Immigration, Settlement, and Displacement: The Ruinous Legacy of Jewish Immigration to Palestine
The historical narrative of Jewish immigration to Palestine is rooted in a long-standing aspiration for a homeland, which increased in the late 19th century. The formation of the World Zionist Organization was so effective in that process, as it made efforts to unite Jews globally and advocate for their migration to Palestine. This movement was fueled by the awful circumstances faced by Eastern and Central European Jews, who were subjected to widespread discrimination and violence. The article examines the process of land acquisition, highlighting the role of influential families and organizations that facilitated Jewish settlement. The early Jewish immigrants were primarily from Russia and Eastern Europe, who encountered numerous challenges. The establishment of military organizations, such as Haganah and Hashomer, were the efforts on behalf of Jews to secure their presence in Palestine. A more in-depth analysis of the multifaceted factors that contributed to Jewish immigration to Palestine will now be undertaken.
The Role of Russian Jews in the Formation of Israel and the Factors Paving the Way for Jewish Immigration to Palestine
The idea of creating a state or home for Jews goes back to many centuries ago. However, Jewish immigration to Palestine from all over the world and their settlement in a homeland which does not belong to them was not simply possible. It naturally required policies planned over time in various think tanks.
The establishment of the World Zionist Organization in 1897, with its objectives of mobilizing global Jewish communities and securing the support of major powers, intensified the focus on immigration and the promotion of Jewish immigration to Palestine [1]. The Jews of Eastern and Central Europe, who were facing more pressure, discrimination, and dissatisfaction, were more eager to migrate to Palestine. However, the sudden Jewish immigration to Palestine would have led a kind of response from the people of this country and made sensitive the Ottoman government as the ruling government of Palestine. Consequently, Zionism began to provide the land required for the settlement of Jews and the colonization of Palestine, in cooperation with organizations such as the Colonial Land and Emigration Commission, the Jewish Fund, the Palestine Land Development Company, and with the help of wealthy families such as the Rothschild family [2]. In this way, they facilitated the process of Jewish immigration to Palestine. This article will examine several significant policies of Zionism pertaining to this matter.
Early Jewish Settlement in Palestine
Until the end of the British Mandate of Palestine, i.e. until 1948, about six percent of the land in Palestine belonged to Jews, which were acquired through confiscation, deception, conspiracy, and pressure on the Arabs to abandon or forcibly sell their lands to Jews. As already mentioned, the country of Palestine has a special climatic as well as geographical and strategic location. These factors had caused some Syrian and Lebanese feudal lords, despite living in their own region, to purchase lands in Palestine. This goes back to the time before the First World War, when Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan were part of the Levant and under the rule of the Ottoman. When the Allies conquered the Ottoman government and occupied the Levant, some of these wealthy Christians began to sell their lands in order to build glorious buildings and palaces in Beirut, Damascus, and other areas.
In this way, Jews bought about 625 thousand dunams (a unit of land area used especially in the state of Israel equal to 1000 square meters) of the lands in Palestine from Lebanese and Syrian feudal lords, the most important of whom were the Sursock, Salam, Bayham, Tian families [3], etc.
It should be noted that some of these families had the privilege of land rehabilitation from the Ottoman rule. After rehabilitating it, they were supposed to sell their land to Palestinian farmers in exchange for a fee. However, they broke their promise and sold the pieces of land to Jews. Anyhow, land purchase did not satisfy Jews and, in some cases, after buying the lands, they proceeded to seize the other pieces of land in the region as well. They even killed or made homeless the Palestinian residents of that region with the help of British forces to achieve their goal. Wadi al-Hawarith is one of those usurped pieces of land.
In fact, much of the land acquired by Jewish individuals was obtained through covert connections with Turkish Freemasons, as well as through the British government’s purchase of land from Syrian and Lebanese families on their behalf. The British mandate for Palestine began after World War I based on a pre-planned plot to prepare situation for turning Palestine into a homeland for Jews. They provided land for Jews on various occasions in order to pave the way for Jewish immigration to Palestine. The following are some examples:
-Donating 300,000 dunams of land by the representative of the British government to the Jewish Agency
-Selling 200,000 dunams of land for a small sum to Jews
-Presenting 165,000 dunams of land belonging to Sultan Abdul Hamid of the Ottoman Empire to Jews by the British government
Consequently, with the initial provision of land for Jewish settlement in Palestine, the promotion of migration to Palestine was pursued with greater intensity, leading to an acceleration in the process of Jewish immigration to Palestine.
