1897 FIRST ZIONIST CONGRESS

IMPORTANT DATES IN THE HISTORY OF THE MIDEAST CONFLICT

BC. 2000 Abraham-Beginning of Jewish and Arab lines.

BC. 1406 Jews enter Caanan (ISRAEL).

Kingdom of Israel1000 B.C. (circa) Toward the end of the second millennium B.C., Moses led the Hebrew people out of Egypt into the "Promised Land" -- Canaan. In the early 12th century B.C., the region was invaded by the seafaring Philistines, who ruled it for about 150 years. At some point, the Greeks and Romans began calling the region the "Land of the Philistines," from which the name Palestine is derived. The Hebrews under Saul created their own kingdom around 1020 B.C. Around 950 B.C., the kingdom fractured into two states: Israel, with its capital at Samaria, and Judah, with its capital in Jerusalem.

1000-925 Kingdom Established, First Temple built (JERUSALEM).

1 KINGS CHAPTER 5 PREPARATIONS FOR THE 1ST TEMPLE.

1 And Hiram king of Tyre sent his servants unto Solomon; for he had heard that they had anointed him king in the room of his father: for Hiram was ever a lover of David.
2 And Solomon sent to Hiram, saying,
3 Thou knowest how that David my father could not build an house unto the name of the LORD his God for the wars which were about him on every side, until the LORD put them under the soles of his feet.
4 But now the LORD my God hath given me rest on every side, so that there is neither adversary nor evil occurrent.
5 And, behold, I purpose to build an house unto the name of the LORD my God, as the LORD spake unto David my father, saying, Thy son, whom I will set upon thy throne in thy room, he shall build an house unto my name.
6 Now therefore command thou that they hew me cedar trees out of Lebanon; and my servants shall be with thy servants: and unto thee will I give hire for thy servants according to all that thou shalt appoint: for thou knowest that there is not among us any that can skill to hew timber like unto the Sidonians.
7 And it came to pass, when Hiram heard the words of Solomon, that he rejoiced greatly, and said, Blessed be the LORD this day, which hath given unto David a wise son over this great people.
8 And Hiram sent to Solomon, saying, I have considered the things which thou sentest to me for: and I will do all thy desire concerning timber of cedar, and concerning timber of fir.
9 My servants shall bring them down from Lebanon unto the sea: and I will convey them by sea in floats unto the place that thou shalt appoint me, and will cause them to be discharged there, and thou shalt receive them: and thou shalt accomplish my desire, in giving food for my household.
10 So Hiram gave Solomon cedar trees and fir trees according to all his desire.
11 And Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand measures of wheat for food to his household, and twenty measures of pure oil: thus gave Solomon to Hiram year by year.
12 And the LORD gave Solomon wisdom, as he promised him: and there was peace between Hiram and Solomon; and they two made a league together.
13 And king Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel; and the levy was thirty thousand men.
14 And he sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month by courses: a month they were in Lebanon, and two months at home: and Adoniram was over the levy.
15 And Solomon had threescore and ten thousand that bare burdens, and fourscore thousand hewers in the mountains;
16 Beside the chief of Solomon’s officers which were over the work, three thousand and three hundred, which ruled over the people that wrought in the work.
17 And the king commanded, and they brought great stones, costly stones, and hewed stones, to lay the foundation of the house.
18 And Solomon’s builders and Hiram’s builders did hew them, and the stonesquarers: so they prepared timber and stones to build the house.

