Zionism Reconsidered

In some ways, Zionism is legitimate and persuasive, but in other ways it has undermined the possibilities of Israeli peace with the Arab world. The argument that the history of murderous anti-Semitism, culminating in the Holocaust, justified the creation of a Jewish state, somewhere, was strong. However, the arguments that the Jews had an eternal right to Palestine were weak. The religious claim that God gave Palestine to the Jews is challenged by Christian and Islamic counterclaims. The argument that 2,000 years ago the Jews were predominant in Palestine until they were driven out by the Romans has long been shown by archaeologists and historians to have little foundation. Even if true, it would be irrelevant to establishing a convincing claim for exclusive Jewish sovereignty today. Likewise, the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations Mandate to Britain, the basis for the Zionist claims based on modern history, were simply colonialist impositions.