Theos-Talk Archives (March 2004 Message tt00282)

It might be added that large groups of native Palestinian Jews were 
forcefully displaced from eastern Palestine(what is now Jordan), 
though none of them perhaps want to go back to their lands. There was 
also forceful dispplacement of Jews from all over the Arab world when 
once there was peaceful co-existance. Though I don't think any of 
those Jews would want to go back either.The whole situation is a lot 
more complicated than appears in newspapers and perhaps we shouldn't 
be too quick to judge. Zionism was a good idea with high motives and 
ideals but has turned into a mess, partly because of stupid Israeli 
polticians. I certainly hope sharing and brotherhood will be more 
pervasive and we can atleast feel brotherhood among ourselves as 
Theosophists. 

Ariel


--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Bart Lidofsky <bartl@s...> wrote:
> Tony wrote:
> > I would be interested to know more, and am under the impression 
that
> > Zionists are about a state of Israel as a Country, but that there 
are other
> > (do they have a name) Jews who see it as a state of 
Consciousness. Is
> > there anything in this?
> 
> Here's the short version:
> 
> The Romans had a habit of displacing large numbers of 
conquered people 
> from their home countries in order to avoid rebellions. They did 
this 
> with Judea. At this point, until the mid-20th century, that area 
was 
> always part of owned territory by some empire or other. When the 
Eastern 
> Roman Empire fell, the Turkish empire took it over, and owned it 
until 
> WWI. Jews sporadically moved back, and many Jews never left at all. 
> However, there was no organized movement to go back to the "Holy 
Land" 
> until the Dreyfus affair of 1894 demonstrated that the Jewish 
people 
> were always vulnerable to persecution, even in the most civilized 
> countries. The original goal of Zionism was to get a homeland for 
the 
> Jews; the land which would be later called "Palestine" was merely 
the 
> first choice. Money was raised, and land was purchased from Turkey.
> 
> There was actually a lot of resistance to Zionism among Jews 
who 
> believed that the Jewish homeland would not, and therefore should 
not, 
> be restored until the time of the Messiah. Great Britain took over 
the 
> area (now called "Palestine"), and Jews started buying more land, 
> especially in the area now known as "Israel". They did a LOT of 
> development work there. However, many of the Arab residents, who 
had 
> previously paid rent to the land owners, found themselves being 
> displaced. They were largely ignored by the Jewish settlers, 
considered 
> to be unimportant (which, based on what happened later, was a major 
> mistake).
> 
> It wasn't until Hitler's massacre of European Jews that Jews 
as a whole 
> started supporting Zionism, as Germany, before Hitler, was 
considered to 
> be one of the most civilized nations on Earth. The thought was that 
if 
> it happened there, it would happen anywhere.
> 
> I won't bother at this point with the modern history of 
Israel, as it's 
> somewhat irrelevant. The point is that Zionism didn't exist while 
> Blavatsky was active in the Theosophical Society, and wasn't even 
near 
> universal among Jews for another half a century.
> 
> Bart