Zionism

Background

"Zion" was originally the name of a hill in Jerusalem. In the Old Testament the term came to be used more broadly for Jerusalem and for the whole land inhabited by God's people. As Psalm 137:1–6, a lament from the period of the Babylonian exile, illustrates, Zion symbolized the homeland to which Jews scattered among the nations (the Diaspora) longed to return.

In nineteenth-century Europe, nationalism spread even as discrimination against and persecution of Jews (antisemitism) persisted. The massacres of Jews (pogroms) that broke out in the Russian Empire after 1881 prompted a movement of emigration to Palestine. The term "Zionism" is generally believed to have been coined by Nathan Birnbaum around 1890.

Development

• 1896: Theodor Herzl, an Austrian Jewish journalist, published The Jewish State (Der Judenstaat), advocating the establishment of an independent state as the solution to the Jewish question.
• 1897: The First Zionist Congress convened in Basel, Switzerland, and the Zionist Organization was founded.
• 1917: In the Balfour Declaration, the British government announced its support for the establishment in Palestine of "a national home for the Jewish people." Jewish immigration subsequently increased under the British Mandate, and clashes with the Arab population became more frequent.
• 1947: In the aftermath of the Holocaust (the genocide of Jews by Nazi Germany), the United Nations General Assembly adopted a partition plan dividing Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state.
• May 14, 1948: Israel declared its independence, and war with the surrounding Arab states soon followed. In the course of these events, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs left their homes. Palestinians refer to these events as the "Nakba" (catastrophe).

In addition to political Zionism, the movement encompassed several other currents, including cultural Zionism, Labor Zionism, and religious Zionism.

Results and Influence

The founding of Israel achieved the central goal of Zionism. However, the Palestinian refugee problem and territorial disputes became the roots of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, which continues to the present day.

Within Christianity, some Protestants in nineteenth-century Britain and the United States supported the return of the Jews, viewing it as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. This position is commonly called "Christian Zionism." In particular, dispensationalism distinguishes between the church and Israel and regards the restoration of national Israel as a major event in eschatology. This interpretation spread widely among American evangelicals through the Scofield Reference Bible, first published in 1909. Among Korean churches as well, there is a strand that understands the founding of Israel in 1948 as the fulfillment of prophecy and prays for Israel. Some religious groups in Korea use "Zion" in the names of their organizations or facilities, but this usage carries a meaning different from that of Zionism as a political movement.

Assessment

Supporters view Zionism as a national liberation movement that realized the right of the Jewish people, after long persecution, to have a state of their own. Critics point out that in the process Palestinian inhabitants lost their land and rights. In 1975 the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution determining Zionism to be a form of racism, but it rescinded the resolution in 1991. How to distinguish criticism of Zionism from antisemitism is also a matter of debate.

Views are divided within the church as well. Dispensationalists tend to support the modern State of Israel, regarding it as the fulfillment of God's covenant. The covenant theology and Reformed traditions hold that the promises given to Israel have been fulfilled in Christ and the church (see Galatians 6:16, among other passages). For this reason they tend to be cautious about directly equating the modern State of Israel with the fulfillment of prophecy. The interpretation of passages such as Romans 11:17–24 is also a point of contention. Ecumenical churches and the World Council of Churches have emphasized the human rights of the local population, including Palestinian Christians, and a just peace.