1 KINGS CHAPTER 6 BUILDING OF THE 1ST TEMPLE.

1 And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD.
2 And the house which king Solomon built for the LORD, the length thereof was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits, and the height thereof thirty cubits.
3 And the porch before the temple of the house, twenty cubits was the length thereof, according to the breadth of the house; and ten cubits was the breadth thereof before the house.
4 And for the house he made windows of narrow lights.
5 And against the wall of the house he built chambers round about, against the walls of the house round about, both of the temple and of the oracle: and he made chambers round about:
6 The nethermost chamber was five cubits broad, and the middle was six cubits broad, and the third was seven cubits broad: for without in the wall of the house he made narrowed rests round about, that the beams should not be fastened in the walls of the house.
7 And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither: so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building.
8 The door for the middle chamber was in the right side of the house: and they went up with winding stairs into the middle chamber, and out of the middle into the third.
9 So he built the house, and finished it; and covered the house with beams and boards of cedar.
10 And then he built chambers against all the house, five cubits high: and they rested on the house with timber of cedar.
11 And the word of the LORD came to Solomon, saying,
12 Concerning this house which thou art in building, if thou wilt walk in my statutes, and execute my judgments, and keep all my commandments to walk in them; then will I perform my word with thee, which I spake unto David thy father:
13 And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake my people Israel.
14 So Solomon built the house, and finished it.
15 And he built the walls of the house within with boards of cedar, both the floor of the house, and the walls of the cieling: and he covered them on the inside with wood, and covered the floor of the house with planks of fir.
16 And he built twenty cubits on the sides of the house, both the floor and the walls with boards of cedar: he even built them for it within, even for the oracle, even for the most holy place.
17 And the house, that is, the temple before it, was forty cubits long.
18 And the cedar of the house within was carved with knops and open flowers: all was cedar; there was no stone seen.
19 And the oracle he prepared in the house within, to set there the ark of the covenant of the LORD.
20 And the oracle in the forepart was twenty cubits in length, and twenty cubits in breadth, and twenty cubits in the height thereof: and he overlaid it with pure gold; and so covered the altar which was of cedar.
21 So Solomon overlaid the house within with pure gold: and he made a partition by the chains of gold before the oracle; and he overlaid it with gold.
22 And the whole house he overlaid with gold, until he had finished all the house: also the whole altar that was by the oracle he overlaid with gold.
23 And within the oracle he made two cherubims of olive tree, each ten cubits high.
24 And five cubits was the one wing of the cherub, and five cubits the other wing of the cherub: from the uttermost part of the one wing unto the uttermost part of the other were ten cubits.
25 And the other cherub was ten cubits: both the cherubims were of one measure and one size.
26 The height of the one cherub was ten cubits, and so was it of the other cherub.
27 And he set the cherubims within the inner house: and they stretched forth the wings of the cherubims, so that the wing of the one touched the one wall, and the wing of the other cherub touched the other wall; and their wings touched one another in the midst of the house.
28 And he overlaid the cherubims with gold.
29 And he carved all the walls of the house round about with carved figures of cherubims and palm trees and open flowers, within and without.
30 And the floor of the house he overlaid with gold, within and without.
31 And for the entering of the oracle he made doors of olive tree: the lintel and side posts were a fifth part of the wall.
32 The two doors also were of olive tree; and he carved upon them carvings of cherubims and palm trees and open flowers, and overlaid them with gold, and spread gold upon the cherubims, and upon the palm trees.
33 So also made he for the door of the temple posts of olive tree, a fourth part of the wall.
34 And the two doors were of fir tree: the two leaves of the one door were folding, and the two leaves of the other door were folding.
35 And he carved thereon cherubims and palm trees and open flowers: and covered them with gold fitted upon the carved work.
36 And he built the inner court with three rows of hewed stone, and a row of cedar beams.
37 In the fourth year was the foundation of the house of the LORD laid, in the month Zif:
38 And in the eleventh year, in the month Bul, which is the eighth month, was the house finished throughout all the parts thereof, and according to all the fashion of it. So was he seven years in building it.

BC. 63 Roman Occupation of Israel.

MATTHEW 24:1-3
1 And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.
2 And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.
3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?

AD. 70 Jerusalem Temple Destroyed by the Romans.

AD. 135 Jewish Nationalism Ends, Jewish Exile.

Christians claim the Holy Land A.D. 312 Over the centuries, Persians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Greeks and Romans ruled Palestine, the latter during the time of Jesus of Nazareth. In A.D. 312, Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, and Jerusalem became a destination for Christian pilgrims. Tradition says that Jesus was crucified and buried on the site where Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulcher now stands.

AD. 613 Mohammed Forms Religion of Islam.

AD. 638 Muslim Conquest of the Holy Land, Al-Aqsa Mosque Built.

AD. 691 Dome of the Rock built in Jerusalem on Temple Mount.

An Islamic shrine in Jerusalem691 Muslim Arabs under caliph Umar captured Palestine in 640. In 691, they built one of Islam's holiest shrines, the Dome of the Rock, on a site where the Hebrew Temple of Solomon once stood in Jerusalem. The site was chosen because it was believed to be the place where the prophet Muhammad halted on his journey to heaven, but it also set the stage for Land of conflict between Arabs and Jews. The disputed holy site is called Temple Mount by the Jews and Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary, by Muslims.

Rule of the Ottomans 1516 Land of conflict between Christians and Arabs in the Holy Land ended in 1291 with the rise of the Mamluks, warrior slaves who overthrew Egypt's rulers and established a 260-year dynasty in the Middle East. They, in turn, were overthrown by the Ottoman Turks, who kept outsiders from Palestine for nearly 300 years.

