An introductory essay to a series on Zionism's five main ideological currents and their legacy for modern debates on belonging, migration and estrangement.
1. The Second Temple. You referred to Persian encouragement. Are you referring to Cyrus the Great’s liberation of the Jews from the Babylonians?
2. What current does the government of Bibi Netanyahu represent?
3. You wrote that Herzel used Zionism as a lever to obtain colonial Europe’s assent to a Jewish homeland? What did you mean by that? One could think of two interpretations:
3.1. To get rid of the Jews in Europe by encouraging their “emigration”
3.2. To use the Jews of Europe as permanent outposts of Europe on Muslim land?
3.3. Could one attempt to frame the current crisis in Palestine as the latest episode of the Crusades?
I am quite interested in more deeply understanding the issues here.
My final thought is that, although I support Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign nation-state, I fear that the two-state solution will not work. Over a few decades, the two peoples occupying Palestine-Israel will be forced to cohabitate and be one state with two nations. A forced conjoint twins. A deformed political entity but inevitable by the forces of history. Belgium is a more pleasant face (the Walloons and the Flemish nations).
In the end, neither Jews nor Palestinians can vanquish each other, and the ferocious reaction of the Israeli state in Qazza will debase the Jewish holocaust and “engender” a Palestinian one!
With apologies to anyone who might object to my views but as a human being, I can only make sense of this living Hello for both nations through my own read of history and the formation of holy national narratives.
1. Yes, I will go deeper into this when I do an article specifically on Iranian-Israeli relations.
2. Revisionist Zionism with a strong touch of Political Zionism. Jabotinsky is the primary ideologue of Revisionist Zionism and Netanyahu's father Benzion Mileikowsky was a close aid of his. This is a multipart series and I will cover Jabotinsky in detail soon, he is by far the most fascinating (and honest) of the early Zionists.
3.1 More precisely: to divert as much as possible the westward flow of "radical" Jews from the Pale of Settlement towards Palestine. Churchill's 1920 article on Zionism can certainly be read this way.
3.2 I've just been writing on this today--Yes. Britain had just grabbed the Suez canal and they certainly saw the Jews as useful outposts in Palestine--who could be used as a justification for an intervention. The Sublime Porte was well aware of this danger and forbid Jewish settlement in Palestine while allowing it throughout the rest of the Empire under certain conditions.
3.3 One could frame the various five Aliyah's as analogous to the nine crusades. They can be compared and contrasted but not necessarily equated. The Kingdom of Jerusalem lasted a little under 200 years, we'll see if Israel can last that long.
I think your views on the "two-state" solution are well grounded. I have no answers, but by exploring the history one can learn much about the human condition, as tragic as it is.
Kevin, It has been years since someone used the term "Sublime Porte", the name given to Istanbul by European foreign establishments. I am quite impressed, though your command of foreign affairs, for a non-academic, is quite intriguing.
The notion of a state's "right to exist" is a problematic concept in international relations. It implies the presence of a higher terrestrial authority capable of bestowing and guaranteeing such a right—an authority which plainly does not exist. History is a graveyard of political entities—the Hapsburg Empire, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia—whose "right to exist" was ultimately voided by the realities of power. The international system remains fundamentally anarchic, a Darwinian arena where, in the end, strength prevails and weakness is exploited. While diplomatic recognition and UN membership confer legitimacy, they offer no ironclad guarantee of survival. A state's continued existence rests not on a perceived right, but on its capacity to defend itself and navigate the relentless currents of geopolitical interest.
Kevin, you are right. However, one has to make an allowance for the distinction between "nation" and synthetic countries, which collapsed under the weight of their contradictions--They were drawn on a napkin (Sykes Picot) or by a commissar (the Soviet Union. I remember when I worked in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, there was an Uzbek "enclave" in Kyriqizistan!), as well as those made and bolted together after the collapse of African and Asian colonial empires (India/Pakistan/Bangladesh)
You raise a crucial point about state viability being contingent on the legitimacy and stability of its borders. This is precisely where the case of Israel becomes so analytically stark. The term "Israel" itself lacks a fixed geographic meaning. The closest thing to an international consensus points to the 1967 borders, yet this is contested from all sides: by those who reject the state's existence entirely, and by those who envision a "Greater Israel" stretching deep into Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Iraq and beyond.
In practice, Israel's borders remain violently fluid. It has annexed the Golan Heights, threatens formal annexation of parts of the West Bank, and conducts military operations in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria. This expansionism, while often framed as a necessity of security, in fact generates the very conditions of its own insecurity. My hypothesis is that Israel's long-term survival depends on its ability to settle into a territorially viable and politically recognized form. Each new territorial extension inflames the security dilemma, risking a catastrophic consolidation of its neighbours and adversaries against it. And remember, one day in a decade or two it will be China running the world, not the US.
Its current doctrine of "sequencing" threats—managing conflicts on multiple fronts through overwhelming and preemptive force—is a masterclass in operational art. But brilliant operations are not a substitute for grand strategy. This approach functions only until the moment it doesn't; it is a perpetual motion machine of conflict that postpones, but cannot eliminate, an eventual existential reckoning.
