Israel – A Romantic Project

balfour declaration
His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

The idea of creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine would have made perfect sense in the nineteenth century.  Nationalism was all the rage.  Everyone wanted to be in a nation.  The British and the French were there already.  The Germans and Italians were working on it.  Nationalism was opposed to hereditary monarchs and their empires and so was in a way a force for progress and revolution.  Why shouldn’t the Jews get in on the act and seek to create their own homeland?   Zionism was really just a logical extension of what was the general spirit of the age.  As to the people who were already there in Palestine, well the rights of natives weren’t really on anyone’s mind at the time.