Comment by TheOtherHobbes
2 years ago
No one threw the Jews into Israel. The Balfour Declaration was the result of decades of Zionist lobbying.
Zionism is a very complex topic, and some elements seem quite murky.
But I certainly agree with your final point. Ignoring the religious angle, in terms of political dynamics this seems to be a fairly straightforward case of extremist nationalism.
> No one threw the Jews into Israel. The Balfour Declaration was the result of decades of Zionist lobbying.
I mean, the explicit goal post WW1 was to cut up the Ottoman Empire (which inevitably would divide the Muslim world, as the Ottomans were the major Muslim empire). The Jewish/Zionist cause is a useful means to that end. No better way to cut-up that region by offering it to Israel / a different religious group who had publicly lobbied for a place there.
I'd more rather blame 1917 / WW1 politics for this than the Jewish people per se. Cutting up and humiliating the Central Powers post-defeat was just one of the World War 1 issues.
Its Britain who signed it after all, and we all know what Britain wanted post WW1. (And one can argue that Britain treated the former-Ottomans with more respect than some other Central Powers...)
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I can imagine a parallel universe where Britain would cut up the Ottoman Empire differently without creating a Jewish land / start of Israel in years following WW1. But in most concievable alternative-histories I can think of, the four central powers / empires would be dissolved and otherwise cut up into tiny pieces and scattered into the winds in a humiliating defeat.