Dear Kevin,
Three questions:
1. The Second Temple. You referred to Persian encouragement. Are you referring to Cyrus the Great’s liberation of the Jews from the Babylonians?
2. What current does the government of Bibi Netanyahu represent?
3. You wrote that Herzel used Zionism as a lever to obtain colonial Europe’s assent to a Jewish homeland? What did you mean by that? One could think of two interpretations:
3.1. To get rid of the Jews in Europe by encouraging their “emigration”
3.2. To use the Jews of Europe as permanent outposts of Europe on Muslim land?
3.3. Could one attempt to frame the current crisis in Palestine as the latest episode of the Crusades?
I am quite interested in more deeply understanding the issues here.
My final thought is that, although I support Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign nation-state, I fear that the two-state solution will not work. Over a few decades, the two peoples occupying Palestine-Israel will be forced to cohabitate and be one state with two nations. A forced conjoint twins. A deformed political entity but inevitable by the forces of history. Belgium is a more pleasant face (the Walloons and the Flemish nations).
In the end, neither Jews nor Palestinians can vanquish each other, and the ferocious reaction of the Israeli state in Qazza will debase the Jewish holocaust and “engender” a Palestinian one!
With apologies to anyone who might object to my views but as a human being, I can only make sense of this living Hello for both nations through my own read of history and the formation of holy national narratives.
Hi Nicholas, answers below:
1. Yes, I will go deeper into this when I do an article specifically on Iranian-Israeli relations.
2. Revisionist Zionism with a strong touch of Political Zionism. Jabotinsky is the primary ideologue of Revisionist Zionism and Netanyahu's father Benzion Mileikowsky was a close aid of his. This is a multipart series and I will cover Jabotinsky in detail soon, he is by far the most fascinating (and honest) of the early Zionists.
3.1 More precisely: to divert as much as possible the westward flow of "radical" Jews from the Pale of Settlement towards Palestine. Churchill's 1920 article on Zionism can certainly be read this way.
3.2 I've just been writing on this today--Yes. Britain had just grabbed the Suez canal and they certainly saw the Jews as useful outposts in Palestine--who could be used as a justification for an intervention. The Sublime Porte was well aware of this danger and forbid Jewish settlement in Palestine while allowing it throughout the rest of the Empire under certain conditions.
3.3 One could frame the various five Aliyah's as analogous to the nine crusades. They can be compared and contrasted but not necessarily equated. The Kingdom of Jerusalem lasted a little under 200 years, we'll see if Israel can last that long.
I think your views on the "two-state" solution are well grounded. I have no answers, but by exploring the history one can learn much about the human condition, as tragic as it is.
Kevin, It has been years since someone used the term "Sublime Porte", the name given to Istanbul by European foreign establishments. I am quite impressed, though your command of foreign affairs, for a non-academic, is quite intriguing.
Thanks, I love that term and so that's why I remember it and use it!!
Wish you my continued best wishes
The notion of a state's "right to exist" is a problematic concept in international relations. It implies the presence of a higher terrestrial authority capable of bestowing and guaranteeing such a right—an authority which plainly does not exist. History is a graveyard of political entities—the Hapsburg Empire, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia—whose "right to exist" was ultimately voided by the realities of power. The international system remains fundamentally anarchic, a Darwinian arena where, in the end, strength prevails and weakness is exploited. While diplomatic recognition and UN membership confer legitimacy, they offer no ironclad guarantee of survival. A state's continued existence rests not on a perceived right, but on its capacity to defend itself and navigate the relentless currents of geopolitical interest.
Kevin, you are right. However, one has to make an allowance for the distinction between "nation" and synthetic countries, which collapsed under the weight of their contradictions--They were drawn on a napkin (Sykes Picot) or by a commissar (the Soviet Union. I remember when I worked in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, there was an Uzbek "enclave" in Kyriqizistan!), as well as those made and bolted together after the collapse of African and Asian colonial empires (India/Pakistan/Bangladesh)
1. The Soviet Union
2. The Yugoslav federation
3. The Kongo
4. Czechoslovakia
You raise a crucial point about state viability being contingent on the legitimacy and stability of its borders. This is precisely where the case of Israel becomes so analytically stark. The term "Israel" itself lacks a fixed geographic meaning. The closest thing to an international consensus points to the 1967 borders, yet this is contested from all sides: by those who reject the state's existence entirely, and by those who envision a "Greater Israel" stretching deep into Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Iraq and beyond.
In practice, Israel's borders remain violently fluid. It has annexed the Golan Heights, threatens formal annexation of parts of the West Bank, and conducts military operations in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria. This expansionism, while often framed as a necessity of security, in fact generates the very conditions of its own insecurity. My hypothesis is that Israel's long-term survival depends on its ability to settle into a territorially viable and politically recognized form. Each new territorial extension inflames the security dilemma, risking a catastrophic consolidation of its neighbours and adversaries against it. And remember, one day in a decade or two it will be China running the world, not the US.
Its current doctrine of "sequencing" threats—managing conflicts on multiple fronts through overwhelming and preemptive force—is a masterclass in operational art. But brilliant operations are not a substitute for grand strategy. This approach functions only until the moment it doesn't; it is a perpetual motion machine of conflict that postpones, but cannot eliminate, an eventual existential reckoning.