#Zionism #Jabotinsky #fascists #colonialism #history
"To advance his vision, Jabotinsky broke from the mainstream Zionist movement and founded his own political faction, known as Revisionist Zionism. It emphasized nationalism, free markets, and above all, security. The ideological battle lines were now clear. In 1923, he put his beliefs into writing in one of the most controversial essays in Zionist history: 'The Iron Wall.'
In it, Jabotinsky called for massive Jewish immigration into the region to achieve a majority, with the ultimate goal of establishing a state where Arabs and Jews 'can live together in peace, like good neighbors.' He made clear that he didn’t want to expel the Arabs or deny them equal rights, but he believed peaceful co-existence couldn’t come through negotiation – at least not yet. It would only become possible once the Arabs accepted that the Jewish presence in the land was permanent and unshakable.
Some of the language in his essay didn’t age well. He referred to the Arabs as natives and Jews as colonizers, writing: 'Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonized.'
He also wrote that 'Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population – behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach.'
It’s raw, even unsettling. However, to Jabotinsky, this wasn’t about replacement or domination; it was about realism — facing the conflict head-on, without illusions.
(. . .)
Jabotinsky’s essay shocked the Zionist establishment. He was accused of fueling extremism, playing into Arab fears, and undermining fragile diplomatic efforts with the British. The rift between Jabotinsky and his fellow Zionists grew into a chasm. He became bitter rivals with Ben-Gurion and built an entirely separate political movement — one that would reshape Zionism from the outside."
https://unpacked.media/the-zionist-civil-war-no-one-talks-about/