Marc39
Rookie
- Jun 19, 2009
- 10,018
- 204
- 0
- Banned
- #41
"Zionism and Land - Several misconceptions about Zionism and land exist. The first is that Zionism did not particularly aim to settle the 'Holy Land' (Palestine) and that Zionists were willing to settle in places such as East Africa and Cyprus.
"The latter were considered for a time as temporary asylums in order to alleviate the suffering of Russian Jews, but they were never accepted as end goals for settlement by the Zionist movement...
"...Another myth is that Zionism aspires to extend the borders of Israel throughout the Middle East.
"Zionists certainly wanted the largest possible territory for the Jewish state, but the main goal was always to have a national home for the Jewish people within the ancient territory of Israel and Judea, and the Zionist movement accepted partition of the British mandate in 1922, a tiny truncated state offered in 1937 and the UN partition resolution of 1947.
"A peculiar claim of anti-Zionists offered as 'proof' of 'Zionist expansionism' is the claim that Israel is the only country whose constitution does not define its borders.
"Israel does not have a constitution, and many or most constitutions do not define the borders of the state, as for example the United States constitution.
"The Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel does not declare its borders, but neither does the United States declaration of Independence.
"After Israel conquered the West Bank in 1967, religious Zionists and the Greater Israel movement tried to claim that settlement of the newly conquered lands in what the Jordanians called the West Bank since 1945, and what was historically part of Judea and Samaria, was a central goal of Zionism.
"But the fact is that even when there was an opportunity for free purchase of land and settlement in the 1920s and 1930s, the Zionist movement did not purchase much land in those areas.
"Of the territories taken by Israel in 1967, only Jerusalem and perhaps Hebron have real national symbolic significance."
Zionism and...
Israel: 8,000 square feet, about the size of Vermont, 0.1% of the Middle East.
30 Arabs countries: 8,000,000 square feet, twice the size of the US, 99.9% of the Middle East.