<THE YISHUV IN EREZ ISRAEL.
[since 1919: Zionists are now
dominant in Jewish settlements in Palestine because of war experience]
The impetus of Zionist successes brought the quick reorganization of
Jews in Erez Israel, under patterns suggested by Zionism, in the
Keneset Yisrael all-country structure, through the *Va'ad Le'ummi, and
the Chief Rabbinate, which had as its first head the leading spiritual
personality of Abraham Isaac *Kook.
Circles of the "old
yishuv"
opposed this development and refused to participate in the common
organization, basing their argument partly on their opposition to
voting rights for women. They appealed to the *League of Nations and
obtained the right of secession. They were supported by the Agudat
Israel. Though unpleasant, their secession and opposition could not
hinder Zionist and
yishuv
activity in Erez Israel.
Life and development in Erez Israel between the two world wars were
influenced by and decided through a number of processes and events.
Arab national opposition within the country to the Jews and their
enterprise hardened with every success attained by other Arab countries
to achieve independence or to approach it, and with every success
attained by Jewish settlement and society in Erez Israel.
[[And since that time all books only speak of the Zionists in
Palestine, and the non-Zionists which want peace and no Jewish state
are never mentioned]].
[Arab resistance against racist
Herzl Zionists - British "diplomacy"]
In a series of violent and cruel outbursts in the years (col. 757)
1921, 1929, 1933, and 1936-38, the Arabs tried to break Jewish morale
and enterprise. The 1921 excesses achieved for them the Churchill
*White Paper (1922), which gave a restrictive definition for the
concept of the Jewish National Home, after the closure of Transjordan
to Jewish settlement through the creation of a separate Arab emirate
(later kingdom), there.
Later outbursts brought in their wake commissions of inquiry, and
diplomatic activity which in one way or another brought proposals of
concessions to the Arab cause.
The history of relationships in the triangle between the Jews, Arabs,
and British authorities in Erez Israel is a long succession of flat
Arab no's to a series of compromises loaded heavily in their favor. It
is also a chapter in the history of colonial British officials the
majority of whom were drawn to the romantic Arab against the ordinary
European Jew.
Jewish immigration to Erez Israel was limited by various criteria and
formalities; Jewish land acquisition was hindered in many ways. Only a
minority of the British officials, and only in a limited number of
cases and actions, did fulfill the mandatory power's obligation of
furthering the "Jewish National Home".
[[Supplement: Jewish and Arab
intentions for a "National Home" - coward British policy
But also the Arabs want a "National Home". So the Zionists are stuck in
the Herzl idea against the Arabs and with First Mose chapter 15, phrase
18 (Great Israel with the borderline at the Euphrates). And the British
are coward and are never leading the conflict into a solution though a
big part of the Jews is
non-Zionist at this time and
the opportunity for a Jewish province within a big confederation would
be good, but not a Zionist Jewish state with imperial intentions]].
[Jewry in Palestine is split:
Orthodox - secularists]
Jews were divided among themselves as to the best ways of furthering
their enterprise. In the dispute between Weizmann and Judge Louis D.
*Brandeis there came to the fore the question of reference for
individual initiative on accepted economic lines or preference for
national and collectivist enterprises, sound from a social and
ideological viewpoint more than an economic one, which began to occupy
Zionist attention from the time of this quarrel.
Religious *Mizrachi circles complained about the secular and often
anti-religious character of many of the settlers and settlements. The
educational system set up by the new
yishuv
was divided between two networks:
a modern Orthodox one and a "general" one with secularist leanings.
The ultra-Orthodox circles maintained a network of their own. The
readiness of Jews to come to Erez Israel was often dependent on the
political climate in the Diaspora. Thus the (col. 758)
great immigration of Jews from Poland in the mid-1920s was nicknamed
the "Grabski
aliyah" after
the Polish finance minister who through his discriminatory taxation
policy influenced many to make
aliyah.
[1920-1939: Jewish colonization
settlements and industrialization in Palestine]
Despite these hindrances and vacillations, progress continued unbroken
throughout the period. The number of Jews in Erez Israel grew in the
1920s about threefold, reaching 160,000. At the end of this decade
there were 110 agricultural settlements (against 50 in 1920),
cultivating 700,000 dunams of land. The electrification project of
Rutenberg progressed, and the Potash Company successfully exploited the
resources of the Dead Sea. The Plain of Jezreel became Jewish;
irrigation for Jewish agriculture was swiftly developed. The new forms
of the kibbutz and moshav proved themselves viable and were much
admired by Jewish and general public opinion.
[[Partly the land was won by drying marshes or cultivating the desert.
The Arabs had nothing to say and were never integrated in the work]].
In 1925 the first secular Jewish university was founded, the *Hebrew
University of Jerusalem.
[[The name "
Hebrew
University" is a war declaration against the Arabs]].
