You're presenting the standard Zionist narrative, a sanitized version of history that conveniently omits the actual ideology at play. Your entire argument is built to portray a European colonial project as a desperate search for "safety", if it ever had been about "safety" then why did they reject the Ugandan land they were offered? They needed a myth that justified their colonialism, which they had learned from the European colonizers whom they openly admired in their letters.
Let's correct the record. First, you claim Zionism was just a reaction to antisemitism, not the cause of the conflict. This is a deliberate misrepresentation. Political Zionism was a confident and proactive colonial project, growing from the exact same soil of European nationalism and race theory as antisemitism itself. The early Zionist leadership were not "traumatized victims" at all. They were confident Europeans, operating in the same intellectual environment as the "Scramble for Africa" who saw themselves as a superior people with the right to colonize. This wasn't some abstract theory, but their explicit worldview. As one of their key leaders, Chaim Weizmann noted: "The British told us that there are some hundred thousand negroes [kushim in Hebrew] and for those there is no value." - Weizmann, quoted by Arthur Ruppin in: Yosef Heller, Bama'avak Lamedinah , Jerusalem, 1984, p.140.
This colonial mindset is also why your second claim, that the focus on Palestine was just a pragmatic choice that only became central after Balfour, is historical nonsense. The proof is again the Zionist leadership's rejection of the Uganda offer. If the goal was simply to find a safe haven for worried Jews, a vast territory in Africa would have been the logical answer. They refused it because Zionism was never just about safety. It was a nationalist colonial project with a specific, predetermined target, and their argument was about claiming the right to do what other Europeans were doing i.e. conquering and colonizing a land inhabited by people they had already, in their own words, dismissed as having "no value."
Finally, and most cynically, you absurdly present the ancient and laughable claim to "Judea" as if it were a legitimate historical justification. You're framing a modern political maneuver as some kind of ancient "right". The secular, European, and atheist founders of Zionism did not even believe in the religious basis of this claim at all. They saw the biblical narrative noting more as useful myth-making tools to justify their colonialism. They weaponized these ancient stories, which they themselves viewed as superstition, for the very modern purpose of justifying the dispossession of the native population and legitimizing their colonial project. It was a calculated propaganda strategy, not a reclamation of faith. A faith in which they didn't even believe in, but which they were cynically weaponizing.
Let's correct the record. First, you claim Zionism was just a reaction to antisemitism, not the cause of the conflict. This is a deliberate misrepresentation. Political Zionism was a confident and proactive colonial project, growing from the exact same soil of European nationalism and race theory as antisemitism itself. The early Zionist leadership were not "traumatized victims" at all. They were confident Europeans, operating in the same intellectual environment as the "Scramble for Africa" who saw themselves as a superior people with the right to colonize. This wasn't some abstract theory, but their explicit worldview. As one of their key leaders, Chaim Weizmann noted: "The British told us that there are some hundred thousand negroes [kushim in Hebrew] and for those there is no value." - Weizmann, quoted by Arthur Ruppin in: Yosef Heller, Bama'avak Lamedinah , Jerusalem, 1984, p.140.
This colonial mindset is also why your second claim, that the focus on Palestine was just a pragmatic choice that only became central after Balfour, is historical nonsense. The proof is again the Zionist leadership's rejection of the Uganda offer. If the goal was simply to find a safe haven for worried Jews, a vast territory in Africa would have been the logical answer. They refused it because Zionism was never just about safety. It was a nationalist colonial project with a specific, predetermined target, and their argument was about claiming the right to do what other Europeans were doing i.e. conquering and colonizing a land inhabited by people they had already, in their own words, dismissed as having "no value."
Finally, and most cynically, you absurdly present the ancient and laughable claim to "Judea" as if it were a legitimate historical justification. You're framing a modern political maneuver as some kind of ancient "right". The secular, European, and atheist founders of Zionism did not even believe in the religious basis of this claim at all. They saw the biblical narrative noting more as useful myth-making tools to justify their colonialism. They weaponized these ancient stories, which they themselves viewed as superstition, for the very modern purpose of justifying the dispossession of the native population and legitimizing their colonial project. It was a calculated propaganda strategy, not a reclamation of faith. A faith in which they didn't even believe in, but which they were cynically weaponizing.