Said was cribbing heavily from a 1947 essay by King Hussein of Jordan: http://www.kinghussein.gov.jo/kabd_eng.html Something else rarely touched upon in these discussions is the fact that Israel exists because of anti-semitism in Europe, not because of anything to do with Palestine. If Jews were welcome as members of the community while Europe was swept up in nationalism rather than persecuted as outsiders, the Zionist movement would never have been born and if the post-war aftermath had been less of a clusterfuck, Palestine would likely be a vassal state of Syria with an endemic population of Jewish terrorists. Israel's early history is much less varnished than most people think: "If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti - Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault ? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?" David Ben Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp121. The reason no one has been able to boil Israel down to a simple solution is that when you look at the 10,000 foot view, it's an ugly problem. A group that felt justifiably persecuted in Europe victimized another group that felt justifiably persecuted by Europe with the complacence of Europe because NIMBYism. And now we're persuaded by the "ancestral homeland" trope because we put Navajos and Aborigines on reservations, too, and this way we don't have to confront that.
If Jews were welcome as members of the community while Europe was swept up in nationalism rather than persecuted as outsiders, the Zionist movement would never have been born
You don't think that the pull of the "holy lands" wouldn't have held sway without persecution? I think the zionist movement could have still existed, it just couldn't have garnered the support it received. As I mentioned in a comment last week, Israel is lucky that we have strategic interest in their success. If the US were energy independent, I couldn't see our govt and our people giving two squats about this never-ending feud. My sense is that the average american is tired of the "mid-east" in general and has no dog in this fight.
There's two perspectives I can give you: that of Dore Gold (former UN ambassador from Israel), published in his Regnery Press book "The Battle for Jerusalem" and Reza Aslan's, published in his Random House book "How To Win A Cosmic War." Dore Gold's perspective is that a return to Israel is so inherent in Jewish culture that even if it took another two thousand years, Judaism would eventually return to the Holy Land. Reza Aslan's perspective is that due to Europe's transition from aligning by region to aligning by nation, the nationless peoples of Europe were going to be wiped out if they stuck around and Palestine was not only one of the best places for Zionists to make a claim, the whole region was decades behind the nationalism of Europe and in shambles from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The Zionist movement didn't have a lot of support if I understand the politics correctly. Indeed, early operations by Zionists within Palestine were recognized as terrorism. However, Israel ended up winning a lot, and as most of them were educated Jews from Europe as opposed to West Bank villagers that were illiterate, likely as not, they ended up making it stick. "Average Americans" are tricky. The entire eschatological movement requires some very specific and very peculiar things to happen in a Jewish Israel in order for baby Jesus to come back. The intelligence arm of the government is wholly dependent on Israel for HUMINT. The entertainment and banking industries really and truly do tend to run more Jewish than, say, professional sports AND we're just now getting to the point where Islamic America is starting to have a shy, quavering voice. Like I said, it's an ugly problem.
Thanks for posting. "thank god for the Internet"