How Zionists Built A Nation

What did the Zionists do to build a country during the Mandate Period?

Inspired by the Zionist ideal, supported by Zionist funds, operating under conditions made possible by Zionist political effort, thousands of Jews migrated from Europe to Palestine and there set about incarnating the ancient dream of return to Israel.They were not encouraged by fellow Jews or anyone else. The were assured that Palestine was an arid, backward country where Jews could not survive, let alone be creative; and that in any case it could absorb no more than a handful of settlers. Discouraged from all sides, grappling with heartbreaking difficulties, these Jews accomplished the impossible.

In one generation Zionists purchased underdeveloped, underutilized land and built a community of almost 600,000 persons, free and self-reliant. European Jews who had lost all rapport with soil and workshop came to Palestine to become farmers, mechanics, sailors, and fishermen. They caused the desert to blossom and turned villages into cities. They introduced modernity and democracy into the slumbering Near East.

In February 1919, the Zionist Organization presented a “Statement on Palestine” to theParis Peace Conference. It included material showing the substantial Zionist investmentin Palestine and the dramatic progress to date, for example:

• Jewish activities, particularly during the last thirty years, have been directed to Palestine within the measure that the Turkish administrative system allowed. Some millions of pounds sterling have been spent in the country, particularly in the foundation of agricultural settlements. These settlements have been, for the most part, highly successful. With enterprise and skill the Jews have adopted modern scientific methods and have shown themselves to be capable agriculturalists. Hebrew has been revived as a living language; it is the medium of instruction in the schools and the tongue is in daily use among the rising generation. The foundations of a Jewish University have been laid at Jerusalem and considerable funds have been contributed for the creation of its building and for its endowment. Since the British occupation the Zionist Organization has expended in Palestine approximately BP50,000 a month upon relief, education and sanitation. To promote the future development of the country, great sums will be needed for drainage, irrigation, roads, railways, harbors and public works of all kinds, as well as for land settlement and house building.

Winston Churchill was British Colonial Secretary when he visited the Middle East in the winter of 1920-1921. Anti-Semitic elements in the British government tried to assert that the Jews were not needed to develop Palestine. Churchill replied:

• “Left to themselves, the Arabs of Palestine would not in a thousand years have taken effective steps towards the irrigation and electrification of Palestine. They would have been quite content to dwell—a handful of philosophic people—in wasted sun-drenched plains, letting the waters of the Jordan flow unbridled and unharnessed into the Dead Sea.”

Additional material on the impact of the Zionists on the land of Palestine is available here.

Development of education at all levels was a priority for the Zionists. Three of theseven institutions of higher learning were founded before the State of Israel: the Technion in Haifa (founded in 1924), the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1925), and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot (1934). Today, there are about one million Jewish children in thousands of schools, with close to 100,000 teachers, in Israel. The state education system has a general stream (non-religious) with about 70% of the children, a religious stream (23%), and schools run by the ultra-religious (including a few in Yiddish). There are now seven institutions of higher learning including the above and Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan (1955), Tel Aviv University (1956), Haifa University (1963), and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Be’er Sheva (1969). There is also an open university and more than 200 yeshivot.

In expressions of culture, the Zionists were active as well. In the 1920′s Tel Aviv had only about two-thousand inhabitants, but in January 1922 the “Hebrew Opera in Eretz Israel” performed in the city with soloists and a choir, and only a few months later, the opera Faust was performed, completely staged, though only accompanied by piano. The PalestineOrchestra, now the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, was founded in 1936.

And the Zionists developed the organizational infrastructure of a country that prepared fora modern state to come into being in 1948. Politicalparties, labor organizations, and national institutions long pre-dated the State of Israel.To this day, the modern Labor party is an extension of the Histadrut, founded byBen-Gurion in the 1920s, whereas the modern Likud party is an extension of the Revisionists, formed by Jabotinsky in the same time frame.By 1939 the Jewish authorities in Palestine governed their own people. In contrast, the Arab leaders never considered nation-building. Their entire program was negative: toprevent the Jews from establishing themselves in Palestine under any circumstances.