Mainstream Zionism was controversial precisely because Palestine was basically always the goal, which many secular Jews who dominated discussion in the European diaspora did not find appealing.
Israel was created because the British Empire in WW1 felt their domestic support was flagging, and needed to ‘shore up’ war fervor by appealing to the Jewish minority that had been left ‘untapped’, so to speak, by prior efforts. By painting themselves as a ‘defender’ of a ‘Jewish homeland’, they could argue to the British Jewish minority that the Entente was the alliance of great powers ‘on the side of’ Jews, unlike the dastardly CENTRAL POWERS (and, to be fair, the Central Powers did have a somewhat greater antisemitism problem than France and Britain did).
Not only that, but they were already planning for the post-war situation - carving up the Ottoman Empire could not be done entirely directly, as international norms had shifted away from normalizing direct colonies - ‘mandates’ for eventually independent states were the norm in this case. A Pan-Arab polity, a dream of many at the time, would have been a major power which Britain would then need to ‘compete’ with on the international stage. So what is one to do? Support a vulnerable minority regime with a history of being unfairly persecuted (all great PR points for when you need to ‘justify’ it to your own population) right in the most inconvenient place for a Pan-Arab polity - where Egypt and North Africa connect to the rest of the Middle East. This, the British estimated, would also get them a convenient ally (as Israel, in this thinking, would be dependent on British aid) which would help them retain control of the Suez Canal in Egypt if things started to get dicey there.
They also used this strategy when creating Syria (filled with ethnic minorities) and Iraq (split by religious lines) in the hopes of never having to deal with the pan-Arab polity they pinky-promised the Arab Revolt would TOTALLY be able to establish if they helped the Brits against the Ottoman Empire in WW1.
The post-WW2 establishment of Israel was little more than de jure recognizing what had de facto become the case by ~25 years of Jewish immigration - there was a large Jewish population in Palestine, and they didn’t get along with the Palestinians.
Mainstream Zionism was controversial precisely because Palestine was basically always the goal, which many secular Jews who dominated discussion in the European diaspora did not find appealing.
Israel was created because the British Empire in WW1 felt their domestic support was flagging, and needed to ‘shore up’ war fervor by appealing to the Jewish minority that had been left ‘untapped’, so to speak, by prior efforts. By painting themselves as a ‘defender’ of a ‘Jewish homeland’, they could argue to the British Jewish minority that the Entente was the alliance of great powers ‘on the side of’ Jews, unlike the dastardly CENTRAL POWERS (and, to be fair, the Central Powers did have a somewhat greater antisemitism problem than France and Britain did).
Not only that, but they were already planning for the post-war situation - carving up the Ottoman Empire could not be done entirely directly, as international norms had shifted away from normalizing direct colonies - ‘mandates’ for eventually independent states were the norm in this case. A Pan-Arab polity, a dream of many at the time, would have been a major power which Britain would then need to ‘compete’ with on the international stage. So what is one to do? Support a vulnerable minority regime with a history of being unfairly persecuted (all great PR points for when you need to ‘justify’ it to your own population) right in the most inconvenient place for a Pan-Arab polity - where Egypt and North Africa connect to the rest of the Middle East. This, the British estimated, would also get them a convenient ally (as Israel, in this thinking, would be dependent on British aid) which would help them retain control of the Suez Canal in Egypt if things started to get dicey there.
They also used this strategy when creating Syria (filled with ethnic minorities) and Iraq (split by religious lines) in the hopes of never having to deal with the pan-Arab polity they pinky-promised the Arab Revolt would TOTALLY be able to establish if they helped the Brits against the Ottoman Empire in WW1.
The post-WW2 establishment of Israel was little more than de jure recognizing what had de facto become the case by ~25 years of Jewish immigration - there was a large Jewish population in Palestine, and they didn’t get along with the Palestinians.
yes wwi, but that’s not why.
it’s documented that they wanted to fulfill Revelations.