• Drop Bear
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    05 months ago

    @aasatru
    I’ve read that Jewish Zionism takes many forms. Among them, that Zion is wherever Jews are.

    Complicating that is that Jewish Zionism springs from Christian Zionism. That’s a Protestant reinterpretation of scripture dating from the turn of the 17th century.

    Jews didn’t start using the term ‘Zionism’ in relation to themselves until the late 19th century. Herzl adopted (or perhaps developed) the Jewish master race interpretation. Other groups evidently took different paths.

    Originally, Palestine wasn’t part of the plan. Locations around the world were considered. Somebody (probably Herzl) realised that they could leverage the historical connection to Palestine. It also plays into the Christian rapture/second coming narrative, which was significant in the British involvement. The image is from the link that I posted earlier.
    #Palestine
    #Israel
    #colonialism
    #imperialism

    • aasatru
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      14 months ago

      That’s incredibly fascinating - I had never heard of Christian Zionism before (though I’m obviously familiar with evangelical Christians in the US and their ideas about a Jewish state). It appears the term Chirstian Zionism first appeared in the mid-20th century, though the idea is older than that:

      The term began to be used in the mid-20th century, in place of Christian restorationism, as proponents of the ideology rallied behind Zionists in support of a Jewish national homeland.

      Advocacy on the part of Christians for a Jewish restoration grew after the Protestant Reformation, and is rooted in 17th-century English Puritanism. Contemporary Israeli historian Anita Shapira suggests that England’s Zionist Evangelical Protestants “passed this notion on to Jewish circles” around the 1840s, while Jewish nationalism in the early 19th century was largely met with hostility from British Jews. (Wikipedia)

      I like the idea that Zion i wherever Jews live/are at home. As far as I’m concerned, fighting anti-semitism and fighting Israel’s version of Zionism is two sides of the same battle.

      • Drop Bear
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        4 months ago

        It’s a tangled web @aasatru
        The roots run deep. 🤔 To mix metaphors.

        I haven’t actually read Herzl, but he reportedly wasn’t at all religious. He exploited what suited his ends. Part of his solution was that Jews would convert to Christianity. That’s probably his exploitation of the Christian mythology.

        Herzl recognised that Palestine is too small to hold all of the world’s Jews. The ones that wouldn’t fit, he saw as dying out. His solution for the existing population of Palestine was evidently similarly brutal (in practice, if not in expressed theory).

        Israeli Zionism is running true to form.
        #Palestine
        #Israel
        #colonialism
        #zionism