1882-1897 Responding to growing anti-Semitism in Europe in the late 19th century, a number of influential European Jews founded a movement called Zionism whose goal was to re-create a Jewish homeland in Palestine. During the years before World War I, Zionists established dozens of colonies in Palestine amidst a population that was largely Arab and Muslim. There were, however, pockets of Arab Christians and Jews as well, and many of the Jewish settlements were on land purchased from Arabs. At the same time, Arab nationalism was beginning to surface in opposition to Turkish rule.

Aug. 29, 1897 First Zionist Congress convenes at Basel, Switzerland. Led by Theodor Herzl, it creates the World Zionist Organization.

THEODOR HERZL, MODERN ABRAHAM, ISAAC AND JACOB.

THE VISION OF A STATE FOR ISRAELIS.

Introduction

Theodore Herzl's pamphlet Der Judenstaat, The Jewish State, was published in 1896. It heralded the coming of age of Zionism. Several articles and books advocating the Zionist idea had appeared beginning in the 1840s, and small Zionist groups such as Hovevei Tsion (Lovers of Zion) had begun recruiting immigrants to Palestine, but no group had a coherent plan or modern ideology. Herzl's plan for creating a Jewish State, arrived at after contemplating other solutions as well, provided the practical program of Zionism, and led to the first Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland, in August, 1897.

Born in Budapest, Hungary, on May 2, 1860, Herzl was educated in the spirit of the German-Jewish "Enlightenment." The family moved to Vienna in 1878 after the death of his sister. He received a doctorate in law in 1884 and worked for a short while in courts in Vienna and Salzburg, but he soon left law and devoted himself to writing.

In 1891 he became Paris correspondent for the influential liberal newspaper New Free Press of Vienna time. Herzl was in Paris when a wave of anti-Semitism broke out over the court martial of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer. Dreyfus, falsely accused of espionage and banished to an island prison, was divested of his rank in a humiliating public ceremony in January 1895, as a mob shouted "Death to the Jews. Herzl became convinced that the only solution to the Jewish problem was the mass exodus of Jews from their places of residence.

The Dreyfus case motivated Herzl to devote thought and effort to the Jewish problem. He formalized the concept of emergence from the Diaspora (the dispersion of the Jews) and return to Zion in The Jewish State. In the Jewish State, he proposed, for the first time, a program for immediate political action.

Herzl appealed to wealthy Jews such as Baron Hirsch and Baron Rothschild, to join the national Zionist movement, but in vain. He found allies however, in the Eastern European socialists and Zionists who had already formed Zionist groups. The result was the convening of the First Zionist Congress in Basle, which established the World Zionist Organization and adopted the program of attaining a Jewish State to be provided by "public law." Herzl convened six Zionist Congresses between 1897 and 1902. It was here that the tools for Zionist activism were created, including The Jewish Colonial Trust, the Jewish National Fund and the movement's newspaper Die Welt.

After the first Basle Congress, Herzl wrote in his diary, “Were I to sum up the Basle Congress in a word- which I shall guard against pronouncing publicly- it would be this: ‘At Basle, I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today, I would be answered by universal laughter. If not in 5 years, certainly in 50, everyone will know it.’”

Herzl attempted to gain a Charter from the Sultan of Turkey for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, then ruled by the Ottoman Empire. To this end he met in 1898 with the German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, in Istanbul and Palestine, as well as the Sultan, but these meetings did not bear fruit.

In 1902, he published a utopian novel about the Jewish state, Altneuland (old-new land) a vision complete with monorails and modern industry. The novel concludes, "If you will, it is no legend."
Herzl negotiated with the British regarding the possibility of settling the Jews on the island of Cyprus, the Sinai Peninsula, the El Arish region and Uganda. After the Kishinev pogroms, Herzl visited Russia in July 1903. He tried to persuade the Russian government to help the Zionist Movement transfer Jews from Russia to Palestine. At the Sixth Zionist Congress Herzl proposed settlement in Uganda, on offer from the British, as a temporary "night refuge.

" The idea met with sharp opposition, especially from the same Russian Jews that Herzl had thought to help. Though the congress passed the plan as a gesture of esteem for Herzl, it was not pursued seriously, and the initiative died after the plan was withdrawn. Herzl met with the king of Italy, who was encouraging, and with the Pope, who expressed opposition.