This progress continued in the 1930s, accelerated by the needs and
plight of German Jewry. In 1933 there were one quarter of a million
Jews in Erez Israel, and by 1939 half a million, 120,000 of whom lived
in 252 agricultural settlements. These included 68 kibbutzim and 71
moshavim. Mixed agriculture became the main basis of the Jewish
settlements' economy, freeing them from dependence on one source of
income only, though citrus plantations were very successful. The
skills, abilities, and money of German Jews did much to develop
industry and advance technology.
[[Hitler let the German Jews go to Palestine 1933-1939, and German Jews
could establish industry and technology, but at the end Palestine
should be occupied by NS forces after 1941, and all the work should
fall into NS hands]].
[Jewish overnight settlements
against the Arabs - and illegal immigration]
Even the Arab revolt and frequent attacks on Jewish settlements and
traffic on the road did not succeed in halting progress. The method of
"*tower and stockade" (
homah u-migdal)
was invented to erect,
overnight
settlements capable of defense. Fifty-five new settlements were
founded between 1936 and 1939. World War II found the Jewish settlement
in Erez Israel strong, active, and alert socially and economically. By
1939 many were embittered against the mandatory government which
prevented Jews, then in mortal danger in Europe, from reaching haven in
Erez Israel.
[[But also in Palestine Jews are in mortal danger. So the Jews were
lured from one trap to the next trap, and Israel was not at all a safe
haven because of the Zionist Herzl policy against any Arab, and racist
Herzl is not prohibited...]]
As other states had already raised barriers in the 1920s against
immigration (e.g., the quota of 1924 in the United States whose terms
prevented the entry of many Jews there), Erez Israel was at that time
the only society willing and eager to receive them, but for the refusal
of the British. Jews developed a network of
"*illegal" immigration which
smuggled tens of thousands of Jews into the country. Measures taken by
the mandatory authorities to suppress this immigration caused further
clashes.
[Jewish Zionist defense system
against the Arabs]
The defense system, strategy, and tactics of the Jews in Erez Israel
were based from 1921 on the underground mass organization of the
Haganah. It had to develop its training and arms supplies
clandestinely. Up to 1945 strategically always on the defensive against
the Arabs, it had to develop under pressure of attack new tactics to
respond to different challenges.
In the meantime there were differences of opinion over the share of
various social circles in the leadership of the Haganah, expressed
mainly in terms of right-wing and left-wing, different policies as to
the methods and timing of reaction to individual acts of terror, and
from the late 1930s also differences over the question if and to what
degree to oppose by armed force the British anti-Zionist legislation
and measures.
[Right wing Jewish Zionist
guerrilla
groups: "Irgun Bet", "Irgun Zeva'i Le'ummi" - "Lohamei Herut Israel"]
These led to splits in the Jewish forces. A group of the minority right
wing advocating an activist response to Arab terrorization formed a
separate armed underground, generally named the "Irgun Bet" in the
1930s. In 1937, after two splits, the *Irgun Zeva'i Le'ummi (I.Z.L.)
emerged and, in 1940, the *Lohamei Herut Israel (Lehi). From many
aspects these were more extreme developments of the former right-wing
"Irgun Bet". (col. 759)
[Rights wing Jewish Zionist
Haganah army
against Arabs - and then in the British army in World War II -
militarism and "the new Jewish society" in Palestine - admiration for
militarism: Maccabees, uprising against the Romans etc.]
The Haganah attempted with considerable success to form legal Jewish
militia and defense units in cooperation with the mandatory government.
In the personality of Orde Charles *Wingate it found a devoted British
officer who identified himself with the Jewish cause. On the eve of
World War II a large number of the Jewish youth in Erez Israel were
organized one way or another for defense, and ready to serve. They
supplied the volunteers for the various Jewish units, and later on the
*Jewish Brigade Group in the British army of World War II was formed.
In this unit, in turn, many who were later to be commanders of the
Israel Defense Forces gained experience of large-scale training and
operations. In the *Palmah, the Haganah created a striking force of
youth trained in commando style who through close links with social
life in the kibbutzim were emotionally and ideologically devoted to the
new Jewish society.
Consciously and subconsciously all these various military and
para-military organizations and units drew their inspiration from the
conviction, crystallized in Russia at the time of the pogroms, that
human stature demanded active armed defense by the Jews of their honor
and their life. They were also inspired by historical memories revived
on the soil of Erez Israel: the acts of the Maccabees, the example of
the great revolt against the Romans (66-70), and the deeply implanted
readiness for
kiddush-ha-Shem,
which had already assumed a secularist form in sacrifice for an ideal
in the activities of Jewish revolutionaries in Europe from the second
half of the 19th century.> (col. 760)
[[So the racist Herzl Zionism is tearing all Jews in Palestine into a
militarism spirit against the Arabs. Life together with the Arabs is
not foreseen. That's the trap: eternal war against Arabs. And rich
Zionist groups in "USA" are financing it. A discussion about a middle
course seems never have been organized...]]
Sources
|
Encyclopaedia Judaica 1971: History, vol. 8, col. 757-758
|
Encyclopaedia Judaica 1971: History, vol. 8, col. 759-760
|
