Comment by weatherlite
1 year ago
When you mentioned rapid demographic shift, I was assuming you meant the Jewish immigration in the early 20th century that brought bigger numbers of Jews into Palestine and the beginning of the Palestinian rejection of Zionism. There is a popular view that this (or basically Zionism altogether) should have never been allowed to take place because it eventually led to Palestinian displacement.
The early immigration certainly caused issues between two groups and I do think that the decision to support the zionists of the time was incorrect. For many, the purpose seems to have been to reduce their own Jewish populations.
While still a cause of tension, immigration was much lower before the war. The result was just as you said, European Jews were faced with an existential threat a few years after the holocaust.
One of the things I found quite interesting was that Palestine wasn't the only option considered by early Zionists. At some point places like Argentina and Uganda were potential candidates.
> For many, the purpose seems to have been to reduce their own Jewish populations.
I'm not really aware of much European support for Zionism outside the Balfour declaration in those years. The declaration remained a declaration and pretty soon the Brits flipped their policy and banned Jewish immigration. You had tiny movements of Christians Zionists (Churchill was a Zionist for instance) but I'm not aware of any substantial support they gave. After the war the big immigration waves were actually from Middle Eastern Jews, not from Europe. Jews from Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, Syria etc etc whose lives became increasingly dangerous. So my main point is its quite unclear if there was any major support for Zionism in the West in those years. Only after the holocaust could you find a majority that supported establishing Israel in the UN.
If you want to dig into this look into where Israel got its weapons from during its war of survival in 48: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_shipments_from_Czechoslov.... From the communists.