Palestine/Israel and Zionism: The Hidden Question

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Palestine/Israel and Zionism: The Hidden Question
Since the exile to Babylon, the Jews looked forward to returning to Zion. The yearning was manifested in their prayers as well as various messianic movements. The Zionist movement sought the revival of the Jews in its ancestral homeland after spending almost 2,000 years of exile. Zionism existed to answer the historical Jewish question that derived from two fundamental facts; the Jews constituted a minority in the various countries where they were dispersed. The movement was to end such dependence on other nations, and return to Zion, where the Jews could have a majority status, and eventually gain political independence and statehood. Such an effort to settle Jews back to their original home in Zion were met with resistance, and often failures. This caught the attention of many scholars, including Yitzhak Epstein, a Russian Zionist who settled in Rosh Pina in the 1880s. In the 1905 Zionist Congress, Epstein gave an address titled, “A Hidden Question.” In the address, Epstein gives an insight into the relationship between the Jews and Arabs, while focusing on the mistakes made by the Zionist Movement in handling Arabs as the major cause of the ongoing conflict.
Epstein acknowledges that the Zionist movement’s relations with the Arabs of Palestine remain a “hidden question.” The movement has hitherto ignored the question, leading to the massive failure of achieving a long-lasting peace agreement. The question, he adds, “has not been forgotten, but has been completely hidden from the Zionists” (Epstein 3). The Zionist movement, in its quest for creating a Jewish state, had ignored the very existence of Arabs. Such ignorance is rooted in the historical injustices the Jewish people have undergone. In the words of Pinker, “With the loss of their country, the Jewish people lost their independence and fell into a decay which is not compatible with existence as a whole vital organism” (Pinker 39). Such historical injustices on the Jewish people have driven them to seek an immediate remedy. For such a nation that has undergone such injustice, getting back what belongs to it immediately seems a probable argument. However, the inability to maintain good relations with the Arab peasants due to the negative attitudes the Zionists have toward their opponents. In other words, Zionists have failed to address the question of what their attitudes should be when they come to purchase property in Eretz Israel.
The main source of conflict between the Zionist settlers and the Arab peasants in Palestine is the inability of the former to appreciate the feelings of the latter towards the land. The urgent need of the Zionist settlers to occupy the land is motivated by the intense love of homeland, which was once occupied by their forefathers. The Zionists forgot that the Arab peasants have also stayed in the same land for a long time, such that they have also formed strong attachments to it. Epstein indicates, “Arab, like any person, is strongly attached to his homeland” (Epstein 41). Further, a majority of the Arab peasants have a lower level of development, which has limited their circle of vis...