It must be wonderful to never make mistakes about history. If only we could all be so brilliant and mistake-free as you! Thank you for deigning to share your incredible wisdom with us ignorant rubes, over and over again, and thank you for continually pointing out our inferiority. Such wisdom certainly goes a long way in building common understanding! 
That’s over simplification. Jews didn’t go to Palestine solely because they were totally desperate and had no other reasonably safe place to go. And in fact, Palestine wasn’t even safe, as history would demonstrate in quick order. They went there, in not insignificant part, because they believed in Zionism. And similarly many European Jews, who had gone through the exact same events, elected not to go to Palestine, not just because they couldn’t or because it was super safe where they were, but because they were antizionists (or at least didn’t buy into the Zionist ideals).
That desperation was the driver of Zionism – Zionism had been growing for decades because of the continual oppression and pogroms against the Jews of Europe.
Of course it wasn’t safe – there were no options that they could have reasonably believed would be safe. The Jews had literally nowhere to go that they could have reasonably believed would have provided a safe home. So they (those that chose to go to the land that would become Israel) made a home.
My grandparents didn’t escape Europe and go to Canada because they were anti-Zionists – it was because that was the least-dangerous option by their judgment. Philosophy was much less a part of these decisions than pragmatism about survival, IMO and experience.
asahi:
No, attacks on Israel are thought of as attacks on Jews because Israel gets criticized for things that other countries get a pass for, and for doing such things in a much harsher manner than Israel has. And the only logical reason for that is anti-Semitism.
clairobscur:
Not if you have any knowledge of history you can’t. Remind me, which set of residents of Mandatory Palestine accepted the UN partition plan, and which set rejected it? Which country gives full civil rights to non-members of the majority religion in their country? And seriously, “brown people”? Arabs as “brown people” has been a modern narrative, but skin-color-wise, Arabs are well within the “white” range and were certainly thought as such back in the early days of Zionism.
You wrote the following :
That makes appears that the only or at leat main motivation for Jews to emigrate to Palestine after WW2 was desperation and search for safety.
Your grandparents notwithstanding, you’ll probably agree that there were people who had, before, during and after the war, strongly held ideological views, and that the subject of Zionism wasn’t one that left politically active Jews indifferent. I’m not saying that most Jews decided what to do on the basis of their political views. But it definitely played a part in the decisions of part of them. Jewish survivors who wouldn’t have moved to Palestine out of opposition to the Zionist ideals existed. The last survivor of the Warsaw ghetto insurrection was famously one of them (and he wasn’t unique or exceptional in this regard).
But anyway, let’s look at those who did decide to go to Palestine after the end of WW2 rather than those who didn’t. You present them as desperate people in search of a safe haven. But immigrating to Palestine wasn’t in any way easy during this period. It’s not like you could just go to Palestine if you had failed to find another place to live. And as you agree, the situation there was explosive , and there’s no way it could be deemed “safe”. Certainly less so than Canada. People had to expect that they might need to pick up a gun and fight for the land. I can’t believe that Zionist ideology wasn’t a significant factor in making such a choice despite the difficulty and despite the risks for many of them.
I’m not disagreeing with this, I’m saying that Zionism was driven by desperation and the need for a safe place for Jews, even if they had to create it with blood and sweat. There were no “easy” or “safe” options – even going to Canada. Most had no reason to believe that Canada (or the US), which each had long histories of bigotry and brutality, would be welcoming and safe for them in the long term. So yes, Zionism was intimately tied to the creation of Israel, and that Zionism was largely driven by desperation and the lack of any reasonable safe places for Jews to live.
What does this has to do with what I said, namely the colonial nature of the original Zionist movement? What were people who weren’t born in Palestine doing there at this time so that there even was a need for a partition plan? What do you call a situation where citizens of dominating powers move to settle in subjugated countries, if not colonialism?
What does this have to do with what I said?
Ok, remove “brown” and make them Arabs. You think that the British government, Europeans in general, and European Jews in particular, had the utmost respect for Arabs at the beginning of the 20th century? If they had, how comes nobody asked (and respected) their opinion wrt whether or not European Jews should settle in Palestine? Who decided they could if not an European colonial power? Who benefited from this, if not Europeans? Who gave a shit about what these highly respected white Arabs were thinking?
clairobscur:
It has to do with this part of what you said:
They were not looking to displace and replace, but accepted the existence of another Arab state for the Palestinians, and granted (and continue to grant) full civil rights to the Arabs who have remained in the portion that would become theirs. That’s neither displacement nor replacement.
Because at the time, Arabs didn’t rule the land, Turks did. And after World War I, the Allies did. Why should European Jews/Zionists be looking for settlement opinions from those who had no administrative power to effect their goals?
Is there a term for people immigrating from outside an empire into an imperial province?
Very, very few of the Zionist immigrants were British citizens. Most were from Eastern and Central Europe, and had no more rights than the Palestinian Arabs, nor did they receive preferential treatment from the British - except when it served their purposes. But then, a Frenchman would know about how colonialists like to play one part of the population against another.
