Geopolitical Genesis and Prospect of Zionism

Abstract

Zionists take for granted and teach three central tenets: (1) the Jews invented Zionism, (2) the Jews are a Semitic people, and (3) the State of Israel should and will remain an exclusively Jewish state. This paper takes issue with the first claim and raises critical questions about the others. First, the paper presents Zionism and the Jewish Question as geopolitical children of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation conflict in Europe and the Euro-Arab/WesternIslamic colonial encounter. Second, it traces the non-Jewish origins of Zionism to Puritan England, the English-Dutch commercial wars, and Napoleon’s attempt to estrange the Jews from their European and Ottoman rulers in his plans to destroy England and Russia and dominate Europe. Third, it shows how the British articulated a set of imperialist imperatives and religious motives designed to make the Eastern Question fit the Jewish Question. Fourth, it examines the emergence of the Jewish Question in Russia in light of successive partitions of Poland and the interference of British Zionism in Eastern Europe. Fifth, it discusses the role of the Jewish Colonization Association in shuffling capital and labor between Europe, Russia, the Americas, and the Middle East. The paper concludes with some remarks on the overall prospect of Zionism in light of new perspectives about the non-Jewish genesis of Zionism, the non-Semitic origins of contemporary Jews, and the non-Zionist future of Palestine/Israel.