A Glance at the Roots of Zionism

Source: rasekhoon.net
Hebrews or Jews, like Arabs and Assyrians are from a Semitic race. At the beginning, they were a nomadic tribe and their first settlement in the city was at the time of the Prophet Joseph (Peace be upon him). When Prophet Moses (Peace be upon him) saved them from the hand of Pharaoh, they were forced to stay in Sinai for forty years, but then they were continuously settled in urban areas.
When Prophet Solomon (Peace be upon him) took over leadership of the Israelites, he created the most important and most glorious era of these people. He made a great temple in Jerusalem, meaning the city health, which became known as "Solomon's Temple". Later, around the year 587 AD this temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar AD and again in 70 AD by the Roman Prince, "Titus".
After the death of Prophet Solomon (peace be upon him), his son, "Rehoboam" got the leadership of the Children of Israel. When he started transgressing, a group of people disobeyed his command, and only two tribes of "Judah" and "Benjamin" in the land of Judah (named after a son of Jacob) which was a relatively smaller part, remained for him. This section which includes Jerusalem was of great importance.
The other ten tribes formed an independent state called "Israel" led by a man known as "Jeroboam the son of Nabat" in northern Palestine. Kings of Judah and Israel were generally sinner to sinner and invited people to sin and idolatry. A few years later, the king of Babylon attacked Jerusalem and killed people of Judah and got some of them into captivity to Babylon which stayed there for quite a long time. Captivity of the people of Israel and Judah led to their dispersion in the Middle East and other territories. While in captivity, some Jews accepted pagan customs and adopted their ethics and few people among them suffered from exile, captivity and difficulties in worshiping God.
When "Cyrus", the founder of the Achaemenid dynasty, conquered Babylon, the Jews were released and were allowed to return to their lands, but many of them were not willing to leave Babylon and scattered around it. A group of Jews returned to Palestine and began to rebuild the city of Jerusalem. After a few turbulent centuries, the Romans destroyed the city of Jerusalem for the second time and this destruction made the Jews scattered around the world.
In the year 70 CE Titus, the son of the Roman Emperor, besieged Jerusalem was and killed countless people living in the city. After the incident, the Jews were scattered in neighboring countries in Europe and North Africa. Some of them went to Yathrib (Medina), where they settled. According to Islamic sources, the motivation for this group of Jews for settlement in Medina was to expect the presence of the holy Prophet (Peace be upon him).
Later when the Muslims retook Jerusalem from Christians by negotiations, when taking al-Quds, in their peace letter were committed to Christians never permit the Jews to live in the city.
Jews had happy life in Muslim lands and some of them had reached high social status. That’s while at the same time the Jews of Europe lived in certain places called "ghetto" with humiliation. This issue along with consecutive deportations gave Jews the idea of an independent homeland.
In the late nineteenth century that a large group of Russian Jews were expelled, some of them settled in West Europe and others went to Palestine and settled in a location near the Mediterranean Sea and chose the name of "Zion" to it. Zion is the name of a hill in Jerusalem that at the time of the development of the Children of Israel and the era of David and Solomon Prophet (Peace be upon him) had been a military center. At the same time, the Jews of Europe and Russia ignored the tradition of waiting, rose for independence and honor and founded "Zionism" and subsequently, migration of Jews to Palestine began.
Muslim scholars believed that this practice was a dangerous conspiracy and prohibited other Muslims from cooperating with immigrants. When Muslims became aware of the depth of disaster, it was too late. Zionists forgot hospitality of Palestinian Muslims and occupied that territory with the most brutal practices and after a while they took parts of neighboring countries and attached them to their Zionist state. Global arrogance led by Britain and the United States of America arose for the full support of Zionism.
Zionists with reliance on those supports and exploiting the weakness and cowardice of leaders of Islamic countries strengthened their position and created a status that we see now.
Zionist is said to a movement that wants the return of the Jews and migration of them to Palestine in order to establish the Jewish state. Zionism is just like "chauvinism" (quarrelsome and blind faith in the superiority and glory of one’s nation) that through despising other races, nations and exaggeration of its advantage is in pursuit of political power. The movement began in the second half of the nineteenth century in Europe.
Zionism does not only have political dimensions and connotations, but also has other dimensions and meanings such as: Labor, cultural, democratic, and radical and expansionist Zionism. The most famous division of Zionism is categorizing it into two parts of political and cultural (religious) Zionism. "Political Zionism" demands the return of the Jews to Palestine and came into existence with the compilation of the book "Jewish state" by "Theodor Herzl" in 1894;
But "cultural Zionism", opposed Jewish immigration to Palestine in the twentieth century because it is waiting for "Messiah" at the end of the world to return Jews and all religions to the land of Abraham and Moses (Peace be upon him) or the land of salvation.
Zionism can also be divided into religious and non-religious: religious Zionism is a thought that believes return to the Promised Land takes place at the time and in the manner that Lord has determined, and it cannot be done by human beings. Followers of this thought are some Jewish (Zionist) groups and a number of Issawi (Christian Zionism).
In contrast, in non-religious and non-Jewish Zionism, there are people who rely on the historical, political and scientific argument to legitimize the Jewish settlement in Palestine; this is secular Zionism that aims to express its political concepts in the language of religion. Thus, Zionism does not always mean Judaism; it sometimes refers to a movement remove Jewish concepts from Judaism.
Zionists claim that Zionism is a response to sufferings of Jews. According to them, the governments and nations are stricken with anti-Semitism. Therefore, they consider Jews as foreign elements wherever they are and make them suffer in overt and covert;
But this is an unreasonable that cannot be proved. Sufferings of Jews occurrence are to be accepted at a low degree and that is also because of their personal and social characteristics, such as seclusiveness and employment in non-productive jobs, such as usury; it is also rooted in permanent conflicts between churches and synagogues.
In any case, fabricated story of the sufferings of Jews has had an important role in the birth of Zionism to the extent that "David Ben-Gurion," Israel's first prime minister, said: "If I had power, I would send some Jews to different countries to create intentional sufferings"