The Entry of Eastern European Immigrants into Palestine
The early Jewish immigration to Palestine took place between 1882 and 1903. During these years, between 20,000 and 30,000 Jews, mostly from Russia, Romania, and Poland, immigrated to Palestine with the financial support of a wealthy person named Rothschild, and the support of a group of the Friends of Zion as the Bilu movement [4] [5]. The Bilu movement, which was founded in response to the massacre of Jews following the May Laws (temporary regulations regarding the Jews) in Russia, sought to revive Jews through Jewish immigration to Palestine. This movement, having a Zionist theme in addition to a Jewish and Russian populist appearance, along with encouraging the mass and organized Jewish immigration to Palestine, constituted the first major immigration of Zionists to Palestine. However, it faced many problems due to their ignorance of agricultural issues and the Palestinian climate, cultural conflicts with traditional Jews, and unfavorable economic conditions. Actually, Bilu was a Zionist group that did not realize the importance of imperialism in implementing Zionist plans. This is why it encountered some problems in a span of time after immigrating to Palestine.
Between 1904 and 1914, about 35,000 Jewish immigrants, mostly from Russia or European countries, entered Palestine through the port of Jaffa, which was the only port in Palestine at that time. This is known as the second wave of Jewish immigration to Palestine. People immigrated mainly because of population growth, difficult economic conditions, persecution and discrimination between Jews and other races in the countries where they lived [6]. Of course, a significant part of these policies was carried out in coordination with the Zionist movement in order to force Jews to leave their home and immigrate to Palestine, which had been considered as the Jewish homeland for many years.
After World War I and the British mandate for Palestine, the third wave of Jewish immigration to Palestine took place between 1919 and 1923. The majority of them were Russian and Polish [7] immigrants, who were mainly from the working class influenced by socialist ideas [8]. Although the Zionist movement presented the immigration and arrival of Jews in Palestine as a deceptive effort to save their lives from anti-Semitic governments, it was actually seeking to establish a Jewish state in Palestine [9]. The Jewish state was supposed to serve as a center for implementing Zionist plans and fulfilling their desires for world domination.
Jewish Armed Forces
However, Jewish immigration to Palestine, which was mainly carried out through the port of Jaffa, had other consequences as well. The Zionist reception of the ships full of immigrant and the Jews who were entering the country of Palestine in droves caused dissatisfaction among Palestinian people and made them gradually more conscious about the main aspects of such an event. This awareness ultimately led to an increase of conflict between Palestinian people and immigrants. With the increase of Jewish immigration to Palestine and the Zionist settlements, the Palestinian people’s awareness of the sinister plans of Zionists increased. The tensions that occurred between Jews and Palestinian Arabs made Jews think of forming pressure groups. For this reason, the early Zionist immigrants established a secret Zionist military organization called Bar-Giora [10] in 1907, which was responsible for guarding Zionist settlements in the Galilee region in exchange for money. Although the Bar-Giora group ended its activities in 1909, it paved the way for the formation of a broader and more stable organization called the Hashomer [11].
Hashomer Organization
The Hashomer Organization (the Watchman), which is one of the oldest Zionist military organizations, was founded in Palestine in 1909 headed by Israel Shochat and was responsible for guarding Jewish settlements in Palestine. However, this organization did not initially operate as a cohesive group of Zionists, rather it was a combination of Zionists from Eastern Europe, Ukraine and the Caucasus. Marxist Russian Jews joining the organization increased the fighting spirit of the members.
Although most of the members of this organization were people from the first Russian immigrants and from the Zionist Workers’ Party, it did not affiliate directly with the World Zionist Organization.
The Hashomer organization, which had now become a war organization, was engaged in other activities in addition to its main task of defending Zionist colonies and played a major role in the development and prosperity of Zionist settlements in Palestine. During World War I, internal conflicts among the members of Hashomer organization intensified over whether to fight alongside the British or join the Turks. The conflicts reached their peak in 1920. In this manner, after World War I and in the early 1920s that Zionists needed a large fighting force, the Hashomer was disbanded and joined the Haganah organization [12]. Actually, what had sustained the operation of the Hashomer Organization until the mid-1920s was the ideological and national commitment of its members to the socialist beliefs of other groups. Although some members of this organization still continued their activities in the form of a small group, after 1929 and during the Intifada (Palestinian resistance movement), this group eventually joined the Haganah organization as well.
Zionist Jews, aimed at using violence and military force from the very beginning, considered the foundation of various military and paramilitary organizations as a factor in their survival. As a matter of fact, the non-native nature of Zionist Jews, the lack of legal legitimacy to rule over the land of Palestine, the fear of destruction and weakness of Jewish manpower compared to Palestinian manpower, all came together to create a military way of thinking for the Zionist Jewish community living in Palestine. In 1920, just a few years after the Balfour Declaration, with the increase in the number of immigrants and Zionist settlements in Palestine, Jews began to form a military organization called Haganah, which later, along with other organizations such as Etzel and Lehi, created the foundation of the Israel Defense Forces [13] and Zionist terrorism.