Herzl died in 1904 and was buried in Vienna. After the establishment of the State of Israel his remains were reburied on Mt. Herzl, Jerusalem in the summer of 1949.

The title "Der Judenstaat" was probably meant as an ironic play on words, since it literally means "The Jews'-State," a derogatory construction like the "Judenstrasse" (Jews' Street) of the medieval ghetto. In The Jewish State, Herzl proposed a modern solution to the Jewish question. He believed that attempts at assimilation of Jews into European society were in vain, as the majority in each country decided who was a native and who an alien. The persistence of anti-Semitism determined that the Jew would always be an outsider and only the creation of a Jewish state, a matter of interest to both Jews and non-Jews would put an end to the Jewish problem.

In The Jewish State, Herzl envisioned that diplomatic activity would be the primary method for attaining the Jewish State and he called for the organized transfer of Jewish communities to the new state. Of the location of the state, Herzl said, "We shall take what is given us, and what is selected by public opinion."

Herzl's The Jewish State included social innovations such as the seven-hour working day. In general, he was interested in an economy where free enterprise and state involvement went hand-in-hand. It was to be a modern, sophisticated and technologically advanced and Europeanized society.

The Jewish State established Herzl as the leader of Zionism, and the "father of the Zionist Idea." Zionist also provoked considerable opposition, in particular from the assimilationist Jews of Central and Western Europe. The book became required reading for all Zionists and was taken as the basic platform of political Zionism.

In the Jewish State, Herzl anticipated some of the antagonism that the Zionist idea would provoke:" To the first class of objections belongs the remark that the Jews are not the only people in the world who are in a condition of distress. Here I would reply that we may as well begin by removing a little of this misery, even if it should at first be no more than our own.
It might further be said that we ought not to create new distinctions between people; we ought not to raise fresh barriers, we should rather make the old disappear. But men who think in this way are amiable visionaries; and the idea of a native land will still flourish when the dust of their bones will have vanished tracelessly in the winds. Universal brotherhood is not even a beautiful dream."

In conclusion, he wrote:
" And what glory awaits those who fight unselfishly for the cause!
Therefore I believe that a wondrous generation of Jews will spring into existence. The Maccabeans will rise again.

Let me repeat once more my opening words: The Jews who wish for a State will have it. We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and die peacefully in our own homes. The world will be freed by our liberty, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our greatness. And whatever we attempt there to accomplish for our own welfare, will react powerfully and beneficially for the good of humanity. "

Herzl largely ignored the presence of Arabs or other minorities in the prospective Jewish State. He wrote in his diary however, that the natives of whatever land was allotted to the Jews would be gently persuaded to move to other countries.

Der Judenstaat and Altneuland were visions of a Jewish state to be populated by European Jewry, who in 1900 were far more numerous than the tiny remnant of oriental and Sephardic Jews in Muslim lands and the Balkans. However, the Jewish State of Israel was only established after the Holocaust had resulted in the murder of about 40% of European Jewry, For most of the first fifty years of its existence, Israel had an oriental, Sephardic majority. Nonetheless, Herzl's vision dominated many aspects of the Zionist program for better or worse. Like Herzl, Zionists ignored the presence of Arabs in Palestine.

Like Herzl, they became committed to the premise that Jews must return to performing productive work. As in Herzl's utopian vision, Israel evolved, through conscious effort to an advanced technological society. Herzl's vision of a secular, liberal democracy inspired the Israeli declaration of independence, but the more enlightened aspects of his program have not as yet found full expression in Israeli society. Israel continues to discriminate against Arab citizens, and is increasingly dominated by religious and chauvinistic tendencies.

The Jewish State would not have been important if Herzl had not taken active steps to implement its program. Because of his contacts and organizational genius, Herzl was able to organize the first Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland, which was probably the key event in the coming of age of the Zionist movement. Herzl did not the desire to return to Zion, which had been an intrinsic part of Jewish culture for 2000 years, nor did he invent either practical or 'political' Zionism.

Practical Zionism, the settling of the land for purposes of rebuilding a Jews community in Palestine, had been practiced by the Bilu and other groups before Herzl. Political Zionism, the attempt to secure a "charter" for a Jewish state from Turkey, Egypt or another country, had been around for hundreds of years. It was the program of the false Messiah Shabetai Tzvi in the seventeenth century. In 1839, Sir Moses Montefiore had petitioned the Khedive of Egypt for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Herzl's contribution was to establish a unified Zionist movement that made a public statement of its political ambitions and settlement program.

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