A review by inquiry_from_an_anti_library
The Invention of the Land of Israel: From Holy Land to Homeland by Shlomo Sand

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4.0

Is This An Overview?

Jews were settling in the Middle East since the 19th century, but Israel was made possible by early 20th mass immigration due to persecution, consequences of war, and anti-immigration policies of other states.  Ideas of settling Palestine were a 19th century Christian Zionist invention.  Supported by the British as a way to overcome colonialization limitations in the area, which would have given the British access to the area along with allies. 

To take territory that would become Israel, a historic claim was made on the land.  That the people owned the land who did not live on it for over two millennia, while denying the right to the land to those who lived on the land continuously for centuries.  That the local people did not claim self-determination. 

Sovereign ownership of the land was justified by a myth, that the land was the ancestral land in possession of the Jewish people.  An exile was part of the myth, an exile that never happened.  A myth of a people having a desire to return to the ancestral land, but when Jewish groups were expelled from other regions due to religious persecution, they did not historically want to seek refuge in the sacred land.  Jews relocated to other locations.

 

What Myths Justified Israel?

Myths were created by disregarding history.  To avoid the history of Judaism as a dynamic and proselytizing religion.  To pretend that history does not contain various Judaized kingdoms that flourished.  To forget the converted Jews by the Judaized kingdoms.  Myths meant to disregard the territory’s local peasants.

There was no exile, nor was there yearning to return.  Faithful Jews spread across the world.  Jews were not limited to a small territory, but where to be found everywhere.  Believers not through punishment.   

The myth was developed to get Western sympathy, particularly Protestant Christian community who preceded Zionists ideas.

 

How Was The Concept Of Israel Formed?

The term Land of Israel came after the destruction of the Temple.  With the area being defined as Palestina by the Roman Empire.  It was during the 20th century that the Land of Israel became a theological concept due to the Protestants.  It was the Puritans which interested the Bible as historical text before the Jewish Zionists.  That was when the geonational concept was refined.  Israel as a homeland came after nationalism, making sacrificing for the sake of homeland a much later interpretation and myth.

 

How Does Power Transforms A People?

Founded on fluid borders, which had the option of expanding.  And did expand.  Founded on ideas that Jews were persecuted who had nowhere else to go, but the territorial expansion and military victory that were not related to Jewish suffering.

 

Jews had been powerless and persecuted, but had become powerful and abused their power.  The persecuted had become the persecutors.

They portrayed themselves as saviors rather than conquerors of foreign lands.  There is debate whether Palestinians left willingly or because of the bombings.  Many have justified Zionist colonization by the ancestral lands claim.  Israel controls a large Palestinian population who have no sovereignty.

 

Caveats?

The focus is on how the concept of Israel came to be.  The myths involved in making Israel, and breaking the myths.  The practical reason for how Israel came to be.  This is not a detailed political or social history of Israel.