Haganah Organization
Haganah, meaning “defense,” was a Zionist patriotic military organization founded in Jerusalem in 1920 and used as the armed wing of the Jewish Agency. Although the organization’s primary goals were seizing land [14], job creation, protection, and production, all of its activities were based on military action. Not only did it participate in the 1929 crackdown on Palestinian Arabs protesting against Jewish immigration to Palestine, but it also attacked Arab homes and property. It was also responsible for guarding Zionist settlements from the beginning. The “Tower and Stockade” method for establishing Zionist settlements in one night is also considered an innovation of the Haganah organization. The 1929 Palestinian revolution in response to the Zionist Jewish occupation led to the expansion of the Haganah’s organization based on occupation and aggression, and led the organization to store more weapons [15].
Between 1920 and 1930, the arrival of immigrants from Eastern Europe, mostly young and idealistic individuals having experience in paramilitary and secret organizations, strengthened the Haganah. Moreover, choosing the place of residence of Jewish immigrants was entirely according to political and strategic goals, so that besides meeting economic needs, it would fulfill Zionists’ needs to stand against Arabs. In this way, each of these immigrants turned into a strong fortress serving the Haganah.
Creating two secret commands subordinate to the Zionist organization, centralized in the Jewish Agency, evolved Haganah completely. One of these two was dedicated to military affairs, and the other was responsible for civilian affairs. The organization used war of nerves [16] as a prelude to launch a military war. That is, by threatening and frightening Arabs from the effects of war, it encouraged them to leave the city along with their family. The Haganah organized special units within itself aimed at terrorist attacks, including the Palmach groups [17] that acted as the Haganah’s strike force.
However, participating in terrorist activities was not limited to a specific organization. Since the Zionist Jewish immigration to Palestine was illegal and they had established illegal settlements, military exercises were held weekly in Jewish religious schools, small workshops, baths, and synagogues [18] as well. That is to say, the Haganah was actually responsible for Jewish settlement and commanded the establishment of Israel in Palestine from 1921 to 1948; this responsibility was accompanied with violence, threats, pressure, and terror against Palestinians in order to fulfill the goals of the World Zionist Organization. This topic will be discussed further in following articles.
Conclusion
Jewish immigration to Palestine was a multifaceted process shaped by historical, social, and political factors. The efforts of Russian Jews and the strategic actions of Zionist organizations played a crucial role in facilitating this immigration, often at the expense of the local Arab population. The acquisition of land through various means, including coercion and collaboration with colonial powers, laid the groundwork for the establishment of Jewish settlements. As tensions escalated between Jewish immigrants and Palestinian Arabs, the formation of military organizations by Zionists underscored the growing conflict over land and identity. Ultimately, this migration, which significantly transformed the demographic composition of Palestine due to the brutal Zionist occupation, also laid the groundwork for persistent conflicts which have destabilized the region and shattered its previous peace.
References
[1]. Ivanov, Yuri. Caution Zionism. 1970, p. 51.
[2]. Avneri, Aryeh. The Claim of Dispossession: Jewish Land-Settlement and the Arabs. p. 76; Rubenberg, Cheryl. The Palestinians: In Search of a Just Peace. pp. 3-4; Fischbach, Michael. Jewish Property Claims Against Arab Countries. pp. 37-38.
[3]. https://solidarityforpalestine.com/the-truth-about-palestinians-selling-their-land-to-jews/
[4]. https://alassas.net/3477/
[5]. Medoff, Rafael, and Chaim Waxman. The A to Z of Zionism. p. 46.
[6]. Alroey, Gur. “Journey to Early-Twentieth-Century Palestine as a Jewish Immigrant Experience.” Jewish Social Studies. Indian University Press (2003): pp. 28-64.
[7]. https://jewishcurrents.org/december-19-third-aliyah
[8]. Hahnemann, Steffen. Oil, Israel and Modernity. p. 97.
[10]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar-Giora_(organization)
[11]. Ben-Yehuda, Nachman. Political Assassinations by Jews: A Rhetorical Device for Justice. pp. 86-87.
[12]. Ibid. p. 87.
[13]. Schiff, Ze’ev. A History of the Israeli Army: 1874 to the Present. 1985, p. 30.
[15]. https://www.palestinapedia.ps/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%BA%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%A7%D9%87/
[16]. Dr. Shaikh, Shahbaz. The Roots of Palestine and the Colonial Imposition. 2024, vol. 1, p. 237.
[17]. Pappe, Ilan. The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Oneworld publication, 2011, pp. 19,45.
[18]. https://www.ahewar.org/debat/s.asp?aid=273824
