Colonization or National Liberation? Early Zionism Confronts the Palestinians

Zionist Dilemma 1881 Population 21,000 Jews 4.2% 470,000 Arab (Muslim and Christian) 95.8% How do you construct a Jewish state in territory overwhelmingly Arab / Palestinian?

Colonization / Settlement Solution to the Zionist Dilemma? My argument [about the origins of the Israeli /Palestinian conflict] highlights the continuous centrality of colonization in Zionism… Colonization was the prelude of the state-to-be and the character of that state in the making was to be found most crucially in the land and labor markets. Gershon Shafir Zionism and Colonialism (1996) pp. 227-228

Integration or Exclusion? Zionists had 2 basic options in buying land: 1) Integrate Palestinians by allowing them to work the land (Plantation model) 2) Exclude Palestinians (Pure settlement colony).

Zionist Land Purchases (1878-1914) Total Land Purchased = 418,000 Dunums From Large Absentee Landlords = 25% From Large Resident Landlords = 25% From Institutions = 37.5% From Palestinian Peasant Owners = 12.5% Source: Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity, p. 112.

“Hebrew Land, Hebrew Labor” The Early Zionist Conquest of Labor 1904-1914 By 1904 Zionists ponder a new way of organizing the landscape for redemption. The vision was not only to buy land, but to place Jewish labor on the land purchased. No longer would there be exploitation of Palestinians on plantations because Palestinians would be excluded from working on them.

Arthur Ruppin / Jewish National Fund “Land is the most necessary thing for establishing roots in Palestine. Since there are hardly any more arable unsettled lands in Palestine, we are bound in each case of land purchase to remove the peasants who cultivate the land, both owners and tenants." 1913

Opposition to ‘Labor’ Zionism Palestinian Farmers Dispossessed Revisionist Zionists (Jabotinsky) Bi-National Zionists (Magnes / Buber)

Ha-Shomer Defending Jewish Colonies