Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : To be a Liberal,you have to believe that..... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thomas M. who wrote (3436)	9/22/1999 11:54:00 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6418

From the Concise Encarta.... Zionism, movement to unite the Jews of the Diaspora and settle them in Palestine; it arose in the late 19th century and culminated in the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. The movement's name is derived from Zion, the hill on which the Temple of Jerusalem was located. In the 1700s the Haskalah (Hebrew for 'enlightenment') movement marked the beginning of a trend away from traditional religious orthodoxy and toward Jewish assimilation into European society. The achievement of political equality by European Jewry began in revolutionary France in 1791 and spread over most of Europe during the next several decades. Political emancipation proved to be a false dawn, however. In the second half of the 1800s anti-Semitic parties emerged in Germany and Austria-Hungary. In Russia, pogroms (anti-Jewish riots) spread across the country. Large numbers of Russian Jews migrated to the West, primarily to the United States. A smaller number went to Palestine, which was then under Turkish rule. In 1896 Theodor Herzl, a Hungarian-Jewish journalist, published a book called The Jewish State, in which he analyzed the causes of anti-Semitism and proposed its cure, the creation of a Jewish state. In 1897 Herzl organized the first Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland. The congress formulated a program defining Zionism's goal as the creation 'for the Jewish people of a home in Palestine secured by public law.' The congress worked to establish branches in every country with a substantial Jewish population. Herzl made unsuccessful efforts to acquire land and financial backing for the new state. During World War I (1914-1918), the British wooed the Zionists in order to secure strategic control over Palestine and to gain the support of world Jewry for the Allied cause. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 approved the establishment in Palestine of a 'national home for the Jewish people.' After the war, Zionism faced a setback when Russian Jewry (the traditional source of Zionist migration) was sealed off by the government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). In addition, a dispute arose between the leader of American Zionism, Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis, and Russian-born chemist Dr. Chaim Weizmann, the man credited with obtaining the Balfour Declaration. Weizmann's 'synthetic Zionism,' which advocated both political struggle and colonization, won out over Brandeis's pragmatic approach, which concentrated on colonization without reference to future nationhood. During the British mandate over Palestine (1920-1948), the number of Jewish settlers in Palestine grew from 50,000 to 600,000, most of whom were refugees of Nazi persecution in Europe. Coexistence between Jews and the Arabs of Palestine became an increasingly intractable problem. Recurrent riots in the 1920s culminated in full-scale rebellion from 1936 to 1939. In 1939, on the eve of World War II, the British government changed its Palestine policy in an effort to appease the Arab world. It terminated Britain's commitment to Zionism, provided for the establishment of a Palestinian state within ten years, and limited additional entry into Palestine by Jews. In 1942 Zionist leaders demanded that a Jewish state be created in western Palestine. The Holocaust (systematic murder of European Jews by the Nazis) convinced Western Jewry of the need for a Jewish state. In 1944 Zionist guerrillas began an armed revolt against British rule in Palestine. In 1948 the British mandate ended, and the Jews declared the independence of the new state of Israel. Relations between the new state and the Zionists proved problematic, however. Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, insisted that Zionist leaders who chose to remain outside of Israel would have no say in Israel's policy decisions. During the 1970s a great deal of Zionist activity focused on Soviet Jews, who were finally allowed to emigrate in restricted numbers. A massive wave of immigration by Soviet Jews to Israel began in the late 1980s. Zionism has been repeatedly denounced by Arab nations and their supporters as a 'tool of imperialism.' Zionists have emphasized that the movement has never rejected Arab self-determination. Zionism today is based on the support of two principles: the autonomy and safety of the state of Israel and the right of any Jew to settle there.

To: Thomas M. who wrote (3436)	9/22/1999 11:59:00 AM
From: Machaon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6418

<< Zionists specifically supported Hitler's racist theories, were present from before he even stormed the goverment. It was only when it dawned on Zionists that he would murder them that they altered their stance. >> Again, you prove that you are a racist. Why do racists hide behind clever words? Racists blame Israel for courageously defending their tiny homeland against superior forces, but the same racists show little courage. Your choice of words imply that most Zionists supported hitler's early days of anti-Semitism, or had a choice. This is a generalization that is total racist and nonsense. When you say "birds of a feather" you are comparing one of the worst mass murderers of all history, hitler, with a small minority struggle to survive genocide and destruction. << You're a friggin' idiot. >> Ah, poor widdle tom is losing his temper. <g> Swearing is a sin that could bar you from Heaven. Was it worth it? <g>