Israel. The Zionist desire to deny them citizenship left their fate unresolved. As people around the world watched the brutal repression of Palestinian resistance movements, “Zionism” became equated with Israel’s policies of destruction and annihilation.
As ideology, “Zionism” could not save Israel from the need to choose between democracy and ethnic supremacy. And though Western political elites cynically accepted Israel’s claims to being a Jewish democracy, the general public did not. When it became clear that the majority of Israeli Jews preferred an ethnic state to a democratic one, Israel’s legitimacy came into question (see El Fassed and Perry 2003). Zionism’s international reappraisal was triggered by the challenging power of the Palestinian narrative. This narrative influenced Jewish Israeli dissidents to become “post-Zionist.” With time, however, the older term “anti-Zionist” replaced “post-Zionist” as Jews realized that reconciliation required the redistribution of resources, land, and privileges (see Pappé 2014, 126–53).
In response, the Israeli academic, political, and military establishment reacted by becoming “neo-Zionists.” Deserting attempts to reconcile democratic values with Jewish ethnicity, they declared their wish to maintain a racist ethnic state in historical Palestine (Pappé 2014). Despite this development, and despite the famous UN resolution of 1975, Western political elites still refuse to accept that Zionism is racism. Moreover, efforts to associate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism have gained some traction. However, this trend is changing, and many Jews now view Zionism as an unacceptable political position and question its equation with Judaism.
See also: Colonialism; History; Ideology; Nation; Occupation
49. For late-twentieth-century theorists like Edward Said and Robert Young, Arnold was a dubious thinker who popularized supremacist ideas through catchphrases and metaphors (Dawson and Pfordresher 2013, 324).