(Also, defining Mandatory Palestine as a “subjugated province” is not accurate. The British treated the locals as residents of a minor corner of an empire, just as they;d been treated for 200 years. If they were being subjugated, then so were 90% of the people in the world).
In short, if the Zionists were colonialists, what country were they colonizing for? Not Britain, because they weren’t British. Certainly not Russia, Poland or Germany, who didn’t give a shit about them. So what? You can’t be a colonist without a home country.
In fact, the term you’re looking for is “immigrants”. The Zionists were immigrants into a country, and like any other immigrant, they had exactly the same right to the land as the natives.
Immigrants with designs on creating a new Zionist state. Hardly what I would call welcome immigrants, at least not in terms of keeping with local customs.
Fair to assume you reserve equal scorn & contempt for other historic events of immigration and resulting native population displacement?
I do – European migration to the Americas, for instance. There are probably other examples I could criticize just as vehemently as well. But I’d add, as I think I have pointed out before, I’m not de-legitimizing Israel’s legitimacy as a nation-state, if that’s what you’re getting at. Nor am I oblivious to the tactics of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. I’m a lot more nuanced than what I’m given credit for on the whole.
My grievance, as it were, is in the lack of balance in discussing Israeli-Palestinian politics, which is almost always in favor of Israel and against Palestinians. I think this thread and the treatment of Congresswomen Omar and Tlaib have made that abundantly clear.
That’s right - immigrants should be humble! And grateful! And they should learn to speak the damn language!
So on the whole, as a self-described student of history, you’d advocate that populations remain where they are for the most part and avoid migration at the risk of negatively impacting other/native populations, even at risk of their own extinction at times?
There are good reasons for that. Many of them outlined in the most recent posts by those providing modern historical context. And many of those, including mine, specifically comment on how Israel has not and does not always act in a just and fair way towards the Palestinian population living in the occupied territories. You have allies who share this criticism of Israel and are not shy about expressing it.
I too would like to give Omar and Tlaib the benefit of the doubt when they use insensitive language. You obviously feel unfairly judged as well for the language and tone you’ve used in this thread. Okay. Everyone makes mistakes. Sometimes people say things without having fully considered their words or the ideas they are trying to express. To that I can offer you and them the following: When you know better, be better.
I have, and I never listen to fox news.
That would be why I wrote “citizens from dominating powers” rather than “British citizen”. The majority of the settlers in French Algeria were from southern Europe (Spain and Italy), not from France. Does that make it not a colonial entreprise?
If the USA occupies Canada and let Mexicans immigrate, that’s fine and dandy and Canadians shouldn’t have an issue with it?
Wait? The British got to decide who could live and who would receive preferential treatment in a foreign country? Indeed, that’s totally not colonialism.
Not 90%, but a good chunk of the planet, at the time. Were they self-governing? Did they get to decide which policies to implement, for instance in this case wrt immigration? No? Then how can you assert that they weren’t subjugated? Of course they were. What is your definition of “subjugated”?
They were Europeans who thought it was perfectly fine and dandy to move to a remote place controled by an European power, and that the opinion of the locals on this matter was of exactly zero relevance. Like pretty much all other Europeans at the time. I don’t see why many of them not being British change a thing.
And regarding the idea that this wasn’t serving the interests of the United Kingdom, do you think that the Balfour declaration, for instance, was a completely random decision? That it wasn’t made for a specific political reason, that was assumed to serve the interests of Britain? And wasn’t it made without regard for the opinion of the locals? They definitely made a “gift”, with the expectation that it would prove useful for the UK, at the expense of a population that would be soon under their control as a colonial power. Creating a Jewish state in colonized Africa was envisioned too. But creating one in the Midlands was notably never proposed.
Who decided they should be allowed to immigrate? Not the colonial power that had put itself in charge of the area? Why did they think that it was perfectly normal to move to an area where they knew they were unwelcome, because the colonial power in charge could impose it against the will of the population? You think that European Jews were exempt from the colonialist mentality, from the contempt Europeans had for the indigenous populations , and from the disregard for their interests and aspirations?
What makes the Polish Jew moving to Palestine with the blessing of the UK different from the Spaniard moving to Algeria with the blessing of France, exactly?
I’m amazed.
Let’s be clear : if your country is occupied, and the occupying power, with a complete disregard for the opinion of your fellow countrymen on the matter, decides to let some millions of Chinese people immigrate, Chinese who subsequently generously agree to share the country with you, you wouldn’t have any issue with it?
So, a colonial power ruled the land, this colonial power decided to let them immigrate because it furthered its own interests, without regard for the opinion of the local population , but that totally wasn’t a colonial enterprise.
Colonialism is about power and exploitation. The Jews creating Israel was about survival. Those are not comparable. It doesn’t excuse everything that was done during its formation, but people moving in order to survive is fundamentally different than powerful state sponsored migration for